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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 3981526" data-attributes="member: 2067">Doubt that.AE didn't need the OGL. Spycraft and M&M didn't need the D&D rules.Because mechanics are not really protectable, any company can make any rules that are compatible with D&D. They can use all of 4e's core rules (d20 resolution, levels, tiers, hit points, etc.) without paying WotC a dime.They just can't really SAY that in the product, because D&D itself is a trademark, and is protected. What they can do is use language that dodges the trademarks and copyrights and still implies compatability (a la "Compatible with the 4th Edition!"), which can get a little muddy, but means that they're probably legally safe. If you're going to heavily alter the system like that anyway, you're on safe ground. No one is going to suspect Spycraft of being D&D, despite the similar mechanics. And even the mechanics have enough difference that it's clearly NOT the same game, even though they might be compatible.All this will do is re-inforce 3e's idea that you can't duplicate the XP table or give rules for character advancement, a little more strongly. I think that selling the books using 3rd parties is something they really want to do, and it's how this new OGL/SRD pair is focused, but they really can't stop people from making compatible products and even marketing them as compatible products. This just creates an odd little void in the advertising language where "D&D4e" would normally go. Which is probably okay, because if the prospective customers don't know what "the 4th Edition of the world's most popular role playing game" is, then the compatibility issue doesn't matter for them at all anyway. I'm mostly just a little bummed that I can't just save $100 and game from the SRD. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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