Is the Unearthed Arcana SRD online?

[woodelf]

The only people that are "gung-ho" are the folks with OCR capability, and they don't seem to be sharing.

Myself, I'm gung-ho for doing the parts I'm using, of which I'd gladly contribute those parts to anyone compiling an SRD or, for that matter, wants the material for their own works. As is, though, no one indicated that they wanted Sanity, so while I transcribed it verbatum (minus PI-references to CoC), it's now been edited and chopped-up for Aedon, making it unusuable to anyone not wanting to use my changes (a thing I'll just label as "unlikely").

Out of curiosity, any particular reason you didn't keep a "pristine" copy on your drive, for future reference?

Anyway, i think that's why i haven't pushed that hard on this: i don't really care. See, for the most part, i'm underwhelmed with the content in Unearthed Arcana, same as most WotC books. There are only a couple bits i might even maybe use, and none that i'd use without significant alteration (which makes a verbatim scan that much less useful). And D20 System stuff, save two particular projects, is pretty low on my priority list, in general. I'm just not a crunchy-system person, usually, so i more often get fired up about things like Four Colors al Fresco than a social-centric D20 System. But the latter will probably get finished, to prove it can be done, and 'cause i think it's rather clever. As for the Unearthed Arcana extraction itself: i'd be doing it for gamers, not for me. But the layout, that's for me: i'll jump at almost any chance i get to (1) hone my layout skills, especially in a forum that could garner lots of feedback and critiques and (2) slap The Impossible Dream's name on it, and get us into the gamers' consciousness. So, i'm not gonna buy the book, 'cause i'll likely never use it. And i'll definetely never use enough of it to justify $35--i'll buy the new shoujo BESM supplement, or the latest Ars Magica book, or A|State, instead. So i don't have it to OCR. But, give me the digital text, and i'll jump to it (unless that happens during crunch time for our first book, in which case it'll just have to wait).

Now, if someone wants to collaborate on an SRD extraction of Spycraft, i might be persuaded... (And i'll probably be doing Arcana Unearthed myself, in any case--though i'll, like you, probably only do the bits i'm gonna use.)

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Out of curiosity, any particular reason you didn't keep a "pristine" copy on your drive, for future reference?

Because I've already got two copies of it (CoC and UA) should I ever have the need.

 

[woodelf]

After reading through the license again, I thought I'd throw in another post. Two little points.

1.) Due to it's trademarked nature, the online OGC could not be called the Unearthed Arcana SRD. Unearthed Arcana is a registered trademark of WotC and not OGC.
2.) More importantly,

so it can't even by advertised as having anything to do with WotC. The only place WotC can appear at all in in the copyright section of the accompanying OGL. Moreover, advertising blurbs sent to news websites, could neither mention WotC or Arcana Unearthed. So essentially you'd have a Alternative Rules SRD, which you couldn't mention was from a WotC product, except in the license, and even then it wouldn't say it directly. Given those restrictions, it's much harder to imagine it having quite the same impact. I wonder if allowing OGC to be sorted by contributer would be in violation of section 11...but that's a whole seperate topic.

Also, interestingly enough, by republishing it, any third party who wanted to cut and paste the rules, would legally be obligated to credit the newly renamed SRD in the OGL. Nothing important mind you, but kind of funny considering no new content would be added.

So call it the "UAD20SRD" or the "D20/UA SRD", or something along those lines. There: no trademark infringement. Or even:

An Extract of the Open Game Content from a Book of Extensive and Somewhat Mutually Exclusive Rules
Originally Published in Book Form by the Owner of a System We May Not Name, but Which is Undoubtedly the Most Popular Fantasy Roleplaying Game Currently On the Market, and is Currently in it's Revised Third Edition
Containing, in its Entirety, the Open Game Content from the Aforementioned Book, Comprising a Multitude of Options for the D20 System

For those of us who are a fan of Victorian publications.

