Question about GSL - Scott please comment

[Scribble]

I think that is the real question - are you going to get so much extra mileage out of the GSL that it is worth all the hoops you need to jump through (no-reprinting MM stat blocks etc.) and the risks you run (giving up your OGL material etc.)?

With the OGL is was comparatively easy to free ride on the D&D brand. Not so much with the GSL. So. Is it still worth it to ride the D&D brand at the end of the day?

Maybe put another way - is your design so derivative or just so ho-hum that without the D&D brand you have zero hope of anybody noticing it?

I think it's just a push from wizards to get people to either support D&D or do something else.

Books like books of powers, adventures, and classes will be relatively easy but using D&D's basic concepts to create an alternate system will be harder, if not damn near impossible.

Unfortunately I think Campaign worlds get hurt in the crossfire, but that might be a good thing in the eyes of wizards...

They want people to support D&D. They don't want people to use the ability to make stuff for D&D to draw away their customers.

 

[pemerton]

The idea that anyone at Wotc can solve (or even clarify) these sorts of issues with a FAQ strikes me as quaint and potentially very unwise. A FAQ is not legally an addendum or amendment to the GSL. To the extent it is put together by other than Wotc's legal staff (or whomever wrote the GSL), its interpretation can't even be said to be informed, let alone something upon which one could detrimentally rely in good faith. A FAQ that is not incorporated into the GSL, thereby binding Wotc, is a bedtime story for all its legal significance.

The GSL Para 21 (Integration Clause) defines the license to be the license and nothing else - "This Agreement sets forth the entire current agreement of the parties with respect to its subject matter and supersedes any previous or contemporaneous oral or written agreements regarding such subject matter, and can only be amended or modified by Wizards." Rely on a FAQ, unless it is specifically integrated into the license, at your peril.

NB - This is not legal advice; anyone interested in proceeding under the GSL should consult an attorney licensed to practice in the State of Washington.

I appreciate that this is not legal advice, but are you a lawyer, or otherwise knowledgable in law? If not, what is the basis for your speculation about the legal significance, or non-significance, of post-contractual representations that generate reasonable reliance on the part of others?

Or a lawyer in your area who knows copyright law. Seriously, if someone has to spend money on a lawyer anyway before signing the GSL why not just publish under copyright law instead. It seems safer to me.

This doesn't really make sense - for example, it may turn out that there's no non-copyright-inringing way of publishing what you want to publish.

To be honest, I think some people are exagerrating the "we're all doomed" aspects of the GSL.