HOW is this an OGC decleration?

[Ranger REG]

It's mine, from Mythic Heroes, and I did it because I've read OGC declarations like that in larger publisher's works, and from time to time I enter my own products "into the record," so to speak. I do hope eventually to force a few issues.

AFAIK, I haven't seen anyone does that with their Covered Products, unless they included a very clear designation of Product Identity. If I were a d20 Contributor, I might be concerned if you're using my contributed OGC in your work. Might.

As for forcing the issues, I'm guessing you want your email and voicemail inbox flooded by d20 designers and publishers, who may or may not want to use your OGC.

 

[Yair]

Wulf, I am not complaining about witholding certain mechanics as PI. (You don't, in Mythic Hero's PI designation, and that's another topic entirely.) My basic complaint is that the OGC designation is just not clear.
You know what, this is a pdf product. You can update it. PLEASE when you do that, also change the OGC designation to something more clear. "All text on pages 3-6 and 8-20, except for PI" should do the trick, I think, without including too much fluff (just the table's headings, really).
If you're not planning on making an update, consider that you need to errata the work. For example, "Increase you opponent's Balance checks [DCs]" in the Balance skill, and removing the bold from the "Discreet Research" unique challenge. (Nothing else jumped at me upon reading the text, but I didn't go over it thoroughly.)

... from time to time I enter my own products "into the record," so to speak. I do hope eventually to force a few issues.

I must confess I simply don't understand what you're saying here at all.

Yair, you may do what you like with the work, no worries. Mark has the gist of it.

EDIT: I think the only pages that don't include any game mechanics (not counting front and end matter, obviously) are page 2 and page 7.

I shall interpert the designation to mean all text except pages 2 and 7 is OGC, then (except the PI designated terms).

Yair

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Wulf, I am not complaining about witholding certain mechanics as PI. (You don't, in Mythic Hero's PI designation, and that's another topic entirely.) My basic complaint is that the OGC designation is just not clear.

We must agree to differ.

If you're not planning on making an update, consider that you need to errata the work. For example, "Increase you opponent's Balance checks [DCs]" in the Balance skill, and removing the bold from the "Discreet Research" unique challenge. (Nothing else jumped at me upon reading the text, but I didn't go over it thoroughly.)

Thanks, I will check it out.

I shall interpert the designation to mean all text except pages 2 and 7 is OGC, then (except the PI designated terms).

Do you believe that there is no difference, then, between the game mechanics and the language used to express them?

Interesting.

 

[Yair]

Do you believe that there is no difference, then, between the game mechanics and the language used to express them?

Interesting.

No. I believe there is a world of difference. I believe that the game mechanics are concepts, methods, and procedures and as such cannot be copyrighted and cannot fall under copyright law and be protected by the OGL or any other copyright-based license. You'd need a patent-based license for that, and I am not sure if even that would apply.
I believe the language used to express the game mechanics is copyrightable, and hence protected by copyright law and the OGL. I also believe that when Using (captial so as to signify I mean the OGL's definition) OGC the language used to express OGC-based mechanics must itself be OGC.*
I'm not sure how we got to this point, as I was just attempting to follow up your own instructions as to what is OGC in the product. Even if we disagree on what you should write, I have no intention of violating your intetion of what you released as OGC. You said

Yair, you may do what you like with the work, no worries. Mark has the gist of it... I think the only pages that don't include any game mechanics (not counting front and end matter, obviously) are page 2 and page 7.

Mark said

if it feels like a game mechanic to you and it seems useful in explaining some game rule aspect, then go right ahead and lift it.

It seemed to me that by affirming Mark's statements and providing those places that aren't game mechanics in your view, you were saying that all the other places were game mechanics and your intention in your OGC declaration was to release them as OGC.
If I misunderstood, I apologize. I am sorry for being dense, but I'm really am just trying to understand what it is you intended to be released as OGC under your decleration. I am not trying to be inflammatory or somethng, but the more we talk, the less it becomes clear to me.

