I’ve noticed that for some reason several RPG sites from Finland are frequently high in my referrers list. Hi guys! Usually that just makes me say “Man, the Internet is cool,” but now weirdly enough I have something for y’all specifically – Chris Pramas of Green Ronin is coming to Ropecon in Finland in August and is wondering what topics y’all would like to hear about! Go tell him, and let him know mxyzplk sent ya.
Woot! Paizo Publishing has another game designer fave joining them – Sean K. Reynolds! After Monte Cook joined the Pathfinder team recently too, that’s double good news. It’s tempered by Erik Mona deciding to semi-retire from RPG writing. I think Paizo and Green Ronin should join up now and wipe WotC off the f***ing map. Get Robin Laws in there too and it’s the whole list of my favorite game designers (Tweet’s clearly lost his soul to WotC, unfortunately.)
Well, I wrote about its flaws. But don’t take my word for it. Many every respected game designer/indie game companies are looking at this and seeing a barrel of suck pointed right at them.
Sean K. Reynolds is pretty direct about how sad and restrictive it is.
Highmoon Media says it sucks and won’t be using it.
Postmortem Studios sees a lot of problems with it and has a cartoon equating it to … Well, you’re going to have to go see for yourself, but think “anal.”
Paizo Publishing is very happy they decided to jump ship early.
Wolfgang Baur notes that the GSL is “terrible” for Kobold Quarterly
Green Ronin is debating what to do, but is clearly disappointed in the friendliness of the GSL. [Update: They rejected it.]
Kenzer & Co is going to avoid 4e.
Mongoose Publishing plans on some 4e support, but the inability to publish any 4e articles in their Signs & Portents magazine is a wrinkle.
Post more statements from game designers/companies in the Comments section as you run across them!
Over at ENWorld, MerricB talks about Gleemax, the new Wizards of the Coast social software endeavor, and how bad it is, all its promises having become a gaping hole of suck.
The new “D&D Insider” is clearly heading the same way. This was supposed to be a lynchpin of D&D 4e, combining character builder, online reference library, online play, Dungeon Magazine, and Dragon Magazine for the not-so-low price of $14.95/month. I find it entertaining that if you google for D&D Insider you get a link to a page that just throws a 500 error. Oh, that looks like it’s all of Wizards’ site right now. Sigh. Anyway, in short they haven’t delivered on any of it yet, and only those unfamiliar with TSR/Wizards’ history with electronic products for D&D could ever think they would – they’ve screwed up every stab at it, ever. The previews of online play have been uninspiring, their character builder looks awful, and their licensing etc. schemes are all half-baked and annoying.
Via Trollsmyth comes the news that Mongoose Publishing is talking about putting together a wiki where all the OGC from their products can be placed for use by gamers well into the future. Kudos to them, it’s a great move! (Now when’s the Traveller SRD going to be online?)
Postmortem Studios, a gaming company, has a couple interesting bits of info on their analysis of Wizards’ new D&D 4e Game System License (GSL) and what it means to a company like theirs.
They have a bunch of different bits, all posted on their blog, including a good summary of the GSL, broken down into “What I must do,” “What I can do,” and “What I can’t do” lists and an entertaining cartoon comparing the OGL, d20 STL, and new GSL in terms we can all understand (NSFW).
It’s an interesting read, because you can see how most of a company’s game lines can run afoul of one clause or another in the new GSL, making it impossible or very undesirable to move them to the new edition. In Postmortem’s case, many of their products either a) redefine classes/mechanics from 3e, which is forbidden by GSL, b) run afoul of the decency clause, c) have good ongoing OGL sales, or d) are things like settings which once GSL licensed are “poisoned” from ever going OGL. Good work Wizards, your new license is as harmful as you had hoped.
Well, Valgrim fans, unfortunately I was on vacation last week so your favorite dwarven malconvoker only shows up in this session when dragged into the appropriate dungeon-lobe to solve a problem that requires his exceptional intellect. But everyone else gets to chop a lot more! Thrill to our looting of the Runeforge in…
Posted in session summaries
Tagged 3.5e, adventure path, D&D, rise of the runelords, RPG, RPGs, runelords
So even though I’m on vacation, I can’t help but post that the new D&D 4e Game System License (the license they’re using instead of the old OGL for 4e) has been released. Here it is!
There’s a bunch of downloadable docs; the GSL itself, the new SRD (system reference document), and more. Here’s the summary of each.
GSL – You have to send in an “acceptance card” to use the license. No products to be published before October 1. The license can be changed at will by Wizards. You have to use their new logo on licensed products.
Licensed products may NOT be any of the following: web sites, minis, character creators, “interactive products,” reprint any material from the books (so no “power cards”), refer to any imagery or artwork, or be incorporated into anything not fully licensed – so no magazine articles! That last one is a bit of an unpleasant surprise, I guess it’s a play to make people still use Dragon and Dungeon despite their “high-tech” ghettoization onto Wizards’ site. Death to fanzines! And Kobold Quarterly, and…
Sorry things have been quiet here, but I’m on vacation! I’m taking a well deserved week of relaxation on the beach, and then right after that will be busy at a convention (work, not gaming; the new Velocity Web performance and operations conference, where I’ll be speaking on a panel about Web performance metrics). I’ll be back with more 4e analysis (DMG’s next), session summaries, and general RPG related info late next week. In the meantime, good gaming!
Posted in talk
In Part II of Sins of the Saviors, the penultimate chapter in the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path our group is playing through, we go to the Runeforge, fight a dragon, and avoid being turned into goldfish. Fun as usual! Check it:
Posted in session summaries
Tagged 3.5e, adventure path, D&D, rise of the runelords, RPG, RPGs, runelords
Finally we reach the last chapter in our Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition Player’s Handbook readthrough with rituals.
Rituals is a new thing for 4e. Because the old spellcasting system has been retired and what are called “spells” now are really just powers like any other class’ powers, a lot of old effects didn’t really fit in the powers system. These range from the more-utility-than-utility like Arcane Lock to the old favorite Raise Dead, to magic item crafting.
Rituals are found in books or scrolls, like spells in older editions. But you don’t have to be a spellcaster per se to use them, you just need the Ritual Caster feat (and that’s only to do them from books; anyone can cast one from a scroll). In general they take a while to cast and use up some kind of expensive component. Rituals are lightly skill linked – some use a skill check to gain a better result, but many don’t really use or require the listed skill. They have a minimum level needed to perform them.
I think rituals are pretty neat; they have the potential to make memorable effects (like Raise Dead) more memorable.
Geek Related 