d20 bubble bust?- High Prices, too many books

[Vigilance]

And as far as not being able to use a title to cite a source because the title is IP... having learned ON THESE VERY BOARDS that my OGC was going to be used (very off-putting, though legal) by a publisher I would be thrilled to grant permission to use the title to cite me as a source.

Chuck

 

[jgbrowning]

Right after his section 15, he has a sidebar to the effect of "[insert feat name] comes from the second source, [insert mechanics] come from the third source", etc.

I think this was a very good idea, I've just always wondered if doing so was effectively altering the liscense because the liscense says someone only has to copy what is in someone elses section 15, not obey the instructions contained within. I don't know enough to make an opinion about it.

But that's a tangent. I wish there was a more "official" way of giving credit because when I'm using someone's OGC, I want them to get as much benefit out of it as possible.

joe b.

 

[2WS-Steve]

I think this was a very good idea, I've just always wondered if doing so was effectively altering the liscense because the liscense says someone only has to copy what is in someone elses section 15, not obey the instructions contained within. I don't know enough to make an opinion about it.

But that's a tangent. I wish there was a more "official" way of giving credit because when I'm using someone's OGC, I want them to get as much benefit out of it as possible.

joe b.

I can't claim credit for the method since it was actually brought up on the OGF lists way back when. There was a discussion of various ways one could be more specific about what came from where and someone mentioned the option I used.

Also, I first contacted everyone I could to get a more official citation--all the publishers were friendly and cooperative. Those I didn't get specific permission from was likely due to the fact that they're busy people and couldn't return my email in time or I couldn't dig up contact information anywhere.

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

And as far as not being able to use a title to cite a source because the title is IP... having learned ON THESE VERY BOARDS that my OGC was going to be used (very off-putting, though legal) by a publisher I would be thrilled to grant permission to use the title to cite me as a source.

I think that most creators would be thrilled to have their work cited, and it sounds like most publishers would like to do so too.

In science and academia, how many times an idea is cited by other authors acts as a gauge of:
- the soundness of the idea
- the career prospects of the author
- the reputation of the idea's publisher
- how quickly the idea will become accepted into the canon of ideas that are so fundamental they don't need to be attributed

Is there anyone who is actually against accurate citation of OGL sources, and if so should their interests outweigh the benefits to others?

 

[2WS-Steve]

Tav suggested that I post this comment we discussed in private email regarding other methods of citing in an OGL work:

***
I think nowadays I'd add some extra tricks like shading, or printing different works in section 15 in different colors...

If I wanted to do some citations in the main text that'd be a bit more difficult. I figure that one method would be to assign each work in the OGL an abbreviation then use the abbreviations in the main body.
***

The second bit is what I tried to standardize for my books with the permissions to reference--just in case someone actually did want to go to the effort of putting in references.

I
Is there anyone who is actually against accurate citation of OGL sources, and if so should their interests outweigh the benefits to others?

I don't think there are any publishers who are against citation. What they are against, and what I agree with, is that revamping the OGL isn't the way to go. The OGL has built up a lot of inertia because such a huge amount of material has already been released under it. If there were a new OGL, all that stuff currently out there would be unavailable to it, unless you could get everyone to sign on and release their old work under the new license.

Perhaps that will happen someday, but since there are workarounds compatible with the current OGL, I don't see citation issues as driving a need to rework the license. Making the license more software friendly would be a very different story--though, again, there's a lot of inertia in place.

 

[woodelf]

I think nowadays I'd add some extra tricks like shading, or printing different works in section 15 in different colors...

If I wanted to do some citations in the main text that'd be a bit more difficult. I figure that one method would be to assign each work in the OGL an abbreviation then use the abbreviations in the main body.

The coloring one occured to me, too. A project i'm working on half-heartedly (it's pretty low on the priority list) involves huge swaths of OGC, much of which has PIed widget names, making IDing that much harder. So my thought was to color-code it: literally put the entirety of the derived text in non-black, and match those colors to the Sec.15 entries. And then a brief explanation. From a citation standpoint, it'd be ideal: you instandly know when looking at some text whether or not it was derived, and exactly how much of it was derived (since additions/alterations wouldn't keep the citation color), and could trivially look at the legal page to see where it came from. Obviously, only really cost-effective for a PDF product, as doing color ink for that alone would be ridiculous. And i'm doing it on an experimental project, because it may turn out to be completely horrible to read--i haven't laid out enough of it yet to decide.

