John-
You guys and your evil conspiracy theories. I'm sure
Steve will chime in on this, but I think most of your
comments are way off base:
"White Wolf may be looking to make a sort one-way
street from D&D to their product line, by creating a
number of interrelated and cross-referenced products
for the "Scarred Lands" that, through product identity
restrictions, keep other publishers from creating
prroducts that would be easily used in that setting"
Wrong. SSS is for D&D. You cant channel people away
from D&D with SSS materials.
I'm pretty sure that Steve is intending to post to the
list saying that it will be real easy to get
permission to use CC monster names for any products
you might be considering making.
Remember, the CC went to press before there was even a
requirment of dividing PI and OGC. That is a recent
addition to the d20 license.
"Keeping other publishers from referring to your
monsters by name may seem bizarre (wouldn't those
references be, in effect, ads for your
products?), but not if your whole point is that you
want no other publishers associated with your
products...you want to fence off your market to
protect it from the chaos of wide-open D20 publishing"
Again, this isnt the goal of SSS. You are presuming
that SSS doesnt want people to refer to the monsters.
That is not correct. Remember, just because something
isnt open (by being PI or whatever) just means you
have to get permission to use it.
"Of course I don't know what WW is thinking, but this
is an alternative to the "they just don't get the
philosophy of open gaming" hypothesis. After all, they
may get it, and not like it, but see this as a way to
profit from it anyhow."
Wait a minute? You arent actually claiming that the
first company to put out a hard-backed 200+ page book
full of open content monsters doesnt get Open Gaming,
are you? That is absurd. The CC IS open gaming.
There are IP issues that you have to make sure you
dont just piss away. And with the d20 license still
emerging the wisest choice is a conservative approach.
That doesnt mean people can't use the monsters. Talk
to Steve!
"It's an interesting business choice, and it's one
that makes considerable sense if you are one of the
largest game companies and have built in advantage in
terms of marketing and familiarity -- you can grab
what a larger company, WotC, is giving away, without
really having to pay it forward to other publishers
(who are your competitors)."
Again, faulty premise.
"In the end, the market will decide. I'd like to think
that more-open products will be more rewarded, in the
long run, by the practice of network externalities;
and that developers and gamers who might want to share
their materials under the OGL will turn away from
over-product-identitied branches of the D20 tree,
while other more fertile branches flourish."
The market wont give a sh*t about more or less open
products since we as producers are the tiniest
fragment of the market. No one will "turn away" from a
product beacuse it has too much PI. No one will even
know what the hell that is. The market will reward
quality products. I think the CC clearly qualifies. As
does Three Days to Kill and Death In Freeport.
"That belief has certainly driven the Atlas Games
approach to D20 materials so far. (OGL/D20 collections
of monsters next year, ten years, 100 years from now,
in any language, may all freely reprint verbatim the
monsters from "Three Days to Kill," for example,
calling them by their given names and referencing our
module in their copyright section; if White Wolf stops
making their monster book, it will be gone."
Necromancer Games is in the same position, in a sense.
Wizard's Amulet is all Open (we gave away the monster
stats, etc., as well as NPCs).
But I note that the text and content of your module
(just like Necro modules) arent open. Just the
monsters and NPCs. In a module, that is really just a
small part of the whole. It is a different thing with
a monster collection. In the CC, there is very little
that isnt open.
For example, Necromancer's Crucible of Freya, has two
new magic items (open), monsters (open), two new
deities (open) and NPCs (open). A few of the names,
such as the NPC Shendril, were designated as PI
because her name is also in the title (which I though
created an interesting issue). But even though that is
a lot of open content, it isnt anywhere near the open
content in CC.
The only company that has released a fully open
product is Green Ronin--the ENTIRETY of Death in
Freeport (text, monsters and all) is Open Content.
I think your assertion is that somehow Atlas is "more
committed" to open gaming than SSS. I just dont see
that as true--for god's sake the whole monster book is
open, including new feats and powers and abilities.
Compared to Three Days to Kill, there is TONS more
open content in CC. And in reading Three Days to Kill
I notice that the town names and all the settings and
locations in Three Days arent open content. Why should
you claim the similar setting stuff in the CC should
be open?
"Unless, say, someone OCRs all the stats, gives them
new names, and publishes them or gives them away for
free on the web...which could happen now, of course,
and wouldn't do a lot of good for WW, but would be a
huge boon to all the OGL developers looking
for new critters.)"
By the same arguement, someone could OCR Three Days to
Kill and post it on the web. I think all d20
publishers have to be against this practice. And it
would not be a huge boon to OGL developers because
people would stop making d20 products. Then d20 would
fall apart. Lets face it, the CC is a more significant
contribution than any Necromancer (and any Atlas)
dungeon module. There is little in our modules that
will be really helpful to designers. And SSS is going
to do more d20 hardback books with even more open
content. If the profit motive disappears, you wont see
200 page hardback books put out just to have pirates
put it on the net.
"On the other hand, White Wolf might simply build a
strong, proprietary subset of the D20 market with
rabidly loyal fans who wouldn't think of looking at
someone else's product, because they already know it's
not going to build on the brand of D20 that they're
playing; and by defending that territory they've
marked White Wolf may generate more profit than they
would otherwise."
I'm not sure I understand this. Does SSS/WW want
people to think CC and the Scared Lands are cool and
want to buy more related products? Of course. I dont
think SSS can manipulate fans into not buying other
products.
>From my point of view, SSS is absolutely committed to
OGC. I can understand bickering about whether the
names should have been open too, but that was a
conservative business decision in an uncertain
licensing situation. Even if you disagree with the
name issue, I dont see how you can say CC/SSS isnt
dedicated to open gaming (particularly when it is
couched with some comparison that you are "more"
dedicated to openness).
Clark Peterson
Necromancer Games
=====
http://www.necromancergames.com
"3rd Edition Rules, 1st Edition Feel"
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