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Where Daemons and Dragons Collide
In a quick question-and-answer session on the Wizards of the Coast website, Ryan goes into the bits and pieces of his idea, paying homage to Richard Stallman and the Free Software movement as the basis for his crusade. He makes it rather clear that people will be able to write their own modules and game systems using the D20 System, and sell them on their own, without permission from Wizards of the Coast.
Like computers and caffeine, Dungeons and Dragons is a geek staple. The chances are good that geeks who aren't 'clued in' to the Free Software movement may get their first impression from reading a paragraph about it in a RPG manual. For the system to arrive on store shelves, though, it needs support from individual stores and distributors. The good thing is that they're excited about this, too. I recently spoke to Tony Kautz at Bridgetown Hobbies and Games, an RPG shop located in Portland, Oregon.
Slashdot: What was your first impression of the 'opening' of the D20 System?
Tony: I think it is a really good idea. The reason why Second Edition and Second Edition Revised did well is because they were based on the First Edition, which had a lot of resource material available. When they change the rules to the D20 system from the one they're using currently, a lot of their previous statistics won't be usable. Now that they've opened it up for other people to make supplements using their rule system, it'll make resource material a lot more available and a lot less expensive, because they'll have to compete with competitors with their own rule system.
Slashdot: Do you think that your store would carry D20-compatible modules and home-grown games using the system?
Tony:Yeah. We'll probably carry just about anybody that we can get a hold of. Some companies are too small to use distributorships, and so they have to do direct, like via mail order or online, but everybody else we will. We're pretty open to any manufacturer that comes along.
If you build it, they will come. One of the key reasons that Dungeons and Dragons is so popular is because you're limited only by your imagination. Experienced gamers thrive on being able to make their own choices and doing things their own way. Sounds like Linux system administration 101, doesn't it?
Needless to say, Open Source software developers think that the extension of the Open Source ideology into different industries is a fantastic idea. Downtime developer Justin Wheeler shares his thoughts with us: "The whole concept of keeping things open is the way most business should have been from the beginning. Imagine if Einstein kept the theory of relativity private? We'd not be able to work on it, or build on it. When thoughts are kept within a small group/society, others don't have a chance to work on them. If everyone has a chance to help at it, the company may find something that they missed. Companies often fear they're going to lose money if they give out their trade secrets. If Coke gave away their recipe, do you honestly think I'm going to brew up my own batch of Coke when I'm thirsty?"
Cooperation and a Laissez-Faire approach from Wizards of the Coast may make the D20 System the most popular approach to Open Gaming the world has ever seen. Until the boxes hit the store shelves, we'll just have to wait and see how successful Ryan Dancey is in promoting the ideals of Free Software and Open Source in the RPG arena.
>I can't see programmed RPing replacing, or even coming close to replacing tabletop paper-pen and dice.
But, would the new Vampire: The Masquerade PC game do? I hear it gives the "DM" a lot of tools to allow more "role-playing".
"First it is true, all pen and paper RPGs are inherently open source"
Huh? Even back in the early 80s TSR was pretty tight with their copyrights. They would send out stern warnings "Do Not Photocopy the tables from the DMG. If you need additional tables, you must buy another book or our special laminated tables product."
Sure, you could have 'house' modifications of the rules, but you could never publish them without TSR's consent (which would probably mean signing the idea over to them). Much of the stuff in early Dungeon mags that made it into the official rules started that way.
No point is being missed. The only two things they have to worry about is competitors, and people doing the stuff themselves. One was noted. The other, isn't feasible. Pepsi isn't going to use Coke's recipe. If they did, Coke would have a field day with them. If someone else uses their recipe for selling a cheaper product, it creates a bit of competition. Competition I'm sure Coke would smoke anyway.
WOC realizes this and hopes to capture that same feeling because it will do nothing more than to proliferate their system as a standard. This is marketing. There are already plenty of ways to design your own campaign or "modules" without having to design the rules.
Being an avid gamer and having played most the games out there I feel this announcement is cool and interesting but will really impact the RPG industry little. Every game generates a certain feel: GURPS has a lot of realism, Hero is four color, FUDGE is free flowing and story focused, D20 is epic/cinematic sans realism. People will continue to play what they do for the feel it allows them to create. The D20 system will be great for when realism is not a necessity but will probably make for an awful gritty streetlevel, "Dark Knight", vigilante/super hero game.
Some systems do one thing superb, others do many well, but no system yet does everything superb. The D20 system will be no exception.
Dungeons and dragons is like a bad acid trip. yuck.
Wrong. Oops... Sorry... "In this case, it appears that you may be operating on invalid data." There, that sounds nicer.
Wizards of the Coast purchased TSR in a buyout almost 2 years ago now. Probably the best thing that happened to TSR since Gary Gygax.
The only problem I see with this new open system is that now you have WAY more stuff to contend with. Part of my problem with 2nd editions was the you had to buy so many accessories to go with the game. I miss the days of 3-4 books and a couple of modules and you were ready to game. Now you need to have all these manuals, or the rules lawyers trip you up.
As an aside, who would pay for a leather bound edition with Players Guide, DM's Guide and Monster Manual all in one huge tome? I still think this would be an awesome prop for the DM...
So, um, how's that make it different from tabletop AD&D? Head of Vecna anyone?
BTW, "Planescape: Torment" is easily one of the best computer RPGs EVER. I don't really think the use of Tanar'ri and Baaetzu really hurts the game at all. Besides, it's good to see one of AD&D's suppliments that I like taking off, unlike Spelljammer and Dark Sun.
The AD&D system is far too complicated and has a "thrown-together" feel to it. Give me the combat system of MERP or the character advancement system of Earthdawn any day!
The GPL is the first use of a novel legal concept which has come to be known as the "copyleft." A "copyright" is a way of restricting the rights of others to use a given work. A "copyleft" is a way of forcing everyone to allow anyone to use a given work pretty much any way they want to, and not be able to restrict those rights.
but what if I want to keep a part of it a secret, after I changed it? This is letting me do what I wish, isn't it?
GNU isn't really for free speech, because it is still forcing people toward a direction(ie. giving out their source)
just a thought......
----not flaimbait or troll...just my $0.02
(rimshot)
http://www.flyingbuffalo.com
Go to any ebook warez site and all the D&D stuff is there
Virgin Cola and Coke taste quite different. I find hard to believe that you find them indistinguishable.
Tunnels and Trolls was always a better game. Long live Flying Buffalo! Etc.
Couple that with the fact that the D20 will not be suitable for all genres and the appeal of open sourced mechanics of that type is even less.
As I understand it it is only the software portion of FASA that was bought by Microsoft, the other portions of the company are still quite seperate.
www.fasa.com for the proof
Various comments I've heard attributed to TSR folks suggest that they intend to "give away" D20 in much the same way and for the same reasons as Microsoft "gave away" IE: to further leverage their dominant marketing position into a defacto industry standard controlled by them. If D20 is free and works good enough for most of their consumers, and "everyone" uses it, why bother using/supporting anything else? Hasbro may use all the right buzzwords, but their strategy is pure MS. -------------- Kelly St.Clair (not anonymous, just a lurker)
What I'm trying to find is a (preferably free, can be text-based MUD / whatever) online RPG that a not-very-computer-literate friend of mine could configure into his world and then a group of us could play it online. In other words, basically taking a table-top game and him (the DM) being able to configure it without a lot of computer knowledge into his world or something that he likes anyway.
Now we just need Verant to see the light of allowing people to write their own modules and such for Everquest. As well as our own servers, etc. Maybe this is where DIKIMUD could head, prong into a DIKU3D client/server package to really show Verant how to do 3D MUDs (Dont get me wrong, EQ is awesome, but the fact that they have sole control is annoying, id much prefer multiple servers/themes that anyone could come up with, thats half the idea behind MUDs to begin with. Being held hostage in Norrath can get pretty boring when you wish someone had a little sense of humor sometimes..)
Would this be the same Wizards of the Coast that patented trading card games and threatened all of their competitors out of business?
Did you actually, uh, read the article? They're not talking about software. Go back and re-read that. Oh, and too much hack-n-slash sucks for RPGs. If you want that, play a CRPG.
I'm potentially going to use the D20 System in a game I'm developing. After reading through all the documents and reading this string over, these seem to be my options: 1) Use D&D3 rules verbatim, call it "D20 System", use no other WotC trademarks other than the words "D20 System", send players to the WotC site to purchase their play manuals because we're not allowed to reproduce certain elements of their system and still call it "D20 System", and risk they could change their minds on it remaining free source. PROS: Use the "D20 System" trademark CONS: Not allowed to reproduce significant parts of the game, having to refer them to WotC to purchase their player manuals, because we're not allowed to incorporate them. As a side note, exactly what will "D20 System" mean to consumers? I've never heard of it before. Just having the stamp on the outside of the box "D20 System Compatible" will mean nothing to consumers. How can you even explain what it means without saying "D20 System = Dungeons & Dragons" (which you're not allowed to say)? Is WotC going to have a huge marketing campaign to explain what "D20 System" means? Why would they start promoting that brand name, Dungeons and Dragons is their promotion, not "D20 System". 2) Use D&D3 rules verbatim, don't call it "D20 System" or any other WotC trademarks, be allowed to reproduce any materials we want to go along with the game, all relying on WotC's subscription to the "open game source" agreement for D&D3 rules, and risk they could change their minds on it remaining free source. PROS: Use any of the rules any way you want to. CONS: Cannot use "D20 System" trademark. Analysis of point 2. The only negative is you cannot call yourselves "D20 System", which again, does not have market recognition anyway. Positive: being able to incorporate all of D&D's 3e mechanics of gameplay into your game. From my understanding, we're allowed to do this under the open license, so long as we allow others to add onto our work. If my analysis is wrong, please let me know. ;) Scott the Coward
Well the TSR upcomming Everwinter game is nearly that, it come close of remplacing table top... well the way i understand it is that there will be a DM that create a campain, then player come to play it, they can have voice interaction between them, NPC are controled by computer but the DM may take control of them to interact with player. Well that really look like Table top, you can be sure i'll be the first one to buy that game but of course, I`ll continue as well to RP around a table with some friend... and btw for ppl that did`t heard of that amazing game yet, it will be possible to run it on Linux :).
If you want an online environment which is about as close to a true Role Play environment as you can get online, try Armageddon. www.armageddon.org telnet armageddon.org 4050 It is text based, and role play is mandatory. It is a game loosely based on the old Dark Sun universe that TSR had came up with and Wizards of the Coast has pretty much dropped. If you enjoy roleplaying with other serious roleplayers, then this is a great place to be. If your only desire is to hack and slash smurfs, gnomes, and other silly things, beware, the Staff will not tolerate that. The game is completly original and is very large. Come join in
Yeah, God help them if they actually kept anything that created an atmosphere.
your have the right to hope... but your loosing your time :P... Why would they release it as open source thay want to make money of that game... Hey ppl keep looking Wizard of the coast like that... it's VERY VERY Far from OPEN SYSTEM... well they way i read that article is that it only enable competitor to make AD&D 3rd edition complementary book... personally i would more call that a Marketing move, to use these book you'll have to buy the Main rules book... let me compare that with Software... They will now let you write "software" for their "os"... big deal does`t look very Open for me, If i was you i would not try to Write Advanced Dungeon&Dragon 4th edition... It should have alwais be that way...
Gary North was one of the assholes who got on the anti-D&D bandwagon, back in the day. Helped that psycho woman tell (and publish) the story of how D&D was responsible for the suicide of her (miserable and emotionally unstable) son in the 80s.
Gary North was one of the guys in alt.talk.y2k and other such newsgroups, doomsaying the fall of civilization at the hands of darn-near-malicious programmers.
I didn't do solid research, but I got the impression that this was the same guy. Freaky.
I wont be able to undercut them...
... on dead trees
I remember a few years back before WotC bought TSR, TSR demanded all web sites remove any of their "copyrighted" material such as the term "hit points" or AD&D. They allegedly sent out cease and desist orders threatening legal action to some people.
There was a lot of rage from RPGers, but IIRC, most complied.
How times (and money) change.
