How will GSL noncompetition affect fanworks?

[Achan hiArusa]

I was wondering how this will affect fan works? If I want to take the 4e feats and write them in 3.5e format and put them on a webpage, will this prevent me from doing so. Or if I find a cool new power and I want to turn it into a spell, will that also prevent that? Even if I am not getting any money from this at all. And which license do I post?

 

[Foundry of Decay]

I'm not sure this would be allowable even if it wasn't converted to 3.x. Taking a feat/power/spell word for word from any given published book and posting it online is extremely thin ice I'd gather. But again, I'm no lawyer.

But powers in the core books are the IP of Wizards, and I doubt they want their work posted online in any way, shape, or form (revised or not).

But if you were just making up your own powers and spells.. Well, again, I don't know. It used to be ok under the old system since it was just your own work under their 'format'. But with all the confusion I'm seeing under the new GSL I'm pretty bafled by what is allowable or not now as well :/

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I was wondering how this will affect fan works? If I want to take the 4e feats and write them in 3.5e format and put them on a webpage, will this prevent me from doing so. Or if I find a cool new power and I want to turn it into a spell, will that also prevent that? Even if I am not getting any money from this at all. And which license do I post?

I've tried to start answering this four times now. I give up. You should too, or else consult a lawyer. If you and I were meant to understand it, much less USE it, they'd have written it in colloquial Enlish.

Keep your stuff to yourself. It's clearly the message. Always has been.

 

[Morrus]

WotC has never at any time gone after fans. Never. I do not have a even a tiny doubt that fans will be left alone, as they always have been since WotC acquired D&D. The license has nothing at all to do with their internal policy on how to treat fan creations.

 

[HeinorNY]

I was wondering how this will affect fan works? If I want to take the 4e feats and write them in 3.5e format and put them on a webpage, will this prevent me from doing so. Or if I find a cool new power and I want to turn it into a spell, will that also prevent that? Even if I am not getting any money from this at all. And which license do I post?

You can do whatever you want until someone says you can't. The you start to worry about it.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

I'm not sure this would be allowable even if it wasn't converted to 3.x. Taking a feat/power/spell word for word from any given published book and posting it online is extremely thin ice I'd gather. But again, I'm no lawyer.

If they have an SRD you can, even now.

 

[pawsplay]

WotC has never at any time gone after fans. Never. I do not have a even a tiny doubt that fans will be left alone, as they always have been since WotC acquired D&D. The license has nothing at all to do with their internal policy on how to treat fan creations.

I'm sure you don't mean that absolutely.

http://ww2.wizards.com/Company/Misc/Index.aspx?doc=pr_20060119a

 

[Vempyre]

I'm sure you don't mean that absolutely.

http://ww2.wizards.com/Company/Misc/Index.aspx?doc=pr_20060119a

I'd say that on a moral ground base (since I can't say much of the legal ground), that guy pretty much deserved that.

 

[F5]

I thought the 4E "SRD" was going to include basic details, but no specifics. It wouldn't contain a list of Powers, but would rather give the framework that powers were based on; "A power is either daily, per-encounter, or at-will, and falls into one of th following categories: Utility, Weapon..." etc.

So, you could add/create your own new powers and make them compatible with the existing ones, but couldn't just reprint the entire Powers section of the PHB. This would also effectively prevent re-packaging 4E powers as 3E spells, since you wouldn;t have free access to the 4E powers in the first place.

If you create from scratch a new 3E spell under the OGL, that does essentially the same thing as a 4E power, with a new name, new descriptive text, etc? Tough to say. It would be hard for WotC to enforce, if that's something they want to prevent...

This is all based on my very incomplete understanding of something I read in passing months ago. So, y'know, take with a grain of salt, and whatnot.

 

[Morrus]

I'm sure you don't mean that absolutely.

http://ww2.wizards.com/Company/Misc/Index.aspx?doc=pr_20060119a

Hardly a comparison. Trying to stop somebody releasing confidential information isn't the same as fans making stuff for their favourite game. I'm sure you know the context I was speaking in.