D&D 5E Anyone understand the licensing issues surrounding FGG's 5th Edition products?

[Morlock]

I did a bit of searching last night on the topic of 5e, OGL, and Frog God Games' 5th Edition products. My take-home so far:

1) FGG's Fifth Edition products are not "officially" 5e, and D&D is mentioned nowhere in the products. There is no post-OGL license from WotC involved.
2) FGG's Fifth Edition products include the OGL at the end.
3) Many of the monster descriptions in FGG's Fifth Edition Foes are from previous editions of D&D, with the phrase "used by permission" at the end of the description.

It's #3 that throws me for a loop. Until I saw that, I thought I understood what was going on. What does "used by permission" mean? Whose permission, and when was it given?

 

[Morrus]

They have an old deal for certain stuff.

 

[Mistwell]

It's #3 that throws me for a loop. Until I saw that, I thought I understood what was going on. What does "used by permission" mean? Whose permission, and when was it given?

They have a special license for some Fiend-Folio material and some related materials, that is quite old but which has no expiration on it. It's not the sort of thing anyone else can do - their license is unique for those items.

 

[Morlock]

Ah, I see. That makes sense. Thanks guys.

 

[Jester David]

Back in the 3e days (around the year 2000), Frog God Games managed to work out a special licence to update old 1st Edition monsters to 3rd Edition using a variant of the OGL. This would include monsters from the Monster Manual 2, the Fiend Folio and some from the magazines. So they're allowed to update those monsters, but have to give individual credit for each monster.
It's odd but they have permission to use a LOT of classic monsters.
So they're using the OGL to produce 5e content, but it's tricky as they have to use the 3e format and cannot use some 5e terms.

 

[miniaturehoarder]

Unfortunately they out and out said they deigned the monsters to punch above their weight class so every CR is suspect.

 

[Jester David]

Unfortunately they out and out said they deigned the monsters to punch above their weight class so every CR is suspect.

Kinda. They just rounded up instead of down.
The Monster Manual under-CRs a lot of monsters anyway, at least according to the DMG guidelines.

I have my problems with the book (as seen in my review), but most of the CRs and mechanics seem passable.

 

[Morlock]

So they're using the OGL to produce 5e content, but it's tricky as they have to use the 3e format and cannot use some 5e terms.

Article I read said that was just a flavor thing, to make it seem old school, or whatever.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

I've been using Fifth Edition Foes and the Book of Lost Spells in actual play and it's been a lot of fun. I have no problems with the encounter/CR balance in 5E however (understanding it, that is) so YMMV. I would agree that the FEF monsters are a bit tougher on average but it's worked out well so far. I have a large group of experienced players however, so they're up for the challenge.

As Morlock said, FFG's motto is "X edition rules, 1st edition feel" and I think they accomplish that pretty consistently.