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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Samothdm" data-source="post: 1492994" data-attributes="member: 5473">Well, there are definitely a wide variety of opinions here.  I do wish that some more publishers would ring in with their opinions on using OGC.  From what I see, there are a bunch of ways that people can use Open Game Content.  1) Non-Publisher.  Put OGC on your website or in a handout for your players so they have access to the rules you're going to use.  I do this myself.  It's perfectly legal under the rules of the OGL.  I would say, however, if I were going to be using 50% or more of a single book, I would suggest that my players all try to come up with the money to buy the book themselves.  For example, if I were running an Arcana Unearthed Campaign (Monte's book, just to clear up confusion in the title vs. Unearthed Arcana, the WotC book), that book contains all new different classes, races, spells, etc.  Going through and posting all of the OGC of that entire book online is legal, but seems pointless.  If you're playing AU, make your players buy the book.  2) Publisher.  Referencing OGC from one product in your own product.  Dynasties and Demagogues by Atlas/Penumbra is an example.  The book makes use of "Social Feats" from Fading Suns d20 in the book (as well as some other stuff from other companies).  But, the book as a whole is mostly new material.  Again, legal according to the OGL.  3) Publisher.  Make a "complilation" book along a theme, ala Ultimate Prestige Classes, Ultimate Spells, etc.  In this case, a publisher is taking OGC from a bunch of different sources along one single theme to give consumers access to a "best of..." sort of thing.  Totally legal according to the OGL.4) Publisher or Non-Publisher.  Taking a single book and posting/publishing/redistributing all of the OGC from that book.  Basically, turning one single book that is currently available for sale into a freely available version.  An example here is the UA thing we're all talking about.  Yes, it's totally legal according to the OGL.I'm sorry, but I just can't understand how people don't see a difference between those four points.  1) Making *some* material available to players in a campaign in a limited way on a website or as handouts.  Yes, it would be preferable to buy the book but if you're only using certain bits in your campaign (a few classes or races or whatever) then I don't see a problem with posting just those bits you're actually using on your site.  2) In the Dynasties & Demagogues example, the intent of the author is not to give away Fading Suns d20's Social Feats for free.  The intent is to create a book that uses those feats in a new and different way, in a different setting.  It exposes people to a set of rules that they may not have seen before if they weren't interested in the Fading Suns book from a setting standpoint.  3) Compilation books, again, focus on a single theme.  I don't believe that Green Ronin's intent is to give away all of the content in Relics & Rituals (or whatever they use as source material for the Complete Grimoire's - I don't have my copy handy here) for free.  What they're doing is collecting spells from a bunch of different sources so people can just use the spells without the rest of the book.  In this case, if you want the PrCs or Magic Items from Relics & Rituals, you're going to have to buy the book.  4) In the last case, transcribing the entire book does not really seem to serve, at least to me, any purpose other than just that - providing the entire contents of the book for free in one easy-to-access place so people don't have to buy the book.  At that point, there's no incentive for people to buy the book.  The Pocket Player's Handbook is not a good example, because WotC already made all of that material readily available in an SRD format.  They have not done so with UA.</blockquote>

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