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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BSF" data-source="post: 1824875" data-attributes="member: 13098">Whoa!  Let's not get completely out of control here folks.  I'm not really reading a whole lot more in Vigilance's posts except a statement that as a business, he would need to consider alternatives to his current practices if he saw his sales drop because somebody stripped out the OGC and distributed it for free.  The same with Phil.  Barsoomcore seems to indicate that releasing wide OGC might not be a viable business model.  Obviously, Phil would like to disagree.  Right now, Phil is paying his bills and enjoying his job as a PDF OGC publisher.  But that could change.Obviously, any content that is released as OGC could be redistributed by the terms of the OGL.  If that happens, what alternatives do people like Phil Reed and Vigilance have?  Should they keep popping out OGC in the hopes that it doesn't get redistributed immediately?  What if their sales drop?  What if they are no longer able to pay the bills as OGC publishers?  One option would be that Phil would bow out of the market since he will be using his time at a different job.  Maybe he would still release stuff once in a while, but maybe he would just develop it for his own campaign.  Another option would be to not release as much OGC.  Release it in a crippled format, or only release the bare minimum OGC required and keep the rest locked up as IP.  Frankly, it might be in their best interest to use OGC in a minimal capacity, or to release it in a manner that is difficult to extract.  Would that be disappointing?  It would.  But it would also be disappointing to see Phil Reed close up shop.  As a DM, I tend to rely more and more on OGC.  Why?  Because if I ever decide to make some of my campaign material available, I would like to do so without having to convert and rewrite it.  Am I talking about charging money for anything I release?  *laugh*  I should be so lucky.  I would release it because I have the arrogance to think somebody else might enjoy using it - it would be free.  Last October, Mystic Eye Games ran a little <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=66082" target="_blank">contest</a> to stat out a PC based on nothing more than a name.  The <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=66260" target="_blank">entries</a> could use any OGC.  A little of this and a little of that were used from different sources.  I used some material from Call of Duty.  I like my version of Pedro, even if the background is choppy and truncated.  (What can I say, I was running out of time.)  Without the OGL, I doubt Call of Duty would have ever been released.  Without the OGL, it would be questionable that we could post a fully statted out PC like that.  Certainly, TSR once believed they could prevent you from doing so.  As a fan site, maybe the PCs could be posted.  But not for any sort of publication.  I couldn't build Pedro Mondragon using material from the Book of Exalted Deeds, because it is closed content.  That's a shame and if I build an NPC for my homebrew using BoED, I won't share that NPC with other folks.  I like OGC because I can reuse it.  If I really like something I put together, I can share it.  If I were to put together a book of NPCs today, I would redo Pedro Mondragon.  I would probably use more OGC and I would include the OGC feat and weapon property so anyone else could use him.  A year ago, I wasn't quite that astute and sure of how I would use OGC.  I want publishers to keep putting out good OGC.  But if they can't do so and keep it a financial reality, then I understand.  Vigilance and Phil are both being candid about the options they would have to investigate if making OGC redistributable for free became a prevalent practice.  Don't lambast them for their candidness.</blockquote>

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