Wrong. Daemon is archaic latin for an evil spirit.
you have forgot a to consider important element of GirlFriend... a GirlFriend object can be busy or unavailable, If it`s the case the object Player can actually play.
Yeah TSR was bought out by WotC, but don't expect to see the TSR logo anymore. If you look at the more recent releases by WotC the TSR logo is long gone and has been replaced by the Wizards logo. The TSR Imprint no longer exists. TSR in now nothing but a faded memory. . .
There are really attempts which do this better. There is an Open Content Role Playing Game Webring (www.orbs.com/openrpg/) for games under the open Content Public License, and another for Free RPGs (www.geocities.com/~jestyr/frpg).
Daemon != Demon.
Demon == Outerplanar Monster
Daemon == Disk And Execution MONitor
(pet peeve of mine)
I recently ran across a form of desktop software that allows a group to play on the net with a table top using maps, figures, chat, voice and dice roller all in one. I have not used it yet but it sounds like the same idea many want out of this open source system. And thank god WOTC decided to do what should have been done years ago by simplifying the math in D&D hahaha. if you want to email me it is scorpiodragonk@techie.com
Playing the game will be open source, including scripting of adventure modules, but the application code itself will not. This isn't "open source" in the sense that the software is open source. It is in the sense that game adventures will be more or less "open". The more cynical among us don't think it's open source at all, just a way to get free notoriety capitalizing on the phrase. Importantly, WotC/TSR will provide scripting software for free so that anyone may script their own adventure modules. Anyone buying a copy of the game software can run it as server and/or client. Either standalone, on a LAN, WAN, or Internet connections. I think the adventure scripting software will be freeware, doubt it will be open source. WotC/TSR plans to run a sort of CSV-like library in which players can stash the files defining their character(s) and possessions. Check the character out, play it anywhere someone is running a game, check it back in. The library will run a routine to check whether the character was awarded too much (or too little?) exp and loot compared to some nominal value for similar adventures. Player will be given the choice to subtract out some of their exp/loot, or store the character somewhere besides the official library.
This, and most of the other stratgies currently pursued by Wizards of the Coast, represent a good change in the way role-playing games are marketed and played.
For those who don't pay attention to the fantasy role-playing game industry (don't be shy!), it might help to explain that, prior to the WotC buyout, TSR was considered the Microsoft of the gaming world. They aggressively marketed many "upgrades" to the game system (rule supplements and such), and spent a lot of effort keeping modules or rules that were designed for TSR systems off FTP sites, usenet, etc. Usenet posters would call them T$R.
Now if only another Seattle-based company would open _some_ of the code for its similarly massive computer system....
Finally everyone's lifelong ambition can be fulfilled. Yes, this shall be open sourced dragons and mages and bards (shudder). But that's not the real appeal here.
Open sourced Trolls.
Yes friends, you too can alter code and recompile your own Trolls. Think the stench could be a bit more offensive? Tweak it and recompile yourself! If your troll is vile enough, you could even distribute it under a handy license (for example, the FSF's document license, or my personal driver's license, or a licence to ill).
Soon the net could be flooded with the choicest improved trolls. No longer would you have to accept the industry standard proprietary closed capitalist totalitarian heathen trolls. Remember, trolls want to be free! Not free as in beer, but free as in toasters!
I suggest that we all hold off on our current campaigns until an open sourced troll standard can be adopted. Personally, I'm waiting for more cheese filled trolls, but rather than trying to reverse engineer, I can make the changes I desire on the open sourced standard! Remember, it's trolls that make our fantasy worlds more real, and what better way to reflect the changes in the software industry by changes to our very trolls!
thankyoutheend
Unfortunately, I don't think this is all as "free" as they would like you to believe. See their proposed terms at http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/. So, you can use the d20 system - you just can't tell anyone you are? That's very strange. And you can't refer to or implement pieces like character generation - sorry, no computerized version for you. You can't say "this is compatible with D&D". Effectively what they've done is just said "Oh yes, you can roll a d20 if you like". Not that it needs to be said, since machanics aren't copyrightable - though reading between the lines I wouldn't be surprised if they try to patent the system and restrict it that way. This agreement doesn't really seem to have that much in common with a GPL...
Because WOTC bought TSR a long time ago, not that TSR currently makes any good games.
What ever happened to Terminate and Stay Resident? I thought they were the ones who owned AD&D.
Wizards Of The Coast and TSR merged a few years back. Now AD&D is their baby.
IIRC, the Car Wars RPG system was hideously complicated, having to(for example) add + subtract all sorts of things to see if you've hit another car. And the acceleration table was pretty annoying too.
But the OGL is based upon the PHB, IIRC. There was something about the character creation rules NOT being open. If so, then the code equivalent would be open sourcing everything but the kernal.
it would be pretty hard to make an open source game based on this system if the source isn't allowed to tell how to make characters!!
Posted by emmett on Wednesday March 22,
@11:54AM
from the str-wiz-dex-cha-con-int dept.
*gasp!* The abbreviation is WIS... as in wisdom... as in you need more of the D&D kind.
br4dh4x0r's nitpicking *** DEMOLISHES *** the beastly emmett!
love,
br4dh4x0r
This section seems to contradict their D20 licence. The OGL gives us a Royalty-free licence to re-use any trademark freely, except in the title.
I assume the intent of 2.5.3 was to allow "worldbooks" for trademarked terms (such as Forgotten Realms, AD&D, Traveller, Magic: The Gathering, etc). They may be under the illusion that this will cover their D20 Trademark games. I don't believe it does, however, since as long as the trademark is not part of the title, it is not excluded from 2.5.2, and can be freely used in any other part of the work.
So we can easily get around 2.5.3 by removing the trademarked item from the title, and making it part of the cover design, as long as that trademark is used anywhere else in the original work!
Politas
How can anyone prefer D&D based games to the beauty of GURPS and similar systems (Heroes, White Wolf, etc.) The concept of generating character statistics randomly (used by D&D and others), leads to huge gulfs in character abilities, and favours cheating over roleplaying.
I own and have played a lot of systems over the years, from Toon to Rolemaster, and I think that GURPS is the best sytem I've come across. The best thing about it is that a cut-down set of the basic rules is available from Steve Jackson Games as a free download in PDF.
Politas
actually, it's a good thing they're doing this.
i don't know if you remember the dying days of TSR before they were bought by WotC, but they claimed that *anything* created for use with AD&D was a derivative work, and as such, they had copyright on it. anything which used thier terminology (Dungeon Master, Hit Points, etc) was fair game.
the upshot is that they shut down most of the D&D archives on the web, and tried to have everything served off of one ftp site (i think it was ftp.mpgn.com....) and pretty much ended up alienating most of thier fans.
this (to me, anyway) just looks like a promise that, even though they've resolved the issue with AD&D 2nd Ed., that they can't do something this under 3rd ed.
here's a good account of the times.
note that this was TSR that did this - this happened before they were bought out by WotC, and has been completely resolved under WotC's management.
I woudn't touch AD&D. What a pile of junk.
There are so many free RPG systems that are superior to D&D.
Deleted
This is just like MS saying, "Look, we're open, we let anyone who wants to use our APIs!" (this assumes that MS APIs actually are completely open, but I digress)
;)
This only enforces the idea that WOTC is like MS and nothing like Linux. Dancey not only says that helping AD&D make money for WOTC is the sole purpose of the "hobby gaming industry", but he says that all other gaming systems cause "inefficiency" in the system of getting that money to WOTC and this caused the current bullishness of the gaming industry! He is basically saying that the best thing for gaming is for everyone to make AD&D products because *no one else has enough mindshare*. Tell me, is this Open Source talk? Would Apache ppl say that anyone who makes Web Applications should make them only for Apache because anything else hurts the Internet?
If I were Richard Stallman, I'd be incredibly pissed off at being associated with such a move. But I'm not Richard Stallman
Brynn, President of the BSCF (Brandeis University gaming club) and all-around role-player
"Any sufficiently advanced form of Magic is indistinguishable from Technology." - Gnomish Technomancer
Go to the the "TSR" website. Notice anything?
I read their FAQ, some comments:
First, when they took the "advanced" out, they meant it. The math burden is way down, and a single D20 based resolution system does for nearly all skills, combat, saving throws etc. Armor class now goes upward, thAC0 isn't used, and there's a single initaitive roll for the whole combat (which takes notice of dex scores.
Second, they intend to fix the non-gamesystem errors of TSR - they're obsoleting most of the half-a-billion addon manuals and freezing out spurious game worlds until the numbers are up again. The PHB, DMG and MM are all goign to be $19.95, about half of what they were. Smart move - they can profit from economies of scale and prevent competitors from freezing them out with a cheapskate retread of the open system.
Third they're making Greyhawk the default worldset again - the one in PHB - and they're going to keep out of that world as much as they can so as to let DMs develop it.
In general, I totally approve; all the errors in the AD&D system are fixed. I intend to upgrade.
...is that if you want to use the D20 name (as opposed to just use the system but be unable to say so) then you also agree never to compete with their Player's Handbook. I can see why they want to do it, but it's defeating their own open concept. It will basically mean that add-on modules will be common, but no other RPG systems will consolidate under the D20 game-engine.
Why would White Wolf or any other maker want to make a game system that said "oh and buy a copy of that elves-and-orks gaming system players handbook to actually find out how this totally different genre game system works". Nor can I see much cause for them to adopt the system without the trademark (since they'd be unable to say it's compatible, why alienate their "installed user base"?).
- FUDGE
- SORD
These two jump out because while they are free on the net, professionally published versions are availible as well as support materials (shameless plug/full disclosure: I am a convention demo gm for Greyghost, the publisher of Fudge material.RPG.NET has a list of 100 free games on their website and other free directories exist on the web. These range from the above games to jokes to GUPRS lite.
Finally, this idea was mentioned in Pyramid Online about two months ago with speculation that in five years all RPG material would be world based using one of:
- D20
- GURPS
- FUDGE
in the interests of money.Herb
Again, feel free to sentence me to death if my questions annoy you. I'll come back in 5 minutes anyway. -Sythi
- if(Player.Girlfriend)
+ if(Player.Girlfriend != NULL)
- Girlfriend.StormOut;
+ Girlfriend.StormOut(&Player);
Player.Shower;
}
I would also submit that you should add additional checks to make sure that when Girlfriend is called the give() member function is invoked with any of the following #defines: FLOWERS, DINNER, FANCY_DINNER, PROMISE. Doing so may prevent dissatisfaction from incrementing. After a certain threshold, girlfriend will set it's BoyFriend private variable to NULL and not update the boyfriend object referenced. It's a bug in the Girlfriend object, so we must be careful to keep the dissatisfaction variable at zero to prevent calling a deallocated girlfriend object - which will segfault the system and prevent further gameplay.
For those that really wish to remanise, the original 8 Traveller books have been re-released as one A4 volume. Should be available from all good games stores.
Actually Steve Jackson Games did release a version of GURPS that is freely available. They made GURPS Lite a free PDF download on their website (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/lite/). It is a slimmed down 32 page version of the Basic book. I have been using it as a handout for people not interested in buying the GURPS Basic book. I is fairly complete. And it has allowed me to convert my group to GURPS without forcing all the players to buy a new book. I think this is a smart move since some of the players will undoubtedly soon become interested in buying GURPS books.
And it's a neat system, so it would be a great pity if it "died."
YOU still have the rules, don't you? You still have the dice? You still have imagination? Then, how can the game die? So, there won't be commercially produced supplements, you can write your own.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
I remember the simple skills and combat system. For a game that was hardly known, it had a beautifull huge universe with almost infinite possibilities for play.
The actual weapons were well balanced (except the Fushion gun thingee god, I would love one of those just to mess up a long boring business meeting). I will look into the GURPS thing and Marc Miller's new version of the game that is supposed to harken back to the original.
"This is Scout Vessel Godspeed signing off..."
ACK
amen, brother.
We took the Non-Weapon proficiency stuff but threw away the rest. Instead of a zillion sub-classes it allowed us to simplify and use less sub-genres of different character types. You were not a Ranger for example you were a fighter with buckloads of wilderness skills. Even Unearthed Archana in my opinion added too much complexity or overally powerful or restrictive character classes.
