I think the worst thing about this is that you can not effectively make another game . I loved that about the OGL , for instance i got the WOW d20 book, and it had pretty much everything in there that would let me play the game. I only needed one book. Now I would HAVE to have the core books. Same with my everquest books. Man the gsl sucks. =/ Can't wait till august for Pathfinder beta. Ill sure be buying that !
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Wow, Sam Weiss and Russ Taylor are both on the scene.
GO TEAM SCRUTINY!
Someone has to check up on this stuff for you. ;)
And speaking of scrutiny, I think I found the answer to my previous post:
Section 6.3 specifically notes that if any portion of a converted product is manufactured or published by a "third party affiliated with the licensee", WotC may terminate the license.
Note that goes beyond 6.1 which simply requires the licensee to get third parties affiliates to stop e-conversions and sales.
That just leaves the question as to who constitutes a "third party affiliated" with any particular licensee.
That may set up a situation where a company that converts a product line to the GSL must repudiate any association with a companty that sticks with the OGL just in case the OGL company uses something from a formery OGL product.
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So basically: if Tome of Horrors gets converted, but Paizo still uses the original OGL content in its adventures, WotC may terminate the GSL license since Necromancer and Paizo have a publishing agreement, that constitutes a third party a affiliated with the licensee?
But the OGL states, that content released as Open Content can be used freely by others in other OGL products.
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So basically: if Tome of Horrors gets converted, but Paizo still uses the original OGL content in its adventures, WotC may terminate the GSL license since Necromancer and Paizo have a publishing agreement, that constitutes a third party a affiliated with the licensee?
Uuuugghh... this is just plain ugly.
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Well... there I was, sitting at my desk with my shiny new rules, rewriting Desert of Desolation, when
ninja squirrels with jet-packs and lightsabers
burst through my window,
and confiscated all my work,
leaving me with a single note written in an attractive and fine, spidery Palmer script, with complicated flourishes on the capitals.
It read:
It is by my order and for the benefit of the State that the bearer of this note has done what he has done.
18th of June 2008
Richelieu (the Wizard of the Coast)
I took a picture with my iPhone, but...
Akatsuki, the thieves' chief and most squirrelly ninja, was suddenly at my side. He deleted the picture, shook his head and wagged his finger at me, tut-tuting.
Alas... I knew I had been beaten...
Is "repaginated" an actual word editors use?
claps hands to ears and screams
Suffice to say you have used one of the words that the knights who say Ni cannot hear!
-When the OGL came out in 2000 Hasbro hadn't bought WotC right?
They had (September 1999), but Peter Adkison and the rest of the old WotC management team was still running things.
Orcus had something interesting to say at ENWorld, the most interesting (at least from my perspective) being this:
Clearly, as I understand that existing license, there wont be a "Tome of Horrors" for 4E. I'm not losing the right to make an OGL version. Period. In fact, I am pretty sure that I will be announcing a full color Pathfinder version of the Tome of Horrors shortly. That said, I am still considering a monster book for 4E.
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(Still totally unimpressed with what they did to alignment, cosmology, parceling out core content over years of hardbacks, gnomes uber alles, & etc.)
Erik, not sure if I read this right, but are you literally suggesting that Wizards thinks Gnomes are better than any other core race? Or is there something in the MM that describes them as singing the German National Anthem?
That's much better than quoting Tori Amos.Around the office tonight I heard a few people yell out 'IT'S A TRAP" in their best Admiral Ackbar voice. :)
I actually thought about going to iTurnes and downloading "It's A Mistake" by Men at Work.
Slightly modified for context:
Don't try to say you're sorry
Don't say their drew their gun
They've gone and grabbed old Greenwood
He's not the only one...
saying
It's a mistake, it's a mistake
It's a mistake, it's a mistake
Any of you with ranks in speak language (legalese): Can they even put perpetual clauses into a limited license? If they pull the license in a month, why can't you just go back to OGL? The License is done, after all.
I know, that's probably not how it works, but the specifics about why would be good to hear.
