WOTC undecided over OGL/GSL. Why you should care

[dmccoy1693]

I was worried friday. I have calmed down a bit. It isnt like me to get all freaky. But I do feel so very strongly that it is a huge mistake to not allow third party publishers to support 4E.

So I appologize for my public statements of concern. I dont retract them. I still have them.

But as I have said on my own boards, I shouldnt panic. (and to the extent I am causing that, I am sorry and should be more well behaved). In the end, I know there are good people who are trying to get this done. Scott. Linae. Et al.

And, in the end, this is the company that saved D&D, opened up open gaming and continued to support it. They certainly deserve the benefit of the doubt, despite my concerns.

I still believe the openness of 4E will be supported, whether by GSL or not and whether as open as I want it to be or not. Perhaps more restrictive than the OGL, perhaps not.

My faith remains! Go Scott, Go Linae! Go Wizards!

Clark

Orcus, you have to be the eternal optimist (not meant as an insult, merely an observation). Myself, I'm an engineer. My glass contains 50% water, 50% air. Here's how I see it. I see "vetting their policy concerning open gaming" as bad news. Here's why. Wizards is using tactics common to either a person or an orginization that is only learning the basics of PR. I will give Wizards this credit, they have learned alot about PR since the Dungeon/Dragon mags license catastrof***, but their still not a politician grade at PR. Here's what I see:

1) They announced bad news on a friday. Managers that don't know any better fire employees on a friday. The thinking is that they won't have to deal with the reprocussions if they do it on a friday. Studies have shown that that is the worst thing a manager can do. Reason being is that if you lose your job on a friday, a person has all weekend to sit and stew and get angry and show up to work on monday and cause some violence. Studies also show that those that lose their job Monday-Wednesday tend to polish their resume right away and more quickly make looking for a new job their full time job, usually the next morning. With most offices closed Saturday and Sunday, a fired person has nothing to do but sit and stew in their anger.

2) Their news was ambiguous. Your first reaction, Orcus, was that someone from wizards needed to come on right away and clarify it. Reason they say something ambiguous so they don't feel like the bad guys. Nobody wants to be the bearer of the bad news. So saying something that is not wholely one thing or the other "weasels" themselves out of being the bad guy (to borrow the term from Scott Adams). Their description was not as polished as a greater weasel, because initial reaction was negative.

(For the record, Scott Adams does not use the term "weasel" in a bad way, but merely defines it as the "gigantic gray area between good moral behavior and outright felonious activities." Usually only a greater weasel can spot a lesser weasel. So maybe that makes me a greater weasel then Wizards. I don't know.)

So what is it that I see? I have to agree with Joe Browning on this: Wizards is following a logical path that has a logical conclusion, which is no public license.

 

[catsclaw]

You had claimed they hadn't promised full compatibility. I disputed that. Actually read what is written b/c right now it merely appears you are just trying to pick fights.

I said Pathfinder was being released under the 3.5 OGL. Which it is. You then argued it wouldn't be very compatible:

Paizo is taking the 3.5OGl, pumping up the base classes, creating more work to be able to continue using your 3.5 adventures and other books you already own. They're doing this b/c they don't feel the core classes match up to later released classes. If the alpha stays anything like it is now, it's not making anything easier on the buying customer.

I then said they hadn't promised complete compatibility. Which they haven't. And you argued:

Except where in the announcement and again in the alpha they speak about how important it is for them to be very compatible w/3.5?

So what is your position? I'm not going to take crap from you arguing both sides of the issue.

For the record: my position is that Pathfinder will be released under the 3.5 OGL, but there are likely to be rules changes which make it somewhat incompatible with vanilla 3.5. In the Alpha, those changes are extensive. They've promised those changes will be reduced, and they say compatibility is one of their primary goals, but it's clear they're not committing to complete compatibility.

I don't see how comparing someone who doesn't play D&D seeing an adventure, then their whole group spending about $400 on various gaming products is anything close to the same as people saying they would continue playing Paizo products that remain 3.5 (no mention of a possible Pathfinder RPG spinoff) or that they would upgrade to 4E.

So it's good I never argued that point. You originally said:

Yes OGL games can drive sales of WotC products, but I have never seen an adventure that made me buy into a game system as described above.

I showed you a whole thread of people who saw some adventures and decided to buy into a game system, point unseen, because of the quality of them.

I never said those people in the Paizo thread had never played D&D before. I never said they had never played 3.5 before. I was showing you that some gaming groups do make their buying decisions based on the adventures rather than the system--and that's proved equally well by the number of people saying they would have switched to 4e if Paizo did.

