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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jmucchiello" data-source="post: 3293443" data-attributes="member: 813">See now this I find dubious. Remember your "new ability" cannot be derivative of any OGC noted in your copy of the OGL. I would love to know what kind of race ability you could create that is not derivative of existing OGC and is compatible with D20 in general. Afterall, if your class ability has a saving throw or includes DC calculations or causes a standard effect (fatigue, paralysis, etc) then chances are that ability by nature of working with d20 is derivative of some part of the SRD. And thus you must make it OGC in your book.Generally open content is designated by using the largest containing object: "The racial features in chapter 2 are open game content but the race descriptions are not." You see, the individual game mechanic would be hard to prove is not derivative of the existing game since it must work within the framework of the game. If the ability has a DC or duplicates an effect -- it's OGC. And you really shouldn't care about protecting the mechanic. You should care about protecting what makes the race unique -- it's description, culture, personality traits, etc. Basically you will save yourself a lot of formatting headaches if you just put the mechanics in one place "racial features" and the description (or fluff) in a seperate section and then designate which sections are or are not open content. Trying to micromanage the OGC designation will lead to an ugly book since no one wants the font face to change every other line.</blockquote>

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