Can someone explain crippled OGC to me

[Vigilance]

There is certainly a separate issue that game designers, by and large, seem obsessed with doing their own thing, regardless of what others have done before them.

But that really doesn't change BSF's point.

The OGC patriots want all OGC to be free. Which is a nice idea, especially in the realm of adventures, but there's a few forces at play here.

First is the idea of providing value to people who buy YOUR product. If I buy a seafaring book from Publisher C, I dont want the publisher to assume I dont have the searfaring books from Publisher A and Publisher B and use 80% of his book from those sources.

So publishers are more or less compelled by the market place to make most of their work new.

A second consideration is that publishers aren't in this business for the money. They hope to make more than they spend (and some dont even have that lofty goal).

Since the REASON for being here is primarily creative, this leads to the "obsession" with creating your own material.

Imo the vast majority of "crippled" declarations are through lack of understanding or lack of caring. Some are publishers who honestly believe their work has intrinsic value, and in most cases I think that's a good call.

Crunch fades, IP is forever.

Chuck

 

[Vocenoctum]

The OGC patriots want all OGC to be free. Which is a nice idea, especially in the realm of adventures, but there's a few forces at play here.

First is the idea of providing value to people who buy YOUR product. If I buy a seafaring book from Publisher C, I dont want the publisher to assume I dont have the searfaring books from Publisher A and Publisher B and use 80% of his book from those sources.

So publishers are more or less compelled by the market place to make most of their work new.

A second consideration is that publishers aren't in this business for the money. They hope to make more than they spend (and some dont even have that lofty goal).

Since the REASON for being here is primarily creative, this leads to the "obsession" with creating your own material.

Imo the vast majority of "crippled" declarations are through lack of understanding or lack of caring. Some are publishers who honestly believe their work has intrinsic value, and in most cases I think that's a good call.

Crunch fades, IP is forever.

Chuck

A lot of what you say is true and all, but... that's the point of the OGL/D20L.
If a publisher doesn't want to contribute in a meaningful way, or wants to continually make their own material, why not just make their own game entirely?

 

[pogre]

A lot of what you say is true and all, but... that's the point of the OGL/D20L.
If a publisher doesn't want to contribute in a meaningful way, or wants to continually make their own material, why not just make their own game entirely?

Having cake and eating it too?

 

[pogre]

*laugh*
Fair enough Pogre. But then again you do have a little more legal background than most of us.

True 'dat. However, I think people are losing track of why some publishers are doing this - it's not that they want to keep their OC away from folks or even other publishers. What happened early in the game was some folks were unbelievably generous with their stuff and other companies swooped in and published it all in compendiums a short time later. They did not use the stuff, they essentially just re-published it. To top it off, they got the whole section 15 of the license incorrect. That's what they are trying to stop.

If you are a creative type - publisher or not - and want to build on someone's material or use it in an adventure - or whatever. I don't think there is a d20 publisher out there who would object. If you were someone wanting to essentially re-publish a work two months after its original release - well, yeah, I'd like to make you do a little more legwork to get that done.

 

[Yair]

My question is, what's the deal with modifying the D20 rules themselves? For instance, how does something like True20 relate to OGC? It's clearly D20 based, but alters the SRD rules significantly. Does Green Ronin's PI then cover only the names and flavour text, or all the modified rules as well?

It depends on the OGC designation. In the case of Blue Rose, the rules are in their entirety released as OGC, and PI is only maintained over the setting.
Like everything published by Green Ronin, the designation is crystal clear. It is a testament to the dangers of this practice that Green Ronin was practically forced to make an early release of these rules seperate from the setting, as the fans threatened to do it themselves otherwise. The result, I suspect, was a work that is less complete and of lesser quality than what Green Ronin could have made in it's own time... but I also suspect Green Ronin never would have made it had it not been for the fan's pressure.
The whole point of the OGL is that you can change the SRD rules, significantly or not is not relevant. Take a look at the Unearthed Arcana OGC, there are some very major changes there, and it's definitely OGC published by none other than WotC themselves.

I can't think of an example, but it is certainly possible to publish a d20-based game with a crippled OGC designation.
It also may be possible to release a heavily modified d20-based game with the non-OGC-derived portions not released as OGC. This is more tricky, and less certain. I believe Monte Cook did that, but I can't think of the example.

