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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8903035" data-attributes="member: 82106">Oh, I actually AGREE with you, it is clearly possible to make RPGs that bear only a very passing resemblance to D&D and are undoubtedly free and clear. I mean, there is little doubt that Blades in the Dark, to name a random game, has even the smallest thing to fear in that regard. Apocalypse World, same thing, but then what about Dungeon World? Things are a bit more murky there... (though I personally tend to think that its use of the 6 canonical ability scores and aping of D&D classes isn't going to be enough to step over that line).If they decide to fight, they will carefully choose whom to litigate against, presumably. Of course if they, say, got a decision that basically said "the classic 6 ability scores are a specific expression and fall under copyright" that would be a pretty clear indicator that any other D&D-like that uses 'classic 6' better stick to OGL or negotiate! Right?Honestly, I have paid not a ton of attention to PF2, and so I am double triple not really able to meaningfully comment on it. If WotC chooses not to act against them in any way, yeah, that would make me more confident I could do whatever they do. Honestly, IMHO (which is worth not much) you'd have to go rather far beyond 6 classic ability scores to fall foul of copyright. Its just not clear how MUCH further, because certainly even PF2 has classes, levels, hit points, round-by-round combat, uses d20, has monster stat blocks, and probably overlaps in some other forms of terminology with D&D. Still, there have been some pretty close copies of Monopoly that apparently got away with it, so we might imagine so will we. We just don't KNOW. I mean, look at this silliness with Google and Oracle! 70 years of industry reliance on the non-copyrightability of APIs and headers went 'poof' and they have made it stick!</blockquote>

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