Mongoose: OGC clarification on TQR?

[Psion]

Okay, I am working on a review of TQR and don't want to say something that is not true. The OGC statement is a bit more cryptic than most Mongoose products to date. It has the "derivative of the SRD" type statement in it. (Which is as clear as mud and I hated it when Monte did it in BoEM, too.)

My essential question is this:
Are the new subsystems (e.g., poison creation, trap creation) open content? If so, that is one accolade this book would have over Traps & Treachery, which explicitly closed its trap and poison creation systems.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I would have to say that technically, if the poison and trap systems use d20 mechanics, they are open by default.

You can't make a derivative work based on the SRD and claim it as IP.

You might perhaps be able to get away with it if you didn't use the d20 STL and disavowed any connection to the SRD (since conventional wisdom is that game mechanics cannot be copyrighted) but as T&T is a d20 product, I think they waived the right to make that claim.

Not a lawyer, but that's my understanding of the OGL/STL. Someone more informed may be able to shed more light on it.


Wulf

 

[Mongoose_Matt]

Hi guys,

You are both correct in your thinking;

1. All such rules in The Quintessential Rogue are indeed OGC.

2. _No_ rule that uses the SRD can be IP. It has to be open. The name of the rule can be IP (such as Matthew's Jumping feat, not yet released), but the rules themselves cannot.

Don't let 'em tell you otherwise.

 

[d20Dwarf]

Do you guys mean IP, or PI?

Also, nothing in Traps & Treachery that was derived from the SRD is closed content or PI.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Hmm... When I say IP, I mean Intellectual Property, but in retrospect I should both say and mean Product Identity, as that's the term used in the license.

Mea culpa.


Wulf

 

[Psion]

Also, nothing in Traps & Treachery that was derived from the SRD is closed content or PI.

Okay, define "derived from the SRD". Does having DCs in it make it derived from the SRD, for example. My thought would be no.

I don't have the book here right now, but the way FFG flags OGC is by a statement at the beginning of the pertinent section, or by having the section highlighted. And I distinctly remember the traps section being closed.

At any rate, I guess I'll skirt that issue for the purposes of my review. But in private, consider this an attaboy!