Terramotus said:
Right. As long as WotC doesn't later duplicate and add to the SRD ANY class name, feat name, or power name in your entire book of new classes you're fine. Otherwise, you'll probably have to stop selling your existing version and decide if it makes financial sense to do a new edition just for the sake of changing a name. And then pray that it doesn't happen again.
I think you'd be able to claim prior work. The things they could change later are more policy, like "no VR combat maps" or some such.
Personally, I don't have any problem with WotC tightening their IP. The notion that we should
expect to have things like the d20srd.org site is absolutely, staggeringly insane and unreasonable, IMO. Don't get me wrong -- I think d20srd is bloody cool and I use it a lot. I just don't consider it an entitlement and I can't muster any indignation at WotC not wanting stuff like that to exist.
Really, they could tell all 3rd party publishers to leave their stuff alone, and I'd have a hard time justifying being upset. Again, they don't have to be jerks about it. TSR were nasty and turned their fans sour.
What I find ironic is that I'm a pretty strong proponent of limited IP rights, in terms of duration -- 7 years seems appropriate for most things -- but I find myself defending WotC moving to tighten their control. Really, I think everything published under 3.0 and earlier should be in the public domain, already, but that's not the way IP laws are set up. To grouse against WotC for tighten their control, but still be significantly more open than most of the industry is grossly unfair and more than a bit self-involved.
I can remember being ticked that 2e added non-weapon proficiencies as core rules because "real D&D" doesn't have those things. Somewhere along the line, "real D&D" got room for not just NWPs, but skills and feats (which I like), not to mention they reversed AC and took out two saves. Even "martial spells", ala Bo9S, got heaps of praise. If all those are somehow "real D&D", I don't see how 4e isn't.
After all that, I find myself saying "Amen" also. Not because the OGL "saved" D&D or because WotC screwed up 4e, but because I do agree that the right thing to do, especially for a niche hobby like this, is to let things move into the public domain. The OGL wasn't exactly public domain, but it was probably a step further than sane for today's IP laws and corporate environment.
