D&D was built on ripping things off (Afterthoughts on the OGL/CC issue)

[wingsandsword]

While we're all very glad that WotC stepped down from their threat to allegedly "de authorize" the OGL 1.0a (if it could even legally be done) and instead dumped the 5.1 SRD into Creative Commons, I've had some thoughts about this going through my head for a while.

When it looked like we might all have to reconstruct D&D from what we could to still create for it, the fact is that D&D itself was built mostly from parts copied from other things. Mostly (but not entirely) mid 20th century fantasy literature.

It was built on the back of tabletop wargames, coping them for the core of the game mechanics.

The default setting is a blend of Tolkien's Middle Earth and Lieber's Nehwon, with maybe a bit of Howard's Hyborian Era thrown in.

The PC races (and some of the major monsters) mostly come from Tolkien, the thief class is straight out of Leiber (with some influence from Howard's Conan stories), the Paladin came from Three Hearts and Three Lions, a lot of random monsters were clearly inspired by Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, the entire magic system was rather famously cribbed from Jack Vance's Dying Earth series. Clerics were inspired mostly by the Crusades (the 2e AD&D Player's Handbook even cited Song of Roland as the inspiration for the class, as it gave historic or mythological sources for all the classes) and the early Cleric spell list was blatantly copied straight out of stories in the Bible. Lots of random creatures were copied wholesale from folklore from around the world.

. . .the Monk class was pretty obviously inspired by the Kung Fu films popular in the 1970's when the 1e AD&D Player's Handbook came out.

Ultimately, the fairly short list of things from core D&D that can't be shown to be copied from something else (literary, pop culture, mythological, religious, or historical) lines up pretty well with the list of "product identity" elements that WotC has always closely guarded (mind flayers still seem heavily inspired by Lovecraftian influence though, they're probably the least original thing in the "product identity" list).

I'm thankful we don't have to rebuild D&D from scratch because it would have been inconvenient and time consuming. . .but we could have done it if we had to because we could go back to the same literary sources that Gygax and other early authors did to build it.

Now, we'll never have to, because of the SRD being dumped into Creative Commons. . .a license that WotC has no control over. If the legal consequences of overturning the OGL would be large, the legal consequences of the Creative Commons licenses being upended would be far more vast, meaning that there are groups far larger than ours with a vested interest in keeping those licenses legally intact.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Let's remember lots of famous Disney cartoons are based in old fairy tales, and these are public domains years before Walt Disney himself was born.

Lots of monsters from horror movies are public domain, for example Dracula. But if you want to make money with a Hollywood production, the key is a good movie than to use exclusive characters.

Yes, everybody knows D&D drinks from lots of different sources, and when we are creating our homebred worlds, we are also adding our own touchs from other places, for example manga, videogames and last Hollywood productions.

And the game rules aren't protected by patents.

WotC shouldn't worry about rival publishers but to sell good products. All the rest of companies could try to publish a new Lord of Rings, Dragonlance or Game of Thrones, but in the end the one who sells more is who creates the best stories and plots. In the years after the first Star Wars movie others also tried to follow the same style, but of course you don't remember them. Maybe even any one among you doesn't know who was Flash Gordon.

 

[aco175]

Now, we'll never have to, because of the SRD being dumped into Creative Commons. . .a license that WotC has no control over. If the legal consequences of overturning the OGL would be large, the legal consequences of the Creative Commons licenses being upended would be far more vast, meaning that there are groups far larger than ours with a vested interest in keeping those licenses legally intact.

Is this the question? I'm not quite following. Do you think Hasbro is going to go back on their deal and try to break CC? I think it would be easier to just wait the year and have 1D&D release something not on the OGL or CC when they come out with the new rules.

As far as D&D taking elements from other sources and making it their own; I think everything does this to some extent. Did the wagon rip off the chariot, only to have the model A rip it off. Does the latest Tesla edition look and run like the 1e Ford

 

[bloodtide]

Ripping things off is too harsh. D&D just promoted or even Codified things.

I mean the bulk a fantasy things go back like 2000 plus years. They are known world wide. And they were made up by many, many people long ago. People who will will never know. And they were written down by a couple handfuls of people, who did not create them , they just wrote them down.

