So when GW announced the closure of Black Industries a few weeks ago, I contacted them about the possibility of licensing WFRP and Dark Heresy. Since Green Ronin had created just about every product in the WFRP 2nd edition line, this was of course a natural move. The licensing lead at GW told me that many other companies had expressed interest, which was no real suprise. He also said that things were a bit chaotic over there and that it would take them several months to sort it out. However, if I wanted to put together a proposal, they’d be happy to consider it.

The following week we had some big internal debates at GR about what to do and how this could impact the company. A German publisher then contacted me to talk about the possibility of a joint venture. Since they were interested in the board games and we were more interested in the RPGs, this seemed like a good fit. However, one does not set up an international business deal in a matter of days. Nicole and I met with a friend who’s an executive at Microsoft to get some advice on the situation and then last Sunday I flew to SF to attend the Game Developers Conference. Since I had been told that this process was going to take months, I thought it would be OK to submit the proposal after I was back from GDC. I e-mailed my licensing contact at GW from SF mid-week and got a message saying that its delivery had failed. That was curious, but I was not unduly concerned.

Today GW announced that they had signed a deal with Fantasy Flight for all the board, card, and RPG rights. No one at GW warned me that a deal was going to happen this fast. I wasn’t give a deadline for the proposal, or a heads up that they were close to signing with FFG. After having had a close business relationship with GW for over three years, I was surprised that the negotiations were handled in this way.

I’m sorry that GR wasn’t able to make this work, and particularly disappointed that we won’t be able to continue what we began with WFRP. That said, if it had to go to another company, I’m glad it was Fantasy Flight. They are good folk and with Jeff Tidball on staff they have the know how to do the RPGs justice. I wish FFG the best of luck but they should be warned: it’s a grim world of perilous adventure!

I wrote a lengthy post last night about my first two days in SF, only to have LJ eat it. The computer I’m on apparently can’t use the autosave function either. Boo.

In brief then, the trip is going really well. I spent Sunday at Endgame, one of the best game stores in the country. I hung out with Chris Hanrahan and crew and after dinner we recorded a podcast that GR will share with 2d6 Feet in a Random Direction. Yesterday I discovered that you can’t judge walking distances in SF by using a map because it doesn’t indicate where the giant hills are. I took part in the Casual Games Summit and that was very interesting indeed.

After a full day of lectures at GDC I took the bus to Haight St. and visited the Giant Robot store and Amoeba Records. The latter is one of the most awesome record stores I have ever seen. Acres and acres of records, CDs, and yes, even 7′ singles. I had not planned to buy any CDs; I left with 11. My reason for the trip was that local punk legends Flipper were doing an in-store performance to promote a new DVD. Since I happened to be here the right week, well, I just had to go. Their noise-damaged aural assault was still powerful and the new songs sounded good as well. The funny thing about Flipper is that they’ve lost two bass players to heroin overdoses over the years and yet they somehow managed to recruit Krist Novoselic of Nirvana to take on those duties. You’d think that dude of all people would not tempt fate.

Today more casual games seminars and perhaps a trip to the Ferry Building.

I’m heading out to Game Developers Conference in the morning. If I owe you an e-mail, you may not see it until next weekend. If you’ll be at GDC too, I’ll see you there. I probably will have neither time nor capacity to blog while I’m in Callie, so please game companies, don’t go declaring bankruptcy while I’m gone. Now I need to pack and try to get some shut eye before travel day begins.

I participated in a political focus group last night, which was a first for me. I was part of a group of about twelve people. The moderator asked a series of questions about what was important to us politically. Then we were quizzed on the efficacy of different types of advertising, from traditional print ads and mailers to banner and flash ads. Just about everyone said they put mailed brochures directly into the recycling, which was pretty funny and the moderator swore was at odds with their data on the topic. Later we were shown some different ads and asked to comment. At one point we were asked if we had ever been to a candidate’s website. I said no and the moderator asked why. I said, “I’m interested in the truth about the candidates and I think their websites are not the place to find it.” The whole thing took about two hours and they paid me $75 for participating. It was actually interesting to interact with a bunch of Seattleites I didn’t know and talk politics. Something a little different and I’m paid for my trouble? Sign me up for that again.

I found the following on my hard drive. It’s funny looking back now. I do wish the idea of the inquisitor as presented here had been developed, but it was not approved.

In the 40K universe the part of the setting that works best for the purposes of an RPG is the Inquisition. This organization is divided into several sub-groups, some of which root out heresy while others combat the influence of Daemons and aliens. There is also a puritan/radical divide with the Inquisition as a whole, which means there’s quite a bit of politics and backstabbing. As you can see, the Inquisition is rife with adventure possibilities.

