History Check: Open Game Content from WotC

[Alzrius]

With the recent controversy surrounding Wizards of the Coast and the Open Game License, I thought it might be interesting to take a look back at all of the Open Game Content material that WotC has released over the years. Looking back through my collection of older-editions products and various SRDs, I was surprised to find that in years past, WotC was more generous with their OGC than I thought. Here's a quick series of bullet points listing official D&D releases that had Open Game Content:

• The 3.0 SRD (updated to include content excerpted from the Psionics Handbook).
• Two monsters – the razor boar and scorpionfolk – from the Monster Manual II (both originally from Sword & Sorcery Studios' Creature Collection as the iron tusker and sandmasker, respectively).
• The Modern SRD (updated to include content excerpted from d20 Future, d20 Menace Manual, and Urban Arcana).
• Most of the text in the d20 Modern Weapons Locker supplement.
• The 3.5 SRD (updated to include content excerpted from the Expanded Psionics Handbook, Epic Level Handbook, and Deities and Demigods).
• Most of the text in the 3.5 Unearthed Arcana supplement.
• Dragon #304, "Prestige Races," by Greg Dent and Brannon Hollingsworth.
• Dragon #308, "Dragon Magic," by Monte Cook (the concept and the Dragon Magic feat both originally from Malhavoc Press's The Book of Eldritch Might III).
• Dragon #311, "Arcane Alterations," by Christopher Perkins based on an idea by Monte Cook (this was later reprinted in the Dragon Compendium vol. 1)
• Dragon Annual #6, select content from four articles: "First Look: Dragonstar," by Greg Benage; "The Black Talon Ss'ressen," by Henry Lopez; "Black Riders and Bone Horses," by Wolfgang Baur; and "Firearms of Freeport," by Chris Pramas.
• The 5.0 SRD.
• The 5.1 SRD.

If I missed anything, please let me know and I'll add it here!

EDIT: Added the Monster Manual II entry.

 

[glass]

Two monsters – the razor boar and scorpionfolk – from the Monster Manual II (both originally from Sword & Sorcery Studios' Creature Collection as the iron tusker and sandmasker, respectively).

I do not think this one counts - that was SSS's contribution, not WotCs. Based on your description, the same seems to be true of the Dragon Magic one.

 

[Alzrius]

I do not think this one counts - that was SSS's contribution, not WotCs. Based on your description, the same seems to be true of the Dragon Magic one.

For the most part I agree, but I went back and compared the descriptions of those monsters between the two books; WotC did quite a bit of editing of those two monsters compared to the originals!

Also, I didn't put this in the description for the Dragon Magic article because I was trying to be concise, but while the concept and feat are from the BoEM3, as near as I can tell all of the spells in the article are new (i.e. I looked in my copy of the Complete Book of Eldritch Might and they didn't seem to be there).

 

[Dausuul]

For the most part I agree, but I went back and compared the descriptions of those monsters between the two books; WotC did quite a bit of editing of those two monsters compared to the originals!

If I understand the rules of the OGL correctly, Wizards had to release the edited versions as open content, didn't they? That's the "viral" component of the OGL: If you use someone else's open content, you have to make it available to others under the same terms. I'd think that applies even if what you're publishing is a derivative work rather than a straight-up copy.

 

[Reynard]

If I understand the rules of the OGL correctly, Wizards had to release the edited versions as open content, didn't they? That's the "viral" component of the OGL: If you use someone else's open content, you have to make it available to others under the same terms. I'd think that applies even if what you're publishing is a derivative work rather than a straight-up copy.

The text of the license strongly suggests this to be the case, and in fact that all mechanics are OGC, but I don't think it was ever tested and plenty of publishers used to OGL in bad faith.

 

[Reynard]

Thanks for this. I had forgotten just how much content WotC made available for d20 Modern in particular.

And now I am sad we never saw an evolution of d20 Modern. I really like the base class plus advanced class structure. If I were to do something with it now, I think I would use the base classes plus PF2/SF style archetypes.

 

[glass]

For the most part I agree, but I went back and compared the descriptions of those monsters between the two books; WotC did quite a bit of editing of those two monsters compared to the originals!

Interesting. I am pretty sure I have both books (somewhere), but I never bothered to do a detailed side-by-side comparison. I knew that the names were changed, due to the original names not being open, but I did not realise it went beyond that.

If I understand the rules of the OGL correctly, Wizards had to release the edited versions as open content, didn't they? That's the "viral" component of the OGL: If you use someone else's open content, you have to make it available to others under the same terms. I'd think that applies even if what you're publishing is a derivative work rather than a straight-up copy.

As @Reynard notes, the extent of what you do and do not need to share has always been a bit fuzzy, but most reasonable readings would say that "yes, they need to open the resulting creatures". With the MMII, including the monsters was deliberately done to showcase the advantages of the OGL, so trying to "get away with" anything in this case would have been a bit odd!

 

[Alzrius]

If I understand the rules of the OGL correctly, Wizards had to release the edited versions as open content, didn't they?

They did, but that wasn't what I meant. I meant that the original Creature Collection versions weren't very well balanced (which is understandable, given that D&D 3.0 had just come out when it was released), and rather than simply reprinting them as-is (albeit with new names, since the names of the original versions weren't OGC), WotC did quite a bit of touch-up, which they didn't need to do.