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Is Software next?
- Thread starter smetzger
- Start date
malakai6276
First Post
It would seem that there position in general has changed when it comes to people developing freeware source materials, whether it is software, conversions or whatever.
If you think about though... it sort of makes sense. I mean, they "allowed" the community to develop material for THEIR gaming system, but once the community started to infringe on [possibly] future products of theirs... it's a different story all together.
The way I see it is that WOTC wanted to have a loose-hand when it came to community developed products, because in the end... it only benefits there sales. But this had to stop at some point becuase the community will eventually "think of everything" and "everything" would be free, thus WOTC would have to race against it's own sutomers to develop products that they can sell before a similar idea/concept/product comes out on the net.
Software... why is the buzz about Masters Tools basically "dead"? Because the community of developers have, in one form or another, already done everything that MT promised to do and more. And all this software is free. How much money do you think WotC poured into MT development before they realized that their own fan's made it obsolete?
I just hope I get this last update of my NPC Equipment Gen. out before they close the door on me [and all the other developers out there], version 2.1 coming soon...
If you think about though... it sort of makes sense. I mean, they "allowed" the community to develop material for THEIR gaming system, but once the community started to infringe on [possibly] future products of theirs... it's a different story all together.
The way I see it is that WOTC wanted to have a loose-hand when it came to community developed products, because in the end... it only benefits there sales. But this had to stop at some point becuase the community will eventually "think of everything" and "everything" would be free, thus WOTC would have to race against it's own sutomers to develop products that they can sell before a similar idea/concept/product comes out on the net.
Software... why is the buzz about Masters Tools basically "dead"? Because the community of developers have, in one form or another, already done everything that MT promised to do and more. And all this software is free. How much money do you think WotC poured into MT development before they realized that their own fan's made it obsolete?
I just hope I get this last update of my NPC Equipment Gen. out before they close the door on me [and all the other developers out there], version 2.1 coming soon...
jester47
First Post
It becomes very hard for one to play the game without the books evenif you do have all the generators in the world. To experience this load up PC gen with a buch of sources you do not have and try to figure out what some of the stuff is. You can get buy, but it is a lot easier with the books.
The document released was a result of (I think) the attempt to publish the Creature Catalog of converted monsters. WotC (via Jim Butler) stated that is was OK to make notes and distribute them on the web, but not to sell these conversion notes as your own work. That is what the CC was attempting to do (I think). Yes a lot of work was done converting those monsters, but they are still the IP of WotC. The conversion were not allowed as a replacement but more as a stop gap. They can only afford so many developers, and companies by their nature cannot accept labor w/o compensation.
Also, the MT while it may not have all that PCGen can do, it comes from a different angle. There are certain "vertical" movements that a lot of the software cannot do. Especially semi-random generation.
Say I want the Orcs to have a variety of slashing weapons but the sme stats. I really don't care what weapons they have. The NPC generator cannot do this for me. Nor can it make a mix of male and female npcs.
I think what MT will do is provide the ability to do semi-random generation. I want 5 orcs and an Ogre, In their treasure will be a sword, and the ogre has ha blugeoning weapon while three of the orcs are armed with slashing weapons of some sort. The other two are armed with slashing weapons but have bows too.
The devil is in the details.
Aaron.
I think the free software will be around for quite some time.
Aaron.
The document released was a result of (I think) the attempt to publish the Creature Catalog of converted monsters. WotC (via Jim Butler) stated that is was OK to make notes and distribute them on the web, but not to sell these conversion notes as your own work. That is what the CC was attempting to do (I think). Yes a lot of work was done converting those monsters, but they are still the IP of WotC. The conversion were not allowed as a replacement but more as a stop gap. They can only afford so many developers, and companies by their nature cannot accept labor w/o compensation.
Also, the MT while it may not have all that PCGen can do, it comes from a different angle. There are certain "vertical" movements that a lot of the software cannot do. Especially semi-random generation.
Say I want the Orcs to have a variety of slashing weapons but the sme stats. I really don't care what weapons they have. The NPC generator cannot do this for me. Nor can it make a mix of male and female npcs.
I think what MT will do is provide the ability to do semi-random generation. I want 5 orcs and an Ogre, In their treasure will be a sword, and the ogre has ha blugeoning weapon while three of the orcs are armed with slashing weapons of some sort. The other two are armed with slashing weapons but have bows too.
The devil is in the details.
Aaron.
I think the free software will be around for quite some time.
Aaron.
From the explanation I think we can expect some sort of 'crack' down in the software department. It may be a few months away, but I think its coming.
PCGen is probably in the best situation because it itself is open source and has more than one developer. Thus making it more difficult for WOTC to 'go after them'.
I expect that they will concentrate their guns on websites like Jamis' RPG Generators that have numerous programs posted.
Hopefully the language is clearer and more thought out and is acceptable.
PCGen is probably in the best situation because it itself is open source and has more than one developer. Thus making it more difficult for WOTC to 'go after them'.
I expect that they will concentrate their guns on websites like Jamis' RPG Generators that have numerous programs posted.
Hopefully the language is clearer and more thought out and is acceptable.
MythosaAkira
Explorer
First of all, the standard IANAL.
Regardless of what's recently been said, I don't think this changes the status of the D&D software that's currently out there since - technically - I believe that if something is derivative of the D&D rules, it's in violation of WotC's copyright. The d20 STL/OGL helps to change that, but one of the provisions of the OGL is that you can't close open material. Meaning that you can't encapsulate rules into the code such that other people can't see it. The conventional wisdom on the d20 mailing list thus far is that d20 Software is not something to do right now, unless it's open source (Ryan has mentioned he wants to address that in the future, so d20 software is more conceivable).
