D&D 4th Ed vs. Open Gaming

I'm no expert in this subject, but mxyzplk has written a good summary of the issues affecting open gaming and the upcoming release of 4th Edition D&D. The open licensing associated with the 3rd Edition spawned a number of successful 3rd parties and add-ons that made the system far greater than it might have been otherwise. I've attached his writeup on the subject below, and you should really read it if you are interested in D&D, Gaming, or trying to apply 'Open' licenses to things besides code.

mxyzplk writes "Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast shocked the role-playing game industry today by announcing that anyone wanting to publish material for the new Fourth Edition of D&D, expected out in June of this year, must forgo open licensing entirely as part of their new Game System License.

With the launch of the third edition of the popular game eight years ago, Wizards had sponsored an open licensing scheme. This license, called the Open Gaming License, or OGL, was a kind of open source license designed for game publishers. The result was an explosion of third party game companies supporting D&D and establishing their own game lines. Many of these companies became quite large and successful, notably Paizo Publishing, Green Ronin Publishing, and others.

Now, however, Wizards has stated that any company hoping to publish products for their new edition must agree to discontinue any currently open licensed products and produce no further open products at all — Dungeons & Dragons related or not. A number of companies had leveraged the OGL for their independent games, for example the pulp game Spirit of the Century.

In response to questions about this policy, Scott Rouse, D&D Brand Manager for Wizards of the Coast, says that "We have invested multiple 7 figures in the development of 4e so can you tell me why we would want publishers to support a system that we have moved away from?"

It seems to me that this is the equivalent of Microsoft telling people "If you want to make and sell software for Windows Vista, you can't make and sell any Linux/open source software!" Since this is a small niche market without the visibility of a Microsoft, this play to muscle out competition by making them choose "between us and open licensing" will probably succeed. Some other game companies are rebelling; Paizo Publishing, for example, has declared their intent to move forward with the open-licensed previous version, essentially 'forking' the Dungeons & Dragons code base. But small gaming companies are small indeed, and Wizards of the Coast is owned by Hasbro (a recent development likely not unrelated to this change of heart)."

Is this even legal?

I'm not a lawyer so as far as I know this *is* legal, but... how can it be? How can your license forbid someone from using another license for a different product? Aren't antitrust laws that specifically forbid that?

Re:Is this even legal?

The thing they should be worried about is splintering their currently (mostly) consoladated customer base, not legality.

How is this different from:

"If you want to work here, you can't compete with us."

or

"If you want the free Pepsi soda fountains, you can't sell Coke products."

They obviously want to sell 4e products and encourage the transition. This may be an overly ambitious plan and somewhat of a strongarming tactic (hard to say for a product that's not even remotely monopolistic), but it's certainly legal.

Scott Rouse (The Rouse) commented on their motivation recently:

We have invested multiple 7 figures in the development of 4e so can you tell me why we would want publishers to support a system that we have moved away from?

This is not spite, malice or some evil scorched earth policy. Yes, we want people to make 4e books and stop making 3.x. Does that surprise you?

Re:Is this even legal?

I'm not thrilled by all of the changes, but some make sense. Among the changes that are partly or totally confirmed that make sense:

1. Monsters no longer must have class levels.
2. Racial abilities that improve with level are basedon feats, instead of Level Adjustments which were a bookkeeping mess.
3. Hit points are fixed per class and level, plus ability modifier, instead of the luck of the dice. (There are already luck in dice for combat. Adding luck in die rolls for hit points can really screw PCs. )
4. Spells are unlimited use, per encounter, or per day - a big improvement over memorization/preparation/whatever.
5. No confirmation rolls on critical hits (a roll of 20) or different tables for critical hit damage multipliers. Instead a critical hit just does maximum damage.
6. Spell levels correspond with caster level, so a 12th level Wizard can cast a 12th level spell, instead of having 12th level Wizards casting 6th level spells.
7. No feats or experience point expenditure is required to make magical items.
8. No spells require experience point expediture to cast. The Wish spell is also gone.
9. No level drain from undead or spells.
10. Fewer magical items can be worn, to reduce that complexity.
11. Fewer buff (temporary improvement) spells, and fewer buff spells that overlap, so your group doesn't spend 10 minutes in spell preparation before each combat.
12. Save or die spells are replaced with spells that do large amounts of hit point damage, so trick instant kills become less common.
13. Full attacks are removed.
14. The rules for attacks of opportunity are (supposedly) simplified and clarified.
15. Monsters can be scaled down for lower level encounters.
16. Other class abilities get moved to the same once per day, once per encounter, or unlimited use mechanic as spells.
17. Characters get healing surges, which let them recover from damage outside of combat more quickly without requiring a caster with healing magic. This mitigates the need to have a priest healer in every gaming party.
18. The skill system is dramatically simplified. PCs have trained skills and other skills, and no individual skill ranks in (potentially) dozens of different skills. The skill list is also condensed.
19. Defenses and saving throws follow a simpler progression than the various charts in previous editions.

