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March 6, 2009

Green Ronin Will Not Serve 4E

Chris Pramas of Green Ronin Publishing stated in his blog entry at LiVEJournal & Blogger that after discussing with his staff, his answer to Wizards' GSL will be a no.
So when the GSL revision came out, I had to ask myself if I wanted GR to get pulled into WotC's orbit, even a little bit. The answer had to be no.

Some of the reasons for this is because Green Ronin has considered itself to diversify away from d20 materials and they already have good existing lines of products such as Mutants & Masterminds, True20 and the upcoming Song of Fire and Ice RPG.
The company had begun diversifying away from d20 material many years earlier so it was really just a case of continuing that momentum. While d20 was good to us and we published some great books in that era, we ultimately got to a place where we controlled all of our own lines and were beholden to no one.

Although he mentioned that he liked the system, he and his staff were not too passionate about it and he had some doubts on the sales of third party support for 4E which made the terms of the GSL too risky.
I don't want to live with the spectre of the wrong person becoming an exec at WotC and wrecking my business with the stroke of a pen. It's just not worth it, particularly for the level of sales we'd be likely to see doing 4E support........I spent the second half of last year both running and playing 4E. I would play it again, but I have no burning desire to design for it. Nor do my GR cohorts..........Creatively and financially, it just makes more sense for us to chart our own course.

3 comments:

Zachary Houghton said...

He did a nice job laying out his concerns and reasoning. I understand the decision.

I do hope GR decides to support Pathfinder and the OGL--I know they have other cool things in the pipeline, as well.

Questing GM said...

Yeah, that would be interesting. For starters, A Pathfinder Guide to Freeport.

Zachary Houghton said...

You’re speaking my language!

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