An OGC Archive

Reynard · Jan 8, 2008

I know this has been discussed before, by everyone from us to Mike Mearls, but given the situation concerning the 4E "OGL", I think it is finally time to actually do something. While I don't have the right skillset to build a wiki or whatever, or the legal knowledge to make sure the content to be archived is free of PI, I do have the capability to distill mechanics into easily readable formats, as well as expound and edit where necessary (former game writer here).

I think EN World might be a place to archive this information, assuming EN World remains friendly to those that are not moving on to 4E. There are of course other alternatives should this site not end up being the right place.

Is anyone else interested in such a project, and if so, what can you contribute. Luckily, I think a lot of d20 material will soon be getting very cheap so collecting the necessary books to translate the information should be relatively cheap. Someone with more organizational skills than I could probably suggest a basic structure for the project and ways to avoid redundant work.

Publishers: who among you would like to see your d20 material archived? Would you be willing to contribute? I understand the hesitency when this was suggested a long time ago, when d20 material was still valid. But now, it seems like a waste to let this stuff disappear into the ether.

Reynard · Jan 9, 2008

Or, it could simply be the end of an era and no one much cares.

Angel Tarragon · Jan 9, 2008

Reynard said:
Or, it could simply be the end of an era and no one much cares.

11 hours isn't really enough time to gauge interest in this. Check back in 37 hours, if there is still little response, then yeah.

I would love to help, but am not sure how you would want to approach this. I suppose we could get our own forum with subforums for each type of OGC thing added (Races, base & prestige classes, skills, feats, equipment, combat info, adventuring info, magic & spells and other whatnot). Auto lock each subforum that way only moderators can add stuff in. This is just my idea and is only one approach (though if the project is to be hosted here I believe it is the best).

GQuail · Jan 9, 2008

Reynard said:
I know this has been discussed before, by everyone from us to Mike Mearls, but given the situation concerning the 4E "OGL", I think it is finally time to actually do something. While I don't have the right skillset to build a wiki or whatever, or the legal knowledge to make sure the content to be archived is free of PI, I do have the capability to distill mechanics into easily readable formats, as well as expound and edit where necessary (former game writer here).

I think EN World might be a place to archive this information, assuming EN World remains friendly to those that are not moving on to 4E. There are of course other alternatives should this site not end up being the right place.

Is anyone else interested in such a project, and if so, what can you contribute. Luckily, I think a lot of d20 material will soon be getting very cheap so collecting the necessary books to translate the information should be relatively cheap. Someone with more organizational skills than I could probably suggest a basic structure for the project and ways to avoid redundant work.

Publishers: who among you would like to see your d20 material archived? Would you be willing to contribute? I understand the hesitency when this was suggested a long time ago, when d20 material was still valid. But now, it seems like a waste to let this stuff disappear into the ether.

As you say, the arguments behind lost sales and what-not are now much less of a concern - I know EN Publishing has said they've sold way less ebooks of late, and I'm willing to bet that D20 sales have gone down a fair bit.

The concept of an OGC wiki to which others could then add their own revised or newly invented ideas is a cool one, and I'd be curious to see how 3.X products fared after their game becomes retired if such a collection was formed. It would mean a huge, free collection of material that would dwarf what players of most other games or earlier editions of D&D can access, even at cost - so while I have no delusions that 3.X would "compete with 4.0" in a major sense, it would certainly be a lot easier to be a holdout on that front.

Re: companies and their interest in letting you do this: I wonder if some would prefer to wait until 4th Ed is properly out, to maximise what few sales they have. I also wonder if going through the PI statements on some products would reveal that a lot less material is available than on emight thing, as some companies were far stricter about what they gave away than others.

Yair · Jan 9, 2008

I don't think companies will be willing to contribute. Authors tend to think their work still has value even if the market doesn't currently show it. With a few exceptions, owners would not want their material harvested into such an archive.

While I do think it's an interesting idea, and would in principal be happy to conribute some, this isn't really possible for me time-wise right now.

I suggest not publishing a single archive, however. Rather, publish distinct products each containing all the OGC harvested from a single source, and preferably harvested by a single person [preferably from a country that doesn't respect copyright laws, to protect him, but this is unlikely]. The archive site will simply be a venue to display the harvesting works of others. In this way the site itself will be isolated from any charges or liability due to publishing material that isn't really OGC due to improper harvesting, and one charge/retraction won't bring all the other files/content down with it.

jdrakeh · Jan 9, 2008

You know, I have been trying to get something like this going since about 2005 with no luck. Seems that publishers (whether small-press or large-press) are very reluctant to make formerly commercial material available for free (even if it is already OGC or simply not likely to ever make money again in the future). There are exceptions, of course (see my .sig), though they seem to be few and far between.

prosfilaes · Jan 9, 2008

Yair said:
I don't think companies will be willing to contribute. Authors tend to think their work still has value even if the market doesn't currently show it. With a few exceptions, owners would not want their material harvested into such an archive.

I'd be happy to offer my Kobold pantheon that was published in the Koboldnomicon, but I don't know how Bards and Sages would feel about it. It would be legal, yes, but kosher is another question.

The archive site will simply be a venue to display the harvesting works of others. In this way the site itself will be isolated from any charges or liability due to publishing material that isn't really OGC due to improper harvesting, and one charge/retraction won't bring all the other files/content down with it.

One charge/retraction is unlikely to bring the site down. Odds are very good that as long as you take down things you are asked to take down promptly, nobody is going to sue, which is expensive and unlikely to gather good press. I think trying avoid copyright law is going to look bad; if you look like you're on the up and up and trying to obey the law to the best of your ability, people are a lot more likely to cut you some slack.