The GSL -Why?

[Tyndmyr]

I've been considering cleaning up some of the mountains of material I have, ranging from entirely new mechanics, to campaign worlds, to classes, into a nice presentable format, and kicking it up online, probably in some mix of free/sale deal(pay a few bucks for a bound copy, etc). No doubt something similar has been considered by half the DMs here. Part of this cleanup process would involve making explicit 3.5/PF versions, so as to avoid any work in conversion by others. Figured, I don't personally like 4e, but some people do, and I've got the books around taking up space...wonder what I'd have to do to port stuff over to that as well.

Turns out the licensing changed quite a bit.

So...I can use "certain D&D terms and such". Not things like page numbers, those are too specific. Describing character creation? Right out. An example given is an alternate way of generating ability scores. That's apparently far too drastic a change. Can't alter any existing content, so, no rebalancing anything. Oh, not allowed to redefine fluff, either. That limits the campaign settings pretty harshly. If it's not fantasy, it's not licensed. If it's on a website, it's bad. All other types of software are bad too.

Also, any item not "directly related to the roleplaying game" is right out. Y'know, stories, and such. Referring to their artwork is out. And of course, the old limitations are kept, so no beholders or the like, in any form. Mixing material from OGL/GSL is verboten, so Im pretty much screwed if I want anything to be released for 4e and 3.5. Gotta choose.

They can set quality and content standards. They say they might reject your material if it's "too violent", for example. Er...ok.

And they can change it at any time, to anything, or cancel it altogether, and I must comply, they won't check my stuff to ensure I'm complying, and if they have any problems with me, I must pay their legal fees so they can sue me. Please tell me this is some kind of a joke...I don't understand why anyone would bother with this.

I mean, you get the "right" to refer to some of their books in a generic fashion. Er...I don't need a license to do that. That's all the license gives you. The rest is all restrictions. Seriously, do any third publishers publish under this, and if so, why?

[arguskos]

Seriously, do any third publishers publish under this, and if so, why?

I don't think there's many 3rd party 4e publishers, if any at all. I can't recall any at all. Kurald would know. *waits expectantly for his arrival*

In other news, yeah, this is old hat. The OGL is so restrictive and painful to work with that most folks just DON'T. It's... yeah. The damn thing is a nightmare to work with.

[Yuki Akuma]

Yeah, they decided they didn't want third party publishers this edition.

[Aroka]

Yeah, they decided they didn't want third party publishers this edition.

It makes sense if you're a greedy shortsighted corporate head. Why invite others to split your market with you? It's not like that's going to make the market grow, invigorate it, create cool new ideas and possibly advance the whole field into new directions.

Open-source? Who did that ever work out for!?

Not saying WOTC are in any way unusual or morally wrong here, though (they may be wrong innovation-wise though); they're operating like most corporations would.

Oddly, Mongoose is apparently still going open-source with their new RuneQuest 2 (although I don't think it's been confirmed).

And they can change it at any time, to anything, or cancel it altogether, and I must comply, they won't check my stuff to ensure I'm complying, and if they have any problems with me, I must pay their legal fees so they can sue me. Please tell me this is some kind of a joke...I don't understand why anyone would bother with this.

This should, by itself, stop anyone from ever publishing anything under the license. By publishing, you agree that they can change the license specifically to cause you to be in violation of it and squeeze money out of you and put you out of business.

[Tyndmyr]

Well, screw porting it to 4e, then.

Any other recommended systems that'd fit for a giant lot of predominantly 3.5 stuff?

[Mystic Muse]

I have a 4th edition book that I believe is from Mongoose publishing and the owner of my FLGS is going to release his own book for 4th edition.

[arguskos]

Well, screw porting it to 4e, then.

Any other recommended systems that'd fit for a giant lot of predominantly 3.5 stuff?

...3.5? If you HAAAAVE to port to something else... Pathfinder?

Ok, seriously though, I dunno really. Perhaps it could be converted into a WW system? Maybe Scion/Exalted? GURPS? Really depends on the material.

[Tyndmyr]

Oh, pathfinder can be taken for granted. It's a dead easy port. Essentially all pure fantasy material. I've dabbled with other stuff, but not enough to bother making modules out of it, really, and D&D is what the majority of it was originally played in.

[Aroka]

Well, screw porting it to 4e, then.

Any other recommended systems that'd fit for a giant lot of predominantly 3.5 stuff?

Unisystem. Satyr often says it can do D&D better than D&D if you put in the work (I agree), and there's even an All Flesh Must Be Eaten sourcebook on the topic, Dungeons & Zombies.