Now each Inquisitor has a support group of specialists. A typical retinue might include a savant (sort of like a living computer), a hotshot pilot, an ex-Imperial Guard veteran, a techno-magos, and a black ops snoop. In short, a classic RPG-style party. The problem with doing a traditional RPG on this model is the Inquisitor himself. He’s in charge, he’s a complete badass, and he probably has powerful psychic abilities as well. It’s basically the “Indiana Jones” RPG problem all over again.

I’ve been thinking about this today and I had an interesting idea. Let’s say that all the PCs make up characters that are members of an Inquisitor’s retinue. Before they make their own characters, they get together and create the Inquisitor they’re going to work for. You can think of this sort of like making a covenant in Ars Magica. It’s a hugely important part of the game, but everyone “owns” the Inquisitor. Once the details on the Inquisitor are ironed out, people make their individual characters, but again work together so they can create their own “A-Team”.

When the game starts, the GM plays the Inquisitor and uses him to send the PCs on missions. The basic conceit is that his time is so important that the retinue is sent off on investigations while he works on a higher level. The goal of the PCs is, essentially, to make the case and rouse him from his other concerns to finish the job. An influence mechanic represents this. Throughout each adventure, there are spots where characters can win influence points by figuring things out, finding important clues, besting opponents, and so on. The players compete for these influence points, while working together towards the resolution of the adventure.

When it’s time for the climax, the players compare their influence totals. Whoever has the highest total gets to play the Inquisitor in the final encounter, unleashing all the cool powers. At the conclusion of the adventure, the GM once again takes control of the Inquisitor.

The advantages to this system are:

1) It fits the existing 40K universe like a glove and is totally in line with the backstory.

2) It gives the GM an easy way to start adventures and the PCs the best of reasons to adventure together.

3) It has a fun built-in meta-game with the influence points.

4) It avoids the Indiana Jones problem by letting play of the super character change from adventure to adventure. Hopefully, everyone would get a turn to play the badass from time to time.

5) It provides a solid default adventure model for the newbie GM, with a beginning, middle, and end.

In my essay on the OGL and GSL the other day I said this:

“The thing I’m really interested to find out is whether the GSL will have a clause that forbids its use with the OGL. I think this is entirely possible. It would the mean that you couldn’t take previously released OGC and use it in a book released under the GSL. A book like the already announced Tome of Horrors 4th edition would not be possible under this restriction.”

From comments here and on EN World, it seems I ought to clarify this statement.

I picked Tome of Horrors as an example for several reasons. First, it’s one of the few announced 4E products from third party publishers. More importantly, it’s an example of a book that is really going to require the use of the OGL to do right. This is because of the history of the project. Necromancer made a deal with WotC many years ago to update old AD&D; monsters that hadn’t made it into 3E. Tome of Horrors got those monsters back into the game and opened them up for use by other companies via the OGL.

Many people have asked if companies can take their own copyrighted material and update it to 4E without using the OGL. The answer is that yes, of course, you can do what you like with material you own. The issue with Tome of Horrors is that Necromancer does not own those old D&D; monsters. They licensed them from WotC. Now they did also add some of their own monsters and continued to do so in subsequent volumes of the series. So Necro could do a Tome of Horrors that was 4E updates of only their own original monsters and that’d be fine; it just wouldn’t have the unique selling point of the original. Now personally I can live without an update of the flumph or the adherer, but they do have their place in the D&D; lore.

Should there be a GSL restriction on using the OGL with the new license, the only way those monsters could be done would be for Necro to make a new licensing deal with WotC. I don’t see that happening though. The original deal was made with Anthony Valterra, who is long gone from WotC. He made that agreement without really talking to R&D; about it, and it was not a popular move at the time. I think it likely that was a one time thing.

In any case, there’s no point in freaking out about anything now because we still don’t know the terms of the GSL. Hopefully, we’ll see it soon and then the speculation can end and the real planning can begin.

Last week I did a sleep study, which will hopefully lead to a formal diagnosis of sleep apnea and treatment for the condition Getting full nights of restful sleep would sure be nice. The study was pretty wacky. One part of the hospital has these hotel-esque rooms. I checked in at 9 pm and made myself comfortable. I had brought multiple books to read and there was a TV in the room as well. After filling out a questionnaire, a technician came to wire me up (which took a full half hour). This was head to foot, with something like 26 connections. These sensors collect data while during sleep and help them diagnose the problems. In the end I had so many wires coming off me I felt like a cyborg. A bunch of them were pasted to my face and head with wax. The challenge after that was actually to sleep in all that gear. Lying on my stomach was right out, because there was a receiver strapped around my chest that the wires went in to. After Nik left I watched a bit of TV and read Sharpe’s Escape by Bernard Cornwell. I eventually fell asleep but it was fitful. I woke up a fair bit, trying to find a comfortable position. I thought I might be up for the day at 5:30 am but finally managed to fall asleep again until a little after 7. I had planned to go home and shower but the wax on my face compelled me to do it there. Nik and I had breakfast and then I went to work. I’ve got a follow-up this week in which the doctor will present their findings. I may have to do the whole thing again so we’ll see how it goes.

