d20 4th ed SRD and OGL

[wayne]

So, I was just on rpgnet and found out that WotC had come up with a
plan for their licensing agreement.

Basically, if you can pony up $5000 and have a valid business license
you can get the development kit sometime early as this month. If not
you have to wait till June. The early birds will have a 5 month lead
over the rest in terms of getting their products out. The rest will
have to wait till January of next year.

The link is:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4news/20080108a

It will be interesting to see who will pony up that much mula...

[esmale]

Oh, Hell No.

First off, thanks to Wayne for the link--very informative.

Second off, I am officially no longer giving WotC the Benefit of the
Doubt. This is the sort of tactic I would have expected from Williams-
era TSR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSR,_Inc.#Williams_Ownership). I
had my doubts about the viability of the OGL during the d20 days...Now
I'm positively against it.

Put it this way: Assume Chimera was a closed system and the Welsh
Piper were the sole licensor. Also assume that you were a game
developer and you wanted to write Chimera adventures. How much would
you pay for a royalty-free license to publish your own Chimera RPG
product? $100? $250? Certainly no more than $500.

Granted, D&D is a much more popular, proven, and recognised RPG
property. But $5,000? The pinnacle of hubris. AND...here's the
kicker...$0 if you decide to publish your brilliant game a year later.
Slap in the face...kinda like what I wrote here: http://welshpiper.com/node/29.
I remain unabashed...

However, this is a nice seque, as early rumblings of this kind of
nonsense prompted changes in Chimera's license structure as early as
September 2007. That's a separate post, but you get the idea.

So disappointed in WotC...yet feeling so right. :-(

Cheers for the intel, Wayne!

-Erin

[wayne]

Looks like the 4th ed OGL is an STL in OGL's clothing. 3rd party
publishers will have to say that their product requires the 4th
edition player's handbook. Furthermore, there is a community standard
clause allowing WotC to stop a 3rd party publisher from selling their
product if they deem that it will hurt the D&D brand.

I would love to hear Ryan Dancey's thoughts on this since he created
the OGL for D&D.

I was going to recommend that you look over 4th ed before you made
Chimera 2.0 public but I guess the point is moot now. I figured if
you were going to release 2.0 late this year, you might as well look
over 4th ed first.

[Erin Smale]

On 1/8/08, wayne <thor...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Looks like the 4th ed OGL is an STL in OGL's clothing.  3rd party
publishers will have to say that their product requires the 4th
edition player's handbook.  Furthermore, there is a community standard
clause allowing WotC to stop a 3rd party publisher from selling their
product if they deem that it will hurt the D&D brand.

Makes sense, actually--this relates to my original misgivings about the OGL: lack of quality control.

I would love to hear Ryan Dancey's thoughts on this since he created
the OGL for D&D.

Agreed. What always eluded me about the OGL/SRD combo was that it lacked a "core." In my thinking, a set of playable, adaptable, universal, modular mechanics would be an excellent start to an open system. Just retain rights to the core and let 3rd party publishers add on to their hearts' content. Sure, D&D had its SRD, but it was hamstrung from the start: no character creation rules, frex. The SRD totally missed the point, IMO.

Perhaps a noble concept with poor implementation...

I was going to recommend that you look over 4th ed before you made
Chimera 2.0 public but I guess the point is moot now.  I figured if
you were going to release 2.0 late this year, you might as well look
over 4th ed first.

Yeah, I think I'm done with WotC. Chimera 1.x was a good example of what one could do with the SRD, and it's still quite playable. Yet, it could be better, and to be honest, I never liked the OGL. Best be done with it and close the system...

...Or, open the system under its own license...maybe a derivative of Creative Commons ( http://creativecommons.org/). Have to tweak it accordingly, but I like the idea of community contributions. Yeah, I could keep Chimera closed and collect the heaps of licensing fees that 3rd parties will throw at me to publish their own Chimera supplements, right?

Realistically, I'm not looking to earn a living off this--why not open it up to the community under a mo' better and friendlier umbrella?

Cheers,

-- Erin
The Chimera RPG:
One Game. Infinite Worlds...
http://www.welshpiper.com/

[COLIN BOSLER]

"Heaps of licensing fees", hmm?

 

I agree that the gaming community would benefit from a gaming system that is for the people and by the people.

Erin Smale <erin....@gmail.com> wrote: