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Wow, you have described HoML knacks and backgrounds EXACTLY ;)

OK, the existence of a PC with a very high Perception, what is that telling you? It is telling you that the player is signaling something. They want to engage successfully in tasks that relate to this skill! In other words "I'm perceptive, I'll max Perception." The upshot is, you should...

I don't think there was ever a serious commitment to 5e as a base for 'anything you want to do'. It very systematically and deliberately creates barriers to story play. That wasn't an accident; you would have to think Mike Mearls is a total idiot and forgot everything he ever read, and wrote, on...

I take the opposite position from most others, which is that OGL doesn't really do much for the game industry. People publish RPGs, and plenty of non-OGL (that is non-D&D-like and thus not having any specific need to use OGL) games are out there. OGL may encourage some people to design...

Oh, and here's an interesting side point. The Creative Commons licenses specify EXPLICITLY that there isn't any sub-licensing. For any given offer, all acceptances constitute a license between the OWNER of the copyright and whomever accepts, even if they are copying from another licensee. This...

Is it at all clear that there is a 'sub-licensing' that can happen which would effectively make it very hard to withdraw your offer (IE you could, but then the existing licensees would still be able to offer your OGC under effectively the same terms). This obviously is a question that is...

Well, I sure haven't found any other reference to the scheme that predates D&D. I'd be very hesitant to copy that concept, although it certainly has been done by, for instance, World of Warcraft. Almost any of the specific chromatic dragon types could be argued to be based on some dragon legend...

Right, and that was what I was essentially arguing. Anyone who thinks they have an open-and-shut legally airtight case in which copyright, or even contract law is involved, that person is a fool. Couple that with the fact that most foolish people think they're right, and are often not wise...

Yeah, we know, but note that the most critical legal point was never decided, and Google still had to appeal to SCOTUS, which costs, you know, 8 or 10 million dollars by the time you get done with the trial and 2 levels of earlier appeals, minimum! They went to trial on a principle that was...

Its easy to be mighty sure of yourself when you don't ACTUALLY have anything at stake. Nor are you necessarily right, TSR could have won, and a litigant could win today too, you can't say without doing it. History is rife with people who were SURE of X, Y, and Z until the chips fell. And the...

Perhaps, but Gary was as able as any random person off the street to fight this kind of thing. He got his arse handed to him, because it was little guy vs big company! It is exactly relevant. If WotC really wanted to make the point, they could pick someone with equally small resources and a very...

Oh, I actually AGREE with you, it is clearly possible to make RPGs that bear only a very passing resemblance to D&D and are undoubtedly free and clear. I mean, there is little doubt that Blades in the Dark, to name a random game, has even the smallest thing to fear in that regard. Apocalypse...

Sure, someone is always crazy enough to eat that hot chili pepper, even though everyone is like "you really SURE dude?" lol.

Yes, yes, and one of my very good friends and business associates managed to beat the tar out of Microsoft on a case of this sort, and the guy was some poor old grandpa that just published some CD-ROMs. Of course you can most certainly win, but to win you NOT ONLY must be in the right, and you...

Well, I'm not going to claim any deep knowledge of what would constitute forfeit of a right to action in copyright, but the mere fact that YOU got away with something doesn't automatically mean I will! And even if ONE guy didn't cross the line, doesn't mean the NEXT guy didn't. Nor does any of...

Right, but ANY argument on this ground is dangerous. What is STR, CON, DEX, INT, WIS, CHA? Is it an idea, ability scores as a way of rating characters ability to do things, or is that specifically the expression of a more general idea (ability scores in the abstract). This is a lot like the...

Oh, I was exaggerating a bit, but there was a LOT of stuff out there, even in the days of like GENCON X, which was probably about the the time things got real crazy. But that's my point, it isn't OGL doing this, its the fact that you can publish an RPG for ZERO DOLLARS and potentially even get...

Well, I'm just saying, different ain't necessarily better, and the amount of games today is more due to Kickstarter and the ease of publishing (heck, you can just go to PDF, I'd have published 100 RPGs back in the day if I could have done that in 1980).

That may be, I don't know, but in the old days, there was NOTHING ELSE, go back and read about the 1970's and '80s RPGs. I bet you never even heard of 90% of them. Virtually none ever got 3PP, it wasn't even a thing. But a huge ton of different games and material still came out.

I'm still not convinced there is that much impact. I mean, I think that there may be some overall impact to the types of content people are putting out these days (sticking closer to existing game systems that are OGL since that is legally rather safe). I'm not convinced it is all that related...