Yesterday Nik and I caught a matinee of Juno, which we’ve been trying to see for awhile. It is a good flick, maybe not Oscar worthy (except perhaps for Ellen Page, who was great) but definitely enjoyable. The one thing that grated on me was the music. A little Kimya Dawson goes a long way in my book and she did the entire soundtrack. Afterwards Nik and I both had one of her frickin’ songs stuck in our heads, to our chagrin. By the end of the night we wer saying, “Screw you, Kimya Dawons!” This morning I was finally free of it. Or so I thought. The bus I take to work passes by Easy St. Records. Their sign today said: Live In-Store, Kimya Dawson, Feb 9. Apparently I cannot escape.

Warning: This post has a lot of talk about RPGs, business, and licensing and thus may be baffling and/or tedious for some of you. If this type of thing is not of interest, you probably want to just skip it.

These are interesting times for companies that make use of the Open Game License. While many games have now been released under the OGL, the big one has always been Dungeons & Dragons. I had been pretty sure that WotC would just close off 4th edition, but was surprised to hear in August that they intended to release it under the OGL. Their specific plan was murky until last month, when they announced a two-stage rollout. Companies could publish starting in August if they bought a development kit for $5,000. Otherwise, no publishing for 4E by third parties until January of next year. The actual details of the new OGL remained unknown though. Green Ronin and many other companies signed NDAs and waited for WotC to deliver the new license for review.

That wait continues, but an interesting fact came out this week. This new license is not going to be called the Open Game License, but rather the Game System License. From previous discussions with WotC, it had already become clear that the new license would be more restrictive than the old one. This move confirms it. It sounds like the new license will not be the next iteration of the OGL but a completely new license. This makes it clear that WotC had some issues with the previous OGL and is trying to learn from previous experience. So what are those issues?

1. Stand Alone Games Don’t Help WotC
In the early days of the OGL, everyone used the d20 logo and that prevented the creation of stand-alone products. If you wanted to use the d20 logo, you had to point back to the D&D; Player’s Handbook (or later, other WotC core books). At the time publishers thought you had to have the logo to make a successful product. Then variant games like Mutants & Masterminds and True20 Adventure Roleplaying began to appear. These games built off the SRD but became games in their own right. One of the stated goals of the OGL was to help WotC sell core rulebooks. If people are buying stand-alone games, that doesn’t help to sell WotC’s books. We’ve already heard that the new license won’t allow such games any more, though it cannot prevent the continuation of games already on the market. This is an understandable move on their part, though one could argue that some of the most innovative design work of the d20 era happened in those very games and that GSL restrictions may not lead to the same advancement of the state of the art.

2. The License Should Be About D&D; Support
When Ryan Dancey was selling the idea of the OGL at WotC in 1999, one of his points that was third party publishers could provide support for D&D; in areas that WotC itself had difficulty doing so profitably (most notably adventures). There was indeed a wave of adventure products, led by Death in Freeport and Three Days to Kill. Soon third party companies started taking on bigger projects and expanding out into sourcebook territory. Then they ranged farther still, into genres that had little to do with swords and sorcery. Several years later Charles Ryan, then in charge of the D&D; brand, said that WotC was going to start doing more adventures because the third party companies weren’t providing the type of support WotC had originally envisioned. The GSL will thus be more explicitly about supporting D&D.; There may be limits on the types of products allowed, similar to the “no miniatures” provision of the old d20 STL.

3. Strip Mining is Bad for the Environment
With the original OGL WotC put up something called the System Reference Document, which contained most of the rules for D&D.; It could be copied or modified by use of the OGL. People asked if it could be republished as is, and in a FAQ WotC replied that those who thought they could make money doing so were welcome to try. I doubt anyone really thought that people would but naturally this is exactly what happened. There were “pocket” and various PDF versions of D&D; core books published by other companies, and some companies saw their own books re-released by other publishers as well. An ex-Guardians of Order employee recently noted, for example, that “within days of d20 Mecha coming out and being released on SRD, other companies were selling clones of the product, sometimes with better production values…”

