D&D 4th Ed vs. Open Gaming

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

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

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

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

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

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

Comments

4e is a piece of crap...

[Grimfaire]

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

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

[sckeener]

Where each so-called class is now one of a role filler as in tank/healer/cannon. No more, well I'm a fighter but specialize in damage... Here's my example: say you want to play a swashbuckler or a duelist, does a fighter fit? They wear heavy armor in 4e because they are tanks. So our fighter swashbuckler swinging from the chandelier is wearing plate mail...Not a good image for a swashbuckler...

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

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

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

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

Summary is WRONG

[halivar]

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

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

To quote Scott Rouse further:

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

3.x or 4E

Not both.

One or t'other.

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

Re:Is this even legal?

[2short]

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

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

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

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