Keep it simple. Does anyone remember the first versions of Traveler? That was one wonderful elegant gaming system!
ACK
TSR was the first non-porn company I personally remember going ape over "intellectual property violations"; and that was back before the September that never ended.
And TSR really shot themselves in the foot with their laywers over this and other issues. I was initially surprised when I heard the got bought out by upstart WoTC; however when I thought about it for a bit I realised I hadn't bought any of there stuff in quite a while and didn't know many people who had. The quality of their later offerings left a lot to be desired and they had sent me looking for alternatives with their draconian stance on the net. GURPS anyone?
The thing that ticked me off the most was TSR was stopping people from distributing stuff that the new corporate TSR would never touch themselves. After the Fiend Folio fiasco everyone knew they would never release "The Complete Sex Handbook" or anything similiar. And if it had been anything like the Clerics handbook no one would have bought it anyways.
So the stance by WoTC to officially acknowledge the legitatmicy of fan/other contributions seems like a good thing to me.
Of course I may be willing to cut them some slack because they make one of the IMHO best board games out there Robo Rally. And they aren't cracking down on any of the fan sites on the net. Which they could do as most(all?) of them are using scans of WoTC board elements to create the new boards.
Anyone in Calgary, AB want to get together for a game or two?
I can't see programmed RPing replacing, or even coming close to replacing tabletop paper-pen and dice.
Heh. Amen...
I have an in-house gaming network (soon to be online) and we featured Baldur's Gate from the day it came out.
Ya know what happened? There was no real interest in multiplayer play at all. A couple of people tried to get games going, but people would cheat and create total munchkin characters, or be "evil characters" and harass the other players. We had younger kids (I'm talking early teens here) who'd go around killing chickens and squirrels because the game decided they were worth 1 XP each.
There were three or four people who were working their way through the single-player setup, but that was it; meanwhile, my supply of 2nd edition D&D books sold rather steadily. I, along with everyone else, am looking forward to 3rd edition.
I'll have to print out this article on the "D20 system"; I have lot of aspiring adventure writers...
Jay (=
Bite the hand.
Let's not forget demons and devils. We can't call them that any more, parents might get upset
Actually, from what I understand, 3rd Edition will no longer be calling them Baatezu, Yuggoloths, and T'annari...When the new Monster Manual is released it's back to fighting Devils, Daemons, and Demons...
WooHoo!
"Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons...for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
BUZZZ!
You're wrong here buddy. Have you even read the license? The d20 System Reference Document will be release under the OGL and will be available for modification, redistribution, and extension by anyone! The only thing that you are NOT able to do is use the d20 System LOGO, which would indicate that you are compatible with D&D.
And I don't think that anyone here has touched on this, but the OGL does do something that the GPL doesn't. It does allow for the exclusion from the license of certain things within the work. This is an extremely important to those artists who contribute artwork, songs, and/or poems to an OGL work.
"Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons...for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Daemon != Demon. Demon == Outerplanar Monster
Daemon == Disk And Execution MONitor
Actually, with regards to the D&D universe...You are wrong.
Devils are the Lawful Evil residents of the Nine Hells
Demons are the Chaotic Evil residents of the Uncounted Layers of the Abyss
Daemons are the Neutral Evil residents of the planes in between. Deities like Nerull (from Greyhawk) are in these planes. Also refer to the Monster Manuals (or maybe Fiend Folio) for information on Daemons.
Yes, there are Daemons in D&D!
"Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons...for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
>This, if anything, makes the prospect of buying 3e even more tantalizing, since not only would I be purchasing an incredibly cool product, I'd be rewarding a company for its openness and fair competitive spirit.
Fair competitive spirit?
Can I sell an improved version of the Player's Handbook under their D20 license? No. Can I compete with their core rules while still leveraging the available third-party source material as a result? No.
The D20 license is akin to SCSL: you get to look at the source, and if you make complementary products, great. If you want to make and distribute core changes, though, HOW DARE YOU!
*sigh*
The reason nobody's mentioned the author is because it doesn't matter.
No matter how good the author is, he's still working within the limits of the D&D system. As a result, those people who like the D&D system are probably going to like the revised D&D system, becuase it can't stray that far from the original.
Those who *don't* like the D&D system are probably not going to like the revised system much, because it can't stray that far from the original.
What HazWizTSR (as somebody else wrote) fails to grasp is that people have differing needs that not *every* single system can address. I would truly hate to see a system as complex, intricate, and still quite useable and playable as FASA's "Earthdawn" mechanics - mechanics which really allowed one to get a feel for the world which they governed get replaced by something as generic as AD&D.
Weird.
:-)
:-) geniuses on staff, Wizards often gets the big picture and/or details wrong. It should be fun to watch.
:-). Think game balance, character class balance (?), weapons balance, some sanity checks on the system as a whole, plus more seamless upgrades to the base system. Less Frankenstein, more Terminator :-).
/.
2 years ago (January 1998) and while at Wizards of the Coast, I submitted a written business model to the powers that be at Wizards essentially to open source D&D. I found out that Jonathan Tweet and Skaff Elias had already suggested opening the system as well in some ways. Dancey wasn't even working for RPG's back then but did ask for a copy of my proposal. Nothing happened.
Dancey was soon put in charge of RPG's at Wizards (transferring from L5R (Legends of the 5 Rings) TCG).
Then when Sun announced their SCSL license, I realized that the business model behind the SCSL was (in part) essentially what I had recommended for the D&D line in my business model (i.e., open source the core (e.g., Java), and control the standard to maintain its quality (to a degree) and integrity). I immediately reiterated my proposal to all the powers that be at Wizards again in the context of proof of concept with what Sun was doing. Ryan suggested Java was bunk (I believe) at the time, so my third-party (Sun) logic didn't quite work (backfired you might say). [Wizards is a die-hard Microsoft house even though half the computers were (1/3 now?) Macintoshes.] Nothing happened.
I think Wizards is finally trying the suggested open licensing approach in a bastardized way with Dancey's new announcement. Fortunately, I quit Wizards last month or I'd be trying to reshape the efforts into a more clear-on-the-concept genuinely open source form!
It'll be interesting what if anything comes of this effort.
For the record, I do agree with a previous poster that Dancey's comments seem problematic regarding where the property boundaries are drawn. Hopefully, those lines will improve as the concept matures in Wizards (fingers crossed for RPG diehards).
I also agree with another previous poster that Wizards is trying to grab a bigger stake in RPGaming. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing (after all that was the essential attraction of my proposal, and what's good for Wizards can also be good for gamers), but I think the way Wizards tries to do that is important. As the saying goes, the devil's in the details. Unfortunately, despite having some (self-professed and otherwise
On another note, I *disagree* (though I guess I could be wrong and wouldn't really know) that any nefarious Hasbro type influence on Wizards is causing something evil to happen at Wizards. Wizards is just the way Wizards is. Some of it good (some people have great experiences) and some of it bad (cough, cough). Hasbro just happens to be the owner these days, but they mostly seem hands off for now (unless their latest cash cow shows problems, I'm guessing). Wizards may have problems, but they didn't start with Hasbro.
In response to yet another poster trivializing D&D 3E, I believe that D&D 3E should be more than just a warmed over D&D/AD&D 2E. I didn't work on it, read it, or try to influence it (even though I love RPGs, I eventually realized I became disenchanted with the high politics of Wizards). However, the age old TSR mechanics have been revamped and reshaped in a way palatable to some very discerning game designers, Richard Garfield, Jonathan Tweet, and a horde of other game analytic creative types. Bottom line: great creative care has gone into the new system (not necessarily perfect, but tons of upgrades).
For a largely backward compatible system, D&D 3E should be a serious and very welcome upgrade (don't "good" versions usually come on mod 3 iterations anyway
Finally, does any of this matter anyway? The term, RPG, used to mean paper-based D&D. TSR didn't get (and it's not clear to me that Wizards gets) RPG is now a computer term. RPGs for a new generation of children are computer games. It's not clear to me D&D has enough value/time to compete with modern forms of entertainment (at least not the way Wizards bottom line thinkers will want). Who knows? Thoughts anyone?
Anway, there's a hodge-podge of random thoughts for
Cheers,
= Joe =
Wizards 1997-2000
Levels? Alignments? Saves vs DEX, poisons, whatever? Armour classes? Nonsense, I say. It took too damned long to learn, and was still impenetrable even then.
Give me Call of Cthulhu any day - a better world in any case, but the mechanics actually made sense, since they were all based on %age dice rolls. The flexibility was marvellous - I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to introduce Rice-ian vampires into the mix.
Ah well, back to whistful reminiscence of campaigns past.
--
Dunx
Converting caffeine into code since 1982
As you say, it does seem clearer, but not really a lot cleaner - ACs go a less confusing direction, and the combat round is a considerably more sensible length, but there are still (even in the combat rules I browsed) an alarming number of tables. And the level business is still there, I see.
As for some of the really new stuff... I hadn't come across the bracketing rules WRT sneak attacks before (not having played AD&D since 1e), but a lot of the rule changes on things like mobility penalties for wearing heavy armour appear to me to be retrofitting on mechanics form RuneQuest (cf Fatigue).
I think I'd better move away from engaging in any more detailed critique since it's all so long ago, but I think I'll maintain my out-dated allegiance to Chaosium's systems for the moment.
--
Dunx
Converting caffeine into code since 1982
I've had a link to my Open Source Paper Roleplaying Engine Y*. (Not that I've been posting fast and furiously lately...) It's a free (speech and beer) face-to-face, paper-and-pencil roleplaying game. GPL'd and everything.
* Y? Because we like you.
--
Pretend there is some witty statement here.
If anyone cares, there's a relevant article on Salon in which the above was quoted.
e n_dungeon/index.html
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/03/29/op
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
The latest incarnation of Traveller (Marc Miller's version 4)has a very simple system as well. Particularly the combat system has been slashed quite a bit from TNE. In some ways it's a bit too simple, but with a few expansions (Fan made) it becomes very nice IMHO.
Howewer, since Marc Miller and c/o has a nasty habit of going bancrupt every now and then I'd have to say that it would be nice if they made it possible for fans to expand on the game. The 4.0 is very open and fairly easy to expand. And it's a neat system, so it would be a great pity if it "died".
I haven't looked at the GURPS version though.
That isn't accurate. Ryan would like the PHB to be open except for the trademarks.
And frankly, while I'm aware that you can't copyright mechanics, I'm also aware that Hasbro can afford bigger lawyers than me. So even though they're just providing me with a right I already have, I still see it as a net good, because suddenly I can produce D20 stuff without worrying about getting unjustly sued.
Yeah, exactly.
I'll add to this the following datapoint: I'm a freelance RPG writer, and I intend to start my own company someday. I will be taking a close look at the D20 system, with the intent of possibly using it as a base system for one or more of my games, without the D20 logo. I don't care so much about getting D&D players as I care about not having to write my own mechanics.
Something I don't think anyone's mentioned yet is the author of the D20 ruleset -- Jonathan Tweet. He's considered one of the best designers in the business; he wrote the classic Ars Magica, the insane Over the Edge, and the diceless RPG Everway. (Over the Edge is the game of choice for people who want to do Interzone. Seriously.)
Getting access to rules he wrote is immensely valuable.
They'd be insane to go forward with this plan as written. Suppose I, as an enterprising gamer, decide to release a system "based" on the PHB called the Cheaper Handbook under the Open Gaming License, identical in every respect to the PHB (page for page, line for line) only without using any of the D&D trademarks. A quick find/replace for "dungeonmaster", "D20", and a few others would suffice.
The CHB wouldn't call itself "D20 compatible," but it would be just as useful as the PHB, would cost me practically nothing to make, and could be sold for the cost of printing the book.
There goes their main revenue stream.
The fact of the matter is that one of these days, probably not very far in the future, something like digital paper will start to look readable. At that point, book dealers everywhere need to watch out. Wizards will need a totally different business model (probably one which focuses on live events) from the book sales racket they're running currently.
When I moderate, I only use "-1, Overrated". That way, I never get meta-moderated!
