Is the Unearthed Arcana SRD online?

[reiella]

I believe they went beyond the scope of what the three 3.5e core rulebooks have presented and added those from Epic-Level Handbook.

And refresh my memory but I never considered the Psionic's Handbook the fourth core rulebook. But it's there so Bruce Cordell could write the If Thoughts Could Kill book (published by Malhavoc Press). OBTW, in a month or so, expect the copyrighted material from the Expanded Psionic's Handbook to update the old material in the SRD ... at least according to the guy-in-charge of WotC's SRD, Andy Smith.

P.S. Still waiting for him to add Oriental Adventures material.

It was added to the SRD because it was a product line that would not recieve adventure/content support from Wizards beyond their web feature [and that they held all the rights to ], and alot of folks wanted it opened up [for psionic influenced adventures, for new psionic powers/abilities/etc]. It wasn't solely [or even mostly] because Bruce wanted to release an adventure and alternate ruleset bundle .

 

[Psion]

Closed Text: "All rules are Open Game Content; All text used within the book is closed."
This means that anything not directly mechanical in nature must be re-written in order to be re-used legally.[/b]

Does someone actually DO that? If so, they really aren't releasing ANY OGC, because you don't need to use a licence to copy rules if you aren't copying text. The copyright courts are pretty explicit on that one.

And if the same product is being released under the d20 STL, they are in violation of it, since they effectively aren't releasing any OGC.

A number of people complain about "crippled OGC", but I don't let it phase me.

Hmmm. It bothers me. I mean understand some authors do it out of a concern over control of their property. That's their decision, but I don't have to like it. It is, if anything, against the "spirit of the OGL" if anything is. The point of the OGL is to create a body of work that can be shared and propagate; creating "IP mines" that make it difficult to do this run counter to that effort.

As a consumer, this really doesn't affect me directly that much unless I am feeling like a stickler and releasing my houserules under the OGL (or going pro with it... yeah, right!) It affects other authors, and indirectly affects the fanbase as a whole by limiting the propagation of good rules material into more products.

(Fortunately, one of the big offenders here has backed off on much of this "crippling" in recent products. So I am not as annoyed by this as I once was. The other big offender I stopped buying from so I have no idea if they ever "straightened out". No, I don't care to point fingers; it's the author's decision.)

 

[Cergorach]

(Fortunately, one of the big offenders here has backed off on much of this "crippling" in recent products. So I am not as annoyed by this as I once was. The other big offender I stopped buying from so I have no idea if they ever "straightened out". No, I don't care to point fingers; it's the author's decision.)

Lemme guess, Malhavoc and Mongoose?

 

[Bendris Noulg]

A sidenote: I think that if WotC wanted to exeriment with OGC, they should have used a different book than UA. UA as a product has very little value to 80% of the consumers, even when people see something usefull, it will only be a very small part of the book. IMHO they should have used that Exalted book as the experiment and should have been a bit less enthausiastic with the OGC designation.

By contrast, however, I'm already using more from UA than I do from MotP, where as most other WotC books see no use at the table (actually, the only non-OGC material we use is from Oriental Adventures and the Book of Vile Darkness, plus the monsters from Manual of the Planes, all of which we have permission from WotC to reference in our material). Or, another way to consider it is that, within the next 3-6 months, all of the material I listed earlier is going to be on my website just because it's part of the rules my group uses. I already have Wounds & Vitality up, and that was up before I actually had my copy of UA because I already knew how W&V worked and the Checklist preview gave me the Section 15, and the Legendary Weapons I was already using via the original source, Swords of Our Fathers, so the inclusion of those rules was only coincidence.

(Consequently, the basis of the Legendary Weapons is available, for free, at the website for The Game Mechanics, the folks that wrote it; the rest of the stuff is easily made up on your own.)

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Hmm... Strange, people seem to forget so quickly...

As i've said in the past, i've already scanned, OCRed, edited, layed out, pdfed all the OGC from UA. And i'll release it as soon as six months have passed since the release of UA by WotC, because i don't want to bite the hand that feeds me OGC.

If someone releases the UA material before that time as OGC, i will release it as well, probably only a lot more attractive ;-) So, why bother doing all the work someone already has done? Just have some bloody patience...

Example layout:
http://www.TheHelix.nl/Epic_Spells.pdf

Hey Cergorach, that looks really good. Do you distribute that 3.5 SRD? Because it's a hell of a lot nicer than the rtf version. If you do distribute it, is there a website? I look forward to seeing your Unearthed Arcana SRD as well.

I agree with everyone who disagrees with Andy Collins. If Mr. Collins didn't want SRDs to be written and people to use OGC in their products, why did they make it OGC? Was it just a marketing experiment? They seem to be saying now, "well, we made it OGC to make more people buy it, but we don't want it to be OGC anymore, so if you use it, we'll say nasty things about you."

Using this material is perfectly legal, and by the "spirit" of the OGL, we are encouraged to use it. That's what the OGL is there for in the first place. It was designed to encourage 3rd party publishers to reproduce the OGC information in their own publications in order to increase the number of OGL products available so that there is no shortage of support for the game. Because of this, making something OGC is essentially inviting others to use and republish it.

If Wizards doesn't understand this by now, they really ought to get a clue.

