D&D 4E Interesting Article on OGL and 4E

[Firevalkyrie]

SRD is a resource that I do use as a Dungeon Master. I've found the online SRD (for example, at d20srd.org) to be very valuable when creating content as a Dungeon Master. When I'm designing monsters and NPC's, the online reference is very useful.

The SRD, as I understand it, was primarily intended to be a resource for publishers designing D&D compatible materials; its utility as a player resource was something realized only after the fact. Thus we have the reason why the new SRD is not going to include text but is going to point to sections in the rule books that are open content: To fulfill its original purpose, as a resource for publishers. The Ebook versions of the D&D books (which they have specifically said will NOT require a DDI subscription to access) are the player resource.

 

[Ourph]

I think this is an interesting point. By publishing something under the OGL, and designating it open content, one gives others a license to use it, so long as they follow the terms of the OGL. That doesn't mean you relinquish copyright to the text in question, correct? Is there anything in the OGL that would prevent this - eg, a clause that once something is designated as open content, it cannot be later published in a non-OGL format?

Maybe I should go read it to find out.

The thing to remember is that the rules people have access to through the SRD are OGC and to use them or make derivatives of them requires the OGL. People retain copyrights to their OGC, but if their OGC was, in itself, derived from OGC (for example, if your prestige class uses the Fortitude/Reflex/Will saving throw system in the SRD) then they need to use the OGL in their product every time they publish that prestige class. In other words, you retain copyrights to your work, but the definition of "your work" is muddied by the use of OGC as a base for creating new stuff.

So if the GSL stipulates a product published with it cannot also use the OGL, then you have to strip out everything in your product that is derived from the 3.5 SRD and only use 1) that stuff that is wholly your own creation; and 2) stuff the GSL allows access to. If the GSL allows you to list Fort, Reflex and Will save totals for NPCs, but doesn't allow you to print Fort, Reflex and Will save progressions for all levels of a new prestige class, you cannot port those rules in from the 3.5 SRD without using the OGL, even if you previously published the same class with those save progressions in an earlier work.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

If no one else figures out exactly how to extract and recreate a free HTML SRD I will.

 

[tomBitonti]

The SRD, as I understand it, was primarily intended to be a resource for publishers designing D&D compatible materials; its utility as a player resource was something realized only after the fact. Thus we have the reason why the new SRD is not going to include text but is going to point to sections in the rule books that are open content: To fulfill its original purpose, as a resource for publishers. The Ebook versions of the D&D books (which they have specifically said will NOT require a DDI subscription to access) are the player resource.

So I don't know at all about that restricted purpose. I've used the online SRD as a resource during DM preparation, and my gaming group has used it as a reference during play.

I understand that PDFs will be available, but the the d20srd.org online reference was much more useful than any PDF that I've ever used. (Well, I've found the crystal keep guides to be very useful; but they would be much more useful as web content, instead of as a PDF.)

My understanding is that one of the efforts of the new rules edition is to make the rules more "encodable", that is, to contrain the rules to a programmatic scheme that could be input into some tables or a database. That would work very well for generating an online reference, since the presentation could be generated off of the tables. (Although, I'm thinking that custom content in the form of d20srd would be better than the autogenerated presentation.)

So why put the rules into tables, unless there was an effort to use those tables, and a great use would be to generate an online reference? I see the other uses in a character generator or in a game engine.

That gets me back to my point -- there will be a character generator in the DDI, I'm presuming, in the subscription area. If the rules were open content, then there could be competing character generators, which takes away DDI subscriptions. So no (or much less) open content, an no competing character generators, and more DDI subscriptions.

 

[Flynn]

If no one else figures out exactly how to extract and recreate a free HTML SRD I will.

You might consider selling your extract as a "4E Publisher's Aide", if you are going to go through all that trouble. I mean, you only need to charge a buck or two, and it would definitely help make your efforts worthwhile.

Just A Thought,
Flynn

 

[kigmatzomat]

With respect to Pramas, I think he's mistaken. The d20 publishers never really did modules. He pointed to Freeport and a couple of others. Compare that to the number of titles that weren't modules. SSS produced dozens of titles, with a grand total of three modules. Green Ronin's own module production is absolutely dwarfed by its other d20 products.

I beg to differ. AEG had a pretty nice module line, now compiled in the Adventure series. Necromancer definitely had several adventures. But the line gets fuzzy. Is World's Largest Dungeon an adventure or a campaign setting? What about the adventure paths?

Adventures are hard to make money on, that's why WotC avoided them and why 3rd party publishers evolved out of the adventure niche market. WotC management especially should not have been surprised.

To be honest, I don't think the WotC staffers who came up with the OGL were surprised at the turn of events. From several little things that were said in side conversations at GenCon when 3e was released, I believe that the original WotC team, rich on Magic money and still kinda peeved over the Primal Order debacle, had implemented the OGL with full knowledge of what would happen.

