Monty of Dungeon Dudes infuriated at publishers writing own licenses instead of CC – WOTC most permissive

[MNblockhead]

I assume Monty Martin is a creator/publisher and I can assume that the extra overhead of trying to understand and adhere to multiple licenses can be a headache for small publishers. Ultimately, though, I think it just comes down to whether an IP is popular enough. D&D depends on a large ecosystem of third‑party publishers of all sizes to keep it being the most widely played and best known TTRPG. Games Workshop has no open licenses and maintains tight control over its IP, yes Cubicle7 seems to be doing well with its exclusive licenses to publish games for the various Warhammer properties.

As a consumer and GM, how open a game's license is has never directly factored into my purchasing decisions. Indirectly, I suppose it has, for there have been games that I've initially been attracted to but just didn't have enough adventure content available. I think that it matters more for consumers who tend to stick with one game system. Even with WFRP4e, I have enough published adventure content for my current campaign to last several years. D&D with its third‑party publisher ecosystem may have enough content to last me lifetimes, but I only have one lifetime and I'm not going to spend what little I have left of this lifetime playing only one TTRPG.

 

[aramis erak]

Ok. Sure.

But my issue with.CC is that it does not require users to open the mechanics etc they created as derivative of the SRD. I understand this is by design and that's how the publishers want it.

I just think it is crappy.

Just add the share alike clause in CC.
But, to be honest, this whole thread is proof that CC is too poorly understood.

Creative Commons is NOT ONE LICENSE

It's several.
The base level of CC is a truly open one, allowing modified or unmodified use, not requiring attribution, and allowing commercial use
Add the SA tag and it's related clauses in the reference, and the user's required to keep the same license.
Add the NC tag, and no commercial use is allowed under license. Common in the indie games.
Add the BY tag, they have to actually make notice of what was yours.

 

[mamba]

Just add the share alike clause in CC.

then you lose the advantage CC has over ORC and anything that was said in that regard applies to CC-BY vs CC-SA as well (it is even worse than ORC as CC-SA is not limiting the SA to mechanics)

But, to be honest, this whole thread is proof that CC is too poorly understood.

nah, it shows that people are lazy and just type CC instead of CC-BY because they do know which sublicense the SRD is using

 

[SlyFlourish]

Because it requires share alike? I guess. But that's the thing that was missing.

Without it, creators lock off content that is clearly derivative of the SRD and they should not be able to do that. And probably can't, in actuality, but (as has been noted many times) it has never actually been tested in court.

People are doing that with orc too. Kobold Press locked some of their mechanics by not putting them under ORC but the license requires downstream creators release everything.

 

[aramis erak]

then you lose the advantage CC has over ORC and anything that was said in that regard applies to CC-BY vs CC-SA as well (it is even worse than ORC as CC-SA is not limiting the SA to mechanics)


nah, it shows that people are lazy and just type CC instead of CC-BY because they do know which sublicense the SRD is using

Then they REALLY don't know WTF they're on about.

Most of the games I've seen under a CC license are CC-BY-SA, then next most often CC-BY-NC.

ORC is basically equivalent to CC-BY-SA. Same for WOGL1.0a.

CC-BY-NC is fundamentally a different entire thing - it's a "free work only license"...

 

[mamba]

Most of the games I've seen under a CC license are CC-BY-SA, then next most often CC-BY-NC.

not sure what games you are looking at, but since the Dungeon Dudes create 5e content I am pretty sure they compare against its SRD, which is CC-BY, and the criticism is against games that are more restrictive than that. That is also reflected in their statement that they are surprised that WotC suddenly is the least restrictive and them not being interested in viral licenses like ORC or CC-SA.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

RPG companies are under no obligation to release anything they design to allow anyone else to freely use it.

Open licenses of any kind should not be considered a baseline expectation. And every publisher/author should be allowed to set the terms and conditions around other people utilizing their words and ideas.

 

[mearls]

I think the collective D&D community still does not quite grasp how much of a win the OGL issue ended up being. Everyone has crazy open access to a game system with 10+ years and millions of dollars of effort poured into it. It's such an unmitigated win for creators.

 

[mamba]

RPG companies are under no obligation to release anything they design to allow anyone else to freely use it.

Agreed, and people are free to express their opinion about the license used or even the lack of a license, just like Monty did

D&D using CC-BY certainly did up the ante for the others

 

[SlyFlourish]

I think there's a subtlty easily missed in these conversations which is what is released under an open license and what we wouldn't expect to be.

A company's core fictional IP, I wouldn't expect that to be released under anything except maybe some type of community license that, I imagine, can be rather restrictive but still let people make compatible stuff in a company's world.

I certainly don't mind companies making things like new subclasses or monsters or other new things and not releasing those. I don't think all of that needs to be released.

But a game's core mechanics, that seems like something worth releasing to say "hey, we were influenced by this stuff so we're giving that back out too". I think Daggerheart can do this. They reference a ton of games that influenced their own game. They can make a special mechanics-focused SRD that just gives that part of it into the CC. They can even call the rule system something different so they're not muddying up Daggerheart with it.

I was looking at Free League's separation between their core engine – Year Zero – and that stuff is separate from their actual game world material. Granted, they're still using a bespoke license which means I have to either risk reading it myself or hire a lawyer to read it – not something we expect small publishers to do. But it seems like a nice open license.

Their Dragonbane license is more restrictive but I can understand that since it's their core IP and the setting and feeling and system are all mixed up together.

Again, that's just from a quick look and they're unique licenses so who knows for sure, but that seems like it makes sense.

For me, I'm happy when a game's core rules and core mechanics are released under very open licenses like CC BY – especially if those rules are clearly derivatives of other RPGs which also had those open licenses. I can completely understand if those companies then restrict further access to their game's core IP stuff – the world and setting and world / setting mechanics.

To me, a question I ask is "is the fact that this material isn't released under an open license getting in the way of the progress of the hobby?" It's not always a clear answer but it's the question that guided me when releasing my own material under a CC BY license. I didn't want to be the gatekeeper of material I thought should be everyone's.