Is the Unearthed Arcana SRD online?

[Psion]

Andy,

I am just the sort of person who would not allow a pirated book at my table. Nor would I share a review copy of a PDF product with my players.

But I (and a lot of people in this thread, from all appearances) am having a real hard time seeing how it is morally wrong to share something when I have been given legal permission to do exactly that.

Yes, I understand there is a fine line between moral and legal. But in this case, the line seems very fine indeed.

 

[Setanta]

@Bendris Noulg

This is the "bad light" that AC put himself in. Also, I was only indicating why he received the flak he did; the statement itself is not flak.

I see the distinction; point taken.

However, my own view is that the OGC portion of the work is too often associated with a company's profit line. The "Crunch vs Fluff" issue has led to "Crunch" being the main product of the d20 industry.

I totally agree with you. As I've said, I don't really think that someone posting UA on the Internet would actually hurt WotC's sales. I totally understand my argument is thin- I'm speculating on possible perceptions that people I don't know might have. That's thin- no doubt. However, I think it makes sense, and it's what I believe.

If I buy a book today and get uber-inspired and create something from it during the next week, how long must I wait before Distributing my derivitive work with the re-used OGC? What is considered a "fair time"?

A great question. I remember a while back someone wanted to do something like d20exchange, and lots of publishers actually joined the thread and stated displeasure at the thought. People asked them how they felt about other publishers publishing their works, and they all said that was fine with them. So what's the difference? They said that if they publish something, and another publisher decides to reprint it in its entirety, by the time it hits store shelves the original product wouldn't be selling much anyway, so who cares? However, if a product is released, and someone immediately posted it on the web, some publishers felt that might/would hurt their sales. So, we know that most books sell the vast majority of copies they're going to sell in the first three months (many publishers have said things like that). However, some products have longer life spans, like maybe campaign settings that are well supported. Six months certainly seems fair, maybe even three months, with the somewhat longer lasting campaign settings being protected by the fact that they generally have a greater amount of IP than a common crunch book. Would publishers think three or six months is fair? Who knows, but I don't remember ever reading about one that had a complaint about the d20exchange's 6 month policy.

I think you missed my point (although that is a fair analysis). I was indicating that you needed to compare the attitude difference between the two posts; basically, I was trying to illustrate why AC was in a "bad light" from his post and why CP wasn't. Chris is both calm, courtious, and, most importantly, entirely factual (and I'm not just saying that because he's the head of one of my Top 5 Pubs) despite it being a topic he was obviously opposed to.

Ah, got it. I did indeed miss your point.

You posted a long example of how you think publishers could keep a bit more control of how their stuff is used. I think the problem with it is that gamers often don't like to buy one product and find they need another to use it, especially if it's from a another publisher. I've seen lots of people complain about Necromancer putting creatures from Tome of Horrors in their adventures without full stat blocks, and that's all one publisher (BTW, NG has only done this a couple times at most- I certainly don't think it's a big deal, but of course I have ToH).

Well, in Chicago (my home town), "California Stops" get you tickets.

Strangely it does here too if a police officer sees it. Of course, that would involve them not doing something more important, like going after real crime.

Regardless, I feel like I'm spending too much time transcribing Insanity when I know Breakdaddy can email me that section after a few minutes of scrubbing the PI out of it, so I'm getting distracted easily while trying to do so.

As previously stated, I understand your motivation. I'm setting up a campaign website, and I'd love to put all house rules on there. I'm running it using a third party campaign setting, and I'd love to put PI stuff on my website as well so that players don't have to buy a $35 book. I'm not going to do that, but the point is, I understand why you want this. If people post all of UA on their personal sites for their players' use, would WotC even know? If they don't know, they wouldn't find it threatening to their sales, which is what I'm concerned about. If you were to e-mail breakdaddy and ask him to send you the OCR'd text, WotC would never know, unless you cc them. Again, my only concern here is that WotC is going to think making things OGC hurts their sales. WotC would be aware of UA being posted at EN World, which it seemed like the final outcome of this thread at the beginning (maybe not officially, but if it was linked in an obvious enough place, there's not a huge difference).

