vance's page

Okay, so I was actually WRITING for 4E today, and was actually steam-rolling some content along when WHAM! Sudden stoppage. Some things I hadn't noticed were just missing before, but came up and I'm completely at a loss on what to deal with.

a) Cone Effects. A few of the beasties and spells that this project uses require 'cone' effects - such as 'Cone of Cold'. Turns out, there are absolutely neither rules nor guidelines for handling cones in the game. Worse than that, this was a DELIBERATE choice by WotC because cones don't work in the DDI.

b) Ray Effects. See above. A ray being 'start from me, go to X'. You can kinda fudge this with 'wall' effects, I suppose, but it's not quite the same. Even Lightning Bolt was rewritten to have a fireball like effect.

c) Durations. This is a huge one. No spell has a 'fire and forget' duration style. No 'this effect lasts 4 rounds'... at all. Many, many spell effects are hosed as a result.

Now, I could write new mechanics for this, I suppose, but the GSL seems like a poison pill for doing this. I certainly wouldn't want to include the mechanics for these basic concepts in a product which normally doesn't handle them.

So.. what do I do?

Cool...

I am Open d6.

That's right. Me.

The rest of you, sod off. :)

Damn Hasbro's not getting any more of my money.

Hasbro had NOTHING to do with any of these decisions.

I say again, in case I'm not clear:

Hasbro had NOTHING to do with any of these decisions.

Do you know what WOTC is to Hasbro? A write-off. That's it. Think they REALLY give a rat's petootie about the GSL and all that?

But. But. You're undead. You have no blood.

Guess it would be nonbinding.

I don't want a reference to your statistic or anything, but is that close to the real situation or only directionally correct? I know you were quoting Lou but this is how rumors start.

That's why I'm asking. The last I knew, and this has admittedly been some time ago (around when 3.5 came out), Steve Jackson Games pegged WotC's overall 'pnp' share at around 90 percent, anecdotally. They pointed out that D&D was often the ONLY game available in most retail channels, so even other d20 product didn't see shelf space where D&D did.

We also know, from statements at Origins, and other places, that the sales dip for PNP gaming in general has been between 10 to 20 percent per quarter since 3.0's release. Could it be that WotC's taken it on the chin far worse than companies like Necromancer games, Paizo, and so forth, therefore slowly eating the slice? I don't know.. it's possible, but it really hadn't occured to me that the hemmoraging would be that bad.

I agree with most of this. The problem is that the GSL itself is so badly written that a draconian read, in combination with their other posted agreements, could even say that a GSL user playing Dungeons and Dragons is in violation of the GSL.

Of course, I'm certain this is not their intent, but the wording used in the GSL is awful enough that you could twist it in that way. And that's really the issue... the GSL is openly draconian in its intent, which I think we all expected, but the terrible writing of it can make things much, much worse.

Lastly given their 50% market share, WoTc decisions make markets. Not being open just made it harder for differing creative visions to share the d&d market place, which I would argue, is to the detriment of consumers.

Actually, if they're down to 50 percent market-share, I can see why they're being so worried and draconian now. It wasn't long ago that they were 90 percent...

I must like corny, then. I love Spelljammer. One of my favorite settings, actually.

I liked the concept and 'core' of Spelljammer. Unfortunately, due to when it came out, it very quickly suffered from "kitchen-sinkitis" and "tie-to-Realm cancer"... a true product of its time.

A cleaned-up 3.5 hardback (a single one, mind you) would have been a pretty decent seller.

Also, the analogy is flawed. You can still go out and publish rpgs for other systems, or for no system at all. It's not a lifelong ban from the gaming industry, much less the publishing industry, if you lose your rights under the GSL, you just can't publish D&D compatible products. Seems to me that people were publishing such products just fine for the 20 or so...

It's not that. It's more that the 'entire industry' (note my use of quotes) was put on hold for the better part of a year pending how WotC was going to wow us with 4E's new open content, with the expectation of the 'entire industry' following suit with it.

Only to be told that, after taking it on the chin for nearly a year, the GSL is decidedly not only not open, but demands both testicles, your first born, and all your IP rights to anything you even THINK about doing that's possibly related to something WotC might consider in a meth-induced dream coma.