Now, from a practical standpoint, I have never seen a generator, utility, or other tool for D&D which removed the need for the actual rulebooks. In other words, violation or not, they didn't do anything for you if you didn't have the PHB or DMG or whatever. If you distribute a converted ESD module, you don't need the original. But if you were using, say, Jamis' tools, you still need the PHB/DMG/whatever to actually use their output. So I don't think the various utilities out there are of a concern at the moment.
Of course, WotC is changing the d20 STL so you can't use the d20 logo on a miniatures product, to protect Chainmail. It's not unreasonable to think they might get strict on software once MasterTools comes out (not that they might not beforehand).
If someone's concerned about how this will turn out, the best bet is probably to make something with open code (and derive from the SRD), or create something that's a generic tool which derives any game-related information from data files.
Anyway, that's my take on things, right or wrong as it may be
Regardless of what's recently been said, I don't think this changes the status of the D&D software that's currently out there since - technically - I believe that if something is derivative of the D&D rules, it's in violation of WotC's copyright. The d20 STL/OGL helps to change that, but one of the provisions of the OGL is that you can't close open material. Meaning that you can't encapsulate rules into the code such that other people can't see it. The conventional wisdom on the d20 mailing list thus far is that d20 Software is not something to do right now, unless it's open source (Ryan has mentioned he wants to address that in the future, so d20 software is more conceivable).
Now, from a practical standpoint, I have never seen a generator, utility, or other tool for D&D which removed the need for the actual rulebooks. In other words, violation or not, they didn't do anything for you if you didn't have the PHB or DMG or whatever. If you distribute a converted ESD module, you don't need the original. But if you were using, say, Jamis' tools, you still need the PHB/DMG/whatever to actually use their output. So I don't think the various utilities out there are of a concern at the moment.
Of course, WotC is changing the d20 STL so you can't use the d20 logo on a miniatures product, to protect Chainmail. It's not unreasonable to think they might get strict on software once MasterTools comes out (not that they might not beforehand).
If someone's concerned about how this will turn out, the best bet is probably to make something with open code (and derive from the SRD), or create something that's a generic tool which derives any game-related information from data files.
Anyway, that's my take on things, right or wrong as it may be
Part of the reason for the new ruling is to "protect the IP" (intellectual property). That means the names of things. So yes, I think software that is using IP may well be in trouble at some point (right before MT is released seems to be a likely timing). I won't name names but you can guess who the likely targets might be.
After that, I think software that is incorporating a lot of rules may be in trouble at some point as well. The opinion of the OGL discussion group seems to be that there are problems with the OGL and how it applies to software, enough problems that it is very difficult to do a software product that encapsulates rules. (IANAL)
smetzger said:
Not really. If you're software is OGL-based (like RPM), it's not in the same category of crackdown. There are difficulties with software and OGL licensing, but they're not insurmountable.
A common official OGL message board quote is "the box is open" - meaning that WotC cannot reverse what they have done with the D20 reference material. If you can produce software that conforms to the license (admittedly difficult), though Ryan plans to address that, then nobody can stop you.
Programs like PCGen are more vulnerable, since they deliberately don't publish under any license. Instead it deliberately avoids copyright, either by obtaining permission from the authors, or offering to withdraw particular source books if the copyright owner complains. It is possible that WotC are changing their "lax permission policy", and starting with the converted material, are getting ready to get tough on certain software, once MasterTools is released. Would be very bad PR though.
Not really. I find that I can find all the equipment, spell, skill, feats etc information more quickly with RPM at the gaming table, than other guys going through the books. For things such as explanations of "grapple", "trip" etc, RPM is MUCH quicker than the books. Of course, this is legally for core material only.
I have seen similar comments in the PCGen message boards about using RPM and PCGen together for "bookless" gaming sessions.
Which "NPC generator? In RPM I initially fill out created creatures with weapons specified by race, or by class. It wouldn't take much to randomly select between groups of items, based on race or class.
RPM works particularly well with the embedded Jamis Generator, since it recalculates after an import, and will add the required items (weapons, armor etc). I find this particularly good, since Jamis gives the skill, spell and feat lists, then RPM makes the AC and attacks actually mean something by equipping real armor and weapons.
Actual random generation of equipment in RPM is a bit off, since I other more pressing issues at the moment. I have also partially integrated Bruce Gulke's generators, and will probably use that in the future (to generate many other different things as well).
Regards,
jester47 said:
RPM has a "Preparation" mode, quite distinct from the "In-game" mode. Looking at the BattleMap and combat manager, it's easy to lose sight of the strong game preparation features.
- Character creation is the very basics.
- You can also create encounter groups with any race/class combinations.
- You can build entire adventures around that, with maps and location descriptions.
- You now have good search facilities, which are great for finding the right encounter race, or perfect spell etc
From there you can print out your characters and/or full adventures for "at the table" play, or you can use the "In-game" mode and manage combat rounds/initiative/action processing( attacks, skills, spells etc) with XP calculation.
Using RPM at the gaming table simply allows you to take advantage of any electronically entered creatures and maps.
The 3 major in-game benefits are though:
- random encounters can quickly generate any required encounter with fully worked out stats.
- RPM can react to dynamic situations. Pen and paper statblocks are generally carefully worked out, but in-game RPM could (for example) process a "Cat's Grace" spell, which automatically works through all the dex affects on initiative, AC, dex-based skill checks etc. Further, armor/dex restrictions are automatically factored in. Useful for (especially beginning) players, but extremely useful to DMs trying to correctly manage an entire encounter.
- It also provides you with a quick reference look up with a database of races, skills, items, magic, spells, feats etc.
Regards,
Regards,
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