Yikes... To bad. I'm not going to ask for more details, nor even speculate who, but that is unfortunate.

Truly.

Third, by now, the d20 logo has become nearly synonous to D&D (indeed, just indicating a product is SRD-derived is enough for an OGL-only product). While the "groundwork" marketing of D&D would be lost, there's little reason to believe that such groundwork couldn't be formed in another manner by another publisher. Cooperative marketing, plugging SRD-derived products in-total would be a big start.

No other publisher has near the marketing budget, distribution, or market penetration of WotC. If D&D stuff stopped being sold at WalMart, Border, Barnes and Noble, etc., that would hurt, as fewer players would have access to even basic stuff (barring the Internet, which some people still don't use for whatever reason, plus they'd be buying sight unseen, which is a bummer). Sure, White Wolf gets onto shelves in those stores, but does any other company (I live in LA, so I don't have a Walmart anywhere nearby, so if they do, I wouldn't know)?

 

[barsoomcore]

I think part of the problem might be with the idea of "adding value". Everyone has a different idea as to what adds value to a product.

Let's take a concrete example: me.

I have created an online Modern SRD. I took WotC's OGC, prettied it up, added massive amounts of hyperlinking and made it available to the world. For free.

From one point of view, I understand why someone might sayI just copied the material and posted it online (let's ignore for the moment that it already was online) without adding any value -- after all, I didn't create any NEW OGC, nor did I add any closed content either. I just took the OGC and reposted it, making it easier for people to get at.

But from another point of view, I think it's clear that someone might think I added HUGE amounts of value -- simply by making it more accessible. By providing the navigation and hyperlinking that I did. I certainly put very large amounts of work into it.

Did I add value or not? Well, that depends on your definition of adding value. But if you decide whether or not this sort of thing is good or bad depending on whether or not value was added in the process, I would sure appreciate a clear definition of what value is and how it gets added.

I am opposed vehemently to theft. I don't download pirated music, I don't use pirated software and I don't download pirated PDFs. I don't share PDFs I've purchased. I don't photocopy books.

I DO post OGC on websites, however. Using the license that allows me to do just that.

I don't see a "slippery slope" here -- to my mind the OGL exists to remove that problem. On this side of the license, you are a Good Person. On the other side, you are an Evil Person. No slope, no subjective judgements, no need for moral quandaries. That's why the license is there. To tell us what is or is not acceptable conduct. I have to admit I'm surprised other people don't see it that way.

 

[Setanta]

@barsoomcore

"Have to" is rather strong language. The only case in which you would "have to" choose is one in which 4E is demonstrably better in objective ways than 3E.

No, just having 4E be different would force a choice- use that, or keep using 3.5 stuff. Certainly there is nothing to would make me "have to" use 4E, but I would have to choose whether I was going to use it or not. As for the HERO system thread, I haven't read it, and I'm spending too much time on this one, so sorry, I guess I'm going to have to stick to my thinking that I would have to choose.

That the legal system is problematic, especially in the United States, I would not argue. We don't have the same kind of problem here in Canada because our legal system doesn't make that behaviour worthwhile.Don't blame the lawyers, though. Blame the politicians who create bad laws.

Politicians generally are lawyers here. And, lawyers are more likely to drive new laws than any other non-politician group. At the end of the day though, the legal system that rewards frivolous, "non-ethical" lawuits in this country is the fault of some lawyers, some politicians, and of course the voters who don't push for change.

I've said as much. If publishing OGC turns out to be a bad business model, publishers will stop doing it. I don't see how this is bad for the industry. On the contrary, this is good for the industry.

OK. I would rather see publishers keep producing OGC in the hopes that more publishers will actually use other publishers OGC and expand on it. Take mass combat rules. I like Eden's system, but it's not perfect. It would be nice to see another publisher take their system and flesh it out, just as an example. That obviously couldn't happen if Fields of Blood didn't have a lot of OGC (though it's not all OGC, unfortunately).

