Yeah... screw you Wizards!

[Ged]

If nothing else it will make companies less likely to license their product to companies like Digital Adventures. If the companies see that people respect their intellectual property and they can make money by putting out official FG rulesets then we win.

Amen to that. Our (SmiteWorks') intention is to continue providing a platform with which content producers can be assured their intellectual properties are safe and respected. It does not matter which way Fantasy Grounds would lose that reputation, the damage would have been done already. Therefore, for instace, with Fantasy Grounds II there was (and we keep working on it as a pretty high priority issue) a lot of development time spent to make things more secure and more flexible from content production point of view.

Anyway, I think that companies like Digital Adventures and their licensors are crucially important for this form of roleplaying and I can think of few things I'd hate more than drive them away by making this an unpleasant or impossible environemnt to do business; therefore the said development time and the continuing investement on the content production part of the platform.

Let's all be smart on this one. Thanks,

[Valarian]

The biggest thing I liked about the changes in Fantasy Grounds II is the separation of the rules (now modules) from the ruleset. Having the ruleset separation makes it a lot easier to distribute character sheets for use in FGII without endangering the intellectual property of the game rules.

[Oberoten]

That said... if there is no OGL for D&D 4th ed... Could we PLEASE get to see FG shipped with SW instead?

[Ged]

You might have noticed that unlike Fantasy Grounds (v.1), Fantasy Grounds II has separated the d20 license altogether from the main product and only the d20 ruleset is now under the d20 license. Therefore, if there is no OGL or similar for D&D 4th edition, we'll definitely check out the possibilities - the copyright of Savage Worlds is with others than SmiteWorks...

It might be that the lack of 4ed OGL would lead to a bit different licensing of Fantasy Grounds, where people could choose which rulesets they want their Fantasy Grounds to be equipped with from the beginning. Technically, right now d20 is just a ruleset product that happens to come with every installation of Fantasy Grounds II.

[Oberoten]

I like that idea, I like it a whole lot.

[Thore_Ironrock]

That said... if there is no OGL for D&D 4th ed... Could we PLEASE get to see FG shipped with SW instead?

Since SW is not OGL that probably won't happen. Don't write out an OGL 4E for us just yet, but if SmiteWorks wants to consider another OGL product to release with the default install of FG that would be great.

[Oberoten]

I got to admitt I was more hoping for some kind of cooperation between DA and SW than a OGL version.

.. at the least as a alternativ. Maybe some kind of Bundle-deal in the FG-store.

[Ged]

It might be that the lack of 4ed OGL would lead to a bit different licensing of Fantasy Grounds, where people could choose which rulesets they want their Fantasy Grounds to be equipped with from the beginning.

This choosing would not necessarily be an OGL thing - and that wasn't my inteded implication - but indeed, as Oberoten here wished, bundling FG with a set of rulesets that DA (Thore so willing) or others would provide for sale through FG Store.

[Valarian]

Maybe you could think about the default bundle as a variant of the Generic ruleset (Toadwart willing) if you can't bundle a specific set of rules with the software.

Would WotC stop you continuing with the 3rd edition SRD once 4th edition D&D is out? I for one, wouldn't have a problem with the default staying as the cut-down 3rd edition SRD as I play a lot of d20 based games and find conversion easier than starting from scratch (really MUST try to get to grips with Lua).

[Thore_Ironrock]

I got to admitt I was more hoping for some kind of cooperation between DA and SW than a OGL version.

It isn't a question of cooperation. Currently all of the rulesets from Digital Adventures are licensed from publishers. Having them packaged into Fantasy Grounds is not something my licensing agreement currently covers. Not that this cannot be done, but there are things like distribution, new/revised price points for all product involved, and a few other points. We have talked about this in the past, and I'm not against it, it just isn't as easy as everyone thinks.

Once we have a decision from WOTC on 4E/OGL, we can proceed from there.