 

[BSF]

It depends on the OGC designation. In the case of Blue Rose, the rules are in their entirety released as OGC, and PI is only maintained over the setting.
Like everything published by Green Ronin, the designation is crystal clear. It is a testament to the dangers of this practice that Green Ronin was practically forced to make an early release of these rules seperate from the setting, as the fans threatened to do it themselves otherwise. The result, I suspect, was a work that is less complete and of lesser quality than what Green Ronin could have made in it's own time... but I also suspect Green Ronin never would have made it had it not been for the fan's pressure.
The whole point of the OGL is that you can change the SRD rules, significantly or not is not relevant. Take a look at the Unearthed Arcana OGC, there are some very major changes there, and it's definitely OGC published by none other than WotC themselves.

I don't quite agree here. I believe Green Ronin was already planning on releasing True20. They might have bumped up the priority based on fan desires, but I don't think they released it simply because fans were 'threatening' to do it themselves. With all the clamoring for a lighter version of D20 to play, it certainly didn't take a genius to see that True20 might fit that bill.

 

[Yair]

I can reread and zero-in too.

That aside, yes, I would most certainly consider Mirror of Vanities, the War Throne, Tears of the Gods, etc to all be specific proper names, whereas dwarf and fireball all general public concepts. If we disagree then that means you are wrong.

You do not consider the Mirror of Vanities to be a public concept? You are aware that Venus is often depicted with a mirror of vanity? How can something be more in the public domain?
There are 2,170 hits of "war throne" in a Google search. Are you saying they are all violating Monte Cook's intellectual property?
There are 12,000 hits for "tears of the gods". Again, references go back to ancient Greece (as diamonds).

I'm not disputing grammer here. I'm saying that these names cannot be reserved as PI as they are already in the public domain, just like "dwarf" cannot be reserved as PI as it is already in the public domain.

 

[arscott]

Do you have any example in mind where someone has done something comparable to calling "dwarf" PI, but not comparable to "Illithid"?

I'm seriously curious.

Well, consider this:

I own Wulf's creature creation pdf. The PI declaration states:

1. The name “Bad Axe Games” as well as all identifying marks of
Bad Axe Games, LLC., including but not limited to the Bad Axe
Games logo, the CORE logo, and the phrase “Games With Grit;”
2. The product name “Grim Tales” except for its use within Section
15 of the Open Game License;
3. All artwork, illustration, trade dress, and graphic design
including any text contained within such artwork, illustration or
graphic design;
4. The specific text and language used to describe the game
mechanics in this work.

Later in the product, we see:

Dwarf Racial Traits [CR +0.21]

It's a somewhat liberal reading, but it's not hard to argue that the word dwarf is among the "text and language used to describe the game mechanics", and therefore, Wulf's PI declaration actually does declare the dwarf as Product Identity. at bare minimum, it declares the phrase "Dwarf Racial Traits" to be PI.

 

[Vigilance]

A lot of what you say is true and all, but... that's the point of the OGL/D20L.
If a publisher doesn't want to contribute in a meaningful way, or wants to continually make their own material, why not just make their own game entirely?

Im all for contributing. Most of the books I've done contain a heavy amount of OGC and as far as I can tell, the designations we use are pretty clear cut (though I dont write those designations myself, Ive read them and pointed out what I think should and should not be open).

As for "continually making their own material", I fail to see how that's any kind of a problem. Again, if someone buys something written by me, I consider it my obligation to have most of the book be new material.

The concept of new material being bad smacks of Mike Mearls' recent comments about commercial PDFs somehow hindering "innovation", an argument I do not buy.

With all of that said, its unreasonable to expect someone to release enough material about that they cannot make money off their IP in the future out of a militant desire for all OGC to be free.

IP is more valuable than crunch because its the sort of thing a company can make money on time and again. A setting (as only one example) can be released under different systems, as a video game as a comic etc.

In other words what Im saying is there is a happy medium. No I do not think all OGC (or even most) should be crippled. But I do think companies releasing under the OGL have a right to protect enough of their ideas (including proper names) so that they can retain control.

In the early days of D&D for example, many writers turned their campaign worlds into successful Fantasy novel franchises. In the current environment with PDF publishing, its reasonable to see a circumstance where a writer would release his world under the OGL, then turn it into a fantasy novel series, and then wish to license it again to become a game.

If all the proper names are released as Open Content, he wouldn't really be able to do that.

Im not saying it's a LIKELY scenario, but it is one (I think) a game company would be unwise to ignore.

Chuck

 

[Vigilance]

If you are a creative type - publisher or not - and want to build on someone's material or use it in an adventure - or whatever. I don't think there is a d20 publisher out there who would object. If you were someone wanting to essentially re-publish a work two months after its original release - well, yeah, I'd like to make you do a little more legwork to get that done.

Exactly.