If WotC never publishes another word of OGC, how does that hurt the d20 world?

If they never do another UA, I doubt it would hurt. If they make 4E closed, it would hurt, in my opinion. We seem disagree there; I think we're at a point we'll have to agree to disagree.

 

[Setanta]

I think I might have to bow out of this. It's just taking up too much time, and I think I've said just about everything I can say. I'll keep reading it though, so who knows, maybe I'll post again. I must admit the rush of finally (after four years!) hitting one hundred posts has got me all heady.

Nikolai-
I inferred from your posts that you were villifying Andy. If that wasn't your intent, I'm sorry.

Barsoomcore-
Regarding post #225, I see your point, but that's maybe not the best example. While that's what S&B says, Chris Pramas specifically said about that product on his boards that he'd appreciate it if people don't just post if for free.

Bendris Noulg-
On your long post about the environmental stuff, I think we're still miscommunicating a bit. As far as I know, you could easily take the rules part of the environmental subraces thing in UA and just add new environments all day long, along with reprinting everything that's in there. I haven't looked, so if WotC wove some PI into that section, then I see what you mean. However, I don't think anybody here has a problem with you or someone else taking that section, adding to it, then posting. That's the whole point of the OGL. It's the transcribing of 100% of UA's text that has some people a bit testy.

 

[barsoomcore]

Certainly there is nothing to would make me "have to" use 4E, but I would have to choose whether I was going to use it or not.

Well, okay. You also have to choose if you're going to use GURPS, or Exalted, or the re-release of TOON. Alright, yes, you have to choose if you're going to use 4E or not. That will be true regardless of whether it is open or closed.

I would rather see publishers keep producing OGC in the hopes that more publishers will actually use other publishers OGC and expand on it.
(snip)
It would be nice to see another publisher take their system and flesh it out, just as an example. That obviously couldn't happen if Fields of Blood didn't have a lot of OGC (though it's not all OGC, unfortunately).

The best thing for a publisher is to make lots of money. The theory is that the OGL makes that easier in the RPG industry. We don't yet know (because it's far too early to tell) if that's true. If the conditions of the OGL are such that publishers cannot make money on open content, then the OGL is a failure. Not the industry.

We can't expect people to obey conditions that aren't specified anywhere in the hopes that this will make the industry easier to succeed in. If you don't think the kind of behaviour that's been talked about in here is healthy, then there needs to be a license that specifies that behaviour and makes it clear that it is unacceptable. Propose such a condition and let's have at it.

I'm not opposed to the idea of changing the OGL. I'm not saying the conditions it specifies are the correct ones. I'm just saying that the conditions it specifies are in fact the conditions it specifies, so asking people not to abide by them is foolish. To base a business on the hope that people won't obey the terms you ask them to accept is a pretty risky way to run a business.

If they make 4E closed, it would hurt, in my opinion. We seem disagree there; I think we're at a point we'll have to agree to disagree.

Since you are the one making the assertion, it falls on you to offer some evidence if you expect me to agree with you. In the absence of any such evidence, you'll have to accept that I disagree.

 

[barsoomcore]

Regarding post #225, I see your point, but that's maybe not the best example. While that's what S&B says, Chris Pramas specifically said about that product on his boards that he'd appreciate it if people don't just post if for free.

Exactly why I chose that example. Like I said, "in the absence of any other information", this is what we know.

Now, sure, Mr. Pramas posted on his board a note saying that he'd rather people not do that. That's "other information." I hope he doesn't mind that I posted a bunch of stuff from the book on my campaign site, because it didn't occur to me to search the GR message boards on the chance there might have been a post to that effect. I don't see why it would have occurred to me to do that.

I don't mind that he doesn't want people doing that. I understand -- he wants to sell as many copies of the book as he can, and thinks that people posting material from it will be bad for his sales. He's obviously a smart guy and good businessman. And runs a company that puts out GREAT products that I love and spend lots of money on.

