A Community SRD?

[Weylan]

I just think that the idea of an expanded SRD should appeal to many publishers as well as fans.

I can see the appeal to fans, but what is the appeal for the publishers?

Like Morrus said, if they put their OGC up for free why would you want or need to buy the publisher's products?

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I can see the appeal to fans, but what is the appeal for the publishers?

Like Morrus said, if they put their OGC up for free why would you want or need to buy the publisher's products?

Depends on whether what they primarily sell is settings or rules.

If they are selling rules, the conflict of interest is obvious. If they are selling settings, then using their rules material might be advertising for them. Especially since you need to mention the original source of your material.

 

[Umbran]

I thought it was all by permission though, and isn't this the thing that makes some OGL publishers scream in rage?

Um, it shouldn't - that's the point of the license, that other people are allowed to use the open content. To get mad about it would say, in effect, "Hey, I used the OGL, but I didnt really mean for it to be open!" Reasonable people don't scream in rage over being held to the terms of their agreements.

 

[Yair]

Um, it shouldn't - that's the point of the license, that other people are allowed to use the open content. To get mad about it would say, in effect, "Hey, I used the OGL, but I didnt really mean for it to be open!" Reasonable people don't scream in rage over being held to the terms of their agreements.

While true, some publishers make using their OGC all but impossible and may cry faul and deman you cease and desist should you try to use their material. Others will not "scream in rage" but still say they would prefer if you didn't.

 

[philreed]

It is true that a lot of publishers aren't wild about the idea of large collaboration of freely-available OGC, since that could theoretically impact product sales. Why buy product X when most of it (if the book had a large amount of OGC) is freely and legally available on the internet?

Plus, all this would do is penalize those publishers that have released a lot of OGC. The "crippled" OGC products would be largely unaffected.

And with sales the way they are these days for d20 products, the loss of 100-200 sales could kill many publishers.

 

[hong]

Dear publishers,

Feel free to use all the stuff on my D&D page for your own nefarious reasons. Just give me credit, so I can level my ego up faster.

Yours sincerely,
Hong

 

[Drawmack]

The OGC movement was begun, unless I'm mistaken, due to the success of the Open Software (OS) movement. So if you really want to do something like this then it would only make sense to model it on similar things in the OS movement.

In the OS movement three levels, for lack of a better word, of participant have been identified. There is the user who downloads and uses free software. These people contribute to the community by posting usage questions and answers on message boards and mailing lists. Then there is the contributors who develop free software as a labor of love. These people contribute to the community by expanding the base of software offered or improving current free software. Then there are open source professionals. These people both develop and use software that is free, but they make a living working as consultants and selling their knowledge of open software to companies by implementing and/or modifying open source for the businesses purposes.

This community is largely tied together through sourceforge (http://www.sourceforge.net).

So, if you wanted to accomplish something like this with OGC, I would think the first step is to set up a source forge type site for OGC. This site would need a large support base to be useful at all. Maybe some populare role-playing site, possibly with a grandma rule, could let you leech off of their user base by affiliating with you.

Then you would have your three levels of participants. There would be the users who download and/or buy open content. The contributors who add to or improve the quality of the open content offerings. Then there would be the professionals, publishers, who produce OGC works for sale which may or may not include CGC as well as OGC.

So the offerings for free would usually lack something. Formatting may be needed. Art may be low quality or completely missing. It might be all crunch and no fluff, or vice versa. The professionals could then take these offerings add the finishing touches to make them professional quality and sell the books.

YMMV

 

[Ry]

The reason I think it should appeal to publishers is that it makes available a toolkit of good, solid rules options that nobody cries foul over. How many publishers have made up similar expansion classes that struggle to differentiate themselves from other similar classes by other publishers - and have clunky rules as a result?

 

[Hussar]

Rycanada - at least no one's accused you yet of being a thief only out to steal free stuff from the internet. I think the last time I brought up this particular idea, at least three people called me that. :/

Personally, I think it's a great idea. Instead of six different nautical supplements, why not combine them all into one? Start with material from the opening days of 3.5 edition and work forward. It's not like a three year old book is selling so much that putting its OGC on the web is going to break the bank. And, as an added bonus, those that stuff their books with crippled OGC don't get all the free advertising that comes with something like this.

 

[Ry]

That's my point - this would be something that writers or publishers participate in - not something done over their objections.