Under OGL 1.0a, material derivative of Open Content was automatically open content. The effort was in closing content. That is the point of Open Gaming: creating an ever expanding body of work that other creators can use and build upon. If Kobold put out their next Tome of Beasts under CC, they would have no obligation to open any of the content. if they did so under OGL 1,0a, they would have to specifically Close some content (and it is unclear whether they even can close derivative content like stat blocks).
D&D 5E Creative Commons and D&D
Ondath
Hero
No more than OGL's Product Identity clause undermines the Open Gaming Movement, I'd say. People also released a lot of games under the OGL where they only benefitted from OGC but made no contributions of their own (for instance, Adventures in Middle Earth's Product Identity section includes "new rules, classes, items, virtues, backgrounds, places, characters, artwork, sidebars"!).
People always had the option to use the OGL in a one-sided manner, and CC-BY 4.0 allows the same. Despite that, a lot of people already released TTRPG content under the CC (FATE and a few others come to mind). My only concern with switching to CC is the open works and losing the unique OGL ecosystem, but the license by itself is no more inimical to open gaming than the OGL was.
They can, but per the definitions in the license, Product Identity does not include game mechanics. The intent is new game mechanics are automatically open content.
Ondath
Hero
That did not stop a lot of people like Cubicle 7 and Goodman Games to put their new rules under Product Identity.
Yeah, this sort of thing always bothered me and it is not at all clear this is not a violation of the license itself. The license identifies what Product identity is, and that definition does not include game mechanics.
That doesn't mean they weren't in violation of the license. but as far as I know, it has never been tested.
Ondath
Hero
Agreed! But since contracts have to follow the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law, loopholes can and always will be found. It's the nature of the beast, and given that, I think it'd be pretty hard to prove that DCC or Adventures in Middle Earth violate the OGL. And since that's the case, the OGL and the CC are on equal footing in terms of fostering open gaming.
It says it explicitly doesn't include open game content. Does that mean the stuff that is copied from and derived from OGC? Or did I miss something else? (Could SW use OGL 1.0a and exclude all the things about Jedi?).
overgeeked
B/X Known World
There are already a few hundred threads to talk about how the OGL works.
This thread is meant to be about Creative Commons.
If someone wants to open a compare and contrast thread, please do.
This thread is meant to be about Creative Commons.
If someone wants to open a compare and contrast thread, please do.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
You usually can't copyright mechanics, which is why when WotC proposed in 1.2 putting their mechanics into CC a lot of attorneys were like, "They're giving us what we already had."
