Yair
Community Supporter
Is there a site that indexes what OGC is out there? I'm thinking of a place that gives what products contain what OGC, where to find good OGC on gods, and so on. Not the actual content, but a discussion of it.
Here is an example entry, to clarify what I'm talking about:
Arcana Evolved
Arcana Evolved (or, in its full name, "Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved"), is "a variant player's handbook" published by Malhavoc Press and written by Monte Cook. It is an updated and extended version of Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed. Arcana Evolved presents an alternative assumed setting, with different races and classes, and changes some game elements from the standard Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition Player's Handbook. Although it presents high content, it offers little in the way of Open Game Content.
Arcana Evolved is highly rated. It receives a 5/5 rating (2 reviews) on ENWorld 1, and won two gold EN World RPG Awards in 2005, for best d20 game and best interior art.
The work primarily presents new races and classes meant to replace the D&D ones. These are tied to the story of the dragons once ruling over the land, and now returning to it. There is a strong focus on "evolution", characters changing and growing or twisted to "better" versions by dragon magic, represented by racial and evolved levels. There are also numerous changes to the rules from the Third Edition baseline.
Arcana Evolved is famous for its magic system, that offers greater versatility but slightly lesser power for spellcasters and dominates the game less at high levels; this system is only partially available as Open Game Content. It also presents an assortment of other content, most notably the new races and classes but also rules on death and dying, hero points, and more; again, this content is largely closed.
Open Game Content Overview
Arcana Evolved is not generous in its open content. Most of the open content is fairly trivial or secondary to the work, or is crippled to a moderate to heavy degree. Much remains closed.
Arcane Evolved offers open magic items. It offers a few artifacts and monsters which are only slightly (fluff) crippled. It also offers some moderately crippled races, classes, and prestige classes; all requiring the addition of mechanics to function. Some feats are open, while others are crippled to various degrees. A novel "combat rites" system is also offered as open content. The new magic system is massively crippled (effectively voiding some classes of much content). Closed content includes a setting, much of the magic system, and various other rules.
Detailed Legal Analysis
The class tables and class features of Chapter Three are also open, leaving closed their description (including height, weight, and aging), HD, skills, and names; this moderately cripples their use. Certain mechanics (such as combat rites) remain open, but the classes as a whole need the ad hoc introduction of certain game elements (HD, skills) in addition to names to be operative, and it is not clear how one can do that without relying on closed content (their HD and skills as per Arcana Evolved) or at least appearing to do so, in possible violation of copyright law (but not the OGL, as these elements are not PI). It is possible that these elements are OGC in virtue of Section 1d of the OGL and the prior art of the SRD, however this is shaky and so the content is crippled.
A similar situation exists for the prestige classes in Chapter Eleven.
The feats in Chapter Five are completely open, presenting several original feats. However, a large proportion of the feats rely on mechanics which are not open, as the chapter's introductory text is closed, limiting the uncrippled content.
The magic items and artifacts in Chapter Eight are released in their entirety, however the PI declaration sanctions the artifact names, crippling their adoption somewhat.
The combat rites in Chapter Nine are released in their entirety, and in conjunction with the mechanics to use them in Chapter Three are open content. The spell mechanics and names in Chapter Nine are open, but the text describing them is not, leaving it to the user to represent the mechanics in his own language. The spells also utilize closed mechanics, such as spell templates and new decriptors. Hence, the spells are severely crippled, to the point of unusability.
The statistics and combat text in Chapter Twelve, presenting the monsters, are open. This leaves their names and descriptions closed, but still preserves much uncrippled content.
Chapter One is completely open, but contains only open content on Abilities. Chapter Four is also completely open, but contains already open content on skills. The open content in the Introduction is limited to a generic blurb introducing roleplaying [?].
Closed content includes new equipment rules such as dire weapons, new combat rules such as modified dying rules and hero points, new magic rules such as spell templates, and the entire Diamond Throne setting.
Here is an example entry, to clarify what I'm talking about:
Arcana Evolved
Arcana Evolved (or, in its full name, "Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved"), is "a variant player's handbook" published by Malhavoc Press and written by Monte Cook. It is an updated and extended version of Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed. Arcana Evolved presents an alternative assumed setting, with different races and classes, and changes some game elements from the standard Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition Player's Handbook. Although it presents high content, it offers little in the way of Open Game Content.