That's just a decent helping of the changes we know about, and I'd say a lot of it makes good sense. I'm far from uniformly excited about all of the changes, but there's definitely some good with the bad.

Re:Is this even legal?

I should note that my Chess-Checkers analogy was just the first way I could think to jam a rule from one ruleset into another; I'm not claiming 4E is chess to 3E being checkers as any sort of analogy about the quality or sophistication of the games.

If you wanted to say 4E was really a whole new game and calling it D&D was just a marketing ploy, I'd say it was both an excellent marketing ploy and an obvious one and WotC obviously wouldn't pass it up. I certainly wouldn't assume that WotC would always put what made sense ahead of marketing, to put it mildly.

Or one could say that 4E maintains the essential character of D&D, and therefore deserves the name, even though practically all of the details are different. You're still charachters in a fantasy setting doing a fair amount of fighting, and conducting that fighting via rounds during which you roll polyhedral dice and track hitpoints, etc, etc.

In any case, I have seen the rules and will tell you: it is not an incremental change, it's a rewrite. Whether it's worthy of the name or a cheap marketing trick you'll have to decide for yourself; I'm just encouraging you to judge it in totality, not as individual rules fragments that can be expected to make any sense jammed into the context of a different ruleset.

This sounds familiar

It seems to me that this is the equivalent of Microsoft telling people "If you want to make and sell software for Windows Vista, you can't make and sell any Linux/open source software!"

It's more like "If you want to make and sell products for Vista, you can't make and sell products for XP." Both products are made the the same company, the older one has been around for quite some time and has developed a very good following, but now the owning company wants to push sales of their new product line.

It's worse than that

It's more like "If you want to make and sell products for Vista, you can't make and sell products for XP or any of your other completely independent products that you released under the same license."

Re:

"It's more like 'If you want to make and sell products for Vista, you can't make and sell products for XP.' Both products are made the the same company..."

No, that's incorrect. The OGL *license* was originally made by WOTC. But there are now many products

Viva la Revolution?

Everything I hear about 4e (subscription access to web content, big monster-type race, "WoWification") seems bad. This seems worse. I hope the independent publishers respond by sticking to 3.5e.

Re:Viva la Revolution?

It's strange... pretty much all the negative things I've been hearing are people on the forums who've never played it and only know what's been told to them, but who form negative opinions based on what they assume people mean (and we've seen a lot of uproar about things that were never actually said).

Conversely, every review I've read by people who've actually played it, and everything I've heard from the people I know who are playtesting it right now, has been overwhelmingly positive, to the point where I have no question in my mind about wanting to switch over to 4e as soon as is possible.

Go figure.

Re:Viva la Revolution?

Conversely, every review I've read by people who've actually played it, and everything I've heard from the people I know who are playtesting it right now, has been overwhelmingly positive, to the point where I have no question in my mind about wanting to switch over to 4e as soon as is possible.

People who have actually played it fall into three camps.

1: The people who wrote it.

2: People who went to a convention just to play it.

3: Folks who have NDAs, that limit what they can say.

What part of this audience makes you think it's a fair metric for how good the game actually is?

Re:Viva la Revolution?

That simple... because the geek community has a very major issue with fanboyismm, and those that go to geek conventions are demonstrating a particularly strong fanboy streak in general. It doesn't really take coercion to get it, but I still wouldn't trust their opinions in this matter.

wiki rpg

Role-playing games seem to be ripe for having all the rules and settings put up in a wiki, under a truly open content license.

