NEWS: OGL and SRD dates/info announced

[JohnRTroy]

See, the game I am playing...my home campaign....belongs to me in my mind. It might use IP that belongs to WotC (although it should be noted that the eminant Col Pladoh has put some of that into question, suggesting for instance that Mind Flayers were his IP, not transferred to TSR, and thus not transferred to WotC, and has declared that he made them Open) and to other companies, but that's not what I come to the table for. I don't say, "What's the best WotC IP I can use?" I say, "What's the best tool to make the best possible game (according to my own criteria)?"

I'm not sure that's an accurate quote? Can you provide a source?

I know that Gary's gone on record saying the OGL was a "really stupid idea", and that Wizards should have instead just licensed it out to major players rather that give a license that Wizards would have more control of to a half-dozen players.

The new OGL doesn't really restrict freedom. Honestly, most people, if they like the new D&D, will buy Wizards products and Third Party products that show creativity. I find the people who will refuse to buy because it's "not open" to be a vocal minority. I doubt it's gonna be a significant indent.

If they don't like the game, they have the benefit of the "more free" license.

And this will encourage third-parties to consider making brand new systems rather than copying or modifying the core D20 ruleset, it will make a "wider diversity" of systems which can help improve things. There's been a trend towards this already.

 

[Oldtimer]

It all sounds like good business sense, to me.

And, if I'm even reading it right, the SRD makes better sense this way too. Personally, I don't much like how the SRD currently is

Too many people by far have proclaimed loudly and often how they run their games using only the free rules available online, without even having to buy a single book, blah blah blah. This is not cool. WotC publishes a game system at great cost, and people effectively leech off them, when that is totally unnecessary? Yeah, great. :\

I think the new approach to the SRD is better. You want to use the rules from a RPG book? Buy the book.

I've not seen anyone here saying they run their games using only the free rules available online, but that they find that access in addition to their books extremely useful. We do buy the books - and we find the openess the SRD brings to be great. Those things are not incompatible, you know.

Moreover, your post is backwards thinking. The SRD helped WotC making 3e great. The rules will be found online anyway for those with that inclination, so restricting it will only hurt their honest customers. Maybe RIAA is running the show at WotC now...

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

The more I think about this, I think that the $5K for the right to publish early isn't so much to keep the riff raff out or kill the small companies (though it may well do one or both of those things) as it is another marketting maneuver by WotC.

You would have to be an idiot to think that the 5k fee is going to forestall another gold rush/glut of products of questionable quality.

WOTC are not idiots.

In fact, I think it's more likely than not that some publishers will feel pressured to "re-hash'' some of their 3e stuff and push it out the door as quickly as possible to make some hay in the first 5 months of their limited market they bought with their 5k.

I think your post is pretty much right on.

 

[Bacris]

The rules will be found online anyway for those with that inclination, so restricting it will only hurt their honest customers. Maybe RIAA is running the show at WotC now...

This is a great point. It's the same as DRM on PDFs - it punishes the honest customer far more than it punishes the dishonest customer.

Hell, I have a copy of Hyperconscious: Explorations in Psionics that I bought that came with DRM. Since then, I've upgraded my computer, so I can't use my legit copy of it anymore - glad I printed it out, or I'd have to buy it again, and while I really, really like Hyperconscious, I'm not going to pay for it twice.

 

[Raven Crowking]

double post

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'm not sure that's an accurate quote? Can you provide a source?

Look in the Col Pladoh thread. I have it my subscriptions, but that isn't helping me so much right now.

RC

 

[Delta]

It appears to me that with all the strictures in place, the large early bird fees, and the new restrictions, WotC seems determined to provoke people into publishing unauthorized compatible products. The game rules themselves aren't copyrighted and few of the concepts are patentable at this point; what the license has offered up to this point is the ability to refer to, use, and imitate copyrighted expressions of the text and tables and WotC's trademarks. AFAIK, and IANAL, the courts have come down pretty strongly in the favor of allowing people to produce compatible products and identify them as such, and I can't imagine the pen and paper RPG market would would be judged any differently.

True, someone can always sue, and resisting a determined plaintiff can be expensive, but I don't perceive a lot of actual, real liability in telling WotC to shove off and publishing compatible works without their blessing.

I think it's possibly a keen observation that "WotC seems determined to provoke people into publishing unauthorized compatible products", but I'm not so optimistic with the rest of it. Generally civil court cases go to the better-funded lawyer, regardless of law, and in the history RPGs to date no one has ever had enough money to even afford a lawyer to send against the owners of D&D.

It's also suspicious how they're apparently mangling the terminology of the OGL/OGC and putting in restriction that OGL v1.0 Section 9 says shouldn't be enforcable.

My nightmare scenario is that they're planning to provoke a court case against a weak defendant that winds up invalidating the OGL v1.0. (A lot like the infamous GPL SCO-vs-IBM case, except in that case it was the big, mega-lawyered company that was pro-GPL.)

 

[Bacris]

In the Information Age, I'd hate to see the fallout from such an occurrence.

 

[Yair]

Too many people by far have proclaimed loudly and often how they run their games using only the free rules available online, without even having to buy a single book, blah blah blah. This is not cool. WotC publishes a game system at great cost, and people effectively leech off them, when that is totally unnecessary? Yeah, great. :\

First of all, it is cool. WotC spent a lot of time and effort into developing a great game and allows people to easily and freely legally access it (rather than illegally) and build on it - that's just cool.

Secondly, the idea was that having the rules free and easily available for modification - from the creation of the hypertext SRD to widely varied systems such as True20 - helped WotC sales at the end by increasing the people playing and creatively working on material compatible with their products. I do believe that this is correct, that the SRD/OGL helped WotC more than a closed license - like the new STL - ever would have. But without hard data, this is a matter of opinion of course.

Best Hope: Enough folks complain, and keep complaining, and WotC realizes that "STL as OGL" will cost them more money than "OGL as OGL". I think it is very likely that there is a strong reason why this so-called OGL comes with a NDA. :\

RC

Won't happen. I very much doubt anything but a massive transfer of folks into a "Like 4e, Only Open" system or staying with 3e because it is open will scratch Wizard's attention, and I don't see any of those happening despite what a few loud internet folks say.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I hate to say it, but having thought about it some more, I see either lawsuits or legal clampdowns (cease & desist orders) on the horizon, over whether someone is making work that extends the 3E SRD fairly, or ripping off the 4E rules against the new restrictions. I could even see stuff like OSRIC coming under fire in the future now.

I think it's much too late to bolt that stable door... the horse is already galloping over the horizon!

I'll continue to use the OGL v1.0a for future OSRIC core rules updates, and I don't expect to face any legal challenge in respect of this. As far as I'm concerned, the sky is definitely not falling.

I do feel for people who're trying to market material to fans who intend to remain with the current edition. These are difficult times for those small publishers, and I fear not all will weather the storm.