I understand you think it was a poor example, and everyone on that thread is lying. You can believe the OGL is a plot of the Trilateral Commission, for all I care. But please stop lying about my position.

 

[Orcus]

This site would hardly continue to exist if we didn't impose organization upon it. Without some segmentation, dealing with EN World is like drinking from a fire hose.

EN World, first and foremost, is (and has always been) here to discuss games - what people play, and how they play it. If we start to actively push threads about particular movements to center stage, we cease to be a place of communication, and we become instead a place to push particular agendas. There are other sites for that sort of thing.

I'm not challenging your decision. Its your decision, not mine. I'm just noting how time changes things, even ENWorld. I think "no open gaming? how would you respond"" is front page stuff for ENWorld. Arguing about details of the license and the specifics, that seems like OGL thread stuff to me. But its your call, not mine.

I'm not asking you to push a thread. I'm just asking you to reconsider your decision. You have, and it apparently isnt being moved. End of story, in my opinion.

I'm not sure ENWorld is first and foremost about just "games" generically. I think it is first and foremost about 3rd edition news, then it evolved into open gaming and third party publsihers, along with a continuing strong presence of 3E D&D content, so much so that it can clearly be claimed that ENWorld is the place with the strongest link of any boards to open gaming and D&D 3E. What place represents that more? I mean, for goodness sake, ENWorld publishing is a third party d20/OGL publisher that publishes stuff for 3E! How much more evidence does it take?

I appreciate the need for forum rules. But I also dont think the site would "not continue to exist" if, nodding to the origins of this site, a thread discussing these issues was in teh main forum.

It appears I have upset you, for whatever reason, based on the tone of your response to my suggestion. If so, I'm sorry.

I made a request that I wanted considered, you considered it. Its done.

 

[Orcus]

It appears that this issue is now being discussed in the Meta forum. I posted my thoughts there. I wont discuss it anymore here.

Thanks for listening, even if you rule against me

Clark

 

[see]

And, in the end, this is the company that saved D&D, opened up open gaming and continued to support it.

Well, my question would be, are they still that company?

This isn't the Adkison-run WotC which saved D&D. This isn't the Ryan Dancey-run roleplaying division that invented open gaming. And, as best I can tell, they stopped actively supporting open gaming a while back. We had the 3.5 revision of the SRD, Unearthed Arcana was printed in February '04, and since then? A far cry from the "fairly regular occurrence" the SRD FAQ still promises.

Maybe as a major publisher, you've been getting some inside support that those of us on the outside aren't seeing. But it looks from here like Hasbro-WotC switched off support years ago.

 

[dmccoy1693]

We had the 3.5 revision of the SRD, Unearthed Arcana was printed in February '04, and since then? A far cry from the "fairly regular occurrence" the SRD FAQ still promises.

In all fairness, Wizards has added a number of Domains and feats to the SRD over the years. Granted their total additions amount to less then the OGC in some 3rd party supplements, but additions are still additions.

Domains and Spells

Feats and such

 

[Jadeite]

They also added the Expanded Psionics Handbook. But of over 50 Base Classes, less then 20 are open game.

 

[dmccoy1693]

They also added the Expanded Psionics Handbook.

Forgot about that one.

 

[Delta]

In all fairness, Wizards has added a number of Domains and feats to the SRD over the years. Granted their total additions amount to less then the OGC in some 3rd party supplements, but additions are still additions.

Domains and Spells

Feats and such

All that stuff was added in the Divine SRD back in 2004, so that actually reinforces his point. Anything since 2004 from WOTC OGC?

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=122619

 

[Orcus]

All that stuff was added in the Divine SRD back in 2004, so that actually reinforces his point. Anything since 2004 from WOTC OGC?

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=122619

I'm not sure this reflects a lack of support for open gaming. I think what it shows is how annoying the SRD is and how hard it is to update with content from new products.

They way they did it for 3E is not optimal from either Wizards' or our standpoint. We want to be able to reference all the new WotC stuff. That helps us help them sell books. But they dont want to have to edit and cut and reformat all the text from each book and jam it in the SRD. That takes time and man-hours of work, which is limited and which tehy can better use working on new books!

Which is why I have propesed doing a "smarter" SRD for 4E that essentially updates itself. It would be simple to do. BUT the result is that you would not have a searchable online rule book like you do for 3E (whcih I think is fine. while I love d20srd.org, i dont think that was ever the intent of the srd).

I think it it was less of a pain and a time suck to update the srd that it would ahve been updated more.