Is this legal?

[Sage]

Contacting WotC didn't help much:

Thank you for contacting Wizards of the Coast about the “legality” of creating and distributing a program to calculate experience points within our rules system. We cannot give legal advice. If you are concerned about copyright issues and the d20 license or OGL license is unclear to you, then please contact a lawyer for advice.

Which means I probably won't do it.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Let me break this down for you.

You have two licenses to worry about. The d20 System Trademark License, and the OGL.

Here's what the d20 STL has to say about Experience:

Definition of Applying the effects of Experience to a Character:

Applying the effects of Experience to a Character means the process for comparing the accumulated experience point total of a character to a chart to determine if the character's level should be incremented. If the experience level of a character exceeds threshold values as defined by the chart, the character is modified in a specified fashion.

Specifically, Applying the effects of Experience to a Character means incrementing the character level of a character by incrementing a class level by one rank, or by adding a new class at first level, and describing how to allocate new skill points, select new feats, select new talents, or gain new class-level linked abilities.

Applying the effects of Experience to a Character does not include creating or modifying an experience point chart or defining a new class (including describing what benefits that class provides at each level).

Emphasis mine.

But the easiest solution is just to remove the d20 logo from your site. It serves you no purpose. The d20 logo is for marketing. Since you're not marketing anything, you don't need it. Just take it off. Everywhere. And you don't have to worry about the d20 STL in the slightest.

(I provided the quote from the d20 STL to demonstrate that what you want to do is possible within the terms of the d20 STL, but the STL comes with so many other restrictions, it really is just not worth your trouble to use the little logo.)

Now with regards to the OGL:

First, do as others have suggested and remove the Product Identity designation that belongs to Wizards. Just get that out of the way. You're not meant to copy Wizards' PI designation.

Now with regards to an XP calculator:

The OGL allows you to use Open Gaming Content. That a particular piece of game design does not exist in the SRD does not de facto prevent you from creating something of your own design.

(This should be obvious; the entire purpose of the OGL is to build on the work of others, not to limit the expression of OGC only to those things already in the SRD!)

Creating an XP chart that recommends 1000 XP times your current level in order to advance is not an innovation in game design. That progression has been around for years in other game systems.

Still, it doesn't sound like you even need this-- all you care about is XP awards. So much the easier.

I'm a big fan of the "Chi Rho" method of XP awards, which will NOT produce exactly the same results in the XP Awards chart shown in the DMG. It is, in fact, a rather clever bit of design cooked up by some savvy ENworlders (Cheiromancer, Upper_Krust, CR Greathouse, Anubis, and others including myself).

I can only summarize that formula here, but it's basically 300 XP per character level, times the sum of the squares of each monster's CR, divided by the sum of the squares of each PCs level. (I will assume you're comfortable with the order of operations in the equation.)

Let me give a concrete example, a CR2 creature versus four 2nd level PCs.

The XP award is:

(300) x (CR2^2) / (2nd^2 + 2nd^2 + 2nd^2 + 2nd^2),

or (300)(4)/(16)

or 75 xp per level per character,

or 150 xp each per 2nd level character.

Step back a moment. You might notice that using this award progression and the XP chart we "defined" earlier, a 2nd level character requires 2000 XP to level up, so each 2nd level character will have to overcome (2000)/(150) 'moderate' encounters where the CR is equal to his own level, or 13.33333333333 encounters.

Wow.

That's a nice round number; it's also a really nice bit of design work the likes of which you will not find in any bit of WOTC copyrighted material that I know of.

Again, it does NOT produce results identical to the DMG's Experience Point Award chart. That's a good thing. What we are decisively NOT doing is copying the XP award chart and performing some kind of lookup function.

The DMG's chart is actually "off" in a few spots because they want to advance low level characters a little faster, and they want to "flatten" or "prolong" the sweet spot of mid levels, and then taper it off a bit at high levels. Their rationale for this is sound, but their design is their own. The Chi/Rho method produces even results across all levels.

And that's the end of my advice, a wholly different perspective from another publisher who's also put time and effort into publishing under the d20 STL and the OGL. I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.

Thanks for the online SRD, by the way. I use it every gaming session.

