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4E OGL Material?
- Thread starter AZRogue
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El Mahdi
Muad'Dib of the Anauroch
It's been stated that the Underlying math of the game has been revamped throughout all levels, classes and monsters to maintain the "sweet spot" of 3.5E (something like levels 5-10 or such). It's also been said that this underlying mechanic should be fairly transparent once we get to see the whole system in it's entirety (not just teasers). I'm sure mimicking this underlying mechanic would not be allowed.
From a company's or individual's perspective, that type of attitude can almost seem defeatist or akin to a threat or extortion. It's like "well, you can't prevent us from taking your game rules and using them for free, so you might as well release it the way we want you to". Some people like to argue about getting rid of DRM by saying "you can't stop piracy, might as well embrace it", or that "you shouldn't charge money for this content because your competition gives it away and you'll lose market share".
Of course, with that attitude, maybe the Federal Government should stop trying to protect money from counterfitting, since "you can't stop the counterfeiters, might as well not spend so much time and effort protecting it", or hell, for health reasons, "why wipe you rear end, it will just get dirty again".
To me, reverse engineering D&D is not worth it. Why bother?
- Assuming there is a GSL, and the conditions are not unreasonable, why not follow those rules, instead of forcing the OGL to be used?
- If it's not licensed at all, why bother? You would be better off just creating your own game and benefiting from total IP ownership and all the protections.
- Or else, support their older game which via the OGL can't be revoked--that way, you prove a point that you won't use a more restrictive license, and have the moral high ground in that case.
And doing something like that would still fracture the playerbase. You wouldn't be helping to "unite people", if that was the point. If somebody tried to reverse-engineer 4e, fans of Wizards of the Coast and 4e, would probably react very hostile towards the "unofficial erstaz knockoff".
And that's not assuming that WoTC has something up their sleeve and one or more rules have a patent applied or pending, or have applied for trademarks to key game terms. If that was granted, then you'd end up having to fight other legal protections. I personally suspect something like that will happen.
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El Mahdi
Muad'Dib of the Anauroch
Except that ideas can't be copyrighted. Peter Adkison believed that D&D belonged to the players, not the suits. The idea behind the OGL was (hopefully) no matter what happened to the industry, or no matter what the industry tried to do with the game, the game would remain the collective intellctual creation of the people who play it. D&D is an always evolving creation, constantly shaped by those who play it. Applying ideas that make the game better to the OGL rules, whether from 4E or any game system, is not only acceptable but (originally) encouraged. Hopefully, this will allow D&D to survive as long as their are people who want to play it, despite what happens to WoTC or any possible successors.
Of course, right now it's anyone guess whether the Harry Potter Lexicon is an infringement or not. Court date rescheduled for April 14. I suspect after that case gets ruled on (assuming it's not settled first) the legality of publishing an OGL 4e supplement will be slightly clearer. Although still rather murky.arscott said:
If the Harry Potter Lexicon is legal, it would seem to imply that a Rules Cyclopedia type product for 4e would also be legal, provided you rewrote the text of the abilities in your own words. You'd probably be on even better footing if you included discussions about the rules, how they're balanced, a look at how the rules have evolved through different games, and other scholarly information.
Another interesting distinction between the Harry Potter case and 4e is that you can copyright fictional facts. You can't copyright game rules. So your theoretical Rules Cyclopedia would be on even stronger ground, to start.
NOTE: I am not suggesting attempting any of the above is a good idea. Copyright law in general is an utter mess. The court could rule against the Lexicon publishers. Legal or not, WotC would certainly try to sue you out of existence. If there's a GSL, you are strongly advised to stay within its bounds. That's actually part of the genius of the OGL--creating a "safe harbor" where both WotC and 3rd party publishers can agree on what the bounds of copyright are, and nobody has to drag anyone else into court to find out what that is.
Well, that remains to be seen. People don't like intrusive DRM, but have no problem with iPod's version of it. I think people just don't value the concept of paying for music as much anymore. There's talk of more musicians speaking out against it if profits continue to go down.
That's why I encourage people to either work within the rules or use the OGL with the 3e base, which can't really legally be revoked. Pick one method or the other. It's the people who want to have "the butter and the price of the butter" where I find the grey area.
I also hope the proposed GSL can do some of that as well--maybe not on the same level of the OGL, but with enough so most fans will find it reasonable.
reanjr
First Post
El Mahdi said:
Intellectual Property protections:
- Copyright is for specific expressions of an idea (more than a few words).
- Trademark is for names and symbols.
- Patent is for process or idea.
The only one of these that applies to the underlying system of 4e is patent. To my knowledge WotC has not filed for patents on their gaming mechanics. And even if they did, it would likely crumble under the clause of prior art or obviousness. If WotC attempted to patent the complete system as a whole, it would easy to change a few things around to create a new system (possibly one that tooke elements from the SRD) that would not fall under the aegis of the patent. If WotC tried to patent individual subsystems, it would not be difficult to find prior systems that would invalidate the patent.
The OGL never needed to exist to create 3x compatible products. The reason for it was that it allowed straight copy and pasting of standard mechanics for ease of development and consistency. When 4e comes out, it is quite within a developer's rights to copy the mechanics of the system, re-express them in their own words (preferably learning the rules of 4e via an intermediary so that the implementation is "clean room"), and release it under the OGL so that 3rd party developers can write compatible products from a single standard. Of course, if WotC chose to make this person's life difficult it would likely be a drawn out legal battle buried in minutia.
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Actually, I suspect if you wanted to reference 4e rules with a little legal trouble as possible, you'd stick to adventures or supplements that only contain things like stat blocks. This was done in the past and I think that might be safest.
I'm sure WoTC's legal department would react with more strength if you tried to actually create a reverse-engineered SRD.
The former is a product that really wouldn't affect the core marketability of the rules, the latter is a threat to the core product of WoTC, and could be seen as a deliberate challenge to WoTC, especially if a legal license exists.
I'm sure WoTC's legal department would react with more strength if you tried to actually create a reverse-engineered SRD.
The former is a product that really wouldn't affect the core marketability of the rules, the latter is a threat to the core product of WoTC, and could be seen as a deliberate challenge to WoTC, especially if a legal license exists.
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