[arguskos]

Oh, pathfinder can be taken for granted. It's a dead easy port. Essentially all pure fantasy material. I've dabbled with other stuff, but not enough to bother making modules out of it, really, and D&D is what the majority of it was originally played in.

Eh, then why are you porting it really? If you're not gonna use it, I wouldn't bother really. Port what matters when it matters, IMO. *shrugs*

[Reverent-One]

It makes sense if you're a greedy shortsighted corporate head. Why invite others to split your market with you? It's not like that's going to make the market grow, invigorate it, create cool new ideas and possibly advance the whole field into new directions.

Or they could make pretty much the exact same game for their own IP, or even "improve" on your own edition.

But there are a few 4e third party folks, Goodman Games being one of the most active, though I'm heard of others I can't remember. There was someone on this site a year or so ago who would give general review of a number of third party products.

EDIT:

So...I can use "certain D&D terms and such". Not things like page numbers, those are too specific. Describing character creation? Right out. An example given is an alternate way of generating ability scores. That's apparently far too drastic a change. Can't alter any existing content, so, no rebalancing anything. Oh, not allowed to redefine fluff, either. That limits the campaign settings pretty harshly. If it's not fantasy, it's not licensed. If it's on a website, it's bad. All other types of software are bad too.

Looking at it, it seems like campaign settings are one of the types of things you can actually do some work with. While you can't redefine basic fluff, you can add it just fine. You want a slightly different variant of a race? Slap an adjective on the race's name and you're fine. New monsters, places, gods? Seems to be little problem if you're not remaking existing ones.

[Tyndmyr]

Pathfinder would never have taken off if 4e hadn't failed so hard. If 3.5 was still actively supported, what reason would there have been for players to bail for pathfinder? Or even if, better yet, 4e looked like a polished off version of 3.5, with the broken stuff fixed.

Sure, PF has a few nice tweaks, but it's 3.5 under the hood. Gamers wouldn't be thrilled about essentially just buying books twice.

But now that 3.5 isn't supported, taking the official version isn't as obvious of a choice. For those who don't like 4e, and are new to 3.5, PF is an easy pick.

The smart thing woulda been to still publish 4e, but not to call it D&D, and keep supporting and selling D&D 3.5, or an updated cousin of it. Cater to both markets.

[Reverent-One]

Pathfinder would never have taken off if 4e hadn't failed so hard. If 3.5 was still actively supported, what reason would there have been for players to bail for pathfinder?

Why, all the things they fixed from 3.5 of course.

The smart thing woulda been to still publish 4e, but not to call it D&D, and keep supporting and selling D&D 3.5, or an updated cousin of it. Cater to both markets.

Making material for both games would have split their focus and resources though. Which would end up better for 3.5, which already had a large selection of books already made and out. But if they had slowed down the production of 4e material? They would be so little stuff for it, it would have little hope of getting any real traction. At that point, why should WoTC make it?

[Tyndmyr]

Im not sure why they published 4e to begin with...

But no, it wouldn't have been that slow. Look at the pace they published 4e books over the past two years. There are nine "core rules" products alone. Not counting the deluge of other books.

They easily had the capability to support two roleplaying games. Most RPG systems are supported on a tiny fraction of the resources devoted to D&D.

[Reverent-One]

Im not sure why they published 4e to begin with...

But no, it wouldn't have been that slow. Look at the pace they published 4e books over the past two years. There are nine "core rules" products alone. Not counting the deluge of other books.

They easily had the capability to support two roleplaying games. Most RPG systems are supported on a tiny fraction of the resources devoted to D&D.

Compared to 3.5 it would have been slow, simply for all the time advantage 3.5 had for being around longer. It's taken 4e these two years going full bore to get to this point, and has it even caught up to 3.5 in terms of amount of material yet?

[imperialspectre]

Why, all the things they fixed from 3.5 of course.

So, practically nothing.

Pathfinder would never have taken off if 4e hadn't failed so hard. If 3.5 was still actively supported, what reason would there have been for players to bail for pathfinder? Or even if, better yet, 4e looked like a polished off version of 3.5, with the broken stuff fixed.

The problem is that the 4e designers had no idea that people wouldn't like their changes. If you look at any of their advertising material, or any of the promotions they did before 4e was released, there was this constant barrage of optimism that the designers had figured out everything that was wrong with 3.5, that they had their fingers right on the collective pulse of what people wanted to be different, and that they could deliver a comprehensively better D&D.

