Some Interesting 4ed OGL News

[Illrigger]

Actually, I think the thing that has the biggest impact on FG is this bit from the WOTC forums:



So, no 4th Ed SRD as we know it today in 3.5 land.

Yep, it all makes perfect sense from a business standpoint. Why give away a free copy of your books when all you really need to do is have a document that defines what you can or can't use from them in your third party product? How many copies of the PHB and MM did WotC miss out on selling because of how they did the SRD? I'm betting a lot.

Basically, WotC is correcting the business mistakes they made when they did the first OGL. It may not go over that well with some, but you can't argue with the logic.

[Griogre]

The important thing I also thought important to FG was there was no sign they would pull or change the current OGL, in fact they said they wouldn't.

I admit I was shocked they released most rules verbatim in the SRD. I agree it didn't necessary make much business sense. At the time I thought it meant that Hasbro was throwing in the RPG towel to concentrate on making D&D minis and only highest profit making D&D products.

They may have corrected a business mistake with the upcoming OGL. However, others have raised a valid point that by prohibiting the cutting and pasting of core rules: Will this mean that you are going to have to paraphrase the “core” rules in each product a way that does not violate the OGL? If so, this will lead to every OGL product potentially being "different" from the core D&D rules. This seems counter intuitive to a initiative to *standardize* products.

[Illrigger]

Good point. We'll have to wait until June and see what they do exactly, but I'm betting what they do is define things you can use, like the short spell descriptions and stat blocks, but not allow full spell and rule descriptions. In other words, you'll be able to use the content, but you'll have to refer to it in the books rather than use the full text.

[Tailz Silver Paws]

$5000 early licensing fee

Heh... heh... heheheee.... Hahahahaaa!!

[Tailz Silver Paws]

They may have corrected a business mistake with the upcoming OGL. However, others have raised a valid point that by prohibiting the cutting and pasting of core rules: Will this mean that you are going to have to paraphrase the “core” rules in each product a way that does not violate the OGL? If so, this will lead to every OGL product potentially being "different" from the core D&D rules. This seems counter intuitive to a initiative to *standardize* products.

Can you imagin the horror with so many different "paraphrased" versions of the core rules!?

[joshuha]

Paraphrase may not be the right words. They may have certain language you have to use.

"Standard classes can be found in the D&D 4E rulebook, chapter 3."

Then your book has a section on "Classes for XYZ setting". I am thinking the new OGL will be all about HOW to reference the material and what parts of it are ok to use in your material (like stat blocks, class "templates", etc.)

[sloejack]

$5000 early licensing fee

Heh... heh... heheheee.... Hahahahaaa!!

Not sure why this is funny. Mind/Market share for products is a pretty big deal, any opportunity you have to get the jump on your competition, especially if you release similar products, things like $5k for licensing is a drop in the bucket and basically becomes a valuable/necessary investment.

[Illrigger]

And Kevin made a HUGE point - that $5000 inventment gets your 4e products to GenCon '08, where most of the big companies make a substantial amount of their profits for the year. Assuming 4e sells (and there's no reason to assume it won't), people will be mighty thirsty for support material at GenCon, especially those who come out of the "first play" events there.


Remember that this isn't targetted at you and me, it's aimed at the largest publishers only. Included in the call were: Adamant Entertainment, EN Publishing, Expeditious Retreat Press, Fantasy Flight Games, Goodman Games, Green Ronin Publishing, Mongoose Publishing, Necromancer Games, Paizo Publishing, Paradigm Concepts and Privateer Press. Goodman has already not only announced they're doing it, but that they will have the first DCC for 4e at GenCon, as well as updating the look of them.

[Tailz Silver Paws]

Not sure why this is funny. Mind/Market share for products is a pretty big deal, any opportunity you have to get the jump on your competition, especially if you release similar products, things like $5k for licensing is a drop in the bucket and basically becomes a valuable/necessary investment.

I just have this feeling the more I read about 4th edition D&D that everything is going to have a fee, it will be turned into a giant pay-per-everything game. Now I don't mind paying for a nice rule book, but the online stuff is sounding to be like Hasbro is trying to squese every squirt from this cash cow. Online Membership fees, Community developer fees, store your game online fee, online tools fee, updates fee, etc...

Maybe I am over reacting.

I can understand the fee for developers to get in early, but it does kind of screw the pooch for the little indy developers. Maybe I am thinking too much in the line of the old Open Source software days when everyone wanted to share and be free.

[Thore_Ironrock]

Thanks Jeremy. Remember too that this isn't just Gen Con, but is also the five months after the show where just those publishers get to put out 4E products. A large bulk of a publisher's income comes from after the convention when people are still juiced about everything they've seen at the show, or if they don't have the money or did not attend can pick up shortly after. If you have the money and the fanbase, it is worth it in return sales.

This assumes that 4E isn't a steaming pant-load though.