Can someone explain crippled OGC to me

[TheAuldGrump]

Oh. Well that's too bad -- I WAS reading them as Sean Connery, but now I'll have to switch. Is Martha Stewart OK? :\

Hmmm, or Alton Brown? Not only is Grim Tales a great gaming system, it's also Good Eats!

Seriously, the crippled OGC is why I only have the Creature Creation out of GT, mechanically GT is very good, but I feel that the crippled OGC is poor sportsmanship. I will not support it. (And would not have gotten CC if I had noticed it before making the purchase.)

The Auld Grump

 

[jmucchiello]

If an author made an effort to protect the value of their work, and that effort had issues, maybe these "good guys" would try to help come up with a solution that worked for everyone. But what I have observed instead is a total absence of "helpfulness" and really nothing more than morally outraged gnashing of teeth, finger pointing and name calling.

Aside from pointing out an author's declaration is less than friendly, how can the "good guys" be "helpful"? You saw the posts by Wulf, he politely disagrees with the stance taken by your (derogatorial) "good guys". What else can they do except ask him to reconsider? Which they did? And he seems still unswayed.

The "good guys" have a test. Give a highlighter and a book to a 12 year old. Ask him to highlight all the open game content according to the declarations held within the book. If your declaration exceeds the capabilities of the average 12 year old, chances are you have crippled OGC in your book. There are some books where a panel of lawyers would probably all create different sets of highlights.

Is that constructive enough for you? Your comments in that last post are highly inflamatory. People who care about clear OGC declarations are not whiners. They aren't hangers on. They aren't trying leech from other authors. They are simply seeking a level playing ground. The license requires clear declaration of the open game content. Why shouldn't the "good guys" complain. The "good guys" provide clear declarations. They follow the rules (even when that is not easy) and they watch others skirt around the rules unpunished.

You are far too hung up on your example of Mystic Heroes versus Ars Magica. Who cares about that? You've seen the complaints. You've heard from both sides. There is no reason to make ad hominem attacks against those you disagree with. Such as:

I'm left with the disgusting impression that being a OGL "good guy" comes down to sitting on your butt waiting for someone else to produce work that can be scooped up for free.

You owe Sigil, Yair, and others who've posted here an apology. Sigil invented the term "crippled OGC" and he is by no means one who scoops up works for free.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm left with the disgusting impression that being a OGL "good guy" comes down to sitting on your butt waiting for someone else to produce work that can be scooped up for free.

No.

An OGL Patriot doesn't want to see the wheel reinvented. Rather, he would see things using the wheel invented. Cars, airplanes, beet carts, pulley-and-lever systems. In order for people to be free to make cars and beet carts, the wheel needs to be freely available to use. If you have to pay someone to use the concept of a Wheel, making a beet cart suddenly becomes prohibitively complex and/or expensive, involving laywers, PI, copyright, and a million and one other layers of red tape.

Of course, if the wheel was free then the creator of the wheel gets nothing after he tells his friends about it. IMHO, that's just fine. An idea is *much* more valuable than any one creator, and any one creator cannot possibly encompass the entirety of an idea.

For years, we have been paying people for the wheel. The OGC can be a way to make the wheel usable by anyone. Unfortunately, the gaming community seems much more interested in re-making the wheel (One team makes it oval, one team makes it square, one team uses logs, one team uses stone, one wood, one rubber). And then copyrighting *their* wheel. So no one can use wooden wheels, or rubber wheels, or stone wheels. Unless they make it out of balsa wood or artificial rubber or granite because those elude the copyright and make someone else make the wheel themselves.

It's not about getting stuff for free. That's a side-effect. It's about being able to build on what others have done. Sadly, that message is not embraced by the current community very much at all, because we all first played the games in an era where the wheel was copyrighted.

The indsutry is learning. Heck, it was just born in 2000. It's not even half a generation old. But sooner or later, people will stop trying to reinvent the wheel and start making internal combustion engines with which to power the mustang convertables of our imaginations.

