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<blockquote data-quote="Lizard" data-source="post: 4324383" data-attributes="member: 1054">I'm not sure how to interpret that, legally, but I *do* know that in the OGL days, some people at WOTC were annoyed that they had spent a lot of time/effort creating new, distinctive, visual looks for monsters (like bugbears or kobolds) and that other companies mimicked the new looks -- not directly copied the works, that would be blatantly illegal under any terms -- but used the MM art as a guideline, i.e, &quot;That's a kobold. Paint us some kobolds for our cover.&quot;Of course, this drives us write into the basci schizoprenia of the GSL -- they don't want people going too far afield from &quot;core&quot; D&amp;D, whatever that is....BUT...they don't want people directly referencing anything from the core books, either. So you can't &quot;redefine&quot; kobolds in any meaningful way, but you also can't draw/depict them as looking too much like the kobolds in the MM, so...It's really, really, hard not to keep coming round to &quot;WOTC felt somehow obliged to produce a license, but really doesn't know what they want from third parties&quot;. Dancey's vision was clear: He wanted D20 Uber Alles. He wanted to encourage every company to buy into the D20 system and spread it throughout gaming. One die to rule them all. The OGC/PI split was there to encourage companies to produce valuable IP (settings, backgrounds, fluff) without fear of it being &quot;stolen&quot;, while keeping all mechanics open so that they system could grow. It might not have worked out perfectly, but the &quot;vision&quot; was clear. I don't know what WOTCs &quot;vision&quot; is for the GSL. I think I'll start a new thread.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lizard, post: 4324383, member: 1054"] I'm not sure how to interpret that, legally, but I *do* know that in the OGL days, some people at WOTC were annoyed that they had spent a lot of time/effort creating new, distinctive, visual looks for monsters (like bugbears or kobolds) and that other companies mimicked the new looks -- not directly copied the works, that would be blatantly illegal under any terms -- but used the MM art as a guideline, i.e, "That's a kobold. Paint us some kobolds for our cover." Of course, this drives us write into the basci schizoprenia of the GSL -- they don't want people going too far afield from "core" D&D, whatever that is....BUT...they don't want people directly referencing anything from the core books, either. So you can't "redefine" kobolds in any meaningful way, but you also can't draw/depict them as looking too much like the kobolds in the MM, so... It's really, really, hard not to keep coming round to "WOTC felt somehow obliged to produce a license, but really doesn't know what they want from third parties". Dancey's vision was clear: He wanted D20 Uber Alles. He wanted to encourage every company to buy into the D20 system and spread it throughout gaming. One die to rule them all. The OGC/PI split was there to encourage companies to produce valuable IP (settings, backgrounds, fluff) without fear of it being "stolen", while keeping all mechanics open so that they system could grow. It might not have worked out perfectly, but the "vision" was clear. I don't know what WOTCs "vision" is for the GSL. I think I'll start a new thread. [/QUOTE]

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