Wizards to Revise 4E GSL/SRD

[Glawackus]

Clickity click!

“We recognize the important role third party publishing support plays in the success of the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. We have listened to the community and our valued colleagues and have taken their concerns and recommendations to heart. Our commitment to the health of the industry and hobby gaming lifestyle is reflected in the revisions to the Game System License.”

So I guess something's coming down the pipeline...

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

Interesting to see how accommodating they will be.

[Covered In Bees]

Well, this is unexpected.

[Lochar]

Yes, instead of referencing page numbers, we will now let you reference specific paragraphs on those pages.

Please note, we still do not want you to quote specific items from said paragraphs.

[Blackdrop]

I seriously hope your joking Lochar.

[Kurald Galain]

What about the "we can force you to burn all your books for no reason" clause?

[Lord Herman]

I seriously hope your joking Lochar.

He is. Wizards hasn't released any information about the new licence yet.

[Emperor Tippy]

What about the "we can force you to burn all your books for no reason" clause?

I would be surprised if that stays in there. It's the biggest problem from a business point of view.

[cybosage]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4news/20080811

Sorry if this has already been posted, I didn't see it though...

EDIT*

BAH! I need to learn to read, mods, please delete.

[CASTLEMIKE]

Interesting link with the promise of more to come. I will infer that 4E sales has fallen short of expectations despite the official PR to the contrary.

[holywhippet]

Interesting link with the promise of more to come. I will infer that 4E sales has fallen short of expectations despite the official PR to the contrary.

I can't see how that could be possible. They were looking at doing a second printing just after the initial release came out.

[Colmarr]

I think this is interesting, but it's certainly impossible at the moment to use the announcement as some form of Chicken Little about 4e failing.

As a friend of mine pointed out, a lot of the third party material for 3e was rubbish. It will be interesting to see whether 4e follows that road or whether WotC can exercise some form of quality control/censorship.

[Covered In Bees]

I think this is interesting, but it's certainly impossible at the moment to use the announcement as some form of Chicken Little about 4e failing.

As a friend of mine pointed out, a lot of the third party material for 3e was rubbish. It will be interesting to see whether 4e follows that road or whether WotC can exercise some form of quality control/censorship.

A lot of the first party material for 3E was rubbish, too. And second party (that being homebrew, I guess).

[Colmarr]

A lot of the first party material for 3E was rubbish, too.

Actually, my take on it would be that there was a steady decline in the quality of material released by WotC as the 3e product cycle continued and they ran out of ideas to publish (with some exceptions).

EDIT: For example, the 'Complete' books strike me as more useful and higher "quality" than the 'Races of' books.

Conversely, right from the very beginning, third party publishing was a very hit-and-miss affair.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Actually, my take on it would be that there was a steady decline in the quality of material released by WotC as the 3e product cycle continued and they ran out of ideas to publish (with some exceptions).

EDIT: For example, the 'Complete' books strike me as more useful and higher "quality" than the 'Races of' books.

Conversely, right from the very beginning, third party publishing was a very hit-and-miss affair.

Compare Complete Champion to Races of the Wild. And how much good came out of Complete Warrior? Heck, PHB. WotC has been poor ever since the start of 3.0, and hasn't improved since. It's always been hit-or-miss.

[Reinboom]

Compare Complete Champion to Races of the Wild. And how much good came out of Complete Warrior? Heck, PHB. WotC has been poor ever since the start of 3.0, and hasn't improved since. It's always been hit-or-miss.

Tome of Battle? Hit.
Complete Champion? I consider complete jargon. Either overpowered or useless.

[Covered In Bees]

Actually, my take on it would be that there was a steady decline in the quality of material released by WotC as the 3e product cycle continued and they ran out of ideas to publish (with some exceptions).

EDIT: For example, the 'Complete' books strike me as more useful and higher "quality" than the 'Races of' books.

Conversely, right from the very beginning, third party publishing was a very hit-and-miss affair.

This isn't really true. Complete Divine is pretty bad and it was early-ish. Meanwhile, there are a lot of late greats like the PHB II, Tome of Battle, and Magic Item Compendium.

[AstralFire]

I actually think for the most part 3E got its best books right at the end of its life. XPH is the earliest book out of the -entire- 3E set that I enjoyed and up until it came out, I was playing D&D because my friends played D&D and if any of them had played White Wolf or GURPS or something I might have jumped ship.

XPH, CW (kinda obsoleted, but good when it came out), CAdv, PHB II, ToB, C Scoundrel, C Arcane, Races of Stone, Spell Compendium, Magic Item Compendium, Tome of Magic, Unearthed Arcana. Those are probably my pick of the 3E books, and I think the tilt of them is to late 3E.

[Colmarr]

This isn't really true. Complete Divine is pretty bad and it was early-ish. Meanwhile, there are a lot of late greats like the PHB II, Tome of Battle, and Magic Item Compendium.

The three "good" books you mention are close to 4e "prequels" and as such sit a little uncomfortably in a 3e spectrum. I should have been clearer that I did not mean to include those books in my statement.

But yes, I admitted that there were exceptions to my generalisation.

[Colmarr]

Races of Stone... Those are probably my pick of the 3E books, and I think the tilt of them is to late 3E.

I was extremely disappointed by Races of Stone. The PrCs seemed too niche to me and the new races (especially the whisper gnome and the goliath) seemed to yell "oh crap, we need to find something cool!".

Just goes to show that "quality" is a subjective measure, I guess.

[Covered In Bees]

Man, as far as I am concerned, Whisper Gnomes are the ONLY gnomes.

