[3e OGL] Uncovering the SRD Draft

[Newvac]

So I've heard rumors for awhile now of a mythic draft SRD which contained beholders, mind flayers and other beasties, which was used to create certain OGL products early in 3e. Such rumors mention a "gentlemen's agreement" which allowed it to be used until the SRD was finalized, but I assume a gentlemen's agreement isn't legally binding. Now I did some digging and found http://web.archive.org/web/20010417...gamingfoundation.org:80/srd/srdmonstersb.html among other pages, but you'll notice the header says it can't be reproduced and isn't OGC. The associated legal document also says that it is a draft and can't be reproduced.

So the question is this: am I looking at the right SRD draft that allowed beholders and such to be used? If so, am I reading incorrectly when I believe that this can't be used under the OGL? If so, how did companies use this material in their products? Is there a source for this "gentleman's agreement" which shows that it's legally binding? Was there another license at play which is no longer allowed (ala d20)?

 

[Morrus]

The gentleman's agreement certainly existed at the time (I remember it being discussed around 2000 or so), but no, it's not something you can see online. You might be able to dig up some old news items referring to its existence, but it was an unofficial private agreement between a handful of companies and WotC which allowed them to get a head start on creating product so that 3E would have some third party support early on.

You are correct in your assumption that material not released as OGC cannot be used under the OGL.

 

[Newvac]

So it was only for select companies? That makes sense. I assume, then, that beholders, etc. are not released under the OGL in the products which contained them. Thanks for clearing this up.

 

[Morrus]

IIRC it was discussed on the OGF-L listserver at the time. It wasn’t super secret or anything; I’m pretty sure most any company could avail themselves of it. It was just an informal undertaking, not a document.

Beholders have never been released as OGC.

 

[see]

Even if beholders had somehow slipped out into open content, the inclusion of beholders in the declarations of Product Identity in the SRD, RSRD, and SRD5 put them under the restrictions of section 7 of the OGL.

 

[Morrus]

Even if beholders had somehow slipped out into open content, the inclusion of beholders in the declarations of Product Identity in the SRD, RSRD, and SRD5 put them under the restrictions of section 7 of the OGL.

If Beholders *had* been declared open content by WotC via inclusion in a released SRD or some other mechanism (which they weren’t), there is no mechanism which could retract that. Once declared OGC, it’s forever OGC. You can’t later declare it PI (well, you can try, but it would have no effect). It’s all hypothetical anyway, of course, since Beholders were never designated as OGC.