BOEF: There will not be a BOEF 4e. Doesn't mean that there won't be one for Pathfinder. Maybe even from Paizo. I bet Nick Logue would love to write some parts of that. (And we all know which parts... :D)
Under the OGL, we had to include this as part of the legal text if we referenced SRD material:
System Reference Document, Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.Here's the equivalent text required by the GSL:
Well, I don't know if we'll actually publish anything under the GSL, but if we do, I think we'll add back the "based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson" bit.DUNGEONS & DRAGONS 4th Edition PLAYER’S HANDBOOK, written by Rob Heinsoo,
Andy Collins, and James Wyatt; DUNGEON MASTER’S GUIDE, written by James Wyatt;
and MONSTER MANUAL, written by Mike Mearls, Stephen Schubert and James Wyatt
© 2008 Wizards of the Coast, Inc. All rights reserved.
So much for their talk about honouring Gary after his death.
It seems too big a risk to jump into the GSL at this point. If I were a 3rd party company (note: armchair analysis imminent!), I'd just give up on it. It might bring a lot of money in the short term, but when 5th Edition rolls around, what's to stop WotC from not offering any license? So any RPG product you've ever produced, whether OGL or GSL, is off-limits, and your company is basically done.
I think that's the plan, and the reason why they're bothering with this license at all: They hope that some people will jump on and hitch their flagship-product-wagon to wizards' star, and then, in a couple of years (and I would't be surprised if it were an actual couple - 2 - years), when 5e is released (not more than a small buff-up of 4e), there won't be a license any more, and those companies can write off their best products.
So, um . . . you can't print stat blocks unless they are wholly original monsters
So much for Ogre Fighters.
They are sharpening their knives at WotC. Eying the golden calf of WoW with narrowed eyes.
And helpless rage. I'd say they have no chance against Activision Blizzard. If wizard tried everything, AB would probably have more than enough resources to wipe them out.
more than six million people play WoW. They pay ten dollars or more a month. That is sixty million dollars a month. Of course WotC wants to cut into that market. It is the new frontier. The Dungeons and Dragons brand has a paper legacy, but it is obvious that it will have a digital future.
Not against WoW. They'll make the jump from 800lb gorilla to little macaque.
The GSL is a very generous offer, if one looks at this from a business perspective.
Yeah, right: "Trust us, our sharp claws will but caress you."
So basically: if Tome of Horrors gets converted, but Paizo still uses the original OGL content in its adventures, WotC may terminate the GSL license since Necromancer and Paizo have a publishing agreement, that constitutes a third party a affiliated with the licensee?
Better yet: Paizo has already used them in their APs. Does that mean that Necromancer need not apply? Or get the license, publish one ToH book, and get the license revoked since their affiliates have used their OGL stuff?
But ToH will stay OGl, anyway.
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Any of you with ranks in speak language (legalese): Can they even put perpetual clauses into a limited license? If they pull the license in a month, why can't you just go back to OGL? The License is done, after all.
Its kind of like a non-compete agreement clause in that if you've agreed to it, and its legally allowed in the state where you agreed to it, it will remain enforceable even after you cease to use the license.
Of course, non-compete agreements are sometimes heavily regulated, here in Louisiana they have to be very specific and can only last two years. Other states may vary.
I'm not an IP lawyer, but I would guess unless federal or state law provides otherwise (as in the situs of the license) you could be bound perpetually not to use the OGL once you use the GSL.
Simple Answer: Termination of the license would not (necessarily) be a defense.
BOEF: There will not be a BOEF 4e. Doesn't mean that there won't be one for Pathfinder. Maybe even from Paizo. I bet Nick Logue would love to write some parts of that. (And we all know which parts... :D)
Intrigung idea, but then again I thought the BOEF was well written and useful for game wishing to go in that direction.
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Overall, I think WotC is after a subscriber base as two other posters have mentioned. They are quite clear in their vision of laptop players and DMs playing from a Gleemax program. I am not against their vision of putting hardware to use (as a DM I think this is tantamount to the continuation of the hobby). I have seen many a DM throw in the towel and finally join his adventuring friends on WoW, never to return to the hobby. If a DM's job is made easier, than I think it is good. More importantly, I really don't think 4th Edition is about selling hard bound printed material for page flipping D&D gamers. That is not the direction they want things to go down. And, for those that make printed material for the hobby like Paizo and others, I do believe, that 4th Edition views these enthusist third party companies as no more than dinosaurs. Dinosaurs with teeth mind you, but doomed to extinction nonetheless. The real proof in the pudding will be the subscriber base and the software that gleemax unveils.
