Re-use of Non-SRD OGL content?

Shawn_Kehoe · Aug 22, 2006

Hi all,

I'm just getting back into the non-WotC D20 material after an absence of a few years. It's a smaller market than it was before, but it feels more manageable to me. Anyways, on to my question.

Back in the early days of D20, lots of publishers seemed to ignore one of the principal benefits of a "copyleft" system: there is no need to endlessly reinvent the wheel. Nonetheless, the same ground was covered by many different design houses in many different ways that seldom meshed together.

In this smaller, leaner market, have the D20 publishers started borrowing the best of each other's work? Company specialites seem more defined now: Mongoose does liscened stuff, Goodman and Necromancer have 1e-style adventures covered, Green Ronin does Freeport and some generic sourcebooks etc. Without stepping on each other's toes, it would seem quite possible for a Necromancer module to use a demon from Book of Fiends, or a Freeport NPC to borrow a template from Book of Templates.

So - does it happen? And if not, why not?

Thanks,

Shawn

BiggusGeekus · Aug 22, 2006

Shawn_Kehoe said:
So - does it happen? And if not, why not?

Yep.

Check out EXPress' Monster Geographica!

http://www.exp.citymax.com/page/page/351668.htm

There have been other projects as well. I think one company did a spell compedium of d20 OGL spells.

Why doesn't it happen more often? Look at it this way, you've just sunk a couple of thousand bucks into a book. It's legal. You're cool with it. Are you absolutely sure the guy whose stuff you legally took because it was OGL is not going to flip out and have his lawyer gaming buddy sue your pants off? Hey, maybe you're in the clear. Maybe the suit will be settled in your favor. But do you really want to deal with it?

It is 100% perfectly legal, but it is still a risk.

Also you get morons like me. I intended for Murchad's Legacy to be 100% open gaming content at the last minute. I accidentally published with the wrong legal notification. That's pretty scary. You're betting that I'm just a simple retard. How much you want to bet on that? Now in this case, I really do mean for everything to be 100% OGL and I really am just a stupid idiot. But you can see why people who have never met me would be reluctant to bet their futures on that.

Also? A lot of d20 material isn't compatible with everything else. Nothing you can do about that.

dcas · Aug 22, 2006

Doesn't WOTC use other companies' open-game content (OGC) sometimes?

Anyway, I don't think there's any legal risk in using something that is clearly indicated as OGC. If someone isn't borrowing from the Book of Fiends or the Book of Templates it could be that the fiend or template to be borrowed is at least partly Product Identity (so that it could be used in another company's work but not duplicated in its entirety). In that case publishers might not borrow from one another because they don't want to be referencing other companies' products in their own publications.

For example, suppose I publish a book of monsters including an innovative creature called Xyzzy. I designate the name, stats, and special abilities of the creature as OGC, but the description of the creature as Product Identity. Another company could use my creature in a module, with all its stats, but couldn't reproduce it entirely.

Grazzt · Aug 22, 2006

dcas said:
Doesn't WOTC use other companies' open-game content (OGC) sometimes?

Only time I know of for sure was when they reprinted a couple of monsters from the Creature Collection in the back of Monster Manual 2 (made them OGC, but they got their Section 15 wrong for it..go figure).

(Does it count that the Tomb Spider in MM4 is a lot like the Corpsespinner we did way back in Tome 2?

)

Henry · Aug 22, 2006

Grazzt said:
Only time I know of for sure was when they reprinted a couple of monsters from the Creature Collection in the back of Monster Manual 2...

How about Damage Saves in Unearthed Arcana? To my knowledge, that's a Mutants and Masterminds/True20 invention.

It's happeneing more than it used to. For instance, take Spycraft's Original Chase system. It has been taken and adapted by at least two different companies I know of (Adamant Entertainment and Bad Axe Games). It's different in each product, but the core system to my knowledge came from AEG's Spycraft 1st edition. I haven't seen anyone borrow Spycraft 2.0's Dramatic Conflict system (what their chase rules morphed into) but I find it a superior system, covering everything from Chases to seductions to brainwashes to computer hacking to infiltrations, and would love to see its use more.

Shawn_Kehoe · Aug 22, 2006

BiggusGeekus said:
Yep.

Check out EXPress' Monster Geographica!

http://www.exp.citymax.com/page/page/351668.htm

There have been other projects as well. I think one company did a spell compedium of d20 OGL spells.

Why doesn't it happen more often? Look at it this way, you've just sunk a couple of thousand bucks into a book. It's legal. You're cool with it. Are you absolutely sure the guy whose stuff you legally took because it was OGL is not going to flip out and have his lawyer gaming buddy sue your pants off? Hey, maybe you're in the clear. Maybe the suit will be settled in your favor. But do you really want to deal with it?

It is 100% perfectly legal, but it is still a risk.