Here is a resource for various projects
http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Major_Projects [rpg.net]
http://www.kirith.com/shapeshifter/Main_Page [kirith.com]

Also, from what I have read about the net, you can not copyright rules. With that in mind, some bright fellows have put all the old school rules into a pdf and called is OSRIC.
http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/osric/ [knights-n-knaves.com]

Summary blatantly misstates the facts.

Sure sounds terrible, doesn't it. Of course, Wizards of the Coast did NOT make the announcement Mxyzplk claims they did.

Instead, a publisher posted on one of the www.enworld.org forums that he had had a conversation with someone at WotC and that this was his understanding of what the new license does. The individuals at WotC who responded did make comments that suggest that such a policy may be part of their new GSL, however there have also been indications that they are backing away from that position. Of course, since no one has actually seen the new license, no one knows precisely what is permitted and prohibited.

An announcement is expected today, which should clarify the issue.

--AC

No fair!

Way to totally deflate an opportunity for unfounded, emotionally driven whining by a buncha lifeless nerds with facts. Now what are we going to do?

Jerk.

4e is a piece of crap...

I've a friend who was in on the testing of the new edition. So I've seen some of the rules. And as someone pointed out above, it's a complete destruction of the core values of D&D and most role playing games in that it moves it almost entirely to a "WoW" format. Where each so-called class is now one of a role filler as in tank/healer/cannon. No more, well I'm a fighter but specialize in damage... there is now aggro and everyone can heal themselves... it's really not D&D in any shape or form. I for one, am not moving to 4e and neither is my roommate. Considering we both play extensively and have more than 2 book cases and a closet set aside for just D&D books... that's saying quite a bit.

What do people mean by "WoW-ish?"

I've heard this argument a lot about 4E. But no one really gives examples as to what they mean. Here you at least say that everyone is assigned to a role of tank/healer/cannon, but couldn't that be said for 3.x and 2E as well? They just didn't explicitly s

Liar.

I've a friend who was in on the testing of the new edition. So I've seen some of the rules.
[...]
there is now aggro

Liar. Bare-faced liar.

If you had been playing, you know that there are no aggro rules in 4e. They briefly considered them early in the development of the product but put aside an aggro system in favor of the new marking system which forces a monster to either attack a Defender or take a penalty. AFAIK, the aggro system never saw the light of day outside of WotC offices.

The ultimate choice between the two options is still up to the DM. Players do not get to take control of monsters by inciting them.

The whole "D&D is now WoW" argument is common from people who *haven't* seen enough of the game. You've probably just read a few things on-line and decided to try to boost your credibility by claiming to be an insider. Too bad you tipped your hand by making an obvious and outrageous lie. Also, if true, you would've just publicly stated that your friend violated their NDA.

Re:4e is a piece of crap...

Where each so-called class is now one of a role filler as in tank/healer/cannon. No more, well I'm a fighter but specialize in damage...

Here's my example: say you want to play a swashbuckler or a duelist, does a fighter fit? They wear heavy armor in 4e because they are tanks. So our fighter swashbuckler swinging from the chandelier is wearing plate mail...Not a good image for a swashbuckler...

Ok how about the Rogue? Well they won't fall on their ass because of the heavy armor and they get trapfinding.....so while the swashbuckler or duelist is dancing around attacking, they can look for traps in the brassieres of the wenches.

Basically if you wanted to play a class different than how WotC thinks you should min/max it, you are screwed in essence, getting junk you don't need (heavy armor or trapfinding as examples above)...

In 3rd edition you would have run into similar problems with the fighter...but not so with the rogue.

4e is just making the matters worse with the Roles, which basically tweak characters to min/max one way.

Re:

You're exactly right. I'm afraid that I can't see sckeener's point at all; in 3E a fighter who didn't wear armour was crazy, unless you started getting into Prestige Classes. And 3E rogues *did* get trap related class features automatically, although you c

"Aggro" in 4E

From my limited experience with 4E, the aggro people talk about is not the 'stickyness' from MMOs, but the fighter/paladin making it costly to attack someone else. For example, the fighter can focus on an enemy so that it (the enemy) will have a -2 to hit any other party member. Now, if the AC of the fighter is 4 higher than that of the wizard, this will not have an effect on the enemy (it's still easier to hit the wizard).