I think it all hinges on that really. Even if everything was peachy in the GSL I don't think that they would allow third party made files over their software.
Basically, 4th Edition came, not because it was the right time to make a new iteration of the game, but because it was impossible to create a program that could utilize everything 3rd edition. A new game edition equals a base program that will expand from there on.
If I was a Hasbro executive watching WoW, I would consider just how to create a subscriber base, and then pitch it to my collegeaues. With that directive put forth, I would then go from there and find the easiest and most logical way to implement that. Creating a new edition is the logical answer to many problems (in getting to that subscriber base). So what if you burn a few moldy bookselling ties? Selling books is no longer the aim of the company anyway. The real aim however, is to get the players throwing the money down, not just the DMs. This is the very same market that Paizo wants to get in on with Pathfinder Companion.
I think I can say that we are all here as a band of DMs that enjoy the hobby. We appreciate the quality we see from Paizo and know our players will like it too. This split in the hobby is like a war. You have freedom of thought and the right to do what you please on one side, and on the other you have the ease of use and the full surrender of everything that made 3.x so great (with no secure future that we will ever see such freedom again).
In a generation such as ours that is overburdened with so many responsibilities, it is tempting to take the easy way out. I sincerely believe that the GSL cares little for whatever is printed, because the real aim is to get players looking at what you are seeing right now, an LCD, Cathoray, Plasma toll both. 4th Edition will be the first to implement an all encompassing role playing computer aid.
I think the D&D R&D had thoughts for many years, but when something is executed from a senior level, everyone sees a chance to seize an opportunity and get their bit of change in. I really don't buy into the idea that the game needed a change. It was not a complete circle of material that had ran its full course. In fact I think it was the magnitude of profit that WoW brought in, that scares a company like Hasbro. I think the idea is, if a company makes money like that, how long will it be before they have enough clout to walk up and buy us? In the end WoW runs on servers and uses a ton of electricity with some man hours attached, but other than that.... Who needs printers anyway?
The GSL is nothing more than a dead end trail that truly leads publishing companies to a dead end. Wizard's knows this because they have concluded somehow that even their books lead there too. It is no surprise that they are being "gruff" in this thing, because they fully plan to abandon whoever comes along anyway. I really think that the only reason a GSL exists in the first place is to lasso companies who have stolen their future subscribers. It is purely for, as Erik Mona put it, "to get the Genie back into the bottle". I think it is a inner conflicted attempt at best however. Naturally, this "non-camouflage, unbaited trap" is so abrupt that anyone can see it for what it is. However, for those that wish to ride the tail of a tyranosaur for a bit, there will naturally come a real tail wag in the end with the next edition of the software (ahem, game).
Is this speculative? Oh yea. Is it all true? Certainly not. But, it is on topic.
Cheers,
Zuxius
I'm having lunch with a designer at WotC tomorrow, and next week I join his 4e campaign, which is (I think) exclusively populated by WotC R&D folks, including at least one with a cover credit on the core rules.
Sometimes I am sure that the business decisions of one company puzzles the other, but on a personal level you try not to focus on that stuff.
I'm thinking that some of the WotC designers that cut their teeth on D&D thanks to the OGL have to be embarassed by the GSL that WotC just put out.
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I'm thinking that some of the WotC designers that cut their teeth on D&D thanks to the OGL have to be embarassed by the GSL that WotC just put out.I'm having lunch with a designer at WotC tomorrow, and next week I join his 4e campaign, which is (I think) exclusively populated by WotC R&D folks, including at least one with a cover credit on the core rules.
Sometimes I am sure that the business decisions of one company puzzles the other, but on a personal level you try not to focus on that stuff.
More like ashamed. I happen to agree with the idea that they are hurting the exact talent they would need to entice for their future. Overall, they stand alone on this, and that has to be a bit frightening. They are on that side now.
all I can add is that count me in for any OGL Necro stuff. ToH will be awesome.