I've got a page about it somewhere...
sorry about the double post.
--
+&x
note that this is an older recipe
but I want the new Coke!
--
+&x
...and Microsoft owns FASA, creators of the Batteltech and Shadowrun series of RPGs. So, yes, nothing is sacred.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
...there are warez sites for people who can read? How do explain the spelling? What'll they think of next?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
(they want you to buy the PHB)
But what if he's not for sale? Oh wait, he is.
(And yes, I know all about the Player's Handbook.)
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
It *used* to stand for "Tactical Studies Rules", but they dropped that at some point, and it became simply "TSR".
Well, let me start off by taking my side in the traditional RPG war: i like d&d. I play d&d. I intend to continue playing d&d for the forseeable future. I don't think the system sucks. It's easily abused, the rules are either convoluted or nonexistent for some situations, and it's been cloned so many times people seem to think it's now un-origional. I could make the obvious parallels to linux, but i won't because this really isn't about linux or open-anything.
There. Now, on with the details.
This is, short-version, a bunch of whooie. Every halfway serious d&d player (or any other rpg player in any system i can think of) has been doing this forever. Need a new rule? You make it up based on what's there. Want some new d&d classes, use the cheesy class-creation chart, or just come up with something reasonable. All this says (so far as i can tell) is it's now legal to publish and distribute it. This isn't 'open source' at all, at least not in any way comparable to the origional defenition. But, geeks RP and TSR makes RPGs, and geeks have this weird magnetic attraction to the word 'Open', so there it is. I was just thinking yesterday that one of these days someone was going to publish and 'OpenSource' book with nothing but page upon page of random letters..
But anyway, back to the topic at hand. What this thingy means, so far as i can tell, is that any budding RPG maker can now publish their own game worlds, adventures, and modules for 3rd ed d&d (assuming they don't have the gaul to Call them that). In and of itself, i think this is a fairly good thing really.. TSR's adventure writing has gone fairly downhill and with the recent killoff of gaming worlds, so new blood would be nice. It doesn't mean that all the geeks on earth can now write their own rules modifications to their heart's content. Why not? Because they've been doing it all along. Nobody publishes their house rules, it'd be as cheesy as those stupid 'unofficial expansion pack' things for war/star craft.. a bunch of stuff that was probably really cool for the guy who made it and lots of fun for their friends, but not something i want to pay $20 for.
So is this a good thing? Yeah i guess, it means d&d will live on in the publishing world a while longer. It really doesn't make a difference though. Young kids will probably never play d&d.. they're all sucked into the world of pokemon (gag) and Everquest (gag). Flashy graphics, low comprehension requirement, little imagination needed. It's a sad thing, but it still doesn't really matter. I've no intention of playing d&d with a 7 year old, but when i'm 70 and drifting through my golden years in a retirement home on mars, i'm positive i'll be able to pull together a game session of my fellow retirees, hunt down a copy of the PHB and DMG online somewhere, and have a few last goes with old sword +1 kobold-slayer.
RPG's are in your head and your heart. If you want to play, you're going to play.. if you can't get rules for what you want to play, you'll write them yourself and play anyway. You don't get any more 'open source' than that. And as for the whole 'my rpg is better than your rpg' thing.. give it a rest. If you don't like d&d, for gods sakes, play something else. Nobody's forcing you to play it and there are limitless other systems to choose from, both in your head and on the shelf. I've played at least a dozen myself and written 3.. when i want to be a 5th level dwarven fighter, i play d&d. When i want to be a vampire, i play Vampire. When i want to be an interstellar hydrogen-3 smuggler, i play one of my rpg's. This is what the rest of the 'open source' community should be striving for, an environment where you can do what you want, when you want, how you want.. not trying to force it's own peculiar restrictions on a world freer than it will probably ever be.
So when my eyestrain flares up and i can't tell vi from dos anymore, toss me my wand of wonder and get out of my way or beware 2d10 gems (1 gp value).
Dreamweaver
"If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live" -- MLK, Jr.
>He is a dangerous, slimy, man. Do not trust anything he says; he's probably wrong, and either way, his goal is to eliminate competition from his market by making his system the only viable one - while still holding all the trademarks and making sure everyone has to buy his products.
:) . He is always brutaly honest about his motives, in this case to make the most money for his company as possible. That is, after all, his job. But he also loves games and wants them to grow as much as possible. You can say all you want about how lousy AD&D is and how bottom-line focused Wotc is, but don't think that it's because these people are evil. Dancey and Peter Adkinson and everyone else at Wotc are gamers who love games. Even if they have some really kooky ideas about them every now and again.
Ryan Dancey is a lot of things, but slimy is not one of them. Dangerous, maybe.
A few years ago Dancey was Brand Manager of FRPG, makers of the Legend of the Five Rings and Doomtown CCG's. He came up with a plan called Rolling Thunder that would make collecting CCG's cheaper and easier. First, Rarity would be flattened, making it easier to get all the cards you needed. Secondly, releases would be small monthly sets instead of big quaterly releases. This would mean that a complete set would run about $20-$40 a month instead of $150-$200 every 3 or 4 months. It could have made ccg's much easier to get into and expanded made it much easier to collect.
The problem? Players didn't like things being cheaper. They complained about the new cards not being worth as much as oldere ones. Today Scorpion Clan Coup (the first rolling thunder product) can be had for pennies while other expansions, even arguably weaker ones such as Anvil of Despair, are increasing in value all the times. Dealers had their own beef; those monthly releases took up too much shelf space. In posts to rec.games.frp.industry Dancey revealed that sales during this experiment plummeted and half of gthe games released during this time period never got off the ground. (The glut of releases during that time and other factors are even more off-topic than this, feel free to look up Rolling Thunder or Dancey's author profile at dejanews for more info.)
Ryan Dancey likes to come up with big ideas. He wants to make games into a huge, famous business. So famous that a discussion of D&D won't include moderated-up posts that assume this is a discussion about a computer product
Wir mussen wissen. Wir warden wissen. I am a wuss
I miss the old 1st edition. Gary Gygax, my friends. Unearthed Arcana. No political, pr crap about not including demons or devils or evil gods in the monster manuals. No monstrous compendium loose leaf with 40,000 supplements that cover almost every creature introduced in MM I and II. Oh, and what of Fiend folio? took forever to get some of those guys back. Let's not forget demons and devils. We can't call them that any more, parents might get upset. Hell, my parents played the damned game. Gary Gygax was a genius, whose vision was corrupted by cartoon breasts hanging out of snippets of chain mail, and a company who felt their symbol would look better in gold.
The brains of a chicken, coupled with the claws of two eagles, may well hatch the eggs of our destruction.
Didn't Steve Jackson already do this with GRUPS?
Three things are certain: Death, taxes, and lost data. Guess which has occurred.
It's been a while since I had time to play much, but the people I played with tended to simplify most of the rules as time went by, and concentrate on the more creative aspects. We even ended up moving away from interesting dice, using various numbers of D6 for just about everything random.
When the game is consists of someone building a world and several people role-playing in it with a relatively simple (OK, RISK combat without the 2/3 die limit. With enough dice, you can get any probability range you want.) dice system to handle combat and anything that needs to be random, how much is there to "open"? Our rules were dead simple, our worlds insanely elaborate (they often had economic systems involving the inflationary effects of all that gold being dumped into the market, and multiple pantheons including deities that may or may not exist) and our role-playing guided by the creativity of the players more than by rules and die rolls.
In short, virtualy all the value was provided by the players (including the game coordinator) and there just wasn't much marketable IP involved, unless a game coordinator wanted to try selling a world.
Situation wasn't great for me financialy, since I was trying to sell games, but is was fun.
If I were to try making a game for sale, I'd be real leery of taking WotC up on the "open" rules. That would put me in their arena, and they don't have a history of playing nice.
Open source software provides lots of benefit (tons of valuable code) and a culture and license that seems secure to me. D20 provides a set of rules that isn't particularly valuable to me, and means I have to trust a single company.
What happens if I invest a lot of time and money into a project and they decide they don't want to be open anymore? Since I declared my project to be D20, even if I retro-fit my own rule system and remove all reference to D20, they can still claim my project is a derivative work.
I think I'm better off staying out of their park altogether.
Our secret is gamma-irradiated cow manure
Mitsubishi ad
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Games die when you can't find enough people to play them...I know, I was a Runequest GM, and convincing people to play the (superior) Chaosium 1st ed rules was hell, when all they knew of was the convoluted and inferior Avalon Hill version. So chaosium runequest was essentialy 'dead', at least where I lived.
Ok, New Coke was a bad idea, but what it was was a big change in Coca-Cola's recipe to make their drink taste different. So, is it the recipe they care about or their precious brand name? I think the answer is the latter.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Tunnels & Trolls was the first RPG game I ever bought, and through the next 12 years of playing was always one of my favorites. We abused those rules in the early, Maunty Haul days through the almost diceless pure-character epics. Damn, now I'm going to have to find the book (battered, water stained and missing a front cover) again...
Is Flying Buffalo still around?
No one has mentioned what I think is the best RPG system
** Bushido and Aftermath **
Best Character and Situation Resolution model of any RPG ever.
Any one else play them?
PS: Traveler was used(cribbed) into a number of BBS Doors apps in the late 70's and early 80's and made for some good fun at 300Baud.
Anyway, I'm more pissed that the Alternity system (sorta GURPSish generic sci-fi gaming system) was all a test for the d20 mechanics, and now that WoTC has determined that it works, they're discontinuing support for the game. Grr.
"Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst."
West End Games (defunct, IIRC) had a nice system in _Paranoia_ if clean mechanics are what you're looking for. It's so clean, players aren't supposed to know the rules. :)
Of course, it's not your typical RPG...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
One thing I think is a similarity, though, is that RPGs are another situation where people don't _have_ to follow the rules and support the companies in question, but they do. Technically, you could just photocopy your friend's PHB, but who does that? Technically you could just make up 100% of your own rules and not buy any books at all, but most people don't. Just like OSS, people support the company because they like the product, not because some wacky EULA says they have to.
Anyway, anyone actually get what's new about the OGL?
Want to work at Transmeta? Hedgefund.net? AT&T?
Can your IM do this?
http://www.judgesguild.com/
That's their website...
- "Yeah man, I tell ya what, man...That dang ol' Internet, man...You just go one there and point and click...Talk about
So what? A company that produces paper-based RPGs is going to Open Source the rules system - ie they are going to capitalize on current buzzwords and try to revive a lousy RPG system. It might be the most popular because it was first, but that doesn't make it better. I started playing D&D back in 1978, and kept with it until better alternatives came out. I was even unhappy with those and every group I played with added its own variants to the rules.
I eventually decided that if I was so damn critical of every system I had tried that I should put my effort where my mouth is and write my own RPG system (I have been doing it for the last 3 years now, and its a never ending project. 128 pgs written though). If I release my version (when complete) as Open Source will it get this attention? No way. This is only news because a bigname company can marshal the attention by dropping a buzzword or two.
Making the D20 rules system open source is fairly meaningless since you cannot copyright the rules themselves in any case, all you can copyright is the manual text, diagrams, charts and artwork - and of course trademarked names.
The truth is, there have been open source - truly open source, text and all - RPGs out there for several years. The best known is probably one called FUDGE. There are many others.
Its not news to me.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
PLEASE MODERATE THIS UP. IT IS IMPORTANT
The article had it all wrong. There is already an essentially open-sourced game out there called FUZION, which is a Fuzion of the R Talsorian Games (Cyberpunk 2020) and Hero (Champions) games.
While you cannot distribute the 'kernel' of the RPG for commericial use, there are SEVERAL rules sets out there (called plugins in the game, it is a cool concept, and very computer-like) that come from teh core rules.
So it is very much like the GPL, except with the restriction that you can't sell the product, but you can add on or modify and post to your hearts content.
The thing is, from what I have seen of d20 and the new generation of TSR products, they are still junk. FUZION is a very streamlined, extensible system designed to be added to and PLAYED: the game play of it is fantastic.
