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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5608429" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't really agree with this.Paizo doesn't choose to be inclusive, for a start. Because Paizo is publishing its material under the OGL - because the material is derivative of the OGL-licensed SRD - it has no option but to come up with strategies that make that open-ness a strength, rather than a weakness.And this also illustrates, to me at least, why from WotC's point of view the OGL was not a success - namely, how is it a success for WotC that its tabletop RPG business is being lost to Paizo/Pathfinder, which wouldn't exist but for the OGL, and the SRD licensed pursuant to it?What puzzles me - and I'd be surprised if WotC doesn't wonder about it from time to time also - is how it has come about that Paizo can make a success out of an SRD-based game when WotC couldn't? For example, it must have occurred to WotC that they had the option, in 2008-9, of doing what Paizo has done, namely doing a 3.5-style reboot by launching 3.75. Presumably, though, the projections for this looked bad. Did WotC miscalculate on those projections? Or does Paizo have some ability to spin gold out of (perceived) straw that WotC lacks? (What for WotC might have been slammed as "edition churn" is, in Paizo's hands, "saving D&D".)Likewise on the issue of whether releasing a 4e SRD under the OGL would boost sales of 4e - WotC, assuming that it is complying with its legal obligations, must have reached the conclusion that in fact its interests are better served by not doing this. (It's not as if the option will never have occurred to it!) Whether that is because it doubts such a move would boost sales, or whether it believes that the gains from the increased sales that might accompany such a move would be offset by losses of value elsewhere (eg dilution of a valuable brand identity), I don't know. And perhaps its data is wrong - maybe it is miscalculating on its sales projections, or maybe it is overvaluing its undiluted brand.But I don't think one can simply point to Paizo and say "Look, that shows that an OGL can help!" Because not only is Paizo in a completely different position with respect both to its relationship to the OGL, and its brand, but also, if WotC had reason to think that it could do what Paizo is doing, then it would already have done so in 2008-9!Which brings us back to the question that I find most interesting - what exactly is this difference between WotC and Paizo?I personally don't find this a very persuasive analysis of the legal or (narrowly) commercial character of the OGL. Apart from anything else, it seems to ignore that, in becoming a party to the OGL, a person (via clause 7) acknowledges product identity rights on the part of WotC that go beyond - arguably well beyond - what it would enjoy under copyright and trademark law. So the same licence that "opens up" the mechanics of the game also "closes down" use of many fictional elements that otherwise might be able to be lawfully used by third party publishers.I personally see the release of the SRD under the OGL as doing two things. First, it creates a stable licensing relationship between WotC, on the one hand, and producers of adventures and new campaign settings, on the other, without the need for a fee to be paid, or licensing terms to be negotiated each time. The 3PP can be confident that the stat blocks in its products won't lead to a suit for breach of copyright or infringement of trademarks, and WotC can be confident that if the fictional elements it wants to retain control of are used, it has a clear legal recourse under the law of contract, rather than an ambiguous (at best) legal recourse under IP law.Second, it permits the printing of (retro- or non-retro) clones. Dancey was explicit about this at the time, but expressed the view that WotC would always be able to corner that market, due to its ability to print higher-quality books at a viable cost due to its ability to finance and distribute large print runs. I think that it's turned out that Dancey was wrong about this. And because this was wrong, it seems to me that the first thing the OGL does isn't such a clear-cut win for WotC either, because the OGL is allowing 3PPs to build those stable relationships with its clone-printing competitors.I don't think that this is true of the OGL from a legal or (narrowly) commercial point of view. It may be true of the OGL from an emotional/marketing/branding point of view.Can you give particular examples? I didn't get this feeling from any 1st ed AD&D materials - and Dragon magazine, at least through the early 90s, was a handbook of house rules (both in the articles and in The Forum) being published by TSR.The 4e DMG has a page discussing how to design, implement, and correct house rules.I can't remember the 3E DMG as well, but I think it addressed the issue of house rules design too.Was this a 2nd ed thing?Given that the typical GM is not trading, trademark law can I think be set to one side. (There might be complications for a convention, but we'll pass over them - and those complications would still arise in the OGL-era if a convention game featured a mind flayer or beholder.) I think the key issue here, then, is the use of copyrighted material.Given that products like PHBs, MMs and DMGs are sold in order to play a game, I don't think there is a very strong argument that using the material therein to play the game in question is a use that breaches copyright. There could be different ways to reach that conclusion - for example, it is arguable that preparing a scenario, and then GMing it, is not an adaption (for the purposes of Australian law) or a derivative work (for the purposes of US law). Or that, even if it is, there is an implied licence to do so inherent in selling the work for the purpose of creating such adaptations/derivations. And I think there are other analyses possible also.If you are photocopying parts of their rulebooks and distributing them (and they're not the bits that have the fine print at the bottom saying that it's OK to do so) then yes, you are.If you're distributing notes that you wrote yourself, then on balance I think not.Given that most material published on these boards is not licensed under the OGL, this seems to me to some extent an illusion.My intuition is that material published on these boards is in fact more suspect than material prepared and distributed the old-fashioned way, if only because it is being distributed far more widely.Which reinforces my view that this is an emotional, rather than a legal or narrowly commercial, consequence of the OGL.To the extent that the OGL had/has this emotional effect, and that this emotional effect in turn has implications for the sale of products, then WotC seem to me to have been caught between a rock and a hard place when they formed the view that (i) they couldn't make money by rebooting 3.5, and (ii) they couldn't successfully go into the future with a core product hostage to competition by others who might be capable of outflanking them in just the way that Paizo has managed to do.EDITED TO ADD:Now this may well be true. Which takes me back to the question that puzzles me - why is WotC unable to do what Paizo can?It also suggests that the key to growing/resuscitating 4e is not the OGL, but better adventures. As I posted upthread, my intuition is that WotC should try to write adventures that bring out the strengths of 4e. But that intuition is probably not worth all that much.</blockquote>

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