D&D 5E (2014) DriveThruRPG changes its D&D/d20 categories

[MerricB]

G'day, all!

I've just noticed that DriveThruRPG (or RPGNow, or DriveThruStuff, or whatever you want to call it) has made a minor but significant change to its d20/D&D categories.

They've added a Dungeons & Dragons (Third Party) and Dungeons & Dragons (Official) subcategories under the D&D/d20 category.

Below the Official/Third Party tags it then splits into the various variants as it did before (1E, 2E, BECMI, 3E, 4E, 5E), although now with "Third Party" or "Official" suffixes.

I'm not sure if this was at the request of Wizards or just cleaning things up internally (there are a lot of unofficial products at this point), but I found it fascinating.

Cheers!

 

[Remathilis]

In before the wild OGL speculation.

 

[delericho]

Yeah, that's an interesting one, what with the OGL requiring that people not claim compatibility. Could just be DTRPG recognising that an awful lot of d20/OGL stuff is D&D support material even if it doesn't say so on the tin, though.

 

[Morrus]

I'm sure it's just DTRPG tidying up.

 

[Charles Wright]

Yeah, that's an interesting one, what with the OGL requiring that people not claim compatibility.

There's no such restriction. You use the terms D20, D&D, Dungeons & Dragons, or any other trademarked logo or words, but you can easily claim compatibility with, say, "5E".

Essentially, it doesn't prohibit you from claiming compatibility, it just doesn't give you permission to use trademarks to do so.

 

[delericho]

There's no such restriction. You use the terms D20, D&D, Dungeons & Dragons, or any other trademarked logo or words, but you can easily claim compatibility with, say, "5E".

Essentially, it doesn't prohibit you from claiming compatibility, it just doesn't give you permission to use trademarks to do so.

The thread is specifically about the changes to DTRPG's categories, and especially their addition of a "Dungeons & Dragons (Third Party)" category. Clause 7 of the OGL does indeed prohibit claims of compatibility to any registered trademark, without express permission.

There are, indeed, workarounds (5e, "Fifth Edition Fantasy", "the world's oldest RPG"...), but none of them apply in this instance.