Another Links page:
http://www.herogames.com/index2.html
I think that the license FUDGE is released under is very close in spirit to the GPL. Grey Ghost Games publishes FUDGE and FUDGE supplements, but the system itself is free to download and distribute. Check out Steffan O'Sullivan's website; he wrote FUDGE with the help and feedback of gamers on rec.games.design. You can find many websites with supplements, modified versions, etc. The author encourages this.
I hope to finish it someday and give it a better name. Until then, it is simply the Rebel Programmers Society Role-Playing System.
It sounds to me that this is basically what TSR is interested in doing, so they're obviously not the first to do so.
"Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."
White Wolf has always been a crap system. Simple, maybe, but it throws realism and common sense right out the door as bad as anything TSR has ever made.
"Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."
The solotaire dungeon I wrote for Flying Buffalo ("Dark Temple") probably had the highest work:pay ratio of any game project I did, but it's one of the things I'm proudest of.
Stefan
All true enough. I'd be surprised if product just like you descibe didn't show up in the first year or two. And if written in java it could be cross platform from the go. Which would make the most sense given it will be a 'internet' based util. You should read the draft licenses that are at his website. They provide more details as to what will be allowed.
A character generator would be a moot point. From what I've read TSR will be encluding a CD-ROM in the PHB and it will include a character generator along with some other stuff that hasn't been decided upon yet. It looks like Hasbro/WotC/TSR is going to be including more electronic tools with their products. And because of the size of their print runs the costs for the core books is actually going down.
I can't see programmed RPing replacing, or even coming close to replacing tabletop paper-pen and dice.
You don't get the charcter interaction, development, or socialization.
God forbid us geeks have socialization...
This might end up being a good character and adventure generation tool, but I don't see it gaining massive populatiry among serious gamers. Those of us who RP as a hobby, I've noted, like developing personalities into our characters.
http://quiz.ravenblack.net/blood.pl?3357354385
How soon they forget. TSR, AD&D and the Internet were also in the news a few years ago for different reasons -- at that time TSR was sic-ing its lawyers on anybody who dared post anything related to AD&D on the Internet.
It's amusing to see WOTC take it Open Source since TSR was the master of lock-in. These folks actually once produced an Indiana Jones game in which a character was described as a "Nazi(TM)." That's right, they put a TM next to the word Nazi (which pretty much summed up the company's attitude).
Personally even with Gygax back there, there's too much history to want to go near a TSR product.
There are a variety of RPGs available on line with generic-style rules and very liberal licensing regimens akin to this one that don't have the TSR taint associated with them.
Yeah, I was thinking of FUDGE too. You can get it for free, in pdf format, but I recommend actually going to a game store and plunking down the $12 or $15 for it. FUDGE is easily the most extensible RPG; I think it surpasses even GURPS. Literally the only thing FUDGE gives you is the conflict-resolution mechanism. Everything else is up to you. It needs to be seen to be believed. It is incredible.
Judges Guild was not "forced off the shelves by T$R". Just the opposite, in fact. They were the first major producer of ****authorized**** D&D/AD&D supplementary material. They produced very cool stuff, but ultimately fell apart because they kept their production standard to 1976 levels as games moved into the 80s. When games moved to full-color covers, decent typography, and high-quality art and writing, they were still producing courier-on-newsprint products, and died a slow, lingering, death. However, retro is in, and they've come back to pseudo-life! (judgesguild.com? Not sure, haven't checked, I do know they have a website)
Now for the true connoisuer of gaming I recommend Amber. No dice. Admittedly sometimes this is risky. And having walked into the Broken Drum and knocked Detritus through the roof with one punch, perhaps a bit uncontrolled, but fun.
--- This meme is memory intensive
Right, sounds like this is simply an excuse to try to sell more D&D. The problem is that as roleplaying goes D&D sucks. The system is bulky for anything except dungeon crawls, slow, unrealistic, etc., etc. This is coupled with the fact that it used a class-based character creation system. The reason I can't bear to play anymore is that its damn near impossible to come up with a D&D character thats not 2 dimensional. If they fix all the problems then maybe I'll think about buying it. To problem is that I can prolly do something better with GURPS or even create my own gaming system that will work better than D&D.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
Fudge isn't doing this sort of open gaming license. also, Fudge isn't saying 'this is the basic rule set, you add on to it'
they're saying 'this is the rule set, you can do whatever you want with it'
given how simple fudge is, it really doesn't mean much..you can just make up your own system instead.
Then again, I could be wrong.
This is raw marketing.
In other words, the more money other companies spend on their games, the more D&D sales are eventually made.
The notion of generic RP rulez been around a long time and the ability to publish peripheral material which has reference to a specific system has always existed, covered under fair use, just don't use the ® marks. Such use remains restricted, you'll notice.
Speaking as one who found AD&D an abomination, I remind you that the players are the source and they are only as closed-minded as they choose to be. Tsk. You young-uns.... I remember when my gaming gear would fit in a spiral notebook and a ziplock baggie. Um, two ziplock baggies.
illegitimii non ingravare
I'm not sure how successful TSR/WOTC/Hasbro is going to be, since the system for a game has a strong effect on how the game plays out. Compare the "as realistic as we can make it" style of Phoenix Command to the superhero maneuvers w/hordes of D6 in Champions to D&D classes, etc. Perhaps the most extreme example is the endless tables of Rolemaster vs. Amber's diceless system. In Rolemaster, a fight is processed through lots of D100 rolls while in Amber the players and GM use just words. The "generic system" games like GURPS, FUDGE, etc. all sell a certain number of copies, but again many GMs will consider the effects of the system on the game and make their own decisions on what to use, what to throw out and what to write on their own. jonathan
I always loved GamesWorkshop's Warhammer RPG system. Too bad they ditched it (I think they figured they got a better return on their money selling the figurines for tabletop battles, as well as updating the rules to their games every other year, along with all the "supplamentary materials" that go along with it). I think I heard recently that another company had bought the rights to warhammer off GW (can't remember who though). The thing I never liked about RPGs and a lot of tabletop battle games was the numbers of different dice that you needed to play them. Back in the day I devised a complete tabletop battle system where all die rolls could be resolved using D10 (or a number of). I think any "standard" RPG system should try and make things simple by useing one type of dice for all dice-rolls. I don't know anything about the D20 system but (judging from the name alone) I'm hoping they've made things simple for everyone and standardised on one type of dice.
Would something like this be covered under the literature/documentation GPL covered recently in another /. article? Or will WotC be creating its own license for this? And if so, any ideas on how restrictive/unhindered said licence would be? Given the number of companies jumping on the quote-unquote 'open source' bandwagon recently, but not using a truly free or unobstructed licence (cough Sun), I'm wondering if WotC might do something similar. Guess we'll have to wait for GenCon/GAMA
This has already been done to some extent with a system called Fuzion. Fuzion was developed be R. Talsorian (Cyberpunk) and Hero (Champions). It is a scalable system capable of being very simple or fairly complex. As a gestalt of Talsorian's Interlock mechanics and the Hero System, I find it to be vastly superior (mechanically) to anything TSR has ever published. It is also totally free (and available as a PDF) for personal use (and has been for years). I believe they ask for a licensing fee if other companies want to use it. In fact it has been used as the basis of games by a few other companies.
Long ago (circa 1995) WOTC proclaimed a desire to not become "the biggest game company". Six months later they increased the price of m:tg.
This open sourcing of 3rd edition D&D just screams "devious marketing scheme".
TSR was not beaten by CCGs or WOTC or anybody: they beat themselves. They spent most of the 80's and the first half of tyhe 90's producing a lot of junk. They failed to realize that gamers are people of greater than average intelligence...we saw the crap and ignored it. Hence, TSR goes into the red and gets bought by a competitor. The rest of the time they spent pissing off their customers by zealously enforcing their intellectual property.
Most if not all the gamers I know consider the current incarnation of AD&D a joke, something you play when you want to laugh at the game. I think there is no chance in the forseeable future that WOTC/TSR will publish anything that will gain the respect of gamers. The movie is going to royally suck, and they hope to use it as a marketing hook for the new game.
As for the plan, the reason other RPG companies exist is because someone said, "I can do something better than D&D". Hoping to make the D20 system act like the Linux kernel is outright silly. Think about how many similarities there aren't between the two. Stablility? Extensibility? I think not.
D&D third edition will be a bandaged rehash of a game with a pretty face. Sure, it's simplified, but that's not going to make it better.
<shameless plug>
If someone wants to assist in developing a next generation RPG (including an object oriented/lingustic magic system), go to http://www.thedragonsforge.com. In the next week I hope to put up a more browser-friendly version of the site.
</shameless plug>
Dracos
"Integer: a number that represents any valid floating-point value"
I don't believe Neverwinter will be open sourced, but from the sounds of it, it will be quite configurable. They are talking a lot about portals and local character vaults that would allow a certain network of individuals to all play in the same persistent world and a gm could input any amount of plot they wanted. Sounds pretty good to me. There isn't much available on the scripting language yet. Just a few snippits of code here and there from the programmers, but what I've seen is pretty impressive. NWScript seems like it will be fairly robust allowing us to modify gameplay. But to what extent, we won't know until the language reference is released, which probably won't be anytime in the very near future.
Gary Gygax is back with Wotc/TSR as of about a year ago. He is working on the 3rd edition. I think WotC has done a great job bringing AD&D back from the dead. Their products have become more focused and of higher quality. Dragon Mag. is better than it has been in years. I think the D20 system and bringing Gygax prove that they are really out to make AD&D the quality game that it once was. If you gave up on AD&D years ago and haven't looked at it in a while, I would give it a second look now (or maybe in the near future when 3rd edition comes).
Everyone seems to be jumping on the 'Open' movement as a method to popularize (read:market) their products. Not that there's anything wrong with the concept of the 'Open' movement. But I worry that it may be headed down the road for abuse. Why do I think that? Well, the patent system was a good idea, but now it's open for abuse.
the whole gurps lite thing is one of my favorite things about the game - if you have decently intelligent players you can give them all a copy of the basic rules of the game (and belive me the gurps lite rules is the best condensation of a set of rules i have ever seen) and let them learn the rules and do the majority of their basic character creation without having to let them take off with your books - something which i am pretty gun shy about seeing as my books have an alarming tendency to get damaged when lent out to other people And if you are not able to spend a single cent on gaming materials the gurps lite rules are the most playable free rules i have ever seen
"If there is a God, you are an authorized representative." - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
However, AFAIK, they've never tried going after anyone based on the patent (threatening to, yes). They have also trademarked most of their game mechanic terms. Nobody else can use the term "tap" in a card game to indicate turning the card sideways (crank, turn, twist, etc get used instead).
There are still a large number of non-WOTC CCGs out there (mostly from Precedence).
Wow, that takes me back! Traveller had a great, smooth design to the system AND the coolest book design - small volumes in basic black with 1 color-coded stripe. You could jam everything thing you needed into your bookbag and get medieval on the Zhodani over lunch hour... There are days that I'd like to have a FGMP-15, Imperial Marine battledress and a cutlass now.
BTW - Steve Jackson Games (the guy who designed Ogre, Car Wars and Illuminati) have a version of Traveller for the GURPS system out. IIRC, they kept the original cover design for the 1st book in the series.
'This is Free Trader Beowulf...'
"Bugger this, I want a better world." - Jenny Sparks
runequest
.oO0Oo.
thw one tru way
d&d is 4 orcsz
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Does anyone remember how TSR used to persecute people who had D&D information up on their websites, like 5 years ago. I think this generally led to a large dip in the quality of material produced.
By contrast, Steve Jackson has allowed all kinds of stuff to be distributed for free. They even distribute a "Lite" version of their key GURPS rules for free. It is actually possible to play a fine game of GURPS using just these "Lite" rules. There are all kinds of utilities, game worlds, NPCS, equipment lists, and rule mods distributed for the GURPS systems, and some are really high quality.
You can download everything you need to play GURPS from the internet, and yet Steve Jackson makes money (even when dodging Secret Service hassles). This is because they make solid gaming materials. I have never found such great material. Their historial sourcebooks tend to be amazing, and their book based on fiction series tend to be excellent as well.
