OGC Wiki?

[philreed]

Sadly, many gamers see a line like that and think how great it is that you're really doing it for them, when it's really just a good PR statement. (No offense intended, honestly, I'm just pointing out basic economics to some who may not realize it).

You may think it's simple PR and that I don't mean it but if I was only doing this for the money I would have completely stopped writing fantasy material several, several months ago.

It is possible to both care about your audience (and I feel blessed to have such a large, loyal audience*) and write game material for a living.


* Again, you likely see that as another PR spin. I don't. And I think a lot of individuals that have e-mailed me with questions, praise, complaints, and simple comments would agree with me.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

And I think you miss the point when you argue this way:It's perfectly fine for Buddy Whatshisname to work up his own stuff to sell, and it's fine for him to put up a website, and he can use OGC per the terms in the OGL; in neither case is it plagiarism. I've not said otherwise. As for framing it as a case of the proletarian gamers and some group of bourgeois publishers, I think that's a little bit unfair. As I see it, if the license is intended for collaboration and not the dissemination of gaming material (and part of the initial purpose was, IIRC what Ryan Dancey has said, to get other companies publishing things that WotC did not find terrifically profitable, such as adventures, which'd fall under collaboration), then someone posting an OGC wiki or some sort of OGC clearing house and publishing the material and work of a bunch of publishers for free is probably violating the spirit of the license, even if not the written rule.

AFAIK, there's nothing stopping someone from publishing an adventure or sourcebook and keeping the whole thing closed except for the parts specifically demanded by the license. If the license was understood mostly as a casual outsourcing mechanism for WotC to allow for products that they themselves aren't interested in producing, nobody would publish their work as open content. It would all be closed content, safe behind the legal bulwarks of the license, and the author could control dissemination of the work.

If the main concern is control of intellectual property, the OGL covers it already. But as Mr. Reed mentioned, there's also the community collaboration aspect of the license. WotC provides the bedrock on which the system is built, and other publishers are free to write closed products, or to throw their open material out there for use. However, it's a binary relationship. Something's either open or closed, and there's no grey area (despite attempts to create one like Malhavoc's early IP-minefield techniques). But that's been the case for five years, going on six. It's been enough time to get used to the situation.

For the record, I don't think Mr. Reed needs to be producing 1000 items a book. If 17 magical pipe cleaners does the job, 17 are enough. If they're 17 crappy pipe cleaners, then perhaps something more is required. If they're 17 extra-special amazing pipe cleaners, that's a good book.

 

[philreed]

The reason I don't participate in these threads is because . . .

My vote goes to:

You're smarter than me.

 

[jezter6]

Phil, for what it's worth, you know that I completely agree with and share your position.

The reason I don't participate in these threads is because it's just the same arguments about how the material should be free, and how if we didn't want it to be free, we shouldn't have used the OGL, etc. etc., from the same people, pretty much none of whom have the slightest idea of how the license was intended and was communicated to publishers from the beginning.

There is no way to convince them, so I don't bother. My blood pressure thanks me.

With all due respect Gareth, I doubt you have the slightest idea of the intentions of the document either. Posting insults towards other posters is rude. If you think that you are somehow better than some of the posters who are not publishers, I welcome you to explain how you know so much more than the rest of us lowly consumers that gives you the right to have such an elitist attitude towards your own consumers.

 

[Yair]

1. Be mean to the majority of people (publishers, customers who want more OGC to support their hobby) by having a vicious IP claim and absolutely minimum OGC declaration. This mean I'm being, effectively, a "leech" publisher by using other's free stuff (the SRD) to make money while trying to make sure no one else can really use my stuff.

2. Be open in my declarations and run the risk of having my work devalued by being put up for free, but add to the community benfit for everyone using/playing the OGL/OGL games. In otherwords, be nice to those to made material I could use and be nice to those who may want to use my material in the future

3. Release as option #1, but with a note saying you are willing to release the SAME WORK with a different OGC decleration to interested publisheers, for free. Nothing in the OGL means you can't rerelease with a different decleration, if both declerations are legit.
Just saying that if you really want to use the OGL to let other publishers (and not just anybody) use your work, there are ways to do that.