It's really not that hard to get the point across. Oh, and there's one other potential benefit to such an extract: it might "scrub" the resulting content of the PI declaration. That is, it is quite possible that you only are obligated to abide by the PI declarations of works you derive from, not those that the works you derive from derived from. Therefore, if you use an OGC extract of Unearthed Arcana, and do *not* use Unearthed Arcana, you are free to use the word "githyanki". Probably not, mind you, the notion of an astral-dwelling race, brethren and haters of the githzerai, former slaves of the illithids, allies of hellspawn red dragons, and powerful psychics. But you could use the word.

 

[woodelf]

On topic, I'm interested in UA's Contacts rules, Taint, Players Roll All the Dice, Level-Independant XP Awards, and Magic Rating.

Yes, I have the book; Yes I want them for a "product"; Yes I will type them in all by my lonesome if I have to and not complain about it; and Yes, it would be easier to share the effort with someone else. If anyone has these entries already typed up and doesn't mind sharing with me, drop me an email... nellisir at comcast.net

Maybe i'm misremembering, but what is there to "Players Roll All the Dice" to retype? I mean, haven't you pretty much just given the whole rule? (OK, i suppose you should add the "add 11 to all monster stats that would otherwise involve a d20 roll" and "subtract 10 from any PC stats that didn't used to involve a D20 roll". But that's pretty much it.)

 

[woodelf]

Let's assume that you mean Microsoft, Microsoft was one of the biggest opponents of the open source philosophy. Not anymore, it's finally seen the value of opening up some of it's source code. Why? Because it can actually save them money, lots of money. They let a comunity help develop and debug a product and doesn't have to spend the resources to do it themselves. They might not use the GPL or one of it's close relatives, but it is a step in the right direction. It wouldn't suprise me in the least that at one time MS might actually make Windows open source, just not under the GPL.

But they don't let others build on the code; they don't, officially at least, incorporate others' open code into their code; they don't let others see reported bugs (last i heard, at least); they don't let others decide which parts of the code they want to see; and they don't let known bugs get publicized. Point being that, depending on what you consider the "point" of open-source development. Personally, i consider the greater efficiency (especially of debugging) a side-effect--it's just the one that traditional-development companies want to take advantage of. The point of it, IMHO, is the concept of sharing, and collaboration, and better end products, and just a whole different mindset, one that is about creation, improvement, and credit, rather than about money or monopoly.

 

[kenjib]

For those of us who are a fan of Victorian publications.

That was awesome. Someone should write up an rpg where all of the books are written in that style. The title of each chapter would also have to be like this:

"Chapter 1: In which the ability scores Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma are described as well as the modifiers, bonuses, and penalties pertaining thereto and finally the effects such abilities have on the casting of spells, carrying of weight, fighting of combat, and other activities common to the roleplaying game."

That would be a nice touch to a Victorian era rpg game.

 

[Ranger REG]

If i could make just one change in copyright law, and that was expected to "fix everything", it'd be to only allow the person(s) that created an idea to hold the copyright. Companies may not hold copyrights. Descendents/inheritors may not hold copyrights. Governments may not hold copyrights. Universities may not hold copyirghts. A company can license a copyright, but only for the life of the creator, at most. And my gut reaction is to also, without explicit contracts to the contrary, only allow licenses from employees to last for the duration of the employment, though i haven't really thought through all the ramifications on that one.

Hmm. What happens if the creator wishes to relinquish the copyright to a company? Such a law you suggested would expressly forbid that, even if that company will be run by his or her children (which is much like an asset in the estate can be passed down), who should get equal share in the profit of said copyright, rather than designate one (normally the firstborn).

Such a thing would also abolish any and all work-for-hire contracts.

 

[Cergorach]

Now, if someone wants to collaborate on an SRD extraction of Spycraft, i might be persuaded... (And i'll probably be doing Arcana Unearthed myself, in any case--though i'll, like you, probably only do the bits i'm gonna use.)

I've already started working on it (i love Spycraft and would love to use it for some other games).

AEG used some very annoying header fonts, my OCR software keeps choking on those (annoying in the feats section). And the designation of OGC leaves much to be desired for (the stuff used from SW needs to be taken out).