*Edit: Not just mechanics, any text derived from OGC should be OGC, but I'm sticking to mechanics here as that's what you asked.

 

[Mark CMG]

There's really nothing wrong with the designation. The problem is that if a publisher/writer wants a more thorough blend of flavor and mechanics in his running text then an OGC designation will simply not be as simple as "It begins (here) and ends (here, then starts again (here) and ends again (here)." There's nothing in the licensing that specifically requires such a designation. You shouldnn't threaten Wulf, Yair, with misuse of his copyright and with ignoring his designation just because it requires more effort than simply OCRing and/or copy/pasting his work.

 

[Yair]

There's really nothing wrong with the designation. The problem is that if a publisher/writer wants a more thorough blend of flavor and mechanics in his running text then an OGC designation will simply not be as simple as "It begins (here) and ends (here, then starts again (here) and ends again (here)." There's nothing in the licensing that specifically requires such a designation.

There is nothing in the license that requires such a designation, no. The license does, however, require a clear designation of which poritons of the work are distributed as Open Game Content, and I am sorry but from where I am sitting this designation does not comply with this requirement. I know Wulf disagrees, apprently you do, but that's my view.

You shouldnn't threaten Wulf, Yair,

True, and I apologize for that. It was spoken (well, written) in anger.

with misuse of his copyright and with ignoring his designation

I have no intention whatsoever of ignoring his designation, nor of misuing his copyright. If I ever gave that intention, it was unintentional.
Wulf gave his premission for me, or anyone else, to use his copyrighted material under the OGL. I'm not going to ignore his OGC designation, but everything he did release as OGC is OGC, and republishing it will not be abusing his copyright, it will be Using it. What he released as OGC is indicated in his OGC designation, so I can by no means ignore it.
Evenmoreso, I will not be releasing anything based on his or anyone else's OGC if they did not intend to release it as such, even if the wording of their declaration can be intereperted otherwise. It may piss me off, but I'm going to give him (and anyone else) the benefit of the doubt and assume that what is OGC is what they meant to be OGC.
Surely you do not consider releasing what someone meant to be released as OGC to be misusing his copyright or ignoring his designation?
I am not going to release Mythic Heroes as OGC anyways, not soon, as I mentioned above. Not unless I change my mind about incorporating it into my current game, and even then it will take about a month I think, and I'll probably edit it substantially.

just because it requires more effort than simply OCRing and/or copy/pasting his work.

The amount of effort is irrelevant, it is the clarity of what is and what is not OGC that is the issue.
That product is pdf, BTW. I don't need to OCR.

 

[Yair]

I think I understand the source of our difference.

It seems Wulf (and Mark?) believe that one can release the entirety of the text under the OGL without releasing a single word of it as OGC, by designating only the "game mechanic... methods, precedures, processes and routines" as OGC.
I consider those things, in their abstract form, to be ideas beyond the reach of the OGL which only deals with their concrete and specific implementation as text within a work. I see the license as primarily allowing you to create Derivative Material which means copyrighted material from prior OGC, and no such license is required for merely using ideas; you only need the license for using text.
I see the OGL as allowing you to release text as OGC, and require a clear designation of what text is OGC. You see the OGL as allowing you to release mechanics as OGC, and are satisfied with a designation of the abstract mechanics as OGC.

 

[Mark CMG]

(. . .)from where I am sitting this designation does not comply with this requirement.

That would be a mistake. You are not in a position to make that claim and have it universally accepted. Anyone who wants to properly use OGC has to accept whatever designation anyone else uses or seek whatever remedy the licensing allows. If you feel the designation is unclear, avoid the material or take the party to court if you feel that is advisable or get WotC to take them to court if you feel that is proper.

Wulf gave his premission for me, or anyone else, to use his copyrighted material under the OGL.

No, he didn't. He gave permission, through the license, to use the OGC he has released from that product. Be specific, please, lest you cause others through the same inaccurate use of language to make similar mistakes.