And it's not like James Cameron invented the idea or the word Avatar, for example.

 

[wingsandsword]

Is this the question? I'm not quite following. Do you think Hasbro is going to go back on their deal and try to break CC? I think it would be easier to just wait the year and have 1D&D release something not on the OGL or CC when they come out with the new rules.

People thought the OGL was unbreakable, WotC challenged that concept. I was saying that the CC is more stable than the OGL, and if anything or anyone ever threatened its legal validity, for any reason, there would be a lot of deep pockets that would get involved. It's very unlikely WotC will try to somehow walk back the CC release of the 5.1 SRD, or at this point to touch the OGL (since they have no real motivation to now).

 

[wingsandsword]

And it's not like James Cameron invented the idea or the word Avatar, for example.

Yeah, it's originally from Hindu religion, the word अवतार (avatāra), meaning "to cross down" or "to descend", referring to a deity that has taken on an Earthly form.

As I said, D&D copied pretty liberally from pop culture, literature, religion, and folklore. The concept of avatars came from real-world religion.

 

[Alzrius]

People thought the OGL was unbreakable, WotC challenged that concept. I was saying that the CC is more stable than the OGL, and if anything or anyone ever threatened its legal validity, for any reason, there would be a lot of deep pockets that would get involved. It's very unlikely WotC will try to somehow walk back the CC release of the 5.1 SRD, or at this point to touch the OGL (since they have no real motivation to now).

The issue here, as I see it, is that there are two different concepts at work:

1. Based on the majority of attorney opinions I've seen (here and elsewhere), WotC probably didn't have the legal ability to revoke/de-authorize the OGL v1.0a; this is even more true for any attempt by them to withdraw or otherwise remove/prevent people from using the 5.1 SRD via Creative Commons now that they've released it there.
2. It doesn't matter whether or not WotC's legal strategy is sound; just fighting the court case would likely cause whomever they sued to go bankrupt/into debt defending themselves.

The issue is that point number 2 is, as its first clause makes clear, orthogonal to point number 1. If WotC declares that they're revoking, de-authorizing, or otherwise saying "we're taking away this stuff that we previously said you could use," then regardless of whether or not they're legally able to do that, the widespread reaction is one of fear, uncertainty, and doubt on the part of other publishers, which isn't something they find tenable. Again, take note of point number 1; it's no less true now than it was two weeks ago, and yet more than a few publishers are moving away from the OGL.

That's personally something I find disheartening, because it suggests that even a genuine legal "safe harbor" isn't good enough to foster the community-wide sharing and remixing of content that we had for so long. We also need the assurance of a safe harbor, and there's no legal guarantees that can sustain that.

I know a lot of people think that Creative Commons is more secure, because WotC doesn't own it and can't withdraw, revoke, de-authorize, or otherwise kill the license itself nor withdraw the 5.1 SRD. But so what? In the United States, anyone can sue anyone else at any time for anything, and even a casual search shows that there have been many civil cases filed around the use of Creative Commons. People worried about WotC filing suit against them (as opposed to winning such a suit) are no safer using CC-BY-4.0 than they were using the OGL v1.0a.

The debate about the merits of using CC vs. using the OGL are near-totally about the idea/appearance of safety, rather than actual safety.

 

[Scribe]

Ripping things off is too harsh. D&D just promoted or even Codified things.

I'm not so sure. I dont think there is a ton in D&D which would fall under the 'Trope Maker' heading. Its like GW with all their early stuff. Most of it was a rip from somewhere else.

 

[The Shadow]

"Good authors borrow. Great authors steal."

Yes, D&D has historically been very derivative. But it's evolved into its own distinctive thing, to the point of being a unique subgenre of fantasy. (Not my cup of tea for reading usually, but there's no denying it exists.)

 

[darjr]

Well the CC and what is under it is unbreakable but note the debates about what it means you are allowed to do with Strahd. Go to far and you may find yourself within C&D or even lawsuit territory. Though I’d be shocked if got to more than a c&d from WotC.

However note the current level of shock over both the OGL 1.1 and the SRD release under CC.