Mainly, that it would be impossible for anyone to ever prevent them from working on "their" game ever again, no matter who the corporate overlords were. It was a genie that had obvious implications, especially to anyone on the IT front who was familiar with the GPL.

 

[Nellisir]

I think this is an interesting point. By publishing something under the OGL, and designating it open content, one gives others a license to use it, so long as they follow the terms of the OGL. That doesn't mean you relinquish copyright to the text in question, correct? Is there anything in the OGL that would prevent this - eg, a clause that once something is designated as open content, it cannot be later published in a non-OGL format?

Maybe I should go read it to find out.

Ourph answered some of this in post #62.

Supplementary to what he said, though - no, you don't relinquish your copyright. You can publish something in an Open format, and then again in a closed format, provided it's your work, the second iteration doesn't contain any mandatory OGC, and you don't try to "pull back" the first content. You don't have to make it available on request, but you can't send out cease-and-desist letters to people who are legally using it from the first publication.

In the case of ToH, Necromancer owns all the original monsters that appear in it. They can take those monsters, strip out the 3e mechanics, plug in the 4e mechanics, and publish the 4e ToH.

It gets dicier with the licensed monsters.

 

[pemerton]

WotC can't stop someone from making a set of OGL rules that mimic 4E. If there is a "Nature" skill in 4E, then there's nothing to stop someone from writing up a new skill called "Nature" under the OGL and - so long as the text isn't identical - giving it the same set of bonuses, making it usable under the same set of conditions, etc.

Even if WotC is aware of this, they have no recourse for stopping it (they can try to take it to court and hope they win via attrition, but that seems extremely doubtful). The only thing that couldn't be used would be protected intellectual properties, such as names of specific characters or names of brand new monsters (e.g. if they have a 4E monster called a "megataur," then someone could make an OGL version that matches all of the statistics, but would have to call it a "mega-minotaur" or something similar).

Are you an IP lawyer? If so, I'll defer to your professional judgement, but would like to hear more about your reasons for the above assertions.

My intuition, in response to your post, is that you may be underestimating both (i) what counts as "derivative" content, for the purposes of copyright law, and (ii) what might count as "passing off", for the purposes of tort law as it pertains to enaging in trade.

When writing up that BBEG for the adventure, just include "Golden Wyvern Adept" in his list of feats, don't explain what it does, and you're fine.

<snip>

Then, put the note "Compatible with the Fourth Edition of the World's Most Popular RPG" on the back cover, and you're done.

Likewise.

While a 4E-like game might be possible under the OGL, marketing it as 4E compatible might be another matter entirely.

This sounds right to me.

By publishing something under the OGL, and designating it open content, one gives others a license to use it, so long as they follow the terms of the OGL. That doesn't mean you relinquish copyright to the text in question, correct? Is there anything in the OGL that would prevent this - eg, a clause that once something is designated as open content, it cannot be later published in a non-OGL format?

The OGL does not assign copyright. That is really the point of the licence - it permits the use by party A of material owned by party B. If party B was assigning ownership of that material to party A, then a licence would not be necessary.

But I get the impression what you are really asking is, If I wrote something and published it as OGL, will that be a problem for republishing it using the GSL? And the answer to that question is, It depends entirely on the terms of the GSL.

The thing to remember is that the rules people have access to through the SRD are OGC and to use them or make derivatives of them requires the OGL.

<snip>

So if the GSL stipulates a product published with it cannot also use the OGL, then you have to strip out everything in your product that is derived from the 3.5 SRD and only use 1) that stuff that is wholly your own creation; and 2) stuff the GSL allows access to.

I think that what you are saying is both too narrow and too broad. Too narrow, because just because you have no right derived from the OGL to publish material, it does not follow that you have no right to publish it. It may be in the public domain, for example. But too broad, because there is nothing to stop the GSL including a clause such as "No material may be published pursuant to this licence that has ever been published by anyone in the world pursuant to the OGL."

 

[Ourph]

I think that what you are saying is both too narrow and too broad. Too narrow, because just because you have no right derived from the OGL to publish material, it does not follow that you have no right to publish it. It may be in the public domain, for example.

I think you may have misunderstood what I was trying to say above. I'm not understanding how this affects the issue of OGC works derived from another party's OGC.

 

[Hussar]

The biggest competition that 3e faced [were] games like GURPS and Vampire.

/slightly annoyed nitpick
Heh, since you actually took the time to try to correct my grammar, I'll point out that your correction is wrong. The subject of the above sentence is "competition" which is a singular noun and thus takes was and not were.

/end nitpick

While there may very well have been a fair number of modules in the 3e days, and I agree that there were, compared to the massive number of other titles that came out, I don't think it's fair to say that modules were the focus of most d20 companies. Look at Mongoose, Sword and Sorcery Press, and I'm sure there are others.