I would hope, however, that he would not call me names because I have done what he gave me permission to do.

And I'm not sure I agree that my posting rules from his book is going to be bad for his sales. I very much doubt that any of my players would ever have purchased the book, anyway. Indeed, I might not have purchased it if I hadn't known I could legally share the rules with my players without making them buy the book themselves. I started my Skull & Bones campaign largely because I knew I could start it up with such a small investment. I haven't started up a Mutants & Masterminds campaign, for example, because the Power Costs are not OGC and so I can't share them. My players will all need to refer to the rulebook in order to create characters, which is a barrier to starting a M&M campaign.

OGC sometimes equals MORE sales. It's not a clear-cut situation at all.

 

[Samothdm]

Okay, I just have a few things to say. I think we're all getting to the point where everyone has (somewhat) clearly stated their position and obviously I believe we are all going to, as Setanta puts it, agree to disagree.

Point #1) I have never disagreed that using/posting OGC is legal, fair, etc. My only point is that I do see a big difference between:

a) Using the OGC from Company A's new assassin class to include an assassin character in my work (even perhaps reprinting all of the class statistics, etc.), and

b) Transcribing one entire book and posting 100% of that book's OGC for free online within a few weeks/months after that book came out for sale.

See my post on it here which did not seem to really generate any comments.

Yes, I realize that legally, according to the OGL, there is no difference. I know I don't have a legal leg to stand on. But, to me, it just seems a little off. I'm not making a moral judgment against people who do this. I'm just trying to understand what the point of doing it is. It seems to me that the people it benefits the most are people who now would have access to something for free that they probably should have paid for.

As I've said, if Bendris wants to use Insanity rules in his campaign, and post them on his website because he's using them and wants his players to know what those rules are, and he doesn't expect them to buy the whole book just for those rules, then that seems fair. However, if he's going to say, "We're using all of the variant rules from UA" then I think he should politely ask his players to buy the book, or maybe at least one they can share, rather than just posting the whole thing for free on his site.

And, no, I'm not picking on Bendris. He seems to be very level-headed. It's just the first name that came to mine since he's been very vocal on this thread.

2) I've seen several posts here about how it doesn't matter if WotC makes 4E closed or not, because the OGL can't be revoked and the current version of the d20 rules (3.5) will continue forward, with or without WotC.

I really do see this as short-sited. Let's think for a minute about D&D prior to 3.0E. How many of you were playing before then? I mean really playing regularly, not just "keeping up on the rules" by buying a new Player's Handbook?

WotC comes out with 3.0E, does a big marketing push, and brings a lot of new players into the game. My entire game group that I DM, with maybe one or two exceptions, are all newbies who had never touched an RPG prior to 3rd Edition. They were exposed to the marketing messages that WotC did and came into the game. They don't know from "D20", "D&D", "OGL" or "SRD". They play, in their minds, "D&D". I imagine that a lot of other groups have a similar situation.

When WotC makes a new 4th Edition, they will do some sort of marketing campaign to try to capture new, first-time players to the game, as well as trying to convert current players to the new edition. If 4E is closed, then brand new players to the game will probably never be exposed to the concept of an "OGL" and will not be putting their dollars into that community of products. Additionally, there will be some current players of 3.5E who will convert to 4.0 and then have to decide if they will continue supporting 3.5E publishers and then spend the time to convert those materials to their new 4E games.

This means that, over a relatively short amount of time, the consumer base for 3.5E will dwindle to the point that I think it would be very difficult to support the current product output being made by 3rd party publishers.

Yes, the OGL will not "go away" if 4E is closed. Yes, 3rd party publishers can continue to produce product geared to the OGL 3.5E. But, will there be a big enough consumer base to support them?

