NEWS: OGL and SRD dates/info announced

[TerraDave]

It appears that the new iteration of the liscense will require all roducts to utilise the PHB; i.e. no printing of the entire rules in one book (like Conan for instance)

This is more, interesting.

One point of this whole OGL thing was to reduce bulkanisation in mechanics across different kinds of games. Not sure how the 4th ed version will make that happen.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

It means no complete games can be published. You have to have the PHB at every game.

Iron heroes, True 20, Mutants and masterminds and other stand alones could not have been pubished if 3e/d20 had those restrictions.

Well, that was explicitly stated, not implied. I'm asking about the effects of this on basic D&D 3rd-party publishing, and on SRD users like myself. Most importantly, if the SRD does not contain a playable set of rules, how can it be used to write a playable supplement before the core books are released?

 

[Rechan]

I hope this at least puts some fears to rest.

 

[Sitara]

Whats truly interesting is that since the PHB is now required, how will this affect complete games whose fans want them to 4e? Conan, MnM, Mignight, etc.

 

[ashockney]

Yeah; I presume they're flexible on that sort of thing. Were I to some up with the $5K, for example, I wouldn't be able to produce a "business license".

Coming up with a business license shouldn't be difficult at all. I work in the insurance industry, and we have to apply for business licenses in each state we choose to operate (nice way for them to generate $$$), and so it costs a couple hundred dollars, and you have to go through some bureaucratic BS, but it's not that bad. I take it you guys don't have to pay taxes, what with being all "internety" and stuff. That's cool.

 

[Scribble]

Well, that was explicitly stated, not implied. I'm asking about the effects of this on basic D&D 3rd-party publishing, and on SRD users like myself. Most importantly, if the SRD does not contain a playable set of rules, how can it be used to write a playable supplement before the core books are released?

The advanced package contains a pre-release copy of the rule books.

My guess is the SRD will this time around just refference sections that are OGL...

Like Page 4 of MM: All material considered OGL except for paragraphs 2, 6, and 8.

Or something like that.

 

[BadMojo]

Coming up with a business license shouldn't be difficult at all.

He's in the UK.

 

[withak]

What exactly does this imply? I'm reading it as saying that there won't be a complete set of rules in the SRD, to force the purchase of the books instead of being able to play bare-bones D&D using the SRD.

This could simply be the same way that the 3.5 SRD is incomplete -- in that there are two key pieces of information missing: how to generate ability scores, and experience tables.

I'm probably just being overly optimistic, though. :\

 

[SteveC]

The 5k fee seems too small for WotC to actually plan on it being a revenue source, more likely it is a "keep the little boys out of the first wave" plan. Is this a good thing though?

That's a good point. However, the actions really don't make any sense. WotC isn't required to give the SRD to anyone, so if they want to restrict it to only the companies they feel can make a good first impression, they certainly can.

The $5000 means a lot more to the company that's giving it to WotC than WotC itself. Color me confused.

--Steve

 

[Sitara]

Well, that was explicitly stated, not implied. I'm asking about the effects of this on basic D&D 3rd-party publishing, and on SRD users like myself. Most importantly, if the SRD does not contain a playable set of rules, how can it be used to write a playable supplement before the core books are released?

the srd will contain rules.

It will have the complete game system required to run the game.

However, it will not have fluff; it may not have certain classes or their abilities, it may not have certain paragon/epic paths, certain types of maneuvers, etc etc.

So basically, it could have say, a couple of classes as examples, some of their talents/tree's to again serve as examples of how classes and trees are made; it could have 1-2 paragon/epic paths to serve as...examples of how these paths are made, etc etc.

Using these examples 3rd parties will have to creatively make up their own stuff instead of copy pasting. They hwill have a working skeleton but will have to come up with the rest.

I believe Dragon lords of Melnibone d20 to be the sole reason of all these changes.