Wulf

 

[Mark CMG]

But the easiest solution is just to remove the d20 logo from your site. It serves you no purpose.

I agree. However, Sage will still need to remove the trademarks references from his site to comply with the OGL.

And that's the end of my advice, a wholly different perspective from another publisher who's also put time and effort into publishing under the d20 STL and the OGL.

What an odd thing to say. Just to be clear, your perspective is different in this instance because you're adddressing something I didn't address previously, not because you've posted anything that contradicts what I have posted. I'm sure you're not saying that the trademark references are compliant with the OGL. I hadn't gotten around to what Sage wished to add to the site because his concern about making sure he was operating legally under the licenses required he first look at what he had already done before addressing what he might do in the future. First things first.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

What an odd thing to say. Just to be clear, your perspective is different in this instance because you're adddressing something I didn't address previously, not because you've posted anything that contradicts what I have posted.

I was thinking it was mainly different because I chose to be more directly helpful.

 

[Mark CMG]

I was thinking it was mainly different because I chose to be more directly helpful.

Oh, knock it off, Ben. Ignoring the underlying license violations doesn't really help.

 

[Dogen1]

No legal problem at all.

You can't copyright the numbers in a table (the specific expression of a table and it's layout yes, but not the number or the formula it's based upon). The only conceivable problem would be trademark issues, but the terms 'level' and 'experience' are so widely used for such things, there's no case there.

you might want to rethink that.
A real estate appraisal has in it a table with numbers in it. The table and the numbers are protected by US Copywrite law. If I can copy write a table, and the numbers in the table in a appraisal report, don't you thing WOC can copywrite a table, and the numbers in it, from a book?
The fact is you can not copywrite numbers, but the numbers here express a concept that can be copywrited.

 

[Sage]

I was thinking it was mainly different because I chose to be more directly helpful.

You were real helpful! Thanks!

I'll probably use you're "chi rho" method unless I can find some other way that's closer to WotC's charts (like having 3 formulas, where the PC's level decides which formula to use).

the 13.33333 was mentioned in a sidebar in the DMG as the average amount of encounters to level up, sweet

So far the d20 trademark hasn't given me any real problems (sepecially with your clarification of the issue). The problem was really the OGL since it states somewhere (inderectly) that if I create a program from which the experience chart can be reproduced ("abridgment or other form in which an existing work may be recast, transformed or adapted"), then I'm creating "Derivative Material" , which is a no no. So as you said, differing from the chart is a good thing. Thanks again.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Oh, knock it off, Ben. Ignoring the underlying license violations doesn't really help.

You knock it off, Mark. I'm really not in the mood for yet another pissing match with you. I wasn't singling you out for anything (you might notice that Biggus Geekus' post is more directly at odds with my 'analysis') so don't pick a fight with me and then tell me to knock it off.

Your posts were elitist, unhelpful, at best irrelevant, and at worst inaccurate. Don't pop into the thread and friggin quiz people over what they may or may not have done wrong with regards to the license. THAT is your high water mark for being helpful?

Read your first post, and consider its applicability to Sage's question. Was it inaccurate or irrelevant?

Re-read your subsequent posts as well. You led the conversation astray, convinced other uninformed posters to pile on behind you, and discouraged Sage from even trying.

One would almost think you had some sort of vested interest in being unhelpful.

You were real helpful! Thanks!

You are most certainly very welcome. Your hyperlinked SRD is extremely useful and I am happy to help you in return.

I'll probably use you're "chi rho" method unless I can find some other way that's closer to WotC's charts (like having 3 formulas, where the PC's level decides which formula to use).

I haven't studied it, but in the first place I highly doubt there's a smooth mathematical formula to the table, and in the second place, you very specifically don't want to do anything that deliberately "copies" that table. If you find yourself referring to that table at all, in fact, you have crossed the line.

 

[Mark CMG]

I'm really not in the mood for yet another pissing match with you.

Yup. I get tired of those, too. Again, ignoring the underlying violations doesn't help the situation. As a publisher you shouldn't be acting like those don't matter. They are not irrelevant, they are at the heart of the problem. You really need to stick with the issues and not turn everything into a personal attack. It's why I told you to knock it off.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Knock it off, Mark.