To be fair, WotC had some basis for thinking that a revolutionary change in how D&D actually worked would be largely accepted. 3e was monstrously successful, and while there are still a few people who prefer AD&D, those grognards certainly don't comprise a significant share of the market. But I don't think that the designers of 4e (and there was a LOT of turnover between 3e and 4e) ever really thought about what the community actually wanted, or about how 4e's changes would impact "traditional" D&D stereotypes.

And no, 4e has nowhere near as much material as 3.5 did. Fairly close to what 3e had when the 3.5 transition began, if I recall correctly - but the quality of 3e material was ridiculously higher than the quality of 4e material.

[Reverent-One]

So, practically nothing.

Probably, though I don't know pathfinder so well, so I could be wrong.

And no, 4e has nowhere near as much material as 3.5 did. Fairly close to what 3e had when the 3.5 transition began, if I recall correctly - but the quality of 3e material was ridiculously higher than the quality of 4e material.

Which is why they had to make a new edition to fix all the problems with 3.0, because it was such high quality.

[Zeta Kai]

Or they could make pretty much the exact same game for their own IP, or even "improve" on your own edition.

Yeah, if I were WotC, I think that I would be a bit peeved at folks like Green Ronin Publishing. They didn't do anything illegal when they made Mutants & Masterminds, but that book is >95% based on D&D. It's a great game, & the mechanics have been reworked to hell & back to fit their angle, but to say that it's heavily based on D&D is an understatement. The fact that the OGL made such a game possible, let alone profitable, must have made the brass at WotC very annoyed.

[Aroka]

Oh, the GSL was supposed to be revised a while ago, wasn't it? Did that ever happen?

But there are a few 4e third party folks, Goodman Games being one of the most active, though I'm heard of others I can't remember. There was someone on this site a year or so ago who would give general review of a number of third party products.

What do they publish, precisely? My understanding of the GSL is that - in practice - it allows for publishing adventures, and that's about it.

The problem is that the 4e designers had no idea that people wouldn't like their changes. If you look at any of their advertising material, or any of the promotions they did before 4e was released, there was this constant barrage of optimism that the designers had figured out everything that was wrong with 3.5, that they had their fingers right on the collective pulse of what people wanted to be different, and that they could deliver a comprehensively better D&D.

How could it have been any other way? What kind of PR would it be for a product to advertise it along the lines of "well, this may be okay, like we don't know, I hope you like it" ? Hype, hype, hype is the name of the game with any product. People seem to hold D&D to weirdly high standards, considering all adverts you see on TV are piles of stinking lies, and the backs of PC/video game boxes are pure fantasy.

[Tyndmyr]

So, practically nothing.

About right. I own the books simply because I sometimes play at a bookstore where only systems they sell can be played. So, we play pathfinder. 3.5 books allowed. Yay, not much really changed. I really don't care if pazio or wotc gets my bucks.

The problem is that the 4e designers had no idea that people wouldn't like their changes. If you look at any of their advertising material, or any of the promotions they did before 4e was released, there was this constant barrage of optimism that the designers had figured out everything that was wrong with 3.5, that they had their fingers right on the collective pulse of what people wanted to be different, and that they could deliver a comprehensively better D&D.

Optimism in advertising is perhaps forgivable. Ignoring their own fans on message boards and such is not. What you say is certainly true, but their failure at knowing their own market is certainly a pretty big error for them.

To be fair, WotC had some basis for thinking that a revolutionary change in how D&D actually worked would be largely accepted. 3e was monstrously successful, and while there are still a few people who prefer AD&D, those grognards certainly don't comprise a significant share of the market. But I don't think that the designers of 4e (and there was a LOT of turnover between 3e and 4e) ever really thought about what the community actually wanted, or about how 4e's changes would impact "traditional" D&D stereotypes.

TBH, it's a bigger change than any prior one. Im not an expert on the various editions prior to 2nd, as that was when I started playing, but I've dug around a bit in the old stuff. With 2nd and 3rd, they had the advantages of replacing material that was generally not terribly well written. They were good games, yes, but it appears that writing, editing, and so forth were a bit hit and miss. So, through 3.5, you have a steady boost in quality with each successive batch. I'd argue that the quality of supplements improved quite a lot even over 3.5.

But hey, writing and editing can only get so good. So now you need to capture people based solely on the other factors. 3.5 was very similar to 3.0, especially in feel. You can use a handbook from one in the other with only occasional annoyance. 2nd to 3rd was a bigger change, but still not huge. Your basic mechanics are extremely similar, and characters can still be meaningfully upgraded from one to the other. Going from 3.5 to 4 with a character is nearly impossible, and using 3.5 books in a 4e game is essentially not doable. No more than say, using them in GURPS would be.

Changes that big should be tested.

