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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jmucchiello" data-source="post: 3660792" data-attributes="member: 813">This may be an oversimplification: (And you can always wikipedia or google stuff when you need to know what something is)OGL stands for Open Gaming License, a license written by WotC similar to the open source licenses found in computer programming. It grants 3rd party RPG writers license to use Open Game Content (OGC) without first getting permission from the original author. The catch is that when you use open content, you must propagate the license and leave that open content open.The PHB, DMG and MM (as well as most WotC books) contain NO open content. But WotC released a document (really a zip of .RTF files) called the System Reference Document (SRD) which contains the nuts and bolts of D&D 3.0 (and later 3.5) as well select content from Deities&DG, EpicH, MotPlanes, and the Expanded PsiH.With the SRD and the OGL one can write material compatible with the most popular fantasy role-playing game. WotC hoped 3rd party RPG publishers would use this to write adventures. To entice them to do this, WotC created another license: the D20 System License. It allowed 3rd party publishers to put a 1/2 inch logo on their books and by following the license place those immortal words "Requires the use of the Dungeons and Dragon Player's Handbook" on their works.Pubs flocked to the d20 license but along with adventures came millions of splat books with names like Advanced Complete Fighter 6 and 50 More Feats No One Needs. These oversturated the market and eventually many of these 3rd party companies turned away or died. Still for WotC, it was a winning scenario. They had lots of potential competitors advertising WotC's brand and expanding the pool of D&D players among all RPG players.Then came the OGL games. Mutants and Masterminds, Arcane Unearthed (later Evolved), etc. They abandoned the d20 license (for reasons someone else can go into). So now those books no longer beg you to buy a player's handbook.Simultaneous with much of this were various personnel changes at WotC and so the SRD has not had an infusion of new material in several years.That's the 10,000 foot view of what the OGL is. It is express a priori permission to create derivative IP.A link: <a href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/welcome" target="_blank">http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/welcome</a></blockquote>

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