[4e] New GSL

[Panda-s1]

Wow, I can't believe there isn't a thread about this already. I guess people are too busy arguing to notice....

http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/welcome

tl;dr: The restriction of having a line for both OGL and GSL has been lifted, there is now a 6 month grace period of selling your **** if/when your license has been terminated, and the SRD has been expanded to include other things from PHB2 and Adventurer's Vault (though not everything, I guess shifters, goliaths, and devas are propietary to WotC).

[Burley]

Yes, but where is a there a public SRD for 4e that is, erhem... decent?

[Waspinator]

A new SRD containing the core rules? Never going to happen. Wizards never meant the SRD to be a substitute for buying the rules and I doubt they'll do anything like that ever again.

[RukiTanuki]

For better or worse, Wizards has decided to create several services whose usefulness is significantly affected by their ability to restrict the specific rules text of 4e (which is to say that in order to access it, you must have paid for it).

Mind you, I'm quite appreciative of these tools. The Character Builder alone has saved me hours at the table and in planning.

However, I agree with others who posit that the 3.x SRD wasn't intended to be a free substitute for buying the core books, and that it was a solid (if arguable) business decision not to make that choice on the next round.

[Draz74]

A new SRD containing the core rules? Never going to happen. Wizards never meant the SRD to be a substitute for buying the rules and I doubt they'll do anything like that ever again.

Well, actually, I think it was meant to be a substitute for buying the rules -- but only for people who had already bought the 3.0 rules, and didn't want to have to pay more money to upgrade to 3.5.

It was the funky half-edition upgrade that got us most of the Core rules for free; otherwise WotC would have shied far, far away from such a dangerous business policy.

[Panda-s1]

Yes, but where is a there a public SRD for 4e that is, erhem... decent?

Well, you could saunter on over to your book or game store of choice and buy a book called the Player's Handbook. You could also buy the Dungeon Master's Guide or Monster Manual if you want to run a game. Y'know, kinda how like you would do with any other RPG*.

*Yes, I do realize there are other free RPGs out there, but I seriously don't get the whining over the lack of an open license and rules for D&D just 'cause they did it with one edition.

[Lappy9000]

Well, you could saunter on over to your book or game store of choice and buy a book called the Player's Handbook. You could also buy the Dungeon Master's Guide or Monster Manual if you want to run a game. Y'know, kinda how like you would do [I]with any other RPG*.

*Yes, I do realize there are other free RPGs out there, but I seriously don't get the whining over the lack of an open license and rules for D&D just 'cause they did it with one edition.Oh, come on, now. Surely you'd like to have a free depository for (almost) all of the core rules of the new edition? Personally, I like free things :smallfrown:

Heck, I wouldn't have gotten into D&D at all if not for the original System Reference Document (My friends and I messed around back when we had no idea what we were doing. Without those free and fairly-comprehensive rules, we never would have tried out the game in the first place)

[JMobius]

Liking it is one thing. Expecting it and acting irate when it's not delivered is another entirely.

[Lappy9000]

Liking it is one thing. Expecting it and acting irate when it's not delivered is another entirely.Exactly. By that logic, a post that seems to declare that all who dislike the 4e SRD are "whining" about the lack of a SRD comparable to the 3.5 version is a rather rash thing to say :smallsmile:

[Reinboom]

Still no coverage on homebrew allowance.

[Zherog]

Well, actually, I think it was meant to be a substitute for buying the rules -- but only for people who had already bought the 3.0 rules, and didn't want to have to pay more money to upgrade to 3.5.

It was the funky half-edition upgrade that got us most of the Core rules for free; otherwise WotC would have shied far, far away from such a dangerous business policy.

Nope. 3.0 also had an SRD that contained the same information.

The SRD wasn't intended for use by players. It was/is a tool for developers and designers at 3rd party publishers to provide them the information they were permitted to use in their products.

However, given that terms of the OGL allowed people to reproduce whatever they wanted, it was inevitable that somebody would put the SRD online in hypertext.

(for those who don't know, the actual SRD is a series of .rtf files that were downloadable from the WotC site.)