You can download it from here.
I plan to read it through and will post my thoughts.
The Greyhawk Grognard is concerned about the lack of news on third party license. My feeling is that if Wizards pushes the reuse of older adventures and older styles with D&D Next then it will be a non-issue. Yes it would be nice to have an official stamp. But I think DCC RPG, Castles & Crusades and the diversity of OSR RPGs shows that the difference is a matter of inches and everybody is plundering everybody else material for their campaigns.
To flip it around, Paizo and their Pathfinder line is about as open of a game line as they come however much of has gained little traction among the OSR. Not because they don't produce good stuff of excellent quality but more because the type of game they are aiming doesn't mesh well with what the OSR does. Most of the useful stuff for the OSR they produce are their accessory products like Chase Cards, battle mats, etc.
The take away what going to matter is not the open license but that how Wizards presents their game. Don't get me wrong I would like to see both. Wizards having a nice third party publishing program AND publishes adventures that dovetails nicely with the variety of material the OSR produces. However of the two I think the latter is more important.
Onto the playtest documents and let see if we can clear the tea leaves up a bit.
You know, with regards to the whole third party publishing for the D&D: Long ago I had a friend, who wrote a 350 page novel. It was written abut his character playing the G-series of modules. The novel was never published and was un-publishable, because it was choked with iconic D&D imagery and D&D lingo, that could only be comprehended by a D&D player, not to mention the copyright issues with TSR for any potential publisher. That person was not a creative type, and as far as I know, he never wrote, nor attempted to write another novel. That copyrighted TSR logo- TSR, the products of your imagination, took on a new and sinister meaning for me after that.
ReplyDelete