Will they have the marketing clout to get better distribution outside of LGS's, which are relatively few and far between? When was the last time you saw a non-WotC or non-White Wolf RPG in your local Border's or Wal-Mart? That's a rhetorical question so no need to site your individual one-off examples. The point is, over 90% of 3rd party publishers are not carried in those types of outlets.

Will 3rd party publishers be able to work together to come up with some sort of broad marketing campaign to bring new blood into "their" version of the game? I'm not sure they would. I don't imagine most of these companies have a lot of extra dollars around to market their stuff outside of the community of already-existing players.

And, since there will be no more "official" guidelines, how does that help your average consumer who decides to stick with 3.5E? We've already seen people doing things like getting rid of HP for VP/WP and getting rid of AC in favor of their own system. While I like those kinds of ideas, I think that after a while, individual companies would try to stake a claim by making these types of variants their "norm", making the choices that much more limited for someone who wants to play a "traditional" 3.5E game and doesn't want to spend a lot of time converting material.

Just some (rather long) thoughts.

 

[Setanta]

I know I said I was probably going to bow out, but I failed my Will save.

Since you are the one making the assertion, it falls on you to offer some evidence if you expect me to agree with you. In the absence of any such evidence, you'll have to accept that I disagree.

First, I don't expect you to agree with me. Second, I don't think we can come up with hard, factual evidence without things like sales numbers for something that doesn't even exist yet, and won't be available to us if and when 4E does exist. Anyway, I'll direct you to Monte Cook, who talked about how he saw 3.0 and 3.5 splitting the D20 market back when 3.5 came out. Monte knows a lot more about this business than I do. If he thinks 3.5 was going to split the market and hurt all publishers (except maybe WotC, I don't remember if they were included in his point), it would seem a closed 4E would be worse, partly for reasons SamothDM covers in his most recent post (new players, only some converted 3.5 players, blah blah blah, it was a long post (j/k samothDM).

Also, I've never taken debate class or whatever, but I'm just wondering. Aren't you making an assertion that a closed 4E WOULDN'T hurt the industry? Don't you need to provide evidence? I'm just asking, as I'm not clear on how my assertion is so different from yours, from a rules-of-debate standpoint.

I don't mind that he doesn't want people doing that. I understand -- he wants to sell as many copies of the book as he can, and thinks that people posting material from it will be bad for his sales.

I suspect Chris doesn't mind you posting stuff for your players. I think he was just saying he'd appreciate it if people don't give away his game for free, as in "Hey everyone, I OCR'd S&B, download it for free here (URL)"

 

[Maggan]

Thank you for clarifying

3) I'm fiercely protective of copyright, regardless of who owns it. I believe that it's no more "OK" to illegally distribute a book that's sold 100 million copies for a multibillion dollar transnational megacorporation than to rip off a guy trying to make rent money by self-publishing his fiction. I recognize that not everyone shares this opinion--I've had to come down hard on a player *in my own campaign* who illegally obtained electronic files of books written by people I sit next to.

5) I also recognize that in the end, people are going to do what they want to do. Those who want to download illegal copies of a sourcebook--whether its from Wizards, Malhavoc, Game Mechanics, or anyone else--will find a way to do it. That doesn't make the practice any less abhorrent to me, and I don't think it justifies the stance of "I might as well post it, since they'll get it somewhere else anyway." Just as "I won't get caught" doesn't make stealing OK, neither does "someone else would do it anyway."

I realize that in today's get-everything-for-free-on-the-Internet culture, these opinions probably mark me as the equivalent of a crotchety old geezer. I guess I'll just have to live with that.

Thank you for weighing in and clarifying you initial statement. Also, thank you for the work put into D&D3.5 and UA, and for working to make UA OGC.

I wouldn't worry too much about being a crotchety old geezer. Most of us here on EN World are against cyberpirating and the posting and downloading of pirated works. So we are all crotchety old geezers here.

But that is a different discussion, as far as I am concerned, and not very much related to what we are talking about, i.e. the lawful distribution of OGC and its possible implications on the industry.

Cheers!

Maggan