Surely you do not consider releasing what someone meant to be released as OGC to be misusing his copyright or ignoring his designation?

Please, don't do that. You and I can (and always have) treat(ed) one another with more respect than that.

I am not going to release Mythic Heroes as OGC anyways, not soon, as I mentioned above.

You're not going to release "Mythic Heroes" at all. That's the name of his copyrighted work. You need to be more specific (see above).

The amount of effort is irrelevant, it is the clarity of what is and what is not OGC that is the issue.

You keep trying to force a designation that decreases the effort of your labors (the "starts (here) and stops (here)" type). [highlight]Why not take the time to write up what it is you want to use and run it by Wulf through email if you are unclear on how to separate his OGC from his non-OGC?[/highlight] You'd have to write it up anyway, so it really doesn't require any extra work.

That product is pdf, BTW. I don't need to OCR.

I made the statement to cover all cases, not just yours.

I think I understand the source of our difference.

I jumped into to this thread to help you, Yair, because I like you and have always thought that whatever the differences you might have with others (regarding your OGC project ideas) you were an honorable person who was really, at the heart of things, trying to do the right thing. That's how I operate and I am usually a pretty good judge of that in others. Whatever the source of the difference of opinion, and I doubt Wulf and I are of exactly the same mind, is not relevant. Your goal, I assume, is to use OGC from Wulf's source. There's a solution (highlighted by me above in this post) that doesn't require a lot of time wasted and if you do not persue it then I must be mistaken in my assumption about your goal. If that is not your goal then please state what it is. If you're just ball busting about the designation I'm going to be very, very disappointed with you. I'm hoping I haven't misjudged your intentions.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Wait a second.

If someone designates all the game mechanics of a text as OGC, does that include the text the author uses to describe the game mechanics?

Or is this what the dispute is all about?

 

[Yair]

Your goal, I assume, is to use OGC from Wulf's source. There's a solution (highlighted by me above in this post) that doesn't require a lot of time wasted and if you do not persue it then I must be mistaken in my assumption about your goal. If that is not your goal then please state what it is. If you're just ball busting about the designation I'm going to be very, very disappointed with you. I'm hoping I haven't misjudged your intentions.

My current goal is to see what, if anything, of this material I will be using in my current campaign. As this campaign follows the Shackled City Adventure Path, all the materials for it are kept hidden from the public in a password-protected Yahoo group. If I should use Mythic Heroes, or part thereof, in this campaign I will probably just write down what I want from it and post it in the privacy of my group, which I consider sharing it with my fellow gamers under Fair Use.
If I'll decide to use at least most parts as-is, I'll just show them my print-out.
At any case, I will not be making an OGC extract.

In the future, I have plans for joining it with other ideas to create a homebrew system for my next campaign. This is YEARS down the road. In that case I probably will create an OGL master document with all the rules, with the Mythic Heroes content being but a fraction thereof. In such a case, I will probably "realease" it on a website and perhaps on ENWorld, but the content will be so heavily modified and integrated into a different whole that I honestly wouldn't consider it the thing an extract at all.
As all "dream projects", the probability of it ever coming to fruition is not particularly high.

I am sorry to disappoint you, but I have not set out to use the OGC from this product, not as an immediate plan (as I've repeatedly said here). I've posted this thread as a rant, not as a question to Wulf on what is or isn't OGC in his document.
The only possiblity of me releasing an OGC extract of Mythic Heroes anytime soon is if I decide to add it or parts thereof to my game and later decide to make it OGC. This is a real option, as it doesn't entail much extra work and (again, as I said) I am, for the first time, actually tempted to OGC extract a work. But this is definitely not my current plan. It is towards this possibility that I've stated what I understood to be the meaning of Wulf's designation.

As an aside, I've read the whole thing and even reviewed it, giving it a very high (4/5) score. It's a good work, and I certainly recommend people buy it.