Comments on the 4th Ed fact thread

[Nikolas of the Mists]

You can publish adventures right?

Yeap.

Have fun creating adventures that can't have NPCs higher than 10th level because almost all of the paragon path content is not included in the SRD.

Your stat blocks for monsters will be stark and barren because you can't reprint the powers and abilities monsters have from the MM under their specific block, while your NPC stat blocks will almost exclusively be a brief list of the class features and feats you have selected for them.

I am pretty sure there is a lot more than that which would pose problems, but that's just what I can think of off the top of my head.

[alhoon]

That doesn't seem right. I believe since they say: "You can use giants" you can copy-paste the whole giant.

[Nikolas of the Mists]

here's the section I absolutely adore the most:

18. Independent Development. Nothing in this License will impair Wizards’ right to acquire, license, develop, have others develop for it, market and/or distribute materials or products that contain concepts, storylines, or other content similar to, or otherwise compete with, Licensed Products.

It bothers me that they can infringe on intellectual property to this extent.

[Nikolas of the Mists]

That doesn't seem right. I believe since they say: "You can use giants" you can copy-paste the whole giant.

"To remain in compliance with the GSL, you may not reproduce any running text, statistics block, or table from the Core Rulebooks, nor may you define, redefine or alter the definition of any 4E Reference. Nothing in these guidelines should be taken as contrary to these GSL requirements."

Also check the Applied Mechanical Results section of page 2 of the SRD to see just how absurd it is.

[alhoon]

OK, they could just say: "No SRD this time around folks. Sorry." It would be more decent.

What about the 4E fun made documents in circulation so far? Those that are reverse engineering from material used?

[Jonathan Winters]

Some response from Wolfgang Baur and Open Design patrons about the GSL...

Hum.

(FWIW, I am sticking with 3E.)

http://open-design.livejournal.com/208739.html

Patrick

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Here's a semi-joke translation of the GSL from Legalese to Common:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=4307306

[Nikolas of the Mists]

The most annoying part excluded from the SRD:

Coloration info: While its nice to have all these templates they set out, if they don't give the RGB or HSL info it means I get to play around with sliders trying to get somewhere in the range of their shading. I think I want to kick a small puppy. I am going to drop it into paint/photoshop at this point.

[Jester of the FoS]

Photoshop can import pdfs. Copy that then eyedropper the colours.

I'm going for a greyscale for most of my Ravenloft stuff, suits the campaign and easier on printers.

[Nikolas of the Mists]

Yeah I got the colors now. I might just convert them to greyscale and see if it looks ok.

Some things like the coloration of at-will/encounter/daily powers really look nice and are convenient, as does the the beige that they picked to offset racial and stat blocks.

As for ease of printing, I sometimes feel like I am the only person (player or GM) that doesn't play with a laptop in front of them nowadays.

[alhoon]

Here's a semi-joke translation of the GSL from Legalese to Common:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=4307306

Not bad. If the author of this is true, the rules are very restrictive it doesn't seem as bad as I have thought. However, I don't see anyone in their right mind using the SRD.

[Nikolas of the Mists]

The SRD wasn't meant for people or busineses who aren't publishing.
The SRD even in 3rd and 3.5 wasn't meant to be anything more than a reference to what Wizard's intellectual property was. That they chose to explicitly define their terms within the 3.5 SRD was their decision, but they correctly recognized that it impugned upon 3.5 profits, so in 4e they cut it back. It's simply returned to what it was meant to be in the first place.

The SRD has no direct impact on 99.5%+ of the people that play D&D to be honest -- Fansites and fandom fall under completely different guidelines than those set out by the GSL and SRD. [Incidentally said guidelines for 4e haven't been released yet]

[alhoon]

And what about all these non-WotC publishers that I also supported? Am I to buy a Monte Cook's book for example and have a group of NPCs in there that cannot have stats? Am I to buy a campaign book that except from the new powers has me to look all at the PHB?

In most campaign books I own parts of the PHB have been reprinted for ease of referance. Now Am I going to see a feats chapter with say 15-20 new feats and a referance: "From the PHB we advise you to not use Feat A,B,C and we consider Feats D,E to be very in theme with our campaign world. Also here's 20 new feats..."
While that Would be possible, it would be annoying for me to have to flip open the PHB and the campaign book in character creation.

[alhoon]

Reminder: This is for discussing the 4th edition preview fact thread The other is for stating facts.

Speaking of which

More on the status of D&D Insider, for those who're considering the purchase of D&DI and/or the October Dragon issue.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4dnd/20081013a

Seems quite the bargain to me. I'll roll in as soon as they finish the character builder.

[alhoon]

I was looking back at this thread (pages 1-25) with Nostalgia. I remember 3 1/2 years ago the excitement at every disclosure, the brainstorming to guess the other features...

Now, I'm disillusioned. 4E didn't live up to my expectations. Perhaps those tidbits (which turned out to be 80% of the edition actually, not just tidbits) rose my expectations so high that it was inevitable that 4E wouldn't live up to it.
I read the comments I made and the predictions. Oh, how naive. It reminds me of teenager talk with their first love: "I'll love you forever! It's not possible of such feelings to go away!"