Familiar Ground

So Wizards of the Coast just released a new iteration of their Game System License.

Here’s the link.

Basically, this document will allow other campanies to use certain IP and trademarks for profit as long as they follow WotC’s rules, including the D&D logo.

Sounds good right?  However, there were a few clauses in the initial document (released during the summer) that caused a lot of 3rd party companies to proceed cautiously.  A lot of things were included that prevented a company from supporting both editions of D&D at the same time (3.5e and 4e) which isn’t bad in itself (in my opinion), but the language used gave a very big impression of the stick, rather than the carrot which scared off a lof of people.  There were also a few things that were undefined and was causing a lot of trepedition that relied on the goodwill of WotC not to screw a company over.

Well, the new GSL that just came out addresses many of those issues, but not all.  There still needs to be some trust on the part of 3rd party companies that WotC won’t screw them over, but they’ve been given a pretty good lead time (6 months) to cancel the agreement and get rid of any stock if they don’t like any future changes. 

So why am I reporting this?  Because one of the goals I have with this site is to translate some of the things I write about into actual game mechanics for D&D (4e).  So you’ll eventually see the stats for all the main characters, play with new classes and races I’ve come up with, and download useful stuff for your games.   Maybe I’ll even provide an adventure or two.