And I completely agree with you on why an OGC Wiki isn't generally a good idea.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I think an arguement assuming using the OGL as meaning "the author intends his stuff to be free" isn't supportable simply by the fact that the only way to get the material to begin with is by paying for it.

If the author intended the product to be free, it would be free. If it is being sold, it is not intended to be free, no matter the various possibilities implied in a license.

joe b.

The product isn't free. But the information contained in the product is freely distributable. That's an important difference. It's the difference between stealing a book of Shakespeare or buying the book and then copying out and distributing the works of Shakespeare (which are in the public domain). The first is illegal and probably morally wrong. The second is legal, and I can't imagine finding fault for someone distributing public domain material.

If the author declares something to be freely distributable, it's freely distributable. A d20 publisher is unlikely to declare his product freely distributable, but he might declare it of parts of the prose or rules.

 

[jgbrowning]

True.

But any OGC is still voluntarily established as OPEN and the author's intent is secondary and moot. If the author really understands what they have done, then they underatnd that they have elected to make it free and they simply intend to try to sell it despite that. If they don't understand, then that is their fault.

No. I have elected to give others a choice in whether or not they will make the material free, I have never elected material to be free unless I make it free.

OGC != Free

OGC = You get to decide if you want to make other people's stuff they would like to get paid for for free.

joe b.

 

[jezter6]

You may think it's simple PR and that I don't mean it but if I was only doing this for the money I would have completely stopped writing fantasy material several, several months ago.

It is possible to both care about your audience (and I feel blessed to have such a large, loyal audience*) and write game material for a living.


* Again, you likely see that as another PR spin. I don't. And I think a lot of individuals that have e-mailed me with questions, praise, complaints, and simple comments would agree with me.

Ok, I apologize for that one. What I meant was that you're not doing it only for the 'love of the game' as so many athletes say when making 10 million dollar salaries. If you were doing it ONLY for that, you'd just put good stuff out for nothing.

But the fact still stands that if you can't make money on it, you don't do it. Basic business. You can't operate at a loss and still have a house and a car.

I am sure you do consider your audience when putting stuff out, it's a good business principle. The way you stated it seemed very PR (I just got done watching Bull Durham where they were discussing all the good media quotes to say that make you look like you're playing baseball for the love of the game).

 

[philreed]

It's not immoral, but it is irresponsible because by using the OGL to it's "full extent" you're basically guaranteeing that there's going to be much less OGC in the future.

As usual, Joe and I agree.

Here's something for everyone that wants "all OGC to be free."

Necromancer Games published the Tome of Horrors in 2002. An excellent, valuable tool packed with OGC. Many, many publishers and DMs have used the material. They followed that with Tome of Horrors II and, again, packed it with OGC.

Would the Tome of Horrors II have included so much OGC if the material from the first had been released online for free? My vote is no.

They'll soon be releasing Tome of Horrors III. My guess is that once again it will be packed with a lot of OGC. Do you (by you I'm not talking to any specific person) want to kill the chance of Tome of Horrors III including a lot of OGC by releasing the first two volumes online for free?

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Phil, for what it's worth, you know that I completely agree with and share your position.

The reason I don't participate in these threads is because it's just the same arguments about how the material should be free, and how if we didn't want it to be free, we shouldn't have used the OGL, etc. etc., from the same people, pretty much none of whom have the slightest idea of how the license was intended and was communicated to publishers from the beginning.

There is no way to convince them, so I don't bother. My blood pressure thanks me.

Nobody's claiming the material should be free. They're claiming it is free, because it was made free. And I think that if the license was communicated to the publishers in any way other than "if you make your material open content, it can be freely distributed without your permission," then the publishers were misled. Lots of us proles here on the boards saw that bit right away.