I've currently done the scanning of the core book, the computer has 'Read' the entire book, i'm not using the computer to 'Check spelling' (now at page 104), will need to do a manual scan of the ocred book before cutting out everything that isn't OGL.

I've put the Spycraft project on low priority, because it's a big hassle, but if your interested in certain parts i'll take a look if i can fit it in my schedule ;-)

 

[woodelf]

(On WotC "setting the bar", and yes, I'm wandering off topic...)

What I don't see, however, are companies as consistently and broadly bending the "rules" of d20 as WotC.

What's the definative book on dragons? Draconomicon. Monsters? Savage Species.
Good? Exalted Deeds (though Good from AEG is pretty, well, good...).
Evil? Vile Darkness.
Alternate rules for your fantasy d20 game? Unearthed Arcana.
Asian-themed role-playing? Oriental Adventures.

It actually annoys me. Testament is cool, but not that useful in a standard game. Ditto Skull & Bones. Maybe not all, but most publishers seem to be locked into some kind of tight-focus vision, where instead of a toolkit book on Renaissance-era roleplaying, with material on fitting in gnomes and orcs and sorcerers, they publish the Qualharian Renaissance Booke, set in 1603 AQ, with dicherion and mrul races, and no guns. 'Cause Qualharia doesn't have guns. They have lightning-throwers.

Hmmm...
Your examples seem to contradict your initial statement. Maybe it's just a semantics issue. But you talk about WotC "bending" the rules, and then list a whole bunch of supplements that, with the possible exceptions of OA and Unearthed Arcana, are just taking some of the most basic, core concepts of D&D and exploring them fairly thoroughly: dragons, good, evil, etc. And, IIRC, OA was mostly written by AEG, just published by WotC (much as the DL core book was written by the people who're doing the rest of the new DL line, just published by WotC). That only leaves Unearthed Arcana. And, in some ways, i'd say even it bends the rules less than Spycraft, M&MM, Midnight, CoC D20, or any number of other genre-/setting-specific books. Sure, it collects a bunch of variations in one place, but they're all more-or-less compatible with baseline D&D3.5E--for obvious reasons. IOW, based on the stuff you're praising and dismissing, you don't *want* the rules to really be bent a whole lot--you want stuff that's more-or-less compatible with your existing D&D game. Which is fine--i understand that desire all too well. But it's the antithesis of "bending the 'rules' of D20 [System]".

 

[woodelf]

Just noticed i never actually posted this message. That would explain why no one has responded to it.

As for #2, sure, it's speculation that this behaviour will hurt the industry, but I haven't seen anything to make me think it's illogical speculation. We've seen one publisher speculate that it might hurt his sales. If he perceives it might, chances are others do as well. If a publisher perceives something as being a threat to sales, isn't it logical to assume they might look for ways to avoid it? What if that publisher is WotC, clearly the publisher in the best position to avoid releasing OGC, and clearly the one that would hurt the D20 world the most if they stopped supporting the OGL. It just happens to be a WotC product that started this whole discussion. Thus, I'm concerned.

I haven't read the paper yet, so i don't know know how sound it is, or to what degree it would apply to books, RPG materials, open content, or some combination of the above. But you might want to take a look at http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March2004.pdf , which is a working paper on the effect of [illegal] music sharing that concludes (in part) that "downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero."

*If* my behavior is representative, gettnig material for free has a net-positive effect on expenditures for the commercial stuff. In fact, if i like it, i'll buy it even if i already have a free copy (legal or illegal), and even if the free copy is of equal quality to the commercial copy. Yes, that's just me, but the reward-the-creator impulse, combined with the word-of-mouth effect, are reasonable explanations for how the free-is-better impulse could fail to decrease sales, overall.

In short, if this study is accurate, then the problem isn't OGC being recirculated, it's publisher's fearing OGC being recirculated. And, therefore, the solution isn't to not recirculate OGC, it's to educate publishers.