(Untitled)

[illessa]

For those sad enough to be interested in such things, the GSL for Fourth Edition D&D is out (here, along with the SRD list). Also known as "Wizards of the Coast want you as their doormat".

Comments

[rat_lord]

So, no Book of Vile Darkness then ;-)

[rebelliousuno]

Well of the monsters you mention a lot of them wern't in the 3.5 SRD either (either due to them being forgotten realms types) or being the so called "Iconic DnD Monsters" (Mindflayers Beholders)
So not really too many surprises about them being left out of the new SRD though Owl Bears and Drow are a weird one...the Drow esp since they're so public domain.....

[illessa]

Yeah, posting the full list was probably a little pointless, should have just posted the changes, Sahuagin and Otyughs were also previously SRD IIRC, and only having one type of spider is just random. The no MM Demons, Devils or Oozes is pretty huge though, no more Imps, Succubi or Gelatinous Cubes for 3PP...

Yeah, Drow are Public Domain, as are some of the demons and devils, and possibly some of the others, but it doesn't matter as you'll be entering a License Agreement which requires you to avoid using them.

In fact... publishing any kind of new class or monster would be a risky thing to do, say you needed a Bard class so you made one. Wizards release PHB2 with a Bard class and put Bard in the SRD; you can't sell the book with your Bard in anymore. Obviously Bard isn't the greatest example, making custom versions of the original classes would be a foolish thing to do, but even so, any time you make a custom class/monster you just have to hope Wizards never come out with anything with the same name...

[rebelliousuno]

If they've given general stats for Demons and Devils and things like Pit Fiends and Balor's don't appear anywhere else its mostly them protecting the things that they've created but it's still a bit weird...

As for making things with the same name there are probably recourses which you have that you can say Since you're published you came up with first...but without reading the exact wording of the license agreement I couldn't say.

It will be interesting to see when the actual SRD OGL or whatever it is they're calling it comes out.

[illessa]

The GSL is the equivalent of the OGL (well in terms of licensing D&D, they're completely different beasts), the SRD has also been released in a list of terms you can refer to format, something the current d20srd.org would be impossible under the new license as you can only refer to the names (you can't even give MM page numbers) unless you're doing something like changing a creature's weapon or similar, at which point you can print a rejigged stat block...