 

[Sledge]

I too like to see open content in my books. I especially dislike the crippled OGC from the original definition. However I'm just assuming here that Wulf is not being deliberately trouble making. After all he said, "I've conceded it ain't great, so you won't offend me." So if even one of the perpetrators thinks it isn't working then we have a real problem. Did Monte Cook clear improve his declarations for the compiled eldritch book?
Anyways I think the crippling techniques are going backwards here. They are preventing any good usage in other products. The most important things to declare as absolutely open are the names of things. Then people can expand upon and support your products without having to restate EVERYTHING. Anyone that wants to find out more details than are absolutely necessary for the product need only check the section 15 to see the sources.
Don't look at the OGL as your enemy, it is your friend. To cripple content in order to prevent people from directly quoting your product, while you do the same from other products is quite hypocritical.
So Wulf was your intent to truly make people work to use what you have "derived" without that same type of work being necessary?

(BTW with regard to the initial mass release and very rapid reissuing in a couple of compilations, I've carefully examined many of these and gotten very few because much of these products were ugly garbage. There is not much of this going on anymore, and I am unaware of any successful direct rupublishing of content outside of the Pocket Player's Handbook types. Am I missing something here, or is this "danger" a paper tiger?)

 

[madelf]

madelf, I don't see that you have adequately addressed my issues.

If you care to tell me what issues you don't think I've adequately addressed, I'd be happy to give it another try. If you disagree fine, I've no problem with that. But if you aren't following my meaning I can try to clarify the areas where you're having trouble, or if I'm misunderstanding you I'm willing to hear where you feel I've gone off course.

 

[Psion]

Thanks for pulling down the OGL FAQ quote Yair:

Q: What good is a copyright license for Open Games then?

A: Even though portions of an RPG may not be copyrightable as an idea or as a rule, the actual text used to describe those rules is copyrightable.

This snippet confirms my understanding of the legalese and drives the point home: the point of the OGL is to make the actual text free for reproduction.

I have full confidence Wulf is a good person trying to do the right thing, and I completely sympathize with his motivation, we just disagree on what is right and legal in this case. That is all.

I like Wulf too, and like his work. He's probably just a proud author trying to protect his work from a perceived threat. It disappoints me to be on the other side of such a contentious issue.

 

[BryonD]

Aside from pointing out an author's declaration is less than friendly, how can the "good guys" be "helpful"? You saw the posts by Wulf, he politely disagrees with the stance taken by your (derogatorial) "good guys". What else can they do except ask him to reconsider? Which they did? And he seems still unswayed.

The "good guys" have a test. Give a highlighter and a book to a 12 year old. Ask him to highlight all the open game content according to the declarations held within the book. If your declaration exceeds the capabilities of the average 12 year old, chances are you have crippled OGC in your book. There are some books where a panel of lawyers would probably all create different sets of highlights.

Is that constructive enough for you? Your comments in that last post are highly inflamatory. People who care about clear OGC declarations are not whiners. They aren't hangers on. They aren't trying leech from other authors. They are simply seeking a level playing ground. The license requires clear declaration of the open game content. Why shouldn't the "good guys" complain. The "good guys" provide clear declarations. They follow the rules (even when that is not easy) and they watch others skirt around the rules unpunished.

You are far too hung up on your example of Mystic Heroes versus Ars Magica. Who cares about that? You've seen the complaints. You've heard from both sides. There is no reason to make ad hominem attacks against those you disagree with. Such as:
You owe Sigil, Yair, and others who've posted here an apology. Sigil invented the term "crippled OGC" and he is by no means one who scoops up works for free.

I'll start by pointing out that you are quoting the rant which I deleted before your reply was up.

I certainly exclude Sigil.

Looking at the first post in the other thread, I can only say that I see zero indications of any real effort to offer constructive advice to the matter at hand and that I really feel no need to apologize to the particular people who have engaged in the counter productive and attacking behaviour that I take issue with.

The point has been made clear that the motivation for this approach has been to try to offer new ideas into the pool of Open Gaming while also protecting some motivation to keep doing it. Please point me to where anyone has offered the slightest sympathy to this concern, much less a constructive attempt to offer a better way to satisfy both sides. It's been nothing but finger-pointing and name calling. And if those who have done that don't like the fact that I consider them to be much worse "bad guys" when it come to the ultimate goal of nuturing the growth of Open Content, then they will simply need to find a way to get over it. But I won't apologize for saying where I believe the real selfishness lies.