[Tyndmyr]

People seem to hold D&D to weirdly high standards, ...and the backs of PC/video game boxes are pure fantasy.

D&D? Pure fantasy?

Heh, couldn't resist.

[Reverent-One]

What do they publish, precisely? My understanding of the GSL is that - in practice - it allows for publishing adventures, and that's about it.

Adventures, of course. A number of monster books. Amethyst, the sci-fi type setting. I think they did a book of rituals, though that could have been another 3rd party.

Optimism in advertising is perhaps forgivable. Ignoring their own fans on message boards and such is not. What you say is certainly true, but their failure at knowing their own market is certainly a pretty big error for them.

Given that 4e's been going for several years now, I'd hesitate to say they failed to know their market. If they had, they wouldn't still be throwing money away on books that wouldn't be selling.

[Aroka]

Given that 4e's been going for several years now, I'd hesitate to say they failed to know their market. If they had, they wouldn't still be throwing money away on books that didn't sell.

History suggests that a few years isn't really enough to make that call; look at TSR. Game companies that fail fail because they spent several years throwing their money away on books that didn't sell.

[Tyndmyr]

Given that 4e's been going for several years now, I'd hesitate to say they failed to know their market. If they had, they wouldn't still be throwing money away on books that wouldn't be selling.

Well, it's the new version of the biggest roleplaying game out there. It's gonna sell some copies. Everyone I know of with 4th ed books eagerly went down to buy the new books, just like we did everything previously. Everyone then played 1-2 campaigns, determined they disliked it, and either went back to 3.5, or migrated to PF. Now, SOME people like 4e. Some don't know anything else. So, it'll keep selling some. That's not the point. The point is, they fractured the market, and at this point, it's hard for them to fix that.

[Reverent-One]

The point is, they fractured the market, and at this point, it's hard for them to fix that.

True enough. The question is, how much more could they have milked 3.5 for? There's only so much they can do before they start A) effectively duplicating material or B) moving too far away from the existing material (see ToB).

You know what, thinking about it I missed what is likely a much bigger reason for the ending of 3.5, the lack of trust for supplementary material. There are tons of people who just say "Core Only" and tell themselves that only the Core is balanced and you can't trust anything else. To be fair, there was a lot of stuff that could throw off a game in the supplements, but ToB and Psionics are perfect examples of new material that's actually far more balanced and usable than the core. But if you can't get to the people to believe that anything outside the core books is worth using, you can't make money selling said books, whether it's because the players themselves don't trust the material, or that the players know the DM simply won't allow non-core material. And if you're not making money, you're not going to support that game for long.

Meanwhile by creating 4e, they can get people to throw a lot of those old stereotypes out the door. The supplements are no longer taboo in large subsets of the game's audience, and so WoTC can sell books that aren't just the main three.

[Math_Mage]

The problem is that the 4e designers had no idea that people wouldn't like their changes. If you look at any of their advertising material, or any of the promotions they did before 4e was released, there was this constant barrage of optimism that the designers had figured out everything that was wrong with 3.5, that they had their fingers right on the collective pulse of what people wanted to be different, and that they could deliver a comprehensively better D&D.

That's their perennial PR attitude. I played M:tG for a while, read the articles and so on. Everything was always "this is going to be so much better than last block!" I'm sure they even said that about Kamigawa.

[Coidzor]

Seriously, do any third publishers publish under this, and if so, why?

No, because that's what the GSL was made to do.

[unosarta]

That's their perennial PR attitude. I played M:tG for a while, read the articles and so on. Everything was always "this is going to be so much better than last block!" I'm sure they even said that about Kamigawa.

Yeah, except Kamigawa sort of stood up there with Mirrodin as one of the "awesome-er" Blocks.

With that aside, yeah, I honestly don't understand why Wizards of the Coast is taking 4e the way they are, excepting that they want to make money. I am currently in the process of choosing whether to run a campaign (set in the campaign setting in my Signature) in 4e or 3.5, with my own personal preference towards 3.5, but one of my friends really wanting to play 4e. I don't even like the 4e mechanics, and I hate the way that Wizards of the Coast has been dealing with 3rd party establishments. 'Tis very frustrating.
Old English, yay! Or, at least, some small, tiny snippet of Old English. I do what I can.

[Reverent-One]

I'm curious, how much do you current 3.5 players use 3rd party material? It's not something I've seen come up much in discussion here much.

[DragoonWraith]

The Dreamscarred Press (Hyperconscious, etc) stuff is very popular with the Psionics fans here, but other than that I don't hear them mentioned often, barring those of us who have made our own (various homebrews that become more than that, I mean).