Unearthed Arcana SRD on hold...

[jchristl]

In following with:

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=107836&page=1&pp=20

... I am going to NOT go forward with this. Apparently there is far too much heat involved with this. I just wanted to do something nice for the community, but I think that its going to be more hassle than it's worth. I'll OCR the document and store it on my PC for my own use. And if the desires arise in the future, we can do something then...

For what it's worth, the distributed documents, would have been TXT only, no images. And a couple of well structured Find/Replace commands can easily change alot of 'Proper Names'.

Joe

PS - I am not sure, but I originally set that thread to email me during posts, but I never got a-one...

 

[Piratecat]

The email function is down until we get our new server, Joe. Thanks for suggesting the project; as you say, it's a volatile subject.

 

[philreed]

The title of this thread exhibits a lack of understanding of the OGL that I've seen every time this subject is mentioned.

You may not use the title of the product since that has been designated as PI.

This is only one stumbling block that leads me to believe that any material resulting from one of these "community projects" will be illegal. The PDF someone posted previously also exhibited a lack of understanding and did not properly follow the OGL.

 

[Bleys]

I started a Rules Variant SRD, a couple of months back, to make available some options from the aformentioned "Antiquities Exhumed" (to borrow from a thread from quite some time ago) work that we were considering using in a "work in progress" campaign.

It's not really in much shape to be shown off, but if I ever get it to where I feel it is useful to someone other than my group, I will be more than happy to share the link.

And yes, it conforms to the OGL pretty much down to the letter (for the 6 or 7 total passages that are contained in it). Like I said, though, I, personally, don't feel it's a document that's useful for a broad audience, but once it's there, I will share a link.

And before anyone asks, no, it will not contain the entirety of the product whose name will not be mentioned by me, for fear of the mattress police beating down my door... no, wait... wrong set of drugs

 

[der_kluge]

On a side note, I noticed several other things in the SRD now. What all have they added to it? I know the 3 books, ELH, and Psionics, but what else?

 

[Felon]

In following with:

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=107836&page=1&pp=20

... I am going to NOT go forward with this. Apparently there is far too much heat involved with this. I just wanted to do something nice for the community, but I think that its going to be more hassle than it's worth.

Feh. Ya just gotta learn to ignore the various contrarians who want to lecture and bicker with a false air of expertise and making a big deal out of nothing.

Anyway, thanks for the offer. It was a big undertaking anyway, and you weren't getting a ton of volunteers.

 

[CRGreathouse]

On a side note, I noticed several other things in the SRD now. What all have they added to it? I know the 3 books, ELH, and Psionics, but what else?

Just parts of Deities and Demigods, as far as I know.

 

[wingsandsword]

Feh. Ya just gotta learn to ignore the various contrarians who want to lecture and bicker with a false air of expertise and making a big deal out of nothing.

I know, one thing that currently irritates me about RPG fandom are the self appointed amateur Copyright lawyers who love to nitpick and shoot holes in fan projects done in goodwill towards the community and in good faith attempts to follow the law.

In my case, I once posted my homemade Dark*Matter to d20 Modern conversion to the web. I'd made it originally as notes for my home campaign, but after I had put several hundred hours into the project (a pair of .pdf's about 65 pages long in total) I realized other people might want to see it, I made a good faith effort to follow existing protocols and practices for releasing conversions as I understood them. When I made mention of this on message boards, all the comments I ever got were hostile remarks about how suchandsuch wasn't properly documented in the Section 15 of my OGL, or how this one line was improper PI. Plenty of comments, all of which were hostile amateur legal advice and not one word ever on the quality of the actual writing or wanting to talk about the substance. It certainly left me with an ill taste of trying to share my hard work with d20 fandom in general.

Honestly, when did being a gamer require that one be an expert in copyright law, and that one has to consult a lawyer every time somebody wants to share their ideas with someone else?

 

[SteveC]

The title of this thread exhibits a lack of understanding of the OGL that I've seen every time this subject is mentioned.

You may not use the title of the product since that has been designated as PI.

This is only one stumbling block that leads me to believe that any material resulting from one of these "community projects" will be illegal. The PDF someone posted previously also exhibited a lack of understanding and did not properly follow the OGL.

Hmmn, I don't know any way to write this post in a way that won't come off as snarky, so I suppose I can only apologize for it in advance. Perhaps if I go off an purchase some more of Phil's products...

I just can't believe how upset some people are getting over this OGL issue. And by that, I mean rational, intelligent and decent people. This post is a great example. The OGL license has no bearing whatsoever on message board discussions about a product! If I'm going to write a post that says "I just bought Unearthed Arcana, and I think it's pretty keen!" There's nothing in the OGL that applies or says that I can't do that, and beyond that, there's nothing I've done to make myself bound by that license as a part of that discussion.

I know PDF publishers are worried. At the same time, I think everyone needs to realize that PDF publishing (let alone publishing under the OGL!) is such a new thing that we're all still figuring out how it works and how it is going to thrive as a business model. All I can say is that I believe that there is a solution. For me, I think that solution is selling product for more money up front, and then offering updates to the product over time. Of course the standard disclamers apply: IANAL, YMMV.

Okay, now I've gotten far enough afield from the original topic...

I'm not going to get involved with the actual UA discussion, except to say that it is perhaps bad form to have this discussion on EN World (something that I know the mods have been very understanding of). I don't know if WotC is aware of this issue, of if they even care. My guess is that they don't: sales of UA have most likely evened out by now, and all this discussion may actually cause more people to buy the product. Oh, and by the way, if you don't have UA and are looking for good house rules, you should pick it up, it's pretty keen.

 

[jchristl]

The title of this thread exhibits a lack of understanding of the OGL that I've seen every time this subject is mentioned.

You may not use the title of the product since that has been designated as PI.

Phil, you gotta calm down man. Just because my post had "Unearthed Arcana" in the title does not mean that the final product would have had those word in it.