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What's All This About The OGL Going Away?
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<blockquote data-quote="Dreamscape" data-source="post: 8832131" data-attributes="member: 6683246"><p>A timely summary. Every time the OGL comes up, there is a lot of confusion with SRDs - and also logo licenses, which are another thing you need to indicate compatibility with something. I believe WotC had one in the early days (was it the d20 license?), Mongoose had them for their first versions of RuneQuest and Traveller, various retroclones (like mine) have them.</p><p></p><p>But all three things are separate though interdependent, i.e. both SRDs and logo licenses use the OGL. The OGL can be used on its own, but there is literally no reason to do so unless you also draw on an SRD - if all your material is original, using the OGL is just restricting you in many ways.</p><p></p><p>I believe the reason D&D clones are the most popular by far (other than the greater popularity of D&D itself) is that other SRDs simply don't have enough unique terminology to make them worth using except to avoid some typing. The D&D SRDs have names of monsters, spells, and magic items which would have to be tweaked otherwise - e.g. see the many not-beholders and not-displacer beasts out there.</p><p></p><p>The SRD for Mongoose Traveller 1E, for example, contains almost nothing unique to the 3rd Imperium, so it's useless to 3PPs who want to create adventures or supplements for that setting. All the things in the SRD - jump drives, combat armour, gauss rifles, etc. - are generic SF terms and could be used in a unique new product without infringing on FFE's trademarks or having to use the OGL. I understand Cepheus Engine came about basically because it was much easier to create a non-3rd Imperium Traveller clone by editing the SRD than writing one from scratch, but it <em>could</em> have been done.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dreamscape, post: 8832131, member: 6683246"] A timely summary. Every time the OGL comes up, there is a lot of confusion with SRDs - and also logo licenses, which are another thing you need to indicate compatibility with something. I believe WotC had one in the early days (was it the d20 license?), Mongoose had them for their first versions of RuneQuest and Traveller, various retroclones (like mine) have them. But all three things are separate though interdependent, i.e. both SRDs and logo licenses use the OGL. The OGL can be used on its own, but there is literally no reason to do so unless you also draw on an SRD - if all your material is original, using the OGL is just restricting you in many ways. I believe the reason D&D clones are the most popular by far (other than the greater popularity of D&D itself) is that other SRDs simply don't have enough unique terminology to make them worth using except to avoid some typing. The D&D SRDs have names of monsters, spells, and magic items which would have to be tweaked otherwise - e.g. see the many not-beholders and not-displacer beasts out there. The SRD for Mongoose Traveller 1E, for example, contains almost nothing unique to the 3rd Imperium, so it's useless to 3PPs who want to create adventures or supplements for that setting. All the things in the SRD - jump drives, combat armour, gauss rifles, etc. - are generic SF terms and could be used in a unique new product without infringing on FFE's trademarks or having to use the OGL. I understand Cepheus Engine came about basically because it was much easier to create a non-3rd Imperium Traveller clone by editing the SRD than writing one from scratch, but it [I]could[/I] have been done. [/QUOTE]
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