Three Tiered License

[gothmaugCC]

It may just be talk ing abouthte d20 logo. So you could still publish 4th edition material under the OGL, but you couldnt use the d20 logo on your book. Kind of like how under 3.0 you can print 3rd edition material but cant use the Dungeons and dragons logo (well without paying alot for it, like Kalimdor)

 

[Mouseferatu]

I'm going to come at this from a few different angles.

1) I'm withholding any real judgment until we have not only more details, but details directly from the source. Until we hear directly from WotC, I'm treating this as incomplete rumor, like anything else.

2) I certainly hope that, if there are restrictions, they aren't too limiting. While I'd like to avoid a glut, there are quite a few "small" companies--Inner Circle and Bad Axe, for instance --that I'd like to see able to operate as freely as the bigger names.

3) However, that being said...

I don't like the idea. While I'm "just" a consumer, it's the principle of the thing that bothers me.

Let me get this straight... Wizards of the Coast is allowing other companies--competitors, small as they may be, in a niche market--use WotC's proprietary material. Without cost. It's a move that, until 2000, was absolutely unheard of in the industry in any meaningful way. It may be a move that benefited WotC, but that doesn't change the fact that it's an incredibly generous one, since most of the current companies wouldn't exist at all without it.

In effect, WotC said "Here, everyone! Play with my toys."

And now, suddenly, it's "Big Brother" or "unprincipled" for WotC to say, "Well, we only want some other companies to play with our toys"?

No. Uh-uh. I call bull excrement. There's nothing Big Brotherly, nothing unprincipled, nothing immoral about it. WotC is still being far more open, and far more generous, with other companies than anyone has any right to expect. To suggest otherwise is, IMO, an indefensible position.

I hope WotC's new license is broad enough to make the most number of people happy. But at the end of the day, if they want to dial it back, there's nothing wrong--in any sense of the word--with them doing so.

 

[Wolfspider]

I don't like it.

Sure, a lot of crap came out at the start of the OGL. And the crap failed and was forgotten (or remembered with amusement and scorn). I doubt that the so-called glut hurt WotC or anyone for that matter. But out of it came a lot of great stuff, and the greats of today.

I have a feeling that this new tiered approach is going to lead to a lot less innovation and experimentation. It might avoid some stinkers, but it might also mean that the next Iron Heroes or Mutants & Masterminds or True20 nevers sees the light of day.

 

[Michael Morris]

I'd rather the cronyism then see some of the crap that came out, like a certain campaign setting who's main book had margins nearly a third of the page and a 14point font to balloon the page count out to 230 so they could charge $30 for *maybe* $10 worth of material (which sucked anyway).

If it's wide open it will sink again. The d20 market crashed harder than any market except the Atari 2600 market, and it crashed for the same reason - no quality control.

 

[Wolfspider]

I'd rather the cronyism then see some of the crap that came out, like a certain campaign setting who's main book had margins nearly a third of the page and a 14point font to balloon the page count out to 230 so they could charge $30 for *maybe* $10 worth of material (which sucked anyway).

If it's wide open it will sink again. The d20 market crashed harder than any market except the Atari 2600 market, and it crashed for the same reason - no quality control.

If someone is willing to spend the money to produce crap, more power to them. That doesn't mean that you have to buy it. The kind of product that you describe is easy to avoid.

The crash that you mention helped separate the goats from the sheep, so to speak.

I'd rather have the possibility of some crap if it means that something good or maybe even great might come out of the freedom for anyone to publish under the OGL without limitation.

 

[Michael Morris]

I don't like it.

Sure, a lot of crap came out at the start of the OGL. And the crap failed and was forgotten (or remembered with amusement and scorn). I doubt that the so-called glut hurt WotC or anyone for that matter. But out of it came a lot of great stuff, and the greats of today.

I have a feeling that this new tiered approach is going to lead to a lot less innovation and experimentation. It might avoid some stinkers, but we might also lose the next Iron Heroes.

Or we might lose it because of the crap. Not to name names and create the flames with them, but one of the best d20 publishers was nearly destroyed because their distributor went belly up trying to make a buck off the substandard crap publishers they carried alongside them.

 

[Wolfspider]

Or we might lose it because of the crap. Not to name names and create the flames with them, but one of the best d20 publishers was nearly destroyed because their distributor went belly up trying to make a buck off the substandard crap publishers they carried alongside them.

Heh.

I won't argue with that. I don't have any experience dealing with the business aspect of distributors and such...and I'm probably happier being ignorant!

I guess we'll just have to wait and see since WotC gets to make the rules.

 

[Michael Morris]

If someone is willing to spend the money to produce crap, more power to them. That doesn't mean that you have to buy it.

But if I don't buy it, it sits on the shelf. If it sits on the shelf the retailer basically says "screw this" to anything carrying the same logo (the d20 logo) without looking into them. Crap can drive good products out of a market.

I'd rather have the possibility of some crap if it means that something good or maybe even great might come out of the freedom for anyone to publish under the OGL without limitation.

The d20 license and the OGL are two seperate things. They always have been. Nothing about this plan affects a publisher's ability to use the OGL. The d20 license however will be more restricted in who it is bestowed upon under this plan.

 

[GMSkarka]

I'll wait until we hear this directly from Scott Rouse, or someone else at WOTC.

Until then, it's just Chicken-Little-ing over something that someone claims was said by a third party at a seminar in Italy.

 

[Wolfspider]

The d20 license and the OGL are two seperate things. They always have been. Nothing about this plan affects a publisher's ability to use the OGL. The d20 license however will be more restricted in who it is bestowed upon under this plan.

I knew this. But I always get the two confused. Sigh.

I think I'll just sit back and let the more knowledgable people talk and see what they think.