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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scurvy_Platypus" data-source="post: 5306413" data-attributes="member: 43283">Opinions vary. You're not alone, in that there were a bunch of people who basically said, "Suck it up and quit whining."The GSL debate was never about the difficulty of making adventures. It was about the ability to do _anything_ other than make adventures. If it was only about making adventures, WotC would have been thrilled because that's all they ever wanted the 3rd Party Publishers to do.Yeah, a lot of the eventual fixes to the GSL finally made it into a mostly reasonable document.What a lot of people seem to miss even now (probably because they see "GSL" and think "limited OGL") is that the "GSL" is basically a reworked version of the d20 STL (which no longer exists). A lot of the clauses are the same between them and under the old license, WotC was perfectly able to do what a lot of people suddenly found disturbing in the new license.The bit about not being able to redefine/change already existing material is a new twist and one that makes some content creators a bit nervous. Afterall, if WotC suddenly decides to create something, does that mean that they'll be in violation if WotC names it the same as theirs?In ability to redefine/modify already existing stuff is also another reason that 3rd party publishers aren't doing much, since an awful lot of stuff in the old days was based on messing around with different mechanics.At the end of the day, yes the Character Builder is the single greatest obstacle the 3rd Party Publishers have. And it's one they can't beat.Too many people aren't interested in trying to add 3rd party content to the CB. No matter where I go, I'm constantly seeing people saying things like, "The CB isn't required, but I can't imagine running/playing the game without it." Most people's attitude is also that, "yeah it might sorta suck that WotC provides such crappy support for non-Wotc stuff, but hey... you can't blame them. It's their tool, why should they be expected to support non-WotC stuff? Besides, there's nothing you can do about it if you don't like it. And you can add 3rd party or homebrew stuff, it's just not as convienent."In other words, not very many people really care in the first place and of those that might care, trying to do something about it is simply going to require more effort than they're interested in expending.At the end of the day, most 4E folks don't really seem to care about 3rd party stuff. Using it overall requires more effort than many are interested in, there's a distinct difficulty in 3rd party materials being able to change/"fix" things, and most people seem to feel that there's no real _need_ for 3rd party stuff.Except for adventures. Yeah, lots of people seem to think that the 3rd party folks need to focus on producing adventures.Me? *shrug* It doesn't matter to me. I refuse to use DDI, so I don't have that issue. On the whole, I don't see 3rd parties offering anything I consider exciting. I certainly don't blame them for not wanting to return to things being mostly the way they were in the AD&D days ("we'll let you publish an adventure, but don't even think about touching our rules") and I think it's a step backwards. Not for the company (WotC), no they seem to be doing fine. No, I think it's a step backwards for the industry. Doing their best to monopolise things and the fan base not being concerned about it simply means... well... either you believe monopolies are bad for everyone (expect perhaps for the monopolising company) or you don't. No real middle ground there.As far as the _hobby_ is concerned, I don't think it matters. I couldn't care less if they go out of business or not, I'll still be able to run and play my games without them. So, industry-wise I think it's bad, but hobby-wise I don't care.Edit: And I note that WotC still hasn't bothered doing the "fan site policy" that they originally talked about. At least, I'm not aware of things having changed from these 2 interesting (to me at least) thoughts about it:<a href="http://critical-hits.com/2009/10/15/statement-from-wizards-of-the-coast-regarding-fansite-toolkit/" target="_blank">http://critical-hits.com/2009/10/15/statement-from-wizards-of-the-coast-regarding-fansite-toolkit/</a><a href="http://community.wizards.com/the_jester/blog/2010/05/31/the_srd,_gsl_and_fan_site_policy" target="_blank">http://community.wizards.com/the_jester/blog/2010/05/31/the_srd,_gsl_and_fan_site_policy</a></blockquote>

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