They operate from a different premise; they make their money from their source books, not from the system. They give advice in their magazine on how to switch to other popular systems.
D&D uses a crappy, outdate system. I think Risk has a more realistic combat system. Avoid the hype, don't bother with it.
"Politics is for the moment, an equation lasts eternity" -A. Einstein
White Wolf has always been a crap system. Simple, maybe, but it throws realism and common sense right out the door as bad as anything TSR has ever made.
Well, a simple unrealistic system is probably better than a complex unrealistic system like D&D. But I agree that the Storyteller system is no great shakes mechanically... as an Ars Magica spinoff it does share some of Ars' elegance, but the decision to include a Shadowrun-style dice pool baffles me completely.
Open Sourcing of Weakest system in Roleplaying (Score:4) by sugarman on Wednesday March 22, @01:12PM EDT (#97) (User Info) This is a shame. TSR has long been the M$ of roleplaying, extending their roleplaying system into any and all genres, including some that where is obviously didn't fit. The reason there have been so many additions (patches) is that for anything beyond a quick dungeon crawl, AD&D breaks down quickly in being able to handle the complexities of the rules. AD&D has largely been a cludge, a hack, since its inception. It has since been surpassed by most other systems that are out there. WhiteWolf, FASA, SJG, and GamesWorkshop all had much more workable systems, that scaled much better. AD&D has just always had more money, more marketing, and a larger installed user base to allow it to maintian it's market dominance, despite the system being crap.
True. Even Dancey acknowledges this in the interview.
The reality of the weaknesses in TSR's strategy was revealed once they faced a true open paradigm from the CCG's. It was small, lightweight, and portable, usable on a variety of hardware, and was able to cross a number of language and cultural boundaries by dealing with differng sytems iconically. The wooshing sound that was heard was the rush of players moving to the open CCG style. Of course we saw an incredible influx of different distributions, and there were those that were advocates of one or the other, but in the end it all came down to the same thing: playing cards.
Ummm... huh?
Sorry if that's less than a cogent objection, but I simply have no idea what you're talking about here. CCGs are more "open" than RPGs? How? Because they use physically smaller equipment (questionable) and are non-verbal?
In fact, unlike the GPL, by segregating chapters of products into Open Gaming and non-Open Gaming sections (which the license gives them the right to do), any work that they do on top of your work can be put in a "trademark poisoned" section, and they can avoid giving back the enhancements to you or anyone else in the community.
I can't say that I'd be eager to release anything under that license.
TSR do more than D & D. They are still involved in Dragon Dice, which is an absolutely wonderful little game.
Hey guys, I don't konw if you noticed this... but Open Source RPGs are NOT new, they've been around for a long time. Anyone here ever hear of FUDGE? Now that is a really good, fun system. Besides, D20's licensing agreement isn't completely Open Source, AND the system isn't a very good one to begin with. Chason
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Contrary to popular belief, stupidity does have its limits. It is a good thing, then, that our race is
First off my full disclosure, I am not an employee of Wizards of the Coast (WotC) and have never been one. I am a member of the RPGA, a gaming organization sponsored by WotC. I am working on the Living World of Greyhawk campaign as a volunteer for the NW gaming region.
I would like to clear up a few misconceptions that seem to be running through this thread.
1) TSR is dead. Ryan Dancey and WotC buried that brand over a month ago. Every Dungeons & Dragons product that comes out will now bear the WotC brand. It is unclear if reprints of old TSR material will change logos.
2) AD&D no longer exists. As Ryan has been quoted, "What is there for AD&D to advance from?" 3rd Edition (3e) will be billed simply Dungeons & Dragons (DnD). Before you judge 3e check out these websites and make an informed opinion:
Official: http://www.wizards.com/3e/welcome.asp
Unofficial: http://www.rpgplanet.com/dnd3e/
Just remember that until full release of 3e in August all information is incomplete.
3) If you want to see why TSR failed as a company I suggest reading this post from Ryan of the DnD Mailing List:
http://www.rpgplanet.com/dnd3e/tsr-rsd-0318.htm
This is a nice bookend to Gygax's description of his treatment by the Bloom brothers and his ouster from TSR.
4) Open gaming is based upon the precepts of Open Source. It is still a work in progress. If you want a part in shaping it I recommend you checkout the Open Gaming Website and join the mail list.
http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/
As to the charge this is not Open Source. You are correct that it is not 100% Open Source. However, WotC/Hasbro is a 100% proprietary business today. The likelihood that Ryan Dancey could convince "The Powers That Be" at WotC/Hasbro that the Gift Economy/Pure Open Source would generate income for them is nil. Instead Ryan is working on a hybrid of pure Open Source ideals with the "We Need To Profit" paradigm of the old economy. It is not a full step but at least it moves in a more tolerable direction.
BTW, I don't begrudge WotC their right to make money from their brands and trademarks. They are not making DnD open source; they are making the rules mechanics open for all to use. That means you can make your own game and tinker with the rules. Now that rocks. If you don't like their system there is always Fuzion and a few others to try.
I am keeping a close eye on 3e and Open Gaming Developments. I am also not sitting back and waiting for it to fail. If I can contribute to a more playable game and a more open business model I will give it a shot. And if WotC dashes my hopes, woe unto them. However, if I participate and it does really happen... well then I was there to help make it happen.
Peace,
Bryan
aka Saracen
No, they think Pepsi, or someone else, would brew the same stuff, sell it at half the price and kill their profit margins.
But they wouldn't. If Pepsi tried it, then they'd find that Coke was still more popular, and if they undercut their price, they'd be undercutting their own price too.
If anyone else tried it they still couldn't make a dent in Coke's sales. Most colas taste pretty much the same anyway. People just go for Coke because they can trust the brand name.
What does Hasbro think of this idea? Since WotC is owned by them, couldn't they pull the plug on any project they may consider a threat to revinue?
just a thought...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
While the concept there going for with NWN is very exciting, my fear is the interface. BioWre's baldurs gate interface was lacking in several areas. Also, only being able to view the game from an angle(albiet NWN will have an adjustable height), seems to be doomed from the begining. Everybody I have talked to on Everquest uses the First person at least 95% of the time.granted I only polled about 50 ppl.
Baldurs gate is not exactly a blazing success for an online game, and I would hate to see the NMN concept be blamed for a poor interface design.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Looks like i'm gonna have to get back into D&D now, not that I have any time. Does anyone know if Neverwinter Nights will be open sourced too since it will run the 3ed rules? One can hope. At leaset it runs on linux.
I'm afraid to say that WoTc took over TSR a few years ago.
This seems similar to Linux and GPL to me. I can make all the changes I want. I can send them in to TSR to consider adding to the next "release" of the "kernal". They can accept my patch or not. I can sell my new "kernal" if I want, I just can't call it AD&D (That would confuse people). I can write modules for the "kernal" all I want and sell or distribute them as I want, but I can't change the "kernal" of the game and still call it AD&D.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Just a guess here:
WoTC Still controls the stuff they publish. If THEY decide to publish something under copyright, then THEY are responsible. Hence the "Official PHB" will never have any copyrighted (by someone else) matirial in it. If you write a module for the game and include (someone else's) copyrighted matirial, you are subject to legal action by the copyright holder. You maintain your module, just like the creator of a Linux module maintains his code. If Xfree86 were to start calling itself Windows (not that they would, just an example) Microsoft would sue them, not Linus, even though Xfree86 comes with almost every distro.(not a perfect example I know, X is not actually a "module", but it's the best analogy I can come up with)
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
To quote that Pinhead guy from the first movie: "No. It's not."
As Shadowlion said, it's much more akin to things like the SCSL. You can put out your own game using D20, sure, as long as you don't include character creation/experience -- which, since playing and developing the characters is rather the point of a role-playing game, is as if Linux had a license that allowed you to create your own distribution as long as you didn't include any user interface, so everyone who wanted to access your Linux system had to buy the shell from Linus (along with paying for a bunch of applications which had nothing to do with what you were doing with your macine, but that's the breaks).
This is just another marketing-driven perversion of the Open Source concept. Sad, really.
Information wants to be free -- but informants want to be paid.
No. Use of the "D20TL" does affect the other license, so it can't properly be said to only apply to the trademark. You can't have it both ways.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
Kind of. The character creation rules are open, according to the license as written.
However, and here's where they're pulling a fast one (well, one place, anyway), if you want to use the D20 trademark or actually say your product is compatible with anything, then you can't use the character creation rules. That is, the restriction is written into the trademark usage, rather than the game license.
It's more like open sourcing everything but requiring you to leave a couple chunks of the kernel out of your distro if you want to call it Linux.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
Wrong. That's part of the FUD TSR's lawyers were/are spreading. You couldn't publish copyrighted text, but you really could modify the rules (or recreate the rules in different, non-derivative words) any way you want to, and publish away.
If you read Dancey's rants on Usenet, that mindset hasn't changed... they still think you can't do that without something like the OGL. And, as long as they've got Hasbro's legal force behind them, they're right. In a practical sense, not in a legal/ethical/moral sense.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
No, the D20 TL does in fact say you can't use parts of the previously "open" game. To claim otherwise is disingenuous.
It would be like Sun releasing Java's code under the GPL, but requiring that you pass a certification test to use the Java trademark. The certification test doesn't stop you from using the code however you like; it just says under what conditions you can call it Java.
No, it would be like Sun releasing Java's code under the GPL, but requiring you to remove part of it if you use the Java trademark, regardless of the modifications you've made.
The D20 license constrains you to remove the otherwise "open" character creation rules if you're distributing something with the D20 trademark. Technically, yes, it's a restriction on the trademark rather than the rules, but it's still a backdoor way to accomplish the same thing... what sense would it make to restrict the full Linux distro to only things that didn't say "Linux" on them?
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
I did, only I kept apples with apples, and company names with company names:
D20 under OGL:
Can call your version Hasbro: NO
Can call your version D20: NO
Netscape 6.0:
Can call your version Netscape: NO
Can call your version Communicator: YES
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
Why? Why wouldn't people be able to work on them in public anyway? (Answer: they would.) Why wouldn't everybody be free to incorporate them anyway? (Answer: they would.)
The "great effect" has been achieved already, just by having the Internet. Do a web search on even the most obscure system, and you'll find someone's house rules posted. Did they need this license to do that? Nope.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
The issue with those companies, and the reason they were dubbed Evil Empires, was not their treatment of the competition. It was their treatment of the customer... as the competition.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
Don't forget the trademark issues - not directly a part of the license, but important nonetheless.
I don't think there's any restriction on Linux that says if you call it Linux you can't distribute vital pieces...
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
And Hasbro owns WoTC.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
They're still in business. They filed for reorganization (partial bankruptcy... Chapter 7 versus 11, or the other way around) awhile back, and their parent company's been bleeding them white, and they've had to give up a lot of their licenses (some of which were braindead anyway... Species? Come on) but they haven't quite gone out of business.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
This comes in handy for the RP-ers who have to commute to get their groups together to play. Instead, one could now just program the adventure, distribute it via CD-ROM, and network.
No substitute for pencil-and-paper, though. Or dice-throwing.
Wonder if they can open-source that into the game...
~Matt Nute
"So, I'll put down my LART, and you'll put down your StUd1yK@pz, and we'll access UseNet like civilized people?" -The D
We probably won't see them replace WoTC with the hasbro label because WoTC is still a separate body, it didn't get absorbed like TSR.
Yes TSR was bought out by Wizards a while back, and now TSR only exists as a stamp that they put on AD&D books.
I don't think their stuff is weak. I've played D&D, Paranoia, Rolemaster, Vampire, etc. It's just different. There does not need to be one system for Role Playing. The only "one system" my friends could settle on was meat on the pizza, and cold beer. As for some of the ugliness on getting the materials (PHB, DMG, etc.), you only need one set per group of people. That's damn cheap entertainment. Alternately, go to http://www.evermore88.com and see what you can find. All current books on one CD for well under $100 US. CR-2 even does the accounting for you. I've used it, and it works well.
