Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5706914" data-attributes="member: 22779">But, you'll notice that there are some very important verbiage changes.  There aren't attacks of opportunity, for example, there are Opportunity Attacks.  None of those other things are copyrightable as you rightly point out.You're missing the problem.  If 4e goes OGL, then I can make a Character Builder and put it on the internet, for whatever I want to charge, including free.  This happened almost immedietely after 4e was released with that Italian website (Emma's? IIRC).  It got taken down very quickly because 4e isn't OGL.Now, imagine they allow 4e to be OGL, and then borrow heavily from 4e to make 5e.  Particularly if the mechanics are close enough that the game is backward compatible.Now I can make a free character generator for 4e that works for 5e and directly competes with WOTC's subscription model.Maybe I can't have the exact classes for a 5e CB, but, I can make it close enough.This is why you will never see an OGL 4e.  Not if 5e has any hope of being backwards compatible.  And, this is IMO, the reason 4e is not backward compatible with 3e.  If 4e had been Pathfinder (3.75), then the DDI would have to compete with things like the Online Hypertext SRD and PCGen.Paizo can do it because it's major source of income is the modules.  WOTC is hanging its hopes on core rules though.  That means that they have to protect the core rules.</blockquote>