So..um..how's that GSL coming along?

[Delta]

This situation reminds me a bit of a scene from my last full-time games programming job:

Me: "I think it would really help the company if we did X. Can I get time to do X?"

Boss: "Absolutely! Feel free to come in on any Saturdays and work on X."

Me: "???"

Needless to say, X did not get done.

 

[carmachu]

And certainly WotC has met most deadlines on products, with the exception of the online material. As to the completeness, it depends on what you mean, but as a shareholder, I'd think you'd be glad that the company was giving itself a way to make more products.

That 'exception' is a pretty freaking huge one. When you have been trumpeting it left and right since 4e was announced and its in the back of the freaking books and its NOT ready at release time.....thats a pretty big screw up.

You based the business plan around 4e and online play. And online isnt ready.

 

[Nifft]

The fansite policy is not my bailiwick anymore. We will be consulted to make sure that the proposal meets Brand's vision for the fansites but the actual implementation is being handled by someone in our web studio.

When it was in our court we had a pretty good overall policy but it tried to serve all the WOTC brands and this didn't necessarily address our specific needs. So we are using that draft plan as a base and will tailor it to suit D&Ds specific needs.

*grumble, grumble* I'd feel better if it were in your bailiwick, except that would probably delay both.

I do hope the web dudes know that the ability to tinker is part of the value of D&D for many of us, and the spillage from our creative juices lubes the market for more experimental product penetration.

Uh... I'm going to stop typing now.

, -- N

 

[malraux]

That 'exception' is a pretty freaking huge one. When you have been trumpeting it left and right since 4e was announced and its in the back of the freaking books and its NOT ready at release time.....thats a pretty big screw up.

You based the business plan around 4e and online play. And online isnt ready.

I'd be shocked if the RPG division of WotC expected more than 10% of 4e profits to be based around DDI. Its a major problem, but certainly not company ending.

 

[tomBitonti]

Our intention was to let you use a term like Dragonborn and add to it through creative design and devlopment. We wanted to avoid copy and past publishing. So we add rules of use but we didn't do a good job of explaining how you can (or can't) use it.

As an example:

Maybe in your campaign world dragonborn live underground. Does this redefine dragonborn? Probably not. What if they also get darkvison? OK. What if they have albinio skin and can walk through solid stone once per day? Well not this likely crosses a line, but then again maybe not.

(Additional text omitted.)

First, I think this would work out better if the term "redefine" was avoided. That word has a very basic meaning, and I think that established meaning is interfering with your desire to place concise allowances and restrictions on how you want your property to be used.

For one, I think you will run into problems with words that already have an estabilished meaning. "Troll" is a common word with several definitions. If I use "troll" as a referent to a set of statistics and to a game world description, have I "redefined" the word "troll"? (My professional mathematics training says, very definitely, no.) You get into a second level problem, too, in that I don't think that you really mean to say "redefine". I would gather that that is not a legal term, so we are left with the common English one ... and I am thinking that under that meaning "Dragonborn" are simply "humanoid creatures with draconic characteristics", and anything else is fair game for revision. (Or most everything else -- I would think that the definition could have a line or two more.)

Second, I think there are two issues which are being mixed up. One is establishing new referents to existing words. That is, "In my campaign, Dragonborn have these characteristics ...". The second is to create new words for existing characteristics. "In my campaign, Scions of Tiamat have these characteristics ... " followed by a reproduction of the statistics for Dragonborn.

Third, can a exemplar be created for the use of the license? That is, hire an author to create a sample work that uses the license, to show how the license is intended to be used. (If there is a problem with creating such a work and its probably use as precedent in any legal issues ... then I would have to ask you to take a look back at what the license is trying to achieve.)

Thx for having the bandwidth to contribute to these forums. My view that to have the allowance to make statements here is pretty big Mojo for the the corporate world.

 

[Simon Atavax]

the spillage from our creative juices lubes the market for more experimental product penetration.

Uh... I'm going to stop typing now.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

[jmucchiello]

You get into a second level problem, too, in that I don't think that you really mean to say "redefine". I would gather that that is not a legal term, so we are left with the common English one ... and I am thinking that under that meaning "Dragonborn" are simply "humanoid creatures with draconic characteristics", and anything else is fair game for revision. (Or most everything else -- I would think that the definition could have a line or two more.)