It's not that they're closed, it's that they promised that the GSL would be accessable, would be worth the effort, etc, and really, honest-to-God, was NOT about closing the license for good and screwing people who signed up anyway.

The response doesn't seem to have been 'those evil bastards, how dare they protect their IP!', but instead 'I waited a year only to be told to spread my cheeks HOW wide? Screw it, I'm doing something else.'

I can see it now...

Pathinder - From Paizo Games
Now printed on 100 percent recycled 4E books.

Oh, I'm not saying it would make sense to sue.. just that someone at WotC needs a thwapping for doing something so outrageously stupid.

The case for copyright infringement is still there, but claims of fraud, unfair competition, etc. are going to look pretty thin.

That's assuming that Hasbro's willing to go to bat to defend WotC... I'm not so sure that's currently the case.

Are you kidding? This actually could outright kill DDI. It's not just that they stole artwork for an ad.. it's that they stole artwork from a product that directly competes with DDI -as- DDI. This is a case of corporate fraud, a reasonably case to prove an attempt to fool the public against competition.

This is a mindbogglingly huge mistake for the purveyors of the GSL to make.

The questions you elude to will likely require comment from the Rouse and WotC legal for it to have any reasonable weight behind it.

Run! Dodge those questions, even as you approach them!

SNEAK ATTACK!

Smiteworks, the makers of Fantasy Grounds, have sent a cease and desist to WotC for infringement of their IP by using their dice roller in Screenshots of the online tabletop.

Yeah.. wow... there's no way that WotC can claim any defense there.

I think the name Drow is specifically thiers, in all their underground spider worshiping, while the concept of Dark Elves in general are public domain because of how often they've been used over the years.

Nope. Drow predates WotC and TSR by hundreds of years. Now, the specific spider-worshipping dominatrix-queen ... thing.. they've got going on? Yeah, those are WotC now.

And no, nobody expressly said that this was the Only way to use the OGL. They just expect that would be the way it would happen, and got something very different instead.

And you're flat-out wrong. The OGL does not preclude character generation. The d20 license does. Indeed, the very FAQ (linked above) talking about what the OGL and d20 can and can not do proves all your points invalid.

If you made a d20 game, there was an expectation that you used the PHB and DMG as your main rules set. That's it. And, yes, in that case, most of the books that claimed to be d20 did just that.

OGL, however, is another beat, and was never beholden to use the d20 trademark, the PHB, or the DMG.

I didn't mention Pathfinder, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Freeport, City of Brass, Wilderness of High Fantasy in my list of problems with the Open Gaming system because they are the Successes of the OGL. They all use a single unified rules system, and that's exactly what WotC wanted.

Except that most of thse games aren't even open gaming. They're licensed or owned products by WotC. That's a lot like saying 2nd edition Forgotten Realms is proof of OGL's success, or that the original Dragonlance was proof of OGL's success.

You see, no one ever said, up front, that 'the only way for OGL to succeed is that all you guys use the system as WotC wants it, exactly as they want it, and just write fluff'. Yet that seems to be the standard you wish to set now.

Be creative. Call it the "nekestro'banth", a two-tailed rodent of rat-like appearance. Get a legal copyright. When WotC takes your rat, let them yank your 4e, but sue them on copyright (Wait until after it hits shelves). You'll cost them more than they costed you (in their destroyed product). WotC won't beat copyright law. They can't use Superman and Batman. They won't be able to use your nekestro'banth.

Nice but unrealistic. Most 'small press' shops, including companies like Green Ronin, Necromancer, and - yes - even Paizo, are not going to be able to financially compete in courts with WotC, particularly when you already agreed to settle without jury on their turf.

Unfortuantely, in civil actions, it generally -is- who can spend the most on legal fees that ultimately wins out.

(Though it is telling to me that WotC demanded Washington state, and not Rhode Island, implying heavily that the GSL was done without Hasbro being a party to anything.)

KaeYoss wrote:

This isn't going to turn into All You Zombies, is it? :D

HEY! What's wrong with us Zombies?

You probably don't know this, what with your flesh and nose falling off years ago.. but zombies stink. I mean, honestly.

I'm shocked! Shocked! Shocked that the key person behind 4E and the new GSL has negative things to say about the OGL and anyone still using it.

Section 10.3 says you aren't allowed to take suit against Wizards' Intellectual Property.

