Licensing, OGL and Getting D&D Compatible Publishers Involved

[Warbringer]

13th Age? The game is marvellous, but the OGL was pushed much, much further than that, long before that. Mutants & Masterminds, for example, is far more of a push than 13th Age. As was Spycraft. Or our own Four Colour to Fantasy or Elements of Magic. 13th Age is pretty tame compared to what some folks have done with the OGL.

True, and all good games.

 

[pemerton]

Let's say that, at Wizards Towers, there is a meeting on what kind of open licensing system they're going to put in place for DDN. It's going well, and lots of the pro's and cons mentioned in this thread are brought up, nodded over, discussed, argued, etc. Then, a couple of hours in, someone walks in with a Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook, slams it down on the table, and walks out.

Does the meeting go on after that point? Or does everyone nod ruefully, sigh at what their predecessors wrought, and go get a sandwich instead?

I think the person slamming the book down on the table would be missing the point that Pathfinder wouldn't have existed if the GSL of 4th edition had been more timely and less restrictive.

Heck, even if the OGL itself had never existed, Pathfinder might still exist - just as popular, but with a slightly different ruleset. The strength of Pathfinder is that Paizo is incredibly good at what they do; the OGL's a tool, but there are other tools.

The OGL doesn't facilitate or not facilitate cloning a game. The OGL is just how you release your clone when you're done. You can clone 4E (i.e. rewrite every part of it in your own words), but the OGL doesn't assist you in that process.

My sense is that the benefit of releasing under the OGL is that it lets you preserve a very high degree of fidelity in your description of game elements - classes and class features, races, monster abilities etc - which therefore makes the transition of players from the original to the clone as seamless as it can be. You can do this without concerns about being hit for copyright infringment. And the widespread use of the SRD as a reference tool just reinforces the prospects that your text will be experienced by your players as seamlessly merging with the text of the original game.

The challenge for a non-OGL 4e clone is to be textually close enough to the existing game for players to smoothly transition without being so close as to be an infringement of WotC's copyright. Probably not impossible, but I think not trivial either.

Nobody thought you could replicate 1e D&D with the OGL, until someone did it.
Nobody thought you could replicate 4e D&D with the OGL, until someone (sort of) did it.

I feel confident someone can do it with 5e as well. It's different, but not so different it cannot be done. In fact, it's closer to 3e than 4e was, and so even easier to do under the OGL than 4e was.

Given the old OGL allows anyone to basically replicate 5e right now, with some tweaks here and there and filing off serial numbers, I see no point in not going ahead with 5e being under the OGL for PR reasons.

If the old OGL did not exist, I'd think it would be a mistake to go ahead with an OGL for 5e. But that's not the world we live in. It does exist, so there is no real point to pretending 5e can be protected from third party use.

If you are correct about cloning D&Dnext out of existing OGC (the SRD + other stuff out there) then (i) I think WotC are in a pretty difficult situation, and (ii) your advice to them is plausible.

There one thing that makes me wonder whether you're correct, though, and I wonder what you think of it: D&Dnext is presented in a very narrative-mixed-in-with-mechanics style, both in class features and spells. And those narratives are new ones, they're not just taken from the existing SRD. A clone based on current OGC couldn't just replicate all that descriptive text without breaching WotC's copyrights - so it would either have to present the D&Dnext mechanics in a more stripped back, mechanics-first way (a bit like 4e); or it would have to rewrite with its own descriptive texts. This might be an obstacle, then, to the "seamless transition" for players that a clone is aiming for.

If WotC think that they have achieved this sort of obstacle, then maybe they have a reason not to follow your advice. But I'm curious what you (and others) think about this.

 

[trancejeremy]

The OGL doesn't facilitate or not facilitate cloning a game. The OGL is just how you release your clone when you're done. You can clone 4E (i.e. rewrite every part of it in your own words), but the OGL doesn't assist you in that process.

While you can copy the mechanics, you might run into problems if you use all the terminology. And spell names. And monsters (since a lot of have their own spin on mythology).

You can get around that by changing those things, but then you aren't really making a D&D clone anymore.

The OGL lets you use a lot of what makes D&D, D&D.

 

[Zireael]

Nobody thought you could replicate 4e D&D with the OGL, until someone (sort of) did it.

What? Where? I want to check it out!

About 'cloning' D&D Next - I don't think cloning the specific style is possible. Cloning the mechanics - definitely possible.

 

[Morrus]

While you can copy the mechanics, you might run into problems if you use all the terminology.

You're right; good point.

 

[D'karr]

The challenge for a non-OGL 4e clone is to be textually close enough to the existing game for players to smoothly transition without being so close as to be an infringement of WotC's copyright. Probably not impossible, but I think not trivial either.

The highlighted part is the real crux of the issue. It is a lot of work if you want to stay clear away from copyright infringement. It is doable, but not trivial. Even a clone that used the OGL as a basis would require a lot of work, but mechanically it is totally possible.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I think the existence of 13th age shows how far you can push the OGL

I really think a distinction needs to be made here between the OGL and OGC. OGL does not mean the D&D SRD or even necessarily d20. Fudge is OGL, after all.

 

[Warbringer]

I really think a distinction needs to be made here between the OGL and OGC. OGL does not mean the D&D SRD or even necessarily d20. Fudge is OGL, after all.

Ok. Explicitly, it is the Wizards of the Coast 2000 v1.0 OGL.

 

[Mistwell]

What? Where? I want to check it out!

Well some would argue 13th Age, but closer to it is this project.

 

[Wicht]

Ok. Explicitly, it is the Wizards of the Coast 2000 v1.0 OGL.

I think you are misunderstanding. What you have just referenced is a license. It says nothing about the content released under that license. There is nothing stating that content released under the OGL has to be d20 based. Other games can be released under the exact same license. Therefore it is the Content that must be clarified and referenced.