Best OGC non-rules content?

[Psion]

This goes way back, but I always found the evil alignment essays in Evil and Dungeons by AEG to be straightforward, absent of navel gazing, and entertaining.

 

[Capellan]

Clockwork Golem Workshop's PDFs are pretty much entirely OGC. A lot of the material is rules related, but what fluff there is, is OGC as well (mainly new deities and the flavour text for the new spells, races and PrCs).

 

[Particle_Man]

I guess at the time, it made sense for those companies, but in practice, it meant that content will be largely forgotten, while if released as OGL, at least they would have lived on.

I wonder if it would make sense to have a company that is about to fail retroactively make all of their stuff OGL?

 

[jdrakeh]

I wonder if it would make sense to have a company that is about to fail retroactively make all of their stuff OGL?

Possibly, though creators are notoriously tight-fisted as past public discussions about an OGC wiki proved. You had otherwise respected publishers who released material under the OGL screaming that such material wasn't really meant to be used and that anybody who did so was morally corrupt (or worse, a thief).

Basically, you had a not insignificant number of supposed professionals throwing a temper tantrum and attempting to reassert sole ownership of material that they released freely under the terms of the OGL. My opinion of several publishers went straight in the crapper after those discussions.

I mean, damn, talk about total denial of responsibility.

 

[Yair]

All this discussion got me thinking about an OGC index. Just telling which products contain what OGC. Is there such a thing?

In that case -- article submission is off to WotC! I'll let you know if anything comes of this.

Eh, don't pitch the E6 system itself, however, as that is already available. Their guidelines say "We do not accept any submissions previously published by or simultaneously submitted to another magazine, website, or d20™ publisher. Likewise, we don’t accept plagiarized materials."

link plz kk thx bai

Link in my sig, or here. It's the semi-official collection of fan-created ArM spells (plus any other tidbits you'd like to contribute... currently a few virtues & flaws). Currently over 340 spells.

Possibly, though creators are notoriously tight-fisted as past public discussions about an OGC wiki proved.

Indeed.

Also, note that companies rarely stop business altogether. Rather, they transfer their business - especially the right to sell pdfs of their products, to other companies. See for example the case of Mystic Eye Games, whose pdfs are now sold through Ronin Arts. This allows Ronin Arts another (though probably small) stream of revenue with marginal costs (Phil didn't need to make the pdfs, he just uploads and sells them), and allows the folks of MEG feels good about their products still being out there.

 

[Mouseferatu]

For what it's worth, almost everything we've put out through Lion's Den has been entirely open, flavor and crunch both.

And most of the ginormous Tome of Artifacts (Lion's Den and Necromancer) is open*.

*(Even though a rather major production glitch prevented the declaration of Open Content from appearing in the book. But pretty much everything except the appendices, the Introduction, and the Foreword is open.)

 

[Cergorach]

BTW - holy smokes is the book of the righteous good. That makes me one very satisfied example of OGC -> sales.

It's still one of my favorite books. So i think it is very good ;-)

http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=product&productid=118041

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

My bad. It had been a while since I looked at the Urbis OGL. I just recalled the section on Nexus Towers being OGC and that section, for me, represented a key setting element.

Well, yes, those are nifty - but they are mostly a background element explaining the economic structure of the setting.

Personally, I find the new rules on creating and joining organizations starting on page 13 of the latest draft at least as significant - especially since they allow the players to create their own organizations for the PCs to join...

 

[Miar]

ack..

Then Wizards would own the content correct? So much for OGC..

That would be a fantastic venue for E6, but between my job and with work in chaos and a baby on the way, I'm not going to take on new deadlines. That said, if you went ahead and did a column, I'd be happy to consult on it via e-mail.

 

[Ry]

Then Wizards would own the content correct? So much for OGC..

Now that I've put the E6 document out as 100% OGC, it can't become closed. They'd own their articles but not the concept of E6 itself.

Then again, this might mean they don't want to do the articles at all. We'll see.

But I do believe in the OGC as a great resource. Kun's idea is just a tangent off this thread.