Of course, the better system to open source would've been GURPS from SJG, which is already designed to work for any era, genre, etc. GURPS, though not without its flaws, was just amazing because SJG put out an unbelievably cool line of expansions/world books to hit genres most people had never thought of (e.g. GURPS Russia, GURPS Vodoo)
Not to mention GURPS Prisoner, the long-out-of-print sourcebook based on the cool TV show.
Yes, GURPS is a great RPG, at least for those who like detailed rules-heavy systems. There are other good choices for RPG-lite lovers.
But I don't remember Steve Jackson as being all that partial to open source concepts. In particular I remember a lot of fuss on the INWO mailing list a couple of years back because he flipped out over people posting spoilers. That is, participants were not allowed to post the textual content of playing cards to the list, as these were copyrighted. Made it kind of hard to discuss the game in a detailed way. Other companies had no problem with spoiler lists -- in fact they were standard reference tools.
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A rich couple found their ideal pet in a dog that makes e-mail programs.
It'd be quite nice to finally make my own RPG and not having to deal with the intricacies of the rules. I'd much rather concentrate on content to make it a more enjoyable experience. Some of my encounters with RPGs have led me to believe sometimes too much time is spent on rules and not on creating a game world that is coherent.
Wizards of the Coast own TSR, I believe.
What the hell Wizard of Coast has to do with Dungeons & Dragons. It's TSR the editors of the games. Wizard of Coast is making "Magic" trading card series and has nothing to do with AD&D
--- Bouh !!! ---
It's not Microsoft, and it's not TSR, and it's not WoTC/Hasbro. It's business. The nature of business is to destroy the competition. These companies are simply better at it than others are. Remember the days of the "Anyone but Microsoft" coalition? Who thinks that a market dominated by Sun or Oracle would be better than what we have now? Don't blame the companies, blame the business.
Linux:
Can distribute the core product: YES
Can modify the core product: YES
Can write add-on products: YES
Microsoft:
Can distribute the core product: NO
Can modify the core product: NO
Can write add-on products: YES
D&D 3rd Edition:
Can distribute the core product: NO
Can modify the core product: NO
Can write add-on products: YES
And WoTC has the balls to compare their license to Linux's? Perhaps it's less restrictive than previous D&D licenses, but it sure as hell ain't open source.
There's also an article on FlashCommere, but you'll have to search for it because they seem to change the urls of old stories.
I'm glad to see the Opensource philosophy started improving other areas of IP besides just software.
+ TheDimensionWalker +
- source
booksCoke is nothing like a RPG. I don't know anyone who makes soda anymore, but _every_ gamemaster I know modifies the rules of the game they're running at least a little -- more jaded gamers often aren't satisfied otherwise. Sometimes these systems are good (especially compared to D&D), and if you put a lot of work into it, why not try to sell what you have? It'd be easier than writing a new game, games often evolve this way, and people are more likely to pick up a presumably cheaper flavor of a system they're familiar with than something entirely new. If parts of the d20 system were modular, D&D might even begin to have some appeal again. Of course, is this really different than what GURPS has done for more than 10 years? The 3d6 system...
I haven't read the whole thread so I may be repeating somebody else here... My understanding is that D20 is the trademark that Wizards is using for stuff related to the 3rd Edition rules system. In the past there were restrictions on who could develop modules and how they had to be published. In order to get people to switch to 3rd Ed. (which is a *big* improvement on 2nd Ed.), they're letting pretty much anybody write "official" 3rd Ed. modules. As for why 3rd Ed is cool - they've simplified the rules AND removed lots of the restrictions at the same time. For example, wizards can now wear armor. I know, I know, "How the heck can a wizard cast with armor on?!?" The answer is not very well at all. BUT they're still a chance that the spell will go off as planned. Basically, wizards now have some kind of difficulty roll when casting. If they're wearing armor then the roll is harder to make. Other changes: - No more 18/xx strength - they've gone to straight integers again - They've introduced Feats which are special actions that you can buy - Most or all of the racial restrictions for classes have been removed - AC is now positive and your "To Hit" is added to your roll. For example: I've got a total of +5 (+3 sword, +2 Dex) to hit and he's AC 14 - I need to roll a 9 or better ( 9 + 5 == 14). Those are some of the changes in a nutshell.
Rob
In the meantime, you could do worse than Travelling(TM ;-) through the Traveller Webring. One jumping-on point is my page, Beowulf Down (http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw), which also has a (slightly out-of-date) Jump Points page...
It even has my version of Traveller as AD&D , stored under the Repair Bays . Enjoy!
Take that thought to open games, specifically D20. How many role playing systems are out there? I'd guess that there are at least 10 major ones, and 100+ althoughter. And because they've been around for 20+ yrs, they've been well established, so that most people that play RPGs will be familiar with two or more systems.
So what if someone tries to add something for a 'closed' RPG system to the open system? Sure, concepts may be brought across, but I'm thinking more along the lines of specific tables. A good example is incorporating the critical hit tables that the Rolemaster system offered with D20, word for word. Does the OGL prevent this? Does WotC have protection from other RPG makers in case this does happen ?
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
This is *DEFINATLY* different from how AD&D was dealt with in the past.
;-P
For those of you not familar with the earlier days of the internet, the past owners of AD&D went *NUTS* during the early days of the internet. Many gamers had developed optional reference guides, GM managment programs, etc, releasing them as public domain software. They all ended up with very LONG letters from lawyers demaning that they stop creating these programs, and delete all copies of source, etc, that they had. It was quite funny when some of the 'warez' where simple dice rollers and optional hit tables..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
The PHG will be a hardcover book, full-color artwork on every page, on non-cheap paper. It'll be printed in huge quantities, and will be able to get printing costs as low as possible. They're also selling it at a lower margin, because they expect to sell lots.
Your CHB couldn't be printed, in small lots, for as cheap as they could. It'll be considerably more expensive, if the production quality is as good.
So, first thing to go is the full-color artwork. You simply won't be able to make it cheap enough. Grayscaling the artwork is still probably out of the question, because it probably won't look good, and you'll want to go with as cheap a printing process as you can get. So you want line art... but you'll have to come up with all that on your own. Yuck. Ok, no art in the CHB. Suddenly, you've got a smaller potential market.
The hardcover may have to go, too, because they're pretty expensive.
You also can't do a simple search-and-replace on the text to get rid of the trademarks, because it's not in the computer, it's on paper. Scanning and OCRing all that will take a lot of time, or a fair bit of money. Sure you want to do that?
Ok, even assuming you get this far before you give up, you need to be able to sell it. You don't have a vast distributer's network like WOTC does. You aren't owned by Hasbro, which has an even _larger_ one. So, you have to try to find a distributer who will sell your short-run CHB, which looks like junk, next to the PHB (less than $20).
Sure, maybe you'll be able to do it. You won't be able to compete enough to make a ding in WOTC's sales. And why would you want to? Sell D20 modules, make much more profit!
Read the license, please. It's at the OGF website and looks quite modelled after the GPL. In particular, it allows you to reproduce, verbatim, the rules (subject to trademark restraints).
Not a moot point. The chargen the give you would probably be limited to Windows. (Most of their stuff these days is.) If you don't run it, you might want to write your own.
You might want to write your own to have it use your house rules for certain aspects.
You might be writing a cool internet-enabled RPG client, to allow the computer to handle the mechanics and have a separate (voice or text) channel for inter-player communication. You'd probably want to be able to generate characters in that.
You might also want your internet-enabled client to be able to advance characters by level, which is also restricted by the D20 license.
That's true. They're all 30 level necromancers from the underworld. One look and the player will fall madly in love with them, upon which the necromancer has total control over you. A saving throw v. death is allowed, however. Seperation is possible if you either kill the necromancer or remove the player from the girlfriend forcefully for one month and hermetically seal him in a cave. You should also have cold water available in the cave. Some high-level priests (the Zen ones) have claimed limited success by allowing the character to transcend the girlfriend... but such things are legends.
If you don't put the D20 trademark on your product, the D20 TL does not apply. All the D20 TL does is tell you when you are allowed to use thee D20 trademark.
It would be like Sun releasing Java's code under the GPL, but requiring that you pass a certification test to use the Java trademark. The certification test doesn't stop you from using the code however you like; it just says under what conditions you can call it Java.
Steven E. Ehrbar
The D20TL only applies to the trademark. You will be able to "distribute the whole damn thing" as long as you don't call it D20.
I'm on the OGL mailing list. The D20 System Reference Document, including everything you need to put out a complete RPG, will be under the OGL. IF uninformed ranters and anti-big-buisness yahoos don't undercut Dancey and convince Hasbro/WotC to abandon the project...
Steven E. Ehrbar
Argh...
You want a parallel? Imagine Sun releases te Java source under the GPL, but keeps the Java trademark reserved for people who conform to their compatibility tests and add a dependency on a single Sun library. How HORRIBLE! They're DEMONS! They won't let you call it Java!
On the other hand, FUDGE is *not* Free, it is semi-free, with a restrictions on commercial licensing and required in-kind royalty payments.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Can I sell an improved version of the Player's Handbook under their D20 license?
But you can under the OGL. You just can't give it the "D20" label.
Can I compete with their core rules while still leveraging the available third-party source material as a result?
Yes. There's been extensive discussion on the OGL mailing list as to how to do exactly that.
The D20 license is akin to SCSL: you get to look at the source, and if you make complementary products, great. If you want to make and distribute core changes, though, HOW DARE YOU!
The D20 trademark license only governs the D20 trademark. Leave the D20 trademark off your product, and you can do anything you like with the system -- even sell core changes.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Indeed. As of January of this year, all the new TSR gaming modules, DRAGON magazine, DUNGEON magazine, novels based on the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms worlds, and so on have the WoTC logo instead of the old TSR logo. You'll notice the change immediately on the cover of the new Dragonlance novel DRAGONS OF A FALLEN SUN that just came out last week.
:-(
At the rate things are going, we may end up seeing the Hasbro label replacing the WoTC label, too!
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Well I hope D20 is a mechanically better system than AD&D's ludicrous table-driven approach.
Actually, from everything that I have seen it IS better. Check out Eric Noah's D&D 3rd Edition News for more complete information.
All the old terminology is still there, but instead of having all the reverse arithmetic of THAC0's and armor class, or the "You've gotta roll high to pass this saving throw check, but you've gotta roll low to make the attribute check," Everything has been standardized to be worked off of the d20.
For example, instead of having to look up on a chart what your saving throw vs Paralysis, Poison, or Death Magic was, the DM comes up with a number that you have to beat. You then use you're Fortitude bonus (which is now one of the three saving throws out there) and add it to your roll on a d20. Beat the number, you make it...don't beat the number...uhoh! This is the mechanic that the entire system is built off of now.
Check it out...Looks to be much more playable now.
"Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons...for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
It's an "improvement" from TSR's old position, but keep in mind that Dancey himself has repeatedly said that, while you can create D&D things, that he believes that WOTC has *OWNERSHIP* of those things you create.
Part of the gimmick here is that the "OGL" doesn't really give you any rights you didn't already have; what it tries to do is "give" you *FEWER*
rights than copyright law would normally give you, and then provide a framework for suing or harassing you if you try to exercise the intrinsic rights the law gives you.
Sneaky. It's no coincidence that a man who believes that references to a rule set create a "derivative work" is in charge of this stuff when Hasbro is starting to file suits on stuff like "anything someone might think is like asteroids".
(Obviously, it's not a derived work, because copyright covers the text, not the rules. Rules can't be copyrighted.)
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Pretty much. Read the following statement that Dancey makes in the article that was linked to:
In other words, you can make adventures or worlds or characters or whatever, but you can't make an RPG that competes with D&D. This is the MS model - feel free to create things for the users of our system, but don't you dare compete with our system.
I see this as an improvement from TSR's position, where you couldn't legally create anything for D&D, but this is a far cry from open source. It really ticks me off that this is presented here as an example of how "open source" is influencing other industries. Read the article carefully, folks; the ONLY influence is the word "OPEN".
Which license?
The problem is that there are two licenses on the site, the one you linked to and the D20 license, the latter which seems more likely to apply to the system rules. The thrust of the D20 license is that you can't reproduce things like character generation and experience tables - if you make adjustments, you have to post your changes.