I'm thinking that some of the WotC designers that cut their teeth on D&D thanks to the OGL have to be embarassed by the GSL that WotC just put out.I'm having lunch with a designer at WotC tomorrow, and next week I join his 4e campaign, which is (I think) exclusively populated by WotC R&D folks, including at least one with a cover credit on the core rules.
Sometimes I am sure that the business decisions of one company puzzles the other, but on a personal level you try not to focus on that stuff.
WIthout the OGL I'm pretty sure that I may have never heard of Mike Mearls (he wrote for Necromancer, AEG, Malhovoc and eventually WOTC)
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You have a lot of good points there Zuxius. But my question is.. if that's the case, why bother having a GSL at all? Why not simply say that the 4E will be closed like before 3E? As Sebastian pointed out, the GSL as it stands, is almost meaningless. It will probably attract mostly small and short-sighted companies which aren't likely to make high quality products.
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If I understand correctly, though, if you were to create a class called "Bard" or "Barbarian" or "Cheesehead," and then Wizards created a class called "Bard" or "Barbarian" or "Cheesehead" and added the name of that class to the SRD, your product would be in violation of the license from that moment forward, and you'd have to stop selling it immediately.
That would be very bad for Necomancer Games. ToH 4th and their Classes book can become obsolete even if only 1 of thei Classes or Monsters has the same name as a WoC one?
Oha, harsh!
Well, it might be back to Rolemaster. 3E is unplayable, for my group, though the OGL was brilliant and some games I do play were created using it, and 4E is exactly the kind of game I want, but I won't support WotC now any more than I would buy clubs for baby seal hunters. Not only did they screw the pooch, it was their best friend's dog and they did it in their mom's bed.
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...You have a lot of good points there Zuxius. But my question is.. if that's the case, why bother having a GSL at all? Why not simply say that the 4E will be closed like before 3E? As Sebastian pointed out, the GSL as it stands, is almost meaningless. It will probably attract mostly small and short-sighted companies which aren't likely to make high quality products.
To get their market away from printing and onto the Digital Initiative I think is the longterm intent of the GSL. However, I do think that this GSL was contested in someways internally, because it seems rather conflicting. It protects the IP as I am sure the draftsman wanted, but I think it fails miserably to rally the world to 4th Edition because of its controling nature. I think the worry behind this thing is, "What if the Digital Initiative is underwhelming?" The idea was that the DI would be so great that everyone would ditch the books (to a great degree). However, what if the software flounders and never really succeeds? Control over IP must be better than the OGL at least? The GSL might have been seen internally as an opportunity (as so many opportunities have arisen in this new edition) to bring the cows home. Strangely though, this pessimistic view could actually make success even less likely.
I am fairly certain that there was a lot of cooks stirring this pot, and selling the D&D license wholesale to whatever entity would buy it requires a great deal of initial control in the existing GSL to make it plausible. Oh yea, failure is an option.
Although I'm generally quite forgiving of Wizards - and I do like 4e - I'm astonished at the levels of stupidity involved in the GSL. I don't think it's all intentional. For instance, I really don't expect they meant the license to mean a later publication of theirs to make a bunch of previous products illegal due to unintentional name duplication. However, they should have. They really should have.
Someone upthread suggested that the license was really designed to only allow adventures to be written under the new system. Well, possibly. Unfortunately, by eliminating the ability to print the full stat-blocks of any monster or NPC that uses an ability from the core rulebooks, you really, really limit their usefulness.
Unbelievably stupid.
Clark Peterson has said on EN World that he's pretty sure that this license will kill dead his Tome of Horrors 4e (he's doing a full colour Pathfinder version? Cool!)
To be able to put Clark off-side with you is inventing new levels of stupidity that are beyond the dreams of wordsmiths in coming up with new terms to describe them!
Cheers,
Merric
They might want to rally people to use their DDI, but they aren't really capable of pulling it off. They've never made a good electronic aid and it doesn't look like that's changing. They might wish they could, and even try to, pull it off, but they always trip over their own feet doing it. If the DDI had been released on time, or even put up in Beta form for feedback, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt, but instead they put a "sometime in the future" stamp on it.