Another thing that happened was that some open game content was taken from its original products and given away for free on various websites. This is legal under the original OGL but it was a development that many publishers weren’t so happy about. They were, of course, trying to make money from their work and someone else giving it away for nothing was not considered helpful. One example of this that has cropped up a lot in recent conversation is what happened with GR’s True20 game. The True20 rules originally appeared in the Blue Rose game and we eventually decided to release them on their own as a more generic rule set. Before the True20 core book was even released, we were queried by someone who had taken all the rules out of Blue Rose and wanted to give them away on his website as a True20 SRD. We answered that if we wanted there to be a True20 SRD, we’d do one ourselves. With our core book not even out, we really were not hot on the rules being given out for free. He agreed not to make the site public for a year but since then the rules have indeed been available. We took no hostile action in this case. We were asked a question and we gave our opinion. We did not try to impede the effort, we sent no cease and desist letter, we didn’t pillory the guy on the internet. Nonetheless, other folks have accused of all sorts of things, from working against “the spirit of open gaming” to being big bullies to benefiting from the OGL without giving back. One designer (ironically enough, a WotC employee) even accused us of using “ignorant and deceitful tactics”. This despite the reams of OGC we’ve released, the sharing of content between us and other publishers, and the entire M&M; Superlink program that lets companies publish branded material compatible with our best selling game for nothing.

I don’t think it’s too surprising then to hear that WotC has some different plans this time around. The SRD will more of a reference guide that lets you know what’s open without putting text files of the rules up. They have said that the new license will be designed to encourage creative extensions of D&D; rather than the wholesale reprinting of OGC. I will be curious to see if the GSL also has something to say about the giving away of open content on the internet.

4. Did We Say Perpetuity?
The original OGL is forever. It can be updated but it can’t be revoked. I’m sure this is a big reason why the Game System License will be released as a brand new thing, rather than an update of the existing OGL. What sounds good now maybe doesn’t sound so good 8 years down the line.

The thing I’m really interested to find out is whether the GSL will have a clause that forbids its use with the OGL. I think this is entirely possible. It would the mean that you couldn’t take previously released OGC and use it in a book released under the GSL. A book like the already announced Tome of Horrors 4th edition would not be possible under this restriction. This would make things clean and easy for WotC, but would probably cause a lot of chaos in the world of third party publishing.

Clearly many changes are in the wind. Until we see the Game System License we won’t know all of them for sure. No matter what I’m positive publishing under the original OGL will continue (that’s how we’ll do M&M; and True20, for example). A year from now the publishing landscape will likely be quite different though. I think the big question is whether any of the prominent third party publishers will decide to just skip 4E and the GSL and continue to publish 3.5 material. I think Paizo is best positioned to pull this off but it would be a gamble for sure. As for WotC I guess I continue to be surprised they are making this attempt at all. I seriously wouldn’t blame them for saying, “This is a huge headache with few tangible benefits for us, so 4E will not support 3rd party publishing.”

So far 2008 has been nothing if not interesting in the world of RPG publishing.

Two things are making this New Yorker smile today.

First, there’s a glowing review of Pirates of the Burning Sea in the New York Times, on the front page of the Arts section no less. One line cracked me up (“The very reason people play any sort of role-playing game — Dungeons & Dragons, World of Warcraft, Doctor and Patient — is to explore a fantasy”), but overall it’s a very positive review and great exposure for the game. Also, I can’t wait for Doctor and Patient 4th Edition!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/arts/television/31yarr.html?_r=3&ref;=arts&oref;=slogin&oref;=slogin&oref;=slogin

The other bit of joyous news for me is that Rudy Giuliani dropped out of the race for the presidency. Fuck yeah! The rest of the country may think of him as “America’s mayor”, but actual New Yorkers know he is a morally bankrupt thug and bully who would have been a disaster as president. I think 8 years of disaster is quite enough for America, so see you later, Rudy. Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.

Today Games Workshop announced that it is shutting down Black Industries, its roleplaying wing. Green Ronin worked with BI for many years as a design house and put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into the products we created for them. Getting to design the new edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay was in many ways a dream project for me and seeing it become the #2 fantasy RPG on the market was pretty gratifying. It is sad to see WFRP come to an end yet again, though I’m sure the fan community will keep it going for many years to come.

Many people have asked me what this means for Green Ronin and if the closure of BI will adversely affect us. There’s nothing to worry about on that score. Our contract with them concluded last year and we turned over the files for Thousand Thrones last month. We knew this transition was coming and were ready for it. We just didn’t realize that WFRP itself would not be moving forward. At least the line is going out with a bang though. Thousand Thrones is a huge adventure that’ll take a long time to play through. It seems like an appropriate way to send things off.

Best of luck to the GW folks affected by this. I’ve been through similar days and they are never fun.