Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Philotomy Jurament" data-source="post: 2986893" data-attributes="member: 20854">Incidentally, that's one reason the OGL makes it easier to produce a compatible product.&nbsp; A legal challenge over copyright would hinge on whether or not Game A's &quot;artistic presentation&quot; of the rules was substantially similar to Game B's &quot;artistic presentation.&quot;&nbsp; In that kind of situation, you could argue that terminology (e.g. Armor Class), etc. is part of your artistic presentation of the rules/algorithms.&nbsp; By explicitly licensing you to use certain terms and descriptions (i.e. open game content), the OGL makes this type of thing much more open-and-shut.&nbsp; You could create a compatible game without using the OGL, but the OGL makes it a lot easier and safer, legally.If WotC changes 4E so that open game content terminology and descriptions from the SRD are no longer applicable, it would still be possible to create a compatible system, but it would be much more difficult, and the legal questions would be less objective and more open to interpretation.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Philotomy Jurament, post: 2986893, member: 20854"] Incidentally, that's one reason the OGL makes it easier to produce a compatible product. A legal challenge over copyright would hinge on whether or not Game A's "artistic presentation" of the rules was substantially similar to Game B's "artistic presentation." In that kind of situation, you could argue that terminology (e.g. Armor Class), etc. is part of your artistic presentation of the rules/algorithms. By explicitly licensing you to use certain terms and descriptions (i.e. open game content), the OGL makes this type of thing much more open-and-shut. You could create a compatible game without using the OGL, but the OGL makes it a lot easier and safer, legally. If WotC changes 4E so that open game content terminology and descriptions from the SRD are no longer applicable, it would still be possible to create a compatible system, but it would be much more difficult, and the legal questions would be less objective and more open to interpretation. [/QUOTE]

Verification