I watched this video, which makes the argument that the benefit of an Open Gaming license like ORC is that it is singular -- compared to the CC licenses, which not only have different requirements between the four designations, but also there are multiple variations (up to 4.0 currently). But if we end up with a bunch of different ORCs will that benefit be lost?
D&D 5E Creative Commons and D&D
We have no way of knowing at this point, and any answer anyone gives is going to say more about them than what WotC might do. Personally, I feel like there is a non-zero chance that WotC is going to try and pull a 4E/GSL with 1D&D, but I have no evidence for that.
I think the outrage will be a lot less if they do try to lock up the next SRD.
A large number of folks who were upset this time (to the point of boycotts and talk of companies lawyering up) is that deauthorizing 1.0a would have had a great affect on games already out there that people started working on under the impression 1.0a was irrevocable. That feeling like WotC was "stealing" something wouldn't be there in this case.
Which is not to say a sizable number of folks still wouldn't be cheesed off.
Yeah. I don't care what WotC does with their future versions of D&D. Would it be better if there was always an Open Gaming movement around the current edition of D&D? Probably. But they aren't required to do it.
Iosue
Legend
We can’t tell until we see the finished license, but presumably ORC will be viral, unlike CC-BY. So if you desire wide dissemination of your work throughout the open RPG community, you’d use ORC. Whereas if you want to keep most of your work confined to your product, you’d use CC.
That, and of course it’s unlikely that WotC will release any SRD through ORC, so if you want to use the 5.1 SRD, at least, you’d do it through CC, or OGL 1.0a, if you still trust it.
Doesn't CC-BY SA do that? I am still trying to understand the basic differences, but according to this video it seems like the share alike aspect emulates the OGL (and presumably ORC) "viral" aspect.
bedir than
Full Moon Storyteller
But that isn't the license that Wizards used
Iosue
Legend
In function, yes. In practice? That will depend on what becomes the community standard. If everyone and their sibling is using ORC, and you want to be part of that community, then it behooves you to use that.
Again, this pure speculation, but I suspect ORC will work very much like the OGL, so people will probably feel very comfortable using it. There may be something of a learning curve for the CC licenses that could blunt its spread.
I should also revise my earlier statement. While WotC won’t release SRDs for ORC, as near as I can tell (IANAL), it should be possible to release a product with properly attributed CC-BY SRD content as well as original content released through ORC.
But I can produce a monster book for 5E (as an example) referencing the SRD under CC-BY, but release mine under BY-SA, no? In other words, make my monsters for use with 5E open but require anyone who uses them (in an adventure, say) to make their work share alike.
What I still don't quite understand is the question of identifying what is and isn't covered under the CC license in a given work.
Matt Thomason
Adventurer
That appears to be possible, yes.
Where you would run into problems is if you wanted to keep some of your book closed, or allow downstream licensors to do the same. There we hit the issue of CC not having a concept of "Product Identity" and "Open (Game) Content". It looks potentially doable, but not as easily and definitively as it is with the OGL that includes specific mechanisms to do that.
