New D&D GSL!

Hurray!

Finally, after many months waiting, Wizards of the Coast decided it was time to release their fixed version of the Game System License.

"Huh?"

Let me explain. It turns out that Wizards of the Coast generally frown upon people making their own "Dungeons and Dragons" material without some degree of consent. It turns out that WotC don't want to be sued by people making material for their system. They also don't want people to be confused between "official D&D material" and "

unofficial, fan created D&D material".

To resolve these issues, and in recognition of the fact that the majority of material actually used in D&D games is player-created, and therefore player-shared and since without player produced material, the game would likely shrivel up, WotC created the Game System License. This is a fairly large agreement which allows you to use terms like "Dungeons and Dragons" and "D&D" (as well as D&D-ish logos) to produce your own D&D product.

You can even copy small bits out of the official books, and use their rules. All you have to do is agree to some rules regarding what you can and cannot do.

Now, when the GSL for version 3.0 of D&D was produced, it was very open. Basically, you could reproduce almost any aspect of the book. And people did. People copied the rules verbatim and republished them. The only bits they didn't copy were the non-open (non free) "fluff" and artwork. Apparently, this upset WotC and lead to many similar games being introduced using an almost identical game system.

Anything published under the "d20 system" is derived from D&D 3.0. In my opinion, it's hard to see how this truly could have damaged D&D's profits unless people were making superior systems with the same rules. But there you have it. A massive amount of material was produced.

It turns out that WotC were none too happy with this state of affairs.

Fast forward on to 2008/2009 and WotC is releasing 4th edition.

Fourth edition: Released at last!

Except things weren't quite so rosy for the 4th edition GSL. It seems that WotC have "learned" from their past mistakes. And the new GSL was more restrictive than a super-model's corset.

In exchange for the following freedoms:

1) The right for wotc to sue you, at your cost

2) The right for wotc to copy your material, without you having the right to sue them

3) The right to publish any of your "related" material under the old gaming license (related being undefined, but at the definition of WotC)

4) The right to automatically agree to any future licenses, regardless of what they may say and without any notice.

You were entitled to use a "D&D compatible" logo and to use some special D&D words and styles in your document.

Yes, that's right. In exchange for some pretty hefty rights waving, you get the ability to use stuff that you could probably already use under fair use rights anyway, plus the right to use words like "Dungeons and Dragons compatible" Whoop-de-doo.

Of course, it's significantly more complicated than that. I'm not a lawyer and this is all based on my (possibly flawed) understanding of the legalese that makes up the GSL. But without a doubt, most publishers weren't keen on touching the 4.0 GSL with an adventurer's 10 foot pole.

So now that WotC have rewritten the thing, and made it a good deal more attractive, it seems that they're finally starting to move in the right direction. It's taken a while. A false start with D&Di, a rubbishy GSL and so on. But it seems that they're finally moving on up.

At last.