Clark Peterson has said on EN World that he's pretty sure that this license will kill dead his Tome of Horrors 4e (he's doing a full colour Pathfinder version? Cool!)
Not confirmed.
Having said that, I say to Erik Mona, I'd pay you money for that.
Although I'm generally quite forgiving of Wizards - and I do like 4e - I'm astonished at the levels of stupidity involved in the GSL. I don't think it's all intentional. For instance, I really don't expect they meant the license to mean a later publication of theirs to make a bunch of previous products illegal due to unintentional name duplication. However, they should have. They really should have.
Someone upthread suggested that the license was really designed to only allow adventures to be written under the new system. Well, possibly. Unfortunately, by eliminating the ability to print the full stat-blocks of any monster or NPC that uses an ability from the core rulebooks, you really, really limit their usefulness.
Unbelievably stupid.
Clark Peterson has said on EN World that he's pretty sure that this license will kill dead his Tome of Horrors 4e (he's doing a full colour Pathfinder version? Cool!)
To be able to put Clark off-side with you is inventing new levels of stupidity that are beyond the dreams of wordsmiths in coming up with new terms to describe them!
Cheers,
Merric
Yes, they've pretty much went out of their way to make sure no one would go forward with 4E with them. Was it intentional? I don't think it matters at this point. If this is the best they can do than they shouldn't have even bothered. What makes it worse is that it goes against the bold promises they made when they announced 4E at GenCon originally. Mislead your customers and colleagues much?
If the DDI had been released on time, or even put up in Beta form for feedback, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt, but instead they put a "sometime in the future" stamp on it.And then they released a license that prohibits competition.
Yeah. They can't do it themselves, and they'll make sure no one else can do it while they're struggling to prove to themselves that they still can't do it.
Basically, it just doesn't get done.
Actually, this sort of one-sided agreement doesn't really surprise me. In my line of work, if you are holding all the cards, then if anyone wants to play ball, it's by your rules . . . and preferably with the least amount of work on the cardholder's side.
It makes sense if WotC thinks it's the leader of RPGing and 3rd party independents' survival hinges on playing ball.
I imagine that from a business sense, WotC anticipates that, even with the adversity many players have against 4e, eventually the majority of people will come over to 4th edition. Moreover, if people aren't happy with 4e and outspoken against it, WotC has probably written them off already.
So, again, it makes sense.
The thing WotC misses is that they are NOT holding all of the cards. There are two options out there that are suddenly much more appealing:
1) Create OGL products that use the existing OGL terms in ways that look rather similar to 4e (I can envision easily doing setting material and adventures that are 4e-compatible using only 3.x material and avoiding the GSL), or
2) Go back to the old days of "life points" instead of hit points, and attributes like Strength, Agility, Toughness, Intellect, Wisdom, and Charm, and rely on copyright law rather than a highly restrictive license.
With the "safe harbor" not looking so safe under the GSL, these two options are looking far more appealing for third party publishers that want to ride the 4e wave. The GSL should have made them look less appealing and encouraged GSL acceptance. It looks to be failing at that.
They dedicated the books to Gary after all.
I have to wonder what EGG would have thought of that.
Unbelievably stupid.
I just gotta say, if Merric is calling WotC out, then they have seriously failed.
(And this is absolutely not a dig at you, I love your optimism. This just goes to show how much WotC has been bungling things lately that even their most optimistic fans are calling their actions "unbelievably stupid".)
Mislead your customers and colleagues much?
This is so disappointing.
I was against 4E, because I was concerned about quality 3rd Party support, because I don't always like WOTC's adventures.
Shadowfell being a good example.
I took a gamble and bought the core books anyway, and I like the game. That's not an issue with me. I believed there would be 3rd Party support even if Paizo chose not to...
But this doesn't look like there can be quality 3rd Party Support.
That means 3 books that will sit on the shelf and likely be joined by no others like it.
Mislead your customers and colleagues much?This is so disappointing.
I was against 4E, because I was concerned about quality 3rd Party support, because I don't always like WOTC's adventures.