In a very recent OGL thread I was openly supporting the concept of the right to freely re-use OGC. I think I may have pissed off most of the OGL authors here in that thread. I have not changed my position on that topic in the least. I have a very low opinion of ANY attempt to use the OGL and the access to the gaming community which it provides and at the same time attempt to prevent others from gaining the same options the new content produced. I do not consider the motivation or intent of what Wulf did to be an effort to do that. Have I very recently learned more about the OGL that makes me think this particular effort may be flawed? Certainly. But that doesn't make it a devious attempt or in any way a "bad guy" thing to do. At all. It is a step in a process and the best possible outcome is to take it as a learning experience and try to find a better solution. No one,not one person, has stepped up to the plate for that.

Certainly not all people who care about OGC are whiners. I never claimed they are.

But hiding amongst that group is a subgroup that seems to be obsessed not with OGC for the sake of cultivating more OGC, but OGC for the sake of wikis and free stuff. My comments are aimed at that specific subgroup. And I offer no apology for it whatsoever.

 

[BryonD]

No.

An OGL Patriot doesn't want to see the wheel reinvented. Rather, he would see things using the wheel invented. Cars, airplanes, beet carts, pulley-and-lever systems. In order for people to be free to make cars and beet carts, the wheel needs to be freely available to use. If you have to pay someone to use the concept of a Wheel, making a beet cart suddenly becomes prohibitively complex and/or expensive, involving laywers, PI, copyright, and a million and one other layers of red tape.

Of course, if the wheel was free then the creator of the wheel gets nothing after he tells his friends about it. IMHO, that's just fine. An idea is *much* more valuable than any one creator, and any one creator cannot possibly encompass the entirety of an idea.

For years, we have been paying people for the wheel. The OGC can be a way to make the wheel usable by anyone. Unfortunately, the gaming community seems much more interested in re-making the wheel (One team makes it oval, one team makes it square, one team uses logs, one team uses stone, one wood, one rubber). And then copyrighting *their* wheel. So no one can use wooden wheels, or rubber wheels, or stone wheels. Unless they make it out of balsa wood or artificial rubber or granite because those elude the copyright and make someone else make the wheel themselves.

It's not about getting stuff for free. That's a side-effect. It's about being able to build on what others have done. Sadly, that message is not embraced by the current community very much at all, because we all first played the games in an era where the wheel was copyrighted.

The indsutry is learning. Heck, it was just born in 2000. It's not even half a generation old. But sooner or later, people will stop trying to reinvent the wheel and start making internal combustion engines with which to power the mustang convertables of our imaginations.

KM,

I honestly agree with you.
That is why I deleted the post.
I hope my prior reply helps clarify a little.
I'm not trying to paint everyone who supports OG with a broad brush. I was attempting to direct my comments a narrow group that does exist that I think is more a part of the problem than a part of the solution. I know I did a bad job of being clear about that. And again, I deleted the post.
I doubt this narrowing of scope is really going to make you change your mind about my opinion.
But I hope it takes the edge off.

 

[Nellisir]

Anyone that wants to find out more details than are absolutely necessary for the product need only check the section 15 to see the sources.

This keeps coming up as a benefit, but to be honest, it's something of a "paper benefit" (or "paper kitten" if you will). An S.15 can become very large very quickly, and there's no way to indicate source material for a particular rule without a special license from the copyright holder.

My website -easily- has 50 citations in it's S.15, most of which I -haven't- pulled anything from (heck, I don't own 1/3rd of them). Those are compiled from just 25%-50% of the OGL books in my print library -- I haven't gotten to the others yet, and I've barely touched my 100+ pdfs.

It does get easier, though -- later generation products have alot of source repetition, and I just alphabetized my S.15 to avoid duplication (found 4 doing so). Someday soon I'll go through all the sources I do have, and double check their entries.

Mmm...beet carts.
Nell.

 

[BryonD]

I like Wulf too, and like his work. He's probably just a proud author trying to protect his work from a perceived threat. It disappoints me to be on the other side of such a contentious issue.

I guess I must agree that looking to the future I must be on the same side as you.

But I really wish there was some way to not have sides at this stage and try to work to find a better solution.