3rd Party Support: Is an OGL even necessary?

[Morrus]

Depends what you want it to be necessary for.

Is it necessary in order to produce a third party product? No, but it makes life a hell of a lot easier.

Is it necessary in order to create a thriving third party market? I'd argue yes. Without that easy option, a thriving 3PP market will not exist. There was one with the OGL in the 3E days; there is a much, much smaller one in the GSL days; and there would be an even smaller one without either.

 

[Umbran]

The thing is that on one side is the huge economic behemoth Hasbro, and on the other side is me, a single struggling student who is writing some stuff in his free time and putting it online.
Even if I am 95% sure I am allowed to do that, just the chance that there could be a legal battle is enough to scare me off and not touch anything.

Well, that's probably a different issue.

If you are a fan, and trying to produce a System Reference Document for a system that hasn't been released under something like the OGL - so, basically trying to post the rule books online - then you might be looking at some real trouble.

If you are a fan, and are producing your campaign world and posting your house rules, the spells and talking about the races allowed and such, about the worst you'd get is a Cease and Desist Letter, and have to take it down.

They cannot squeeze blood from a stone. If you aren't making money off of it, they aren't gong to try to extract money from you for it unless you're pretty clearly and blatantly doing something that eliminates their sales.

 

[Yora]

Probably. But the average person really doesn't know how probable or improbable such situations are.
And as Morrus said, the important part is not the legal reality, but how people percieve the situation. It doesn't matter if you are safe, when you don't feel safe.

And I don't know about the US, but here in Germany we have law firms who specialize on squeezing a few hundred euro out of people by threatening to sue them. Send those letters to a few hundred people and if just a few don't realize it's frivolous and pay, you can make a fortune.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

As a third party publisher I would not be comfortable making 5e material unless there was a license from WOTC. Others might be braver than I.

 

[enrious]

There's a difference between legally necessary and practically necessary.

That safe harbour is critical for businesses without the means/desire to hire attorneys to take on WotC's.