What does the royalty pay for?

[ChrisRevocateur]

Originally Posted by sveden

Thanks for the reply.

I just would like to know what IP or part of WoC's IP we are paying for. Because as far as I can tell the DDI downloader that supplies the placeholders for feats, skills and powers is provding "public" data that anyone could use without any IP agreement with WoC.

I could be wrong, but in the case of 4E and WotC, I don't think you're paying for ANY of it. I don't think they get one cent from HL for 4E licenses. I think that they just used the bare bones skeleton for the rules to legally put it out, and what you're actually paying for when you get the 4E dataset is the unfettered access to the Authoring Kit and Savage Worlds. I believe I've heard the developers say that they include 4E and Savage Worlds with the Authoring Kit so that you can look at those systems as examples of how you can create your own.