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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aezoc" data-source="post: 4175606" data-attributes="member: 12124">Obligatory IANAL disclaimer again. The definition of Open Gaming Content according to the OGL v1.0a is (emphasis mine)To me, this means that a book of all new feats, magic items, and classes could be entirely closed, i.e. not released under the OGL at all, if you want it to be. If anyone knows of a company that's done that, I'd be interested to know what reaction if any it got from WotC. But you would likely want to include the basic rules explaining feat progression, prerequisites, magic item creation, etc, however, and there's no reason not to include those straight from the SRD and designate them OGC (not that you could reprint them verbatim and claim they were closed anyhow).Again, since Iron Heroes happens to be the book sitting beside my computer, I'll use it as an example. Its designation of OGC states in partThe relevant chapters are titled Equipment, Combat, and Adventuring. In Equipment, for example, there are several new weapons that are not listed in the SRD. As I read the OGC designation, they are not OGC, even though the weapon template (meaning what attributes a weapon has - damage, size, etc) is in the SRD. Applying the same concept to your hypothetical book, the templates for feats, magic items, and classes are all in the SRD. But so long as your new creations didn't directly extend existing OGC (i.e. an improved fighter class that has only minor additions), you don't have to designate them OGC.That said, most of the 3rd party stuff I have designates all or nearly all of the crunch as OGC, which in my mind is a great thing. The potential pitfall that I see for WotC is that the value of the core 4e is likely to be mostly crunch, if they follow the 3e trend of having a very minimal implied setting. And since the system itself isn't copyrighted, AFAIK there's nothing legally stopping someone from co-opting most of the 4e mechanics and releasing them as OGC. I disagree with your assertion that this is a flaw of the OGC though, I just think it is best suited to a service-oriented business model that doesn't really exist today in the pen and paper RPG world.Please note that I'm not advocating either creating d20 compatible material without the OGL or trying to co-opt 4e mechanics and release them under the OGL, just that I don't see anything making it impossible. IMO the fact that WotC took a chance with the OGL in the first place was a great thing for the hobby, and I think we all benefit from publishers who are willing to openly exchange ideas via OGC.</blockquote>

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