An Unearthed Arcana SRD will make it easier for publishers to use UA OGC in their products, something which they are already allowed to do. It will make it easier for me to use the few things from the book that I want to use, since my current option is to borrow a copy of the book from someone and copy out the relevent sections. Which I am entitled to do, by virtue of it being OGC. The issue is one purely of convenience, and nothing else, since the "spirit" of the rules is that if it's OGC, the invitation is open to use and redistribute the material.

 

[RavenProject]

Hello there, I'm the webmaster and owner of www.systemreferencedocuments.org. I'd be most delighted to host such a project and if any more help is needed to edit the OCR source, then contact me. Dr. Awkward, I would be happy if you contact me by the time you are ready to release your work. By the way, do you have any other material you could provide me for hosting? The example you posted is awesome.

About the artwork. It is absolutely clear, that the artwork is product identity. A definition of all the things PI can be found on the 2nd page of Unearthed Arcana and it does not only include artwork but names of deities, characters, artifacts, ... and game statistics of several monsters. Sorry if this has already been covered in this thread. I'm currently short on time and not able to read the whole thing.

The same rules apply to the D20 Modern SRD I host.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Does someone actually DO that? If so, they really aren't releasing ANY OGC, because you don't need to use a licence to copy rules if you aren't copying text. The copyright courts are pretty explicit on that one.

Well, that was a "summed up" statement, but what you end up with as open is: All Charts, All Tables, All Stat Blocks, Spell Blocks, etc., and the rule itself. Essentially, it's a simple matter of re-explaining the rule in use. The rule, and everything about it, is the OGC.

And if the same product is being released under the d20 STL, they are in violation of it, since they effectively aren't releasing any OGC.

I have considered this as a possibility. However, in the end, does it effect me? The worst that will happen is they are told to "open it up", while the version I made is already completely open. It's also an issue of the above list; when you start adding in tables, stat blocks, etc., a product could easily skim the 5% mark with enough spells, monsters, and tables.

Hmmm. It bothers me. I mean understand some authors do it out of a concern over control of their property. That's their decision, but I don't have to like it. It is, if anything, against the "spirit of the OGL" if anything is. The point of the OGL is to create a body of work that can be shared and propagate; creating "IP mines" that make it difficult to do this run counter to that effort.

Well, I don't think it's against the "spirit" of the OGL; if it has a spirit, it's "share the rules". What some people are doing is retaining copyright control over their expression. While they understand that their rules can appear in 50 different products, what they don't want is their expression of that work appearing in 50 different products. To a degree, I can respect that.

Do I wish they were more open? Yes. But I see no reason to be bustin' balls over it.

And, in all honesty, if it is being done to prevent their rules from being re-used, they are really only prolonging the inevitable, assuming the material is good (and if it isn't good, it's protected better than any editing trick coupled with legal mumbo-jumbo can ever hope to accomplish).

As a consumer, this really doesn't affect me directly that much unless I am feeling like a stickler and releasing my houserules under the OGL...

Like I am.

...(or going pro with it... yeah, right!) It affects other authors, and indirectly affects the fanbase as a whole by limiting the propagation of good rules material into more products.

But is this because the OGC is "crippled" or because no one wants to take the time to give it legs?

 

[Bendris Noulg]

I agree with everyone who disagrees with Andy Collins. If Mr. Collins didn't want SRDs to be written and people to use OGC in their products, why did they make it OGC? Was it just a marketing experiment? They seem to be saying now, "well, we made it OGC to make more people buy it, but we don't want it to be OGC anymore, so if you use it, we'll say nasty things about you."

First, welcome to ENWorld...

Second, while I agree with your sentiments, you seem to have taken an independant statement from AC as an official statement from WotC, which also seems to have greatly effected the tone of your post.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

First, welcome to ENWorld...

Second, while I agree with your sentiments, you seem to have taken an independant statement from AC as an official statement from WotC, which also seems to have greatly effected the tone of your post.

Thank you for the welcome.

Actually, I take it to be an unofficial statement. Mr. Collins is the first name listed on the cover of the book in question (alphabetically, mind you), and until WotC issues an official statement on the subject, I don't think that it's unreasonable to take the opinion of the authors as representative of the general sentiment going around at the company. Especially since Mr. Collins' name is on everything they publish these days, indicating that he is a central figure at the company.

If it is practice for game designers to come to these boards and express their personal opinions, which are assumed to be unrelated to the opinions of their respective companies, I'm unfamiliar with that situation. However, if I'm going to address only Mr. Collins and not WotC with my post, I think that it would rest more or less unchanged...

If you don't want to deal with the OGL, don't release OGC. If you release OGC, don't be surprised when people treat it like OGC. You've been at this long enough to know how these things work. We appreciate things being released as OGC. It's really handy and it helps to keep this hobby from going under like it almost did under TSR. But if you're going to turn around and then tell us that we're unethical for treating it like OGC, that's not right, and we're likely to be a bit put-off.

 

[Zappo]

Maybe it's only me, but the fact that I had access to the 3.5 SRD didn't prevent me in the least from buying a full set of the 3.5 core books. And a Unearthed Arcana .html wouldn't prevent me in the least from buying the real thing (as soon as they translate it, curse my non-english-speaking players).
The books are shiny. Oh, so shiny...