Jumping to conclusion based on one interpretation

I think this is a more complete story. D&D 3ed had two licenses. A open source one called OGL, and a trademark related one called d20STL that gave access to IP/PI but was more restrictive. The new GSL replaces the d20STL but is rumored to be a bit more open, and they aren't doing an OGL.

The announcement mentioned "mutual exclusivity", which some are reading as "one product can not be licensed under both OGL and GSL", but one publisher said on ENworld that they think it's a per-company not per-product. We haven't heard any confirmation either way.

It could be that this is bad, but right now it's just FUD until we have clarification.

Cheers,
=Blue(23)

Not 100% Clear

In general, that's a very good summary of what's blown up over the weekend (WOTC made an announcement that a GSL would be coming last Thursday). However, a couple things to keep in mind:

- WOTC spokespeople have made conflicting and contradictory statements and backtracking on their plans since last November. First there was to be a revised OGL, then a GSL with publisher buy-in of $5,000, then no GSL, now GSL with no buy-in, etc.

- WOTC hasn't officially confirmed the "poison pill" clause yet (publishing for 4E prohibits you from any more Open Game License publishing). This was related second-hand by Clark Peterson, the well-regarded head of Necromancer Games (and a lawyer), as being delivered to him by WOTC staff members. Two WOTC spokespeople have been posting in the same thread over the weekend, but have ambiguously neither directly confirmed nor denied that statement.

- No one's seen the actual new license yet. WOTC has been saying all year long that it was within a week of being released. Clearly the GSL is intended to be far more restrictive than the OGL (one thing they've been consistent on is that it must directly support the Dungeons & Dragons brand, that it restricts product types, has a community standards clause, is revocable by WOTC, etc., none of which existed in the OGL). But once again after all the riot with the new announcement last week, the speaking Brand Manager for WOTC revealed Saturday that he *still* hadn't received the actual text of the license!

- Physical D&D 4E books are at the printers, to be released in June. A true conspiracist would think that the ongoing confusion might be WOTC FUD to delay third-party publisher business plans until 4E has already been purchased widely by the customer base. (But I think that's a low-probability bet.)

So what's coming out of WOTC is pretty messed up. My observation is that it's been clear since January that WOTC was going to take some shot at attacking the Open Game community. I'm guessing it's at least 80% likely that this company-wide "poison pill" restriction is in fact present in the new GSL. But everything that's come out of WOTC so far this year on the issue has turned out to be incorrect and later retracted. So we'll see about this latest one.

The standard solution

It sounds like paizo.com has gone for the standard open source solution. Fork your own version from the previously licensed product. Since this is going to get support from other pissed-of companies it has the potential to become the majot player, just like Joomla [joomla.org] vs Mambo [mambo-foundation.org].

Better games?

With 4th looking to be the Vista edition of RPGs, will this be enough to get RPG players to change games? Will alternate fantasy games such as the Riddle of Steel and Burning Wheel see an upsurge? I can hope. Those games go to show that you don't need to spend several million to make a highly polished game. The Riddle of Steel has the most realistic combat of any game, and has won awards based on that. It still has interesting fantasy and story aspects, and the Spiritual Attribute rules are great! Burning Wheel is one of the most Tolkien-esque in feel of any RPG, including many Middle Earth RPGs. D&D was interesting in its day, but RPGs have moved way beyond it. We have games that have a lot better rules than D&D provides... let's use them! As a bonus, you'll spend less money on the books as well.

Have any other people here moved on past D&D and found other P&P RPGs more to their liking? What are they? What are some of the things you enjoy about them that's superior to what D&D offers?

Summary is WRONG

Now, however, Wizards has stated that any company hoping to publish products for their new edition must agree to discontinue any currently open licensed products and produce no further open products at all â" Dungeons & Dragons related or not

Absolutely incorrect, and the linked post from Scott Rouse doesn't even support that conclusion. You will not be allowed to mix GSL mechanics with OGL mechanics in the same product. IOW, you can't have a book that is both 4E GSL and 3.5 OGL. This is a far cry from the sensationalism written up here.

To quote Scott Rouse [enworld.org] further:

Publishers can put out a product under the OGL - OR - they can put out a product under a 4E GSL.

3.x or 4E

Not both.

One or t'other.

By "mutual exclusivity" I mean, different versions of the same product cannot occur at the same time.