That's just it. It's the fact that they can add 'protected' material as they want, and declare that IP retroactively... in effect, stealing someone else's IP, and then being able to sue them for it. I can't imagine how that would be enforceable, other than "Well, you agreed to it, moron."

Thing is, if they've stolen it from you, it isn't their IP, it's yours.

It's pretty clear that the sum-up of the GSL is that any IP you make under the GSL is, ultimately, WotC's.

As for the OGL, I'd bet good money that WotC created it without fully considering the possible consequences. For instance, I doubt they expected anyone to create complete games under the OGL. Seeing stuff like Mutants and Masterminds come out must have driven them up the frigging wall.

As been said elsewhere, the d20/OGL FAQ from last week said the exact opposite. In fact, Mongoose was even outright challenged to do so - and they did.

So, when you paying up? :)

To which clause are you referring? I scanned trying to find it but couldn't. Thanks!

It's section 10.3. Seems innocuous enough on its own, but since infringement is defined in other sections at WotC's discretion...

Suing. Is that spelled right? It look wrong. *scratches head*

Actually, it explicitly forbids suing over infringement at all, which is what most of these issues would be covered under.

Is the GSL seen as so restrictive simply because the OGL was so exactly the opposite?

The GSL is actually a huge 'waste of time' license because it makes no sense to ever use it. It's a way of closing the license again without saying that they're closing the license.

The OGL, for its part, was a tacit admission that TSR was slowly being forced to make in the courts - that you CANNOT protect a rules set, only how the rules set is presented. The OGL said 'okay, these are the rules we made... rather than having every Palladium, Tunnels and Trolls, and what have you try to screw us over, we'll make the RULES public and focus on the campaigns, etc...

The trouble is that WotC then promptly focused on selling rules. This was their huge mistake, make all the more obvious with 3.5. Instead of pushing their IP (settings, flavor, fluff), they instead put out one crunch book after another, attempting to make them 'core' but not SRD, and creating a situation where other companies were now competition for ALSO having variant rules.

I also don't see too much in common between Spelljammer and Space:1889 rather than the obvious link of flying ships. Spelljammer wasn't particularly Victorian, and was very much magic-obsessed.

A couple of bad examples, but TSR, in particular, had a long track record of rejecting a submission and then suddenly having a near identical article in Dragon or published product shortly thereafter. (See: Psionics). Heck, the whole gaming hobby has a long and proud tradition of screwing over people in that way.

If anyone thinks that WotC, now under immense pressure to stop losing money, is going to be 'nice and friendly' to their so-called 'competition', then they need to pass around what they've been taking to the rest of the class.

Well, like 4E and 3.5E, 5E will come when whoever holds D&D has experienced a couple of years of dwindling sales. Expect 5E in 2011.

WAR KITTENS?!

No. Cute fuzzy ones. Baby cats.

What's WRONG with you?

As restrictive and disappointing as this license is, I keep seeing references to WotC being able to take your content and reprint it in their books without compensation. Where are people getting that from?

It's the combination of being able to define 'protected' terms as they see fit, remove your ability to sell GSL material completely arbitrarily, and lastly demand that you forfeit any claims to infringement in case they 'come up' with material identical to yours at a future date.

So, yes, they could see that Tome of Horrors 4E is super-successful, decide that they're going to have such a product, 'protect' concepts in ToH4E, lock that product and the license out for the company that made it, then turn around and SUE THEM for infringement of the GSL. And, by the writing of the GSL, the 'offender', having given up his rights to arbitration, would have to accept any fees, etc, that WotC deems fit.

If that's not a separate product line, I'm not sure what is. But to be sure, I'll be asking a lawyer about it, and exercising a great deal of caution about this project.

The problem is, I'm not sure that that would be enough. The SRD lists out what qualifies as '4E product identity' and it includes things like 'Elves', 'd6', and so on. If you publish a GSL product, and another product happens to use the world 'dwarf' in it, WotC could claim THAT as a violation as well.

If anything, the fact that they can retroactively claim 'protected concepts' in the SRD at will, including material from other people, and you've given up your right to abritration, meaning you automatically lose a lawsuit and penalties...

And all of this for what? The ability to have a small logo on the BACK of a product, as well as the legal page?