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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yair" data-source="post: 1956387" data-attributes="member: 10913">First, I would be very careful and actually consult a lawyer before commercially publishing ANYTHING, especially since you have legal issues to sort out.I am not a lawyer, but here is how I understand things to stand.If you want to just use the effects of the mechanics, you probably don't need anyone's agreement. For example, if you say "Fellstaff pulled out some sulfur from his spellpouch and intoned the spell. As it erupted into a fiery conflagation, he hurled it at the approaching ogre. 'That's it guys' he said, 'I'm all out of spells!'."This is tricky, as you can easily fumble and reference expressions in such a way that they will be "derivative work". So I don't actually recommend it.The second way is to use the Open Game License (OGL). Make sure you read it well and do some net browsing to figure out the finter points of it before you do. Once your product goes OGL, you can use all the SRD (but NOT wizard's other offerings, with a few exceptions) and all 3rd party d20  or OGL products (subject to their OGC declarations, which often precludes actual spell names and such, so you have to be careful). In this way you can say "Fellstaff casts another fireball", for example.You need to reference your sources in Section 15 of the OGL, and print the OGL in your product. You need to declare what of your material is Open Game Content (material others may use just like you use the SRD and 3rd party stuff); I'd recommend something along the lines of "anything derivative out of OGC, the names of specific places or persons (but not their description), and the first paragraph at page XX, all of chapter 1, the 12th to 25th paragraphs of chapter 4, ...". Be generous, but not to the point that someone could publish your work himself. Allow them to harvest your work for spells and ideas though, just like you are harvesting other's open content.There is nothing saying flavor or foction cannot be released under the OGL. Indeed, there is a lot of OGC "fluff" around.You don't need permission if you are using the OGL. You just need to confrom to the OGL.You can't use terms such as "fireball" or a monster's appearance that is OGC unless you use the OGL (or have permission from the copyright owner). You might want to also take a look at the d20 STL license. It is more restrictive, and dangerous in the sense that WotC can revoke or change it at their whim. For a fiction product, I don't think there should be a problem as long as you don't treat real-world religions or ethnicities, don't include scenes of explicit sex or excessive gore, and designate at least 5% of your text as OGC. I don't think marketing a work of fiction as a d20 product will be desirable, however, so I don't recommend it.</blockquote>

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