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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Henry" data-source="post: 1456005" data-attributes="member: 158">First of all, to protect my own rear end, I'm not a lawyer either, but I think this is correct.The Open Gaming License (OGL) is a license under which rules mechanics owners can release rules in reference documents, and other people can take these rules, and within the bounds of the license, use them any way they see fit to make their own system. WotC has released the system reference documents under the OGL, and the owners of a game called the Action system! have released some of their mechanics under the OGL, as well. Mongoose publishing has released a set of horror rules under the OGL. The list is growing.There are fewer restrictions on it than the d20 license, but one of the stipulations is that you cannot make any claims that would violate trademarks, intellectual property, etc. Call of Cthulhu uses a d20 based rules system, and was released via a special license between Chaosium and WotC. It is NOT OGL, meaning it's not covered under the license, but it is a d20-based system, created by the owners of all d20 trademarks (WotC). Did I make the distinction clear enough?A released product can be released under the binding agreements of the OGL, but doesn't have to be d20 licensed. It doesn't even have to be d20 based rules!The d20 System Trademark License is a seperate document, and says that if you follow certain rules (about content, character creation, morality codes, etc.) then you can publish a product that says it's compatible with the d20 system, and it requires the Player's Handbook. You must be under the OGL, if you're using the d20 STL, but not vice versa.To most gamers, however, if it uses a d20 plus mods to beat a target number, and if it originated with the SRD's, then it's d20, whether legally you can say so or not. However, as years go on, and more publishers release Open Gaming Content, the distinctive connection between OGL and d20 is going to disappear.It also raised your max blood pool, and several other things. I'd have to get someone with the book to complete it for me. You don't appear to bash at all; as you say, it's not an uber-system, and some things don't come off well with it. It's fit almost all my needs so far, and I'm glad for it, and happy to educate others with just how much wider open it is than detractors say it is, but I also play other games too. There's only so much STR/DEX/CON/INT/WIS/CHA that a gamer can take, after all! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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