Shadowfell being a good example.
I took a gamble and bought the core books anyway, and I like the game. That's not an issue with me. I believed there would be 3rd Party support even if Paizo chose not to...
But this doesn't look like there can be quality 3rd Party Support.
That means 3 books that will sit on the shelf and likely be joined by no others like it.
Those are my thoughts as well. I like the system, but really need 3rd party support. By smugly issuing a poisoned GSL they've made sure that can't happen and so have ruined what could have been something great.
I thought (and said) early on that the 4e platform appears to be, in part, a deliberate attempt to limit and reduce competition. This despite past claims from WotC people that competition and third-party contributions are good for the industry and the company.
It strikes me that the net effect of the GSL is that most publishers will bow out, accomplishing such a goal.
Two more cents...
The thing WotC misses is that they are NOT holding all of the cards. There are two options out there that are suddenly much more appealing:
1) Create OGL products that use the existing OGL terms in ways that look rather similar to 4e (I can envision easily doing setting material and adventures that are 4e-compatible using only 3.x material and avoiding the GSL)
If I were Lisa I would be breaking out the champagne bottles by now, because the GSL more or less ensures that Pathfinder's market share just got a bump upward.
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I'm curious about the opinion of freelancers like Ari Marmell right now. Suddenly WotC reduced the number of venues for him to write for drastically, since he's said he only wants to write 4E now. I have to admit that my own interest in 4E has been significantly fueled by the prospect of writing material to be published for it. Looks like I wont have many publishers to pitch my ideas to. Fortunately I never intended to not write for Pathfinder/3E.
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The idea was that the DI would be so great that everyone would ditch the books (to a great degree).
but the DDI as described by WotC is there to only Supplement the Books.. not to replace them..
You can't use the DDI alone... you still need the books..
Unless you are talking about way in the future, for the next edition and the current DDI is the pre curser to a All online product?
I thought (and said) early on that the 4e platform appears to be, in part, a deliberate attempt to limit and reduce competition. This despite past claims from WotC people that competition and third-party contributions are good for the industry and the company.
It strikes me that the net effect of the GSL is that most publishers will bow out, accomplishing such a goal.
Two more cents...
Yeah.
I'm not going to be bitter, or emotional. It's just $60.00 bucks blown on an RPG.
But if this is the shape of things to come, I won't be spending my money with WOTC.
Unbelievably stupid.I just gotta say, if Merric is calling WotC out, then they have seriously failed.
(And this is absolutely not a dig at you, I love your optimism. This just goes to show how much WotC has been bungling things lately that even their most optimistic fans are calling their actions "unbelievably stupid".)
You should see my reaction to the Gleemax blogs that was on EN World recently...
Cheers,
Merric
You should see my reaction to the Gleemax blogs that was on EN World recently...
Cheers,
Merric
Oooh, please link. :)
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Unbelievably stupid.I just gotta say, if Merric is calling WotC out, then they have seriously failed.
(And this is absolutely not a dig at you, I love your optimism. This just goes to show how much WotC has been bungling things lately that even their most optimistic fans are calling their actions "unbelievably stupid".)
You should see my reaction to the Gleemax blogs that was on EN World recently...
Cheers,
Merric
Hey Merric, haven't seen you here for a while, good to see you.
Can you give us a link to your gleemax comments?
I'm curious about the opinion of freelancers like Ari Marmell right now. Suddenly WotC reduced the number of venues for him to write for drastically, since he's said he only wants to write 4E now. I have to admit that my own interest in 4E has been significantly fueled by the prospect of writing material to be published for it. Looks like I wont have many publishers to pitch my ideas to. Fortunately I never intended to not write for Pathfinder/3E.
Yeah.. good point.
I really enjoyed that recent Ashen Covenant he wrote for the new issue of Dragon (currently free)..
But only having one company (or very few companies) to pitch to really puts a hurtin' on a freelancer. WOTC might as well hire him as a full-timer. Or not.
Hey Merric, haven't seen you here for a while, good to see you.
Nice to be here. :)
Can you give us a link to your gleemax comments?
Here you go:
The Failure of GleemaxCheers,
Merric