Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Setanta" data-source="post: 1492611" data-attributes="member: 2183">I think the point here is about all the people that are basically saying the 'spirit' of the OGL is irrelevant, and only the letter of the agreement matters. I imagine a lot of the people who staunchly stand by the OGL as a legal way of getting stuff for free are also people who complain if they're pulled over going 5 mph (or even 8 kph) over the speed limit in broad daylight on an open road, saying "But I was driving perfectly safely!" That's a double standard. The OGL was not created for people to get free RPG stuff (though it legally allows that to an extent); it was created so that publishers could re-use each others material so that lots of people could publish for the same system, a system which in the end sells more player's handbooks for WotC. I doubt anyone thinks there's anything wrong with someone putting OGC on their campaign websites so that all their players (even ones without the books) are on the same page. However, I know I'd rather not see someone transcribe the entire text (or at least the OGC part) of UA or any other D20 product and simply post it for anyone to take. That hurts the whole D20 community, as it makes it less likely companies will release large quanitities of OGC, and more likely they'll release broken OGC. Whether releasing someone's OGC in this way actually affects sales or not, some publishers will have the perception that it does, and that's bad enough. Sure, they should know going in that it's legal for people to do it, but that doesn't change the fact that some publishers clearly don't like it, and might be more likely to avoid it as best they can in the future.This is particularly important with regards to WotC. Some day, there will be a fourth edition. Hopefully, not for several more years, but some day, it will come. When it does, it's better for us as gamers if they continue to support the OGL. They're under no obligation to do so. Sure, they can't revoke the OGL, but it doesn't mean they have to continute supporting it. They don't have to ever add another word to it. If they start to feel that releasing stuff as OGC is hurting their sales, they'll probably stop releasing stuff as OGC, and that hurts us gamers and all the non-WotC D20 publishers.</blockquote>

Verification