Actually, they very definitely mean redefine. You are just using the wrong example. They don't care if you change dragonborn into Smurfs*. If you can sell that, go for it.

What they don't want is a 4e equivalent to Mutants and Masterminds. Thus they don't want terms like AC, hit points, attack, class, level, etc redefined. The problem is redefinition is only half the problem. They also do not want these terms circumvented. "This characteristic (which is amazingly similar to AC) is called Defense...."

Of course, I think Kamakaze Midget's analysis spot on. They don't want someone building a better DDI and these are the hoops they need to jump through (and lead the 4e pubs through) in order to protect it.


--
* Peyo might care.

 

[Voadam]

If I could I'd post the damn thing right now I would. The big issue I need to tackle is the SRD. As confusing as the OGL SRD is, I know the GSL SRD it massively more confusing. Unlike the OGL SRD, that said you can use x,y, & z free, clear, no questions asked, the GSL SRD presents alot of ambiguity.

Our intention was to let you use a term like Dragonborn and add to it through creative design and devlopment. We wanted to avoid copy and past publishing. So we add rules of use but we didn't do a good job of explaining how you can (or can't) use it.

Sigh. Copy and paste publishing was really useful to me as a DM and player. www.d20srd was easier to use (for the stuff in the srd) than the WotC rtfs or my books in my online games. We all have/had varying levels of D&D books but the copy and paste online stuff was used as a reference tool more often.

But now no srd.com for 4e, no free 4e WotC srd, and it is not clear what publishers and authors can actually do and not do under the GSL.

This is to prevent what? Online srds that compete with DDI? Pocket srd books that compete with actual core books? Mutant and Masterminds style variant games that don't require D&D books to use?

I think the ambiguities are one good area to revise in an effort to improve the GSL but I wish the underlying goal of avoiding copy and paste publishing were eliminated and all the resulting limitations that resulted from trying to accomplish it.

 

[TerraDave]

First: Scott/The thanks for updating and continuing to push this boulder!

Second: it does seem like this approach has become the case of the perfect crushing the good enough.

Seems like they just need four rules:

-Don't use our names of places and persons
-Clearly indicate what you modify, and rename or label it ("Midnight Elves")
-Don't copy whole text blocks, with maybe a few exceptions (monster stat blocks, up to some kind of limit)
-Remember, what you take from us is our IP.

It must be that simple!

 

[Raven Crowking]

I wish the underlying goal of avoiding copy and paste publishing were eliminated and all the resulting limitations that resulted from trying to accomplish it.

Indeed. It is telling that the 3.x SRD was intended to increase what is essentially "cut & paste" publishing under the belief that this would actually increase WotC's profits in the long term.

The most recent writer's digest actually has an article on how giving away materials for free can help a business increase its sales over the long term. This is one of the reasons that you get free electronic books and audio podcasts of novels.....the readers tend to want hardcopy books as well.

I know a lot of folks who have made use of the SRD (including myself, both the WotC version and the Hypertext SRD). In each of these cases, the person also bought physical copies of the books.

While I am sure that the 3.5 SRD in particular cost WotC money, I think that this is more because WotC failed to convince a certain segment of the gaming population that either (1) they needed to convert, or (2) their 3.0 books didn't effectively function as hardcopy for 3.5, or (3) both.

IMHO, that Conan, Iron Heroes, or Arcana Unearthed uses largely the same "engine" as 3.x is a good thing. It means that I can steal from those games to make my D&D game stronger. It means that I can buy & adapt D&D modules and run them in other systems. All roads lead to D&D, and it is the quality of WotC products that largely determines which WotC products I am willing to buy.

The absence of an SRD/game crossover hurts the value I receive from buying a 4e product.

If the official game is a game I want to play, there is no doubt that being "official" is going to boost that game to the top of the heap. If, OTOH, WotC is losing significant money to "non-official" games, perhaps that is because those games are offering something WotC is not? The same holds true for suppliments, etc. "Official" is automatically better unless there is an overwhelming reason why it is not, and if that overwhelming reason exists, then it would only be an asset to WotC to find out what it is.

The genie is already out of the bottle, from 3e. The market is already fragmented. An OGL 4e would ameliorate that fragmentation to the highest possible degree. Continuing down this road will only increase fragmentation over time.

IMHO, of course.


RC