[skywalker]

The three "good" books you mention are close to 4e "prequels" and as such sit a little uncomfortably in a 3e spectrum. I should have been clearer that I did not mean to include those books in my statement.

But yes, I admitted that there were exceptions to my generalisation.

I'm of the opinion that MIC and PHB 2 were both firmly 3.5 product. Of course ToB was a 4e test, but I'm curious what you meant about the first two. Are you talking about MIC items having charges?

3.5 ran from July 2003, until (IMO) the release of MMV, which was July 2007(all the stuff that came after was crap or cheap ca$h-in. Correct me if you think otherwise. This makes 2006-2007 the "late period" of 3.5, again IMO.

Three great 3.5 inventions: Skill Tricks, Luck Feats, and Reserve Feats all came out of later product.

Something I just realized, looking at the chronological release list, does anyone else think Tome of Magic might have been a tester for new magic systems, just like Tome of Battle?

[The New Bruceski]

Something I just realized, looking at the chronological release list, does anyone else think Tome of Magic might have been a tester for new magic systems, just like Tome of Battle?

I've actually still got my 2nd ed ToM and PO:Spells and Magic, though I'm missing the other books. What I don't have is recollection of how magic changed between AD&D and 3rd Edition. Can you give me hints what to look for?

EDIT: Oh wait, there was a 3e Tome of Magic too...

[Colmarr]

I'm of the opinion that MIC and PHB 2 were both firmly 3.5 product. Of course ToB was a 4e test, but I'm curious what you meant about the first two. Are you talking about MIC items having charges?

Officially they are both 3.5 books, but they are both pretty revolutionary in some respects and are clear precursors to the new direction 4e would take the game (specifically the re-costing of items according to usefulness and the preponderancy of items with "uses" but not "finite charges" in MIC and the reserve feats and character "builds" and a defender class in PHB 2). As such, when discussing quality of "3e" products, they sit a little uncertainly in the debate.

Three great 3.5 inventions: Skill Tricks, Luck Feats, and Reserve Feats all came out of later product.

I've addressed reserve feats above, but in relation to the others I only note that I was referring to "books in general" rather than "specific ideas in books". In other words "Complete Warrior" vs "Races of Stone" rather than "Relics vs Skill tricks". There's no doubt that there were some great ideas in some of the later books and some stinkers in earlier ones, but by and large in my (likely ignorant and ill-informed) opinion most of those ideas only surfaced once WotC started to experiment with ways to dump 3e. As such, they're not really 3e products.

Something I just realized, looking at the chronological release list, does anyone else think Tome of Magic might have been a tester for new magic systems, just like Tome of Battle?

Short answer? Yes.

[tyckspoon]

Something I just realized, looking at the chronological release list, does anyone else think Tome of Magic might have been a tester for new magic systems, just like Tome of Battle?

I've no doubt about it. I'm pretty sure that between the two books the Tome of Magic and Tome of Battle were meant to present a kind of alternate set of core base classes that responded to the identified problems in the system. Martial classes are mechanically weak and somewhat dull to play: Tome of Battle gives them a more varied and powerful set of options to choose from. Magical classes have too much power and variety in their spells, but at the same time don't actually feel magical (thanks to too easy casting or whatever your favored complaint may be): Tome of Magic introduces more limited casters who also have some of the better default fluff I've seen in 3.5. They just significantly overshot the mark while trying to rebalance Magic, so while Battle has a pretty good adoption rate the other half of the project is largely ignored by the gaming public.

[Crow]

Short answer? Yes.

Unfortunately, most everyone who received Tome of Magic did so under the shadow of the already-exising magic system. It really would have stood a better chance had they been released in more of a "vacuum". Then there was the lack of support (other than what was in that book) which really did it in (Bear in mind the massive amount of material available for the standard magic system at this point). I thought some of the material in that book was pretty good conceptually...though some of it needed some tuning.

I think one of the reasons ToB did so well was that there really wasn't much "competition" within the system. ToB's biggest competitor was "I close in and full-attack".

[celestialkin]

Dammit. I feel like crying right now.

Now those companies who were going to continue 3.5 won't have a reason too anymore.

[Colmarr]

Stuff

Not sure why you quoted me, but I agree entirely with what you said.

When a gamer can already be Batman, why would they be interested in checking out Green Lantern?

Conversely, when ToB released, melee players were forced to be either Robin (Rogues and rangers) or Chewbacca (fighter, paladin and barbarian).

[celestialkin]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4news/20080811

I was hoping WotC's greed would allow for something similar to what happened with the PS3 vs the PS2 to happen with 3.5, but sadly they killed it off before it could happen.

Now that 3rd-party publishers don't need to keep publishing 3.5 material, I doubt any will.



p.s. Can anyone please tell me what the story behind the "fan site" mention is? Is it something akin to the 2.0 owner woman sending halt-and-decease letters and such for the slightest homemade thing created by fans? If so, is history repeating itself?

[DrowVampyre]

Don't count 3.5/OGL out yet. They may be coming up with a revised GSL, but we don't have any details on it yet, and I have every faith that WotC will manage to screw it up almost as badly as the original.

If you want to keep 3.5/OGL products in development though. I urge you to buy Pathfinder...it's just my opinion, but I believe that other publishers will be looking to Paizo to see how the market will stand for it. If Pathfinder really takes off, more OGL stuff will be developed. If no one wants to buy it (which I doubt, but more's always better), then they'll decide there's no market left and go somewhere else, be it 4e or an/other system/s entirely.