In other words, it's a lot like saying that you can't distribute a modified Linux kernel - you simply have to distribute the diffs. While this suffices in most instances, occasionally it's a good thing to be able to distribute the whole damn thing.
> For some information as to the chilling and horrifying goings on at TSR in those days
Yes, I will never forgive them for destroying GDW, the best map & counter wargame company there ever was (well, in their prime and IMO, at any rate).
Of course, GDW more or less handed them the axe to use, in a fit of terminal stupidity. (I suppose terminal should be taken quite literally there.) Still, I can never forgive the latter-day owners of TSR for this vile act.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Wow, I haven't touched a role-playing game in years, and I had no idea how much the business had changed until I read this article and did some investigating.
Basically, following the huge success of the Magic and Pokemon card games and a general decline in standard RPG sales, Wizards of the Coast dwarfed TSR, SJG, and the other RPG companies. Wizards of the Coast then acquired TSR (which I always thought of as the number 1 gaming powerhouse) somewhere around 1998. They later acquired the chain of "The Game Keeper" stores, after opening a few of their own retail outlets. Finally, Hasbro acquired Wizards in 1999, but they're giving them pretty strong independence. Pretty crazy stuff, no?
Of course, the better system to open source would've been GURPS from SJG, which is already designed to work for any era, genre, etc. GURPS, though not without its flaws, was just amazing because SJG put out an unbelievably cool line of expansions/world books to hit genres most people had never thought of (e.g. GURPS Russia, GURPS Vodoo), and they even did games based on popular books (which weren't as high quality, from my experience), with a persistent rumor that Orson Scott Card was collaborating on an Alvin Maker series (I swear I read an excerpt from its beta version years ago, but I can't find any info on what happened to it, anybody know?).
Wizards' point about the network effects and the general prevalence of D&D players, however, is well taken. I think that most other game companies would probably avoid supporting it, because it would cannibalize their own sales (think Sun/Linux), but smaller game companies could do pretty well by putting out adventures, expansions, and so on.
--JRZ
Most colas taste pretty much the same anyway
Next thing you will be saying the Budweiser and Guiness are substitutes as well....
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Sounds like a return to the old days where DM's were encouraged to pick-and-choose and modify or enhance the rules to suit their own world/audience/imagination.
After the suits took control in the mid to late 80's everything became "Oh you can't do that because it's not OFFICIAL", which we all took as the utter BS it was. It was about this time that Gary Gygax was driven out.
At least WotC are acknowledging the way everyone who's ever been involved with D&D thinks and acts anyway.
This is wonderful news for the players and the future of the game and RPG's as a whole.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
You mean like Virgin Cola? Pretty much indistinguishable from Coke, and much cheaper. Coke accused them of stealing the recipe. People still drink Coke, though.
--
E_NOSIG
..community reputation, as far as I'm concerned. Their lawyering folk got a little miffed that someone had ported Magic to the Internet.
What followed was a quick lawsuit, and tremendous outrage from the online community. Eventually WoTC capitulated and decided to play nice. They are on, as it were, the cluetrain. Let's hope they stay there. I've got a page about it somewhere...
--
+&x
I'd like to see it listed on this page, after Richard Stallman has looked at it:
http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/ph ilosophy/license-list.html
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Secondly, I have some of the Demons supplements for AD&D produced by Mayfair games, which were really well done, addressed a need in the community (I was one of the ones who felt TSR really screwed up by attempting to sate the appetite of the Fanatics for Family values by removing demons and devils from their games, when we all know that only the utter destruction of D&D and RPGs in general would ever do that.) and caused Mayfair to promptly get sued by TSR. See this page for information. What irritated me was that TSR and later Hasbro could be in a position to suppress D&D altogether is they had a motivation (eg, fundamentalist boycott) to do so.
For some information as to the chilling and horrifying goings on at TSR in those days, please read:
The Gary Gygax FAQ
As someone who used to be avidly into pen & paper RPGs, I believe a popular, copylefted RPG would be the greatest thing to happen to RPGS since their original invention. I hope this is for real.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
I'm suprised that nobody has brought up either of two points I think are relevant to whether WOTC is embracing Open Gaming...
First, they took serious legal action against some people that were distributing new M:TG "cards" as stickers to be placed on top of old ones, as a private expansion set. I think they even uses different symbols for the mana, and backgrounds, but because they were obviously meant to be played with Magic, they went after them.
And WOTC actually has a patent(!) on many of their game mechanics. They've patented "tapping" a card, as in turning it sideways on the play area to indicate that it's been used. This is most definately NOT open...
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
Not only that, but there already are gaming systems that are generic and have rules for all types of games. GURPS is the best known, but other games like Rolemaster are also somewhat generic.
It looks to like all they're doing is trying to make D&D more GURPS-like.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Girlfriend...Girlfriend?...
No, sorry, you missed me there, I've been playing D & D at least 8 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week, for the last 10 years (when I'm not programming fax machines for a job). Must be some real high level non player character type I've not come across.
The Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game. No dice, four attributes, a handful of powers and a couple of background perks. That's all. How do you handle melee combat then? Whichever combatent has the highest Warfare attribute wins. Of course if they're close then role-playing out the combat using tactics, dirty tricks and other factors can swing it your way, but that's the essence of the rules.
And I quote, from the article:
Remember, this is a proposal. If this thing ever gets off the ground, I for one will count myself lucky.
--
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
This, if anything, makes the prospect of buying 3e even more tantalizing, since not only would I be purchasing an incredibly cool product, I'd be rewarding a company for its openness and fair competitive spirit.
--
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
Anyone interesting in creating their own Zork/Myst style games (read "interactive fiction") using a simple, straight-forward, GPL'd engine that can played via any java-enabled browser might want to check out The COG Engine. The first beta was released this past weekend, and we're looking for more developers over at the SourceForge site right now.";
System.out.println(ShameLessSelfPromotion);
Your Brain + EEG + LEGO Robots = Brainstorms
Wrong wrong wrong. Here are the ingredients in Coke (see this page)
:)
Citrate Caffein, 1 oz. Ext. Vanilla, 1 oz. Flavoring, 2.5 oz.
F.E. Coco, 4 oz.
Citric Acid, 3 oz.
Lime Juice, 1 Qt.
Sugar, 30 lbs.
Water, 2.5 Gal.
Caramel sufficient
Mix Caffeine Acid and Lime Juice in 1 Qt Boiling water add vanilla and flavoring when cool.
FlavoringOil Orange, 80
Oil Lemon, 120
Oil Nutmeg, 40
Oil Cinnamon, 40
Oil Coriander, 40
Oil Neroli, 40
Alcohol, 1 Qt.
let stand 24 hours.
The thing is, getting de-cocanized coca leaves (Fluid Extract of Coco) requires a special license from the gubment. Guess who owns the only license?
(note that this is an older recipe, but it's a starting point
If Coke gave away their recipe, do you honestly think I'm going to brew up my own batch of Coke when I'm thirsty?"
No, they think Pepsi, or someone else, would brew the same stuff, sell it at half the price and kill their profit margins.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
For the good of all humanity I'm submitting this patch to D&D:
+if(HoursSinceLastShower > 24) {
+ if(Player.Girlfriend)
+   Girlfriend.StormOut;
+ Player.Shower;
+}
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
The D20 game system will be under the OGL, but if you want to use the D20 trademarks, you'll need to follow the D20 license. It offers some restrictions, like not giving the rules for character creation (they want you to buy the PHB).
So, as an example, you could take the rules, change them, and release them as a different system (also under the OGL, kind of like the GPL). But you couldn't say it was compatible with the D20 system, and I don't think you could mention the D20 system at all.
Or, you could write supplements, new characters, modules, etc. and say it was compatible with the D20 system. The impression I've gotten is that the D20 license will not restrict things like that.
If you want to say "Compatible with D&D", you have to enter into a separate license for that trademark.
I'm not certain, offhand, what that would mean if say, you wanted to write a character generator. It seems to me that that wouldn't be allowed under the D20 license, but I'd have to ask for a ruling.
OK, I run one of the big AD&D hobbyist web sites (I get ~200k hits/month). I'm not posting it here, 'cause I can't take being /.-d. :-)
I've been writing AD&D rule expansions and collecting and editing alot of material from the Web for almost 10 years now. I'm also one of the two people involved in maintaining the Great Net Spell/Prayerbook stuff (I do the editing and rule-checking). I've had alot of dealings with TSR in their old incarnation, and also with WOTC when they first took over TSR, though none recently.
Here are the legal guidelines that govern add-ons to the AD&D system (that is, what you can legally do, and what can be published).
After about 7 years, I'm about 90% of the way through a complete, free, unencumbered re-write of the 1st Edition DMG + PHB. I've tried to be very aware of all these issues, and I suspect that the D20 initiative is really intended to head off the possible impact that works such as mine would have on TSR income (there are several others working on similar, free rule tomes).
To look at it in a simplistic view, all we've done is to clone Monopoly. There are large numbers of Monopoly-like clones out there: same rules, same board layout. However, notice they have different artwork and labels for things. This is what you can do.
To reiterate, Game Mechanics Are Not Protected . All TSR can do is prevent you from using their trademarks, exact text/layout and developed settings. Everything else is fair game.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
This is a shame. TSR has long been the M$ of roleplaying, extending their roleplaying system into any and all genres, including some that where is obviously didn't fit. The reason there have been so many additions (patches) is that for anything beyond a quick dungeon crawl, AD&D breaks down quickly in being able to handle the complexities of the rules.
AD&D has largely been a cludge, a hack, since its inception. It has since been surpassed by most other systems that are out there. WhiteWolf, FASA, SJG, and GamesWorkshop all had much more workable systems, that scaled much better. AD&D has just always had more money, more marketing, and a larger installed user base to allow it to maintian it's market dominance, despite the system being crap. The fact that most players would leave AD&D and not look back once they discovered some of the other systems out there only serves to prove how flawed the AD&D's system was.
The reality of the weaknesses in TSR's strategy was revealed once they faced a true open paradigm from the CCG's. It was small, lightweight, and portable, usable on a variety of hardware, and was able to cross a number of language and cultural boundaries by dealing with differng sytems iconically. The wooshing sound that was heard was the rush of players moving to the open CCG style. Of course we saw an incredible influx of different distributions, and there were those that were advocates of one or the other, but in the end it all came down to the same thing: playing cards.
Now, years after they've been beaten in the marketplace, so badly in fact that the've been bought out by one of the upstarts who 've caused their downfall, (And don't think that the upstarts isn't laughing about that every single day) they are forced to look for any way to recapture their glory days. And they release their system to the public.
Unfortunately, they still don't 'get it'. They have kept a number of the key components (D20, PHB) under their strict control, and you still need these to buy in. Sure, they say you can use D20 now, but what's preventing them from pulling that resource in the future, as Unisys has done with GIF's. No, what they are really trying to do is capitalize, finally, on what everybody has been doing all along, since the game was originally released:
Making up their own stuff.
--sugarman--
Look closely at what's happening... they're trying to control the source anyway through use of the "D20" trademark.
And they're claiming to be first, when critters like Steffan O'Sullivan's FUDGE has been doing this for a long time.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
The entire point of this is to mislead and misdirect. This is *HASBRO*. Remember, the people who are suing "clue.com" into the ground for existing? The people suing other companies because they claim to have a copyright on a "triangular ship with thrusters"?
The *SOLE* purpose of this is to try to crush all competing gaming systems, while preserving WOTC's rights.
Ryan Dancey is a scumbag. He also does not understand copyright law.
When asked about ownership of gaming materials created for use with the AD&D system (say, you run your own campaign, and you have a world), he said that WOTC owns them. He claims that anything that works with a gaming system is a derivative work of that system, and that *ALL* ownership and rights of derivative works goes to the "original" copyright holder.
He is a dangerous, slimy, man. Do not trust anything he says; he's probably wrong, and either way, his goal is to eliminate competition from his market by making his system the only viable one - while still holding all the trademarks and making sure everyone has to buy his products.
WOTC was bought by Hasbro; they are now expected to follow Hasbro's path of buying franchises and suing to eliminate competition.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/