Also you get morons like me. I intended for Murchad's Legacy to be 100% open gaming content at the last minute. I accidentally published with the wrong legal notification. That's pretty scary. You're betting that I'm just a simple retard. How much you want to bet on that? Now in this case, I really do mean for everything to be 100% OGL and I really am just a stupid idiot. But you can see why people who have never met me would be reluctant to bet their futures on that.

Also? A lot of d20 material isn't compatible with everything else. Nothing you can do about that.

Legally, if they have declared the content OGL, a lawsuit has no leg to stand on. But the courts work differently here in Canada, and I see how the mere threat of a lawsuit could put a shadow over some designers. Still, most of the established d20 companies should be in a position to ascertain their legal status.

Have their been any OGL/D20 lawsuits to the public knowledge? I always thought it was a pretty friendly community.

Sure, a lot of d20 material is very specific and non-adaptable - but that's not what I'm talking about here, I'm interested in the stuff that can be shared, but isn't being used.

Shawn

Shawn_Kehoe · Aug 22, 2006

Henry said:
How about Damage Saves in Unearthed Arcana? To my knowledge, that's a Mutants and Masterminds/True20 invention.

It's happeneing more than it used to. For instance, take Spycraft's Original Chase system. It has been taken and adapted by at least two different companies I know of (Adamant Entertainment and Bad Axe Games). It's different in each product, but the core system to my knowledge came from AEG's Spycraft 1st edition. I haven't seen anyone borrow Spycraft 2.0's Dramatic Conflict system (what their chase rules morphed into) but I find it a superior system, covering everything from Chases to seductions to brainwashes to computer hacking to infiltrations, and would love to see its use more.

The big OGC shocker in Unearthed Arcana for me was the inclusion of Call of Cthulhu's Sanity rules. The CoC D20 game had been published by WotC, so it didn't require any open content declarations, but then the sanity system popped up in UA anyways. Craaazy.

Shawn

Psion · Aug 22, 2006

Shawn_Kehoe said:
The big OGC shocker in Unearthed Arcana for me was the inclusion of Call of Cthulhu's Sanity rules. The CoC D20 game had been published by WotC, so it didn't require any open content declarations, but then the sanity system popped up in UA anyways. Craaazy.

Not at all.

The thing you have to realize about the open game license is that, well, it's a license. WotC still owns the copyright in either case. They can, at their own discretion, publish material they own under the open game license, or not.

As long as you own something, you don't need a license to publish. You only need a license if you don't own the property.

After all, look at the SRD. The PHB, DMG, and MM are not published under the OGL. But WotC choose to extract substantial sections of those books and re-relase them under the OGL as the SRD.

Scribble · Aug 22, 2006

Shawn_Kehoe said:
Hi all,

I'm just getting back into the non-WotC D20 material after an absence of a few years. It's a smaller market than it was before, but it feels more manageable to me. Anyways, on to my question.

Back in the early days of D20, lots of publishers seemed to ignore one of the principal benefits of a "copyleft" system: there is no need to endlessly reinvent the wheel. Nonetheless, the same ground was covered by many different design houses in many different ways that seldom meshed together.

In this smaller, leaner market, have the D20 publishers started borrowing the best of each other's work? Company specialites seem more defined now: Mongoose does liscened stuff, Goodman and Necromancer have 1e-style adventures covered, Green Ronin does Freeport and some generic sourcebooks etc. Without stepping on each other's toes, it would seem quite possible for a Necromancer module to use a demon from Book of Fiends, or a Freeport NPC to borrow a template from Book of Templates.

So - does it happen? And if not, why not?

Thanks,

Shawn

I'm hoping that now that the D20 market is slowing down on what "needs" to be done, companies will stop trying to rush out and be the first with a set of rules for doing something...

Maybe now they can look around and say, ok, people seem to like x companies rules for this action, perhaps I'll make my product compatible with that...

Like your examples above...

Take it back to what seemed to be the Spirit of the whole thing in the first place. Promoting the game by making it easier to work with solid game mechanics.

Shawn_Kehoe · Aug 22, 2006

Psion said:
Not at all.

The thing you have to realize about the open game license is that, well, it's a license. WotC still owns the copyright in either case. They can, at their own discretion, publish material they own under the open game license, or not.

As long as you own something, you don't need a license to publish. You only need a license if you don't own the property.

After all, look at the SRD. The PHB, DMG, and MM are not published under the OGL. But WotC choose to extract substantial sections of those books and re-relase them under the OGL as the SRD.

You misunderstand me, Psion. I'm not arguing against their right to introduce their own material as open content - I was simply suprised that the signature mechanic of Call of Cthulhu would be exported to open source by a company other than Chaosium. Since the CoC D20 had been a one-book deal, I had not expected the Sanity rules to show up again, especially since they had been unchanged from the original BRP rules. But that may very well have been part of the contract for CoC D20.

Shjawn

Re-use of Non-SRD OGL content?

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