Arcana Evolved is highly rated. It receives a 5/5 rating (2 reviews) on ENWorld 1, and won two gold EN World RPG Awards in 2005, for best d20 game and best interior art.
The work primarily presents new races and classes meant to replace the D&D ones. These are tied to the story of the dragons once ruling over the land, and now returning to it. There is a strong focus on "evolution", characters changing and growing or twisted to "better" versions by dragon magic, represented by racial and evolved levels. There are also numerous changes to the rules from the Third Edition baseline.
Arcana Evolved is famous for its magic system, that offers greater versatility but slightly lesser power for spellcasters and dominates the game less at high levels; this system is only partially available as Open Game Content. It also presents an assortment of other content, most notably the new races and classes but also rules on death and dying, hero points, and more; again, this content is largely closed.
Open Game Content Overview
Arcana Evolved is not generous in its open content. Most of the open content is fairly trivial or secondary to the work, or is crippled to a moderate to heavy degree. Much remains closed.
Arcane Evolved offers open magic items. It offers a few artifacts and monsters which are only slightly (fluff) crippled. It also offers some moderately crippled races, classes, and prestige classes; all requiring the addition of mechanics to function. Some feats are open, while others are crippled to various degrees. A novel "combat rites" system is also offered as open content. The new magic system is massively crippled (effectively voiding some classes of much content). Closed content includes a setting, much of the magic system, and various other rules.
Detailed Legal Analysis
The Product Identity is largely permissive except for the names of artifacts and races - crippling the adoption of these elements to derived works by forcing a name change. Thematic elements are also maintained, which arguably may extend to the implied storylines and themes, which may forbid the use of anything entirely. Such an interpretation is far-fetched, however.Arcana Evolved said:
Open content includes the racial class tables and racial traits sections of Chapter Two, but does not include the race's name (which is PI) and description nor the rules pertaining to racial and evolved levels. The content is thus crippled, but the open sections are extensive enough that the reconstruction of the missing mechanics is possible (especially in combination with Open Game Content released in WotC's Unearthed Arcana). Any salvaged material will have to be based on new names, however, except for the Human and Giant races where the names are already in the public domain and so cannot be construed as original names and hence PI.Arcana Evolved said:
The class tables and class features of Chapter Three are also open, leaving closed their description (including height, weight, and aging), HD, skills, and names; this moderately cripples their use. Certain mechanics (such as combat rites) remain open, but the classes as a whole need the ad hoc introduction of certain game elements (HD, skills) in addition to names to be operative, and it is not clear how one can do that without relying on closed content (their HD and skills as per Arcana Evolved) or at least appearing to do so, in possible violation of copyright law (but not the OGL, as these elements are not PI). It is possible that these elements are OGC in virtue of Section 1d of the OGL and the prior art of the SRD, however this is shaky and so the content is crippled.
A similar situation exists for the prestige classes in Chapter Eleven.
The feats in Chapter Five are completely open, presenting several original feats. However, a large proportion of the feats rely on mechanics which are not open, as the chapter's introductory text is closed, limiting the uncrippled content.
The magic items and artifacts in Chapter Eight are released in their entirety, however the PI declaration sanctions the artifact names, crippling their adoption somewhat.
The combat rites in Chapter Nine are released in their entirety, and in conjunction with the mechanics to use them in Chapter Three are open content. The spell mechanics and names in Chapter Nine are open, but the text describing them is not, leaving it to the user to represent the mechanics in his own language. The spells also utilize closed mechanics, such as spell templates and new decriptors. Hence, the spells are severely crippled, to the point of unusability.
The statistics and combat text in Chapter Twelve, presenting the monsters, are open. This leaves their names and descriptions closed, but still preserves much uncrippled content.
Chapter One is completely open, but contains only open content on Abilities. Chapter Four is also completely open, but contains already open content on skills. The open content in the Introduction is limited to a generic blurb introducing roleplaying [?].
Closed content includes new equipment rules such as dire weapons, new combat rules such as modified dying rules and hero points, new magic rules such as spell templates, and the entire Diamond Throne setting.