I also like the idea of line-numbering the copy of the WotC OGL in your work, and then using the line numbers of the Sec.15 entries as citation numbers wherever a bit of reused OGC appears in the work.

[quote[I don't think there are any publishers who are against citation. [/quote]
Sure there are: WotC. That whole clause is there so that you can't say "compatible with Dungeons & Dragons" without getting permission from them to say so. Otherwise, you wouldn't have to abide by the restrictions of the D20STL, because you could get that compatibility recognition legally.

What they are against, and what I agree with, is that revamping the OGL isn't the way to go. The OGL has built up a lot of inertia because such a huge amount of material has already been released under it. If there were a new OGL, all that stuff currently out there would be unavailable to it, unless you could get everyone to sign on and release their old work under the new license.

Don't forget, if it's a revision of the existing license, all material already released would be reuseable under the new license. (and material released under the new version would be reusable under the old version, too.)

 

[woodelf]

Is there anyone who is actually against accurate citation of OGL sources, and if so should their interests outweigh the benefits to others?

WotC. That's why they included that clause--regular trademark laws wouldn't prevent anyone from truthfully claiming "Compatible with Dungeons & Dragons". And, apparently, either they couldn't figure out a way to clearly allow citation while disallowing sneaky D&D-coattails-riding references, or they didn't want to go through the hassle.

 

[Ed Cha]

I`m using a laptop at Narita Airport outside of Tokyo, Japan and just about to board my plane, so if my thoughts sound a little jumbled or I get cut off, please forgive me. Anyhow, I just wanted to add in that the current distribution system for gaming products, as one major games publisher (non-20) has said, is "garbage".

I hope to be unveiling a new way of selling RPGs soon. Stay tuned.

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

WotC. That's why they included that clause--regular trademark laws wouldn't prevent anyone from truthfully claiming "Compatible with Dungeons & Dragons". And, apparently, either they couldn't figure out a way to clearly allow citation while disallowing sneaky D&D-coattails-riding references, or they didn't want to go through the hassle.

I disagree that Wizards has shown any anti-citation policy. The d20 System Guide provides multiple sets of abbreviations for its copyrighted titles, allowing you to cite the essential D&D books as the Player's Handbook, PHB, DMG, MM, or Core Rulebooks I-III. They prohibit you from citing specific page numbers, but only because those may change with subsequent printings--instead, they ask that material be cited by chapter and subheading.

In fact, this shows that Wizards has actually made a much better provision for allowing citation within the terms of the license than any other publisher I can think of, except of course 2WS-Steve

If creators want their work to be cited, why not make it easier for folks to do so by following Wizards' lead and creating an official set of abbreviations? Leaving this up to the re-user of the content creates the potential for confusing variant abbreviations, and also makes it more likely that prior work won't be cited at all.

 

[woodelf]

I disagree that Wizards has shown any anti-citation policy. The d20 System Guide provides multiple sets of abbreviations for its copyrighted titles, allowing you to cite the essential D&D books as the Player's Handbook, PHB, DMG, MM, or Core Rulebooks I-III. They prohibit you from citing specific page numbers, but only because those may change with subsequent printings--instead, they ask that material be cited by chapter and subheading.

But, if not for the "no compatibility" clause, you wouldn't even need to do that--you could just cite them by title. And they're not "letting" you cite the Player's Handbook by name--there's nothing they could do to stop you, since they didn't declare it PI from the get-go.

In fact, this shows that Wizards has actually made a much better provision for allowing citation within the terms of the license than any other publisher I can think of, except of course 2WS-Steve

Sure. But you can't give them the credit for encouraging citation and then not lay the blame for the difficulty in the first place at their feet--they did write the license, after all.

Furthermore, that's really not for citation, that's for reference. Strictly speaking, any OGC you reproduce in your work isn't from the PH/DMG/MM--it's from the D20SRD. Those abbreviations are really only useful for pointing people to material that *isn't* in your work. Which is a slightly different problem (though one that will profit from teh same solution as the citation problem).

If creators want their work to be cited, why not make it easier for folks to do so by following Wizards' lead and creating an official set of abbreviations? Leaving this up to the re-user of the content creates the potential for confusing variant abbreviations, and also makes it more likely that prior work won't be cited at all.

Why not just not mark your book titles as PI? That's a much simpler solution, and eliminates any confusing abbreviations, variant or otherwise. (And, speaking of variant abbreviations, why are the Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide referred to using standard acronyming practice--taking the initial letter from each word--but the Player's Handbook grabs an extra letter for no obvious reason? And why isn't it "Players' Handbook"?)