question about OGC

[johnsemlak]

Could someone explain what is the complete significance of 'open gaming content'.

My understanding is that OGC is the material in d20 publications that can be referred to in other d20 works. Is that right?

I've noticed reviews of d20 products often prominently mention what % of the work is OGC. I've often wondered why, isn't this not terribly important to most readers?

Also, how is OGC indicated in a product?

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Warning: I am not a lawyer, and I might get things wrong...

Could someone explain what is the complete significance of 'open gaming content'.

My understanding is that OGC is the material in d20 publications that can be referred to in other d20 works. Is that right?

Referred to and copied freely, as long as those copies are also marked as OGC and include all that legalese. At least, that's how I understand it...

I've noticed reviews of d20 products often prominently mention what % of the work is OGC. I've often wondered why, isn't this not terribly important to most readers?

Depends. There are quite a few d20 authors and self-publishers these days, it seems.

Also, how is OGC indicated in a product?

It varies. The one d20 product I am most familiar with, Fading Suns d20, uses a different font type for OGC and also specifically excludes certain words that are part of the "Fading Suns Product Identity", like "firebird" (the name of the currency), "Decados" (the name of a major noble house), and so on. I guess this is for similar reasons like the ones WotC used when they removed names like "Mordenkainen" from the spell names in the SRD...

 

[chatdemon]

Could someone explain what is the complete significance of 'open gaming content'.

My understanding is that OGC is the material in d20 publications that can be referred to in other d20 works. Is that right?

As Jurgen said, OGC material can be reused by other publishers in subsequent works. In theory, if a book was 100% OGC, I could republish the entire thing, verbatim, legally, as long as I follow the rules of the open gaming license, and the D20 license, if applicable. This would be poor form though.

I've noticed reviews of d20 products often prominently mention what % of the work is OGC. I've often wondered why, isn't this not terribly important to most readers?

The open gaming license demands a certain percentage of work released under the license to be OGC, 5% or something like that. In reviews, I think the percentage of OGC is probably pointed out as a measure of how much the publisher or author was being a 'good sport' and following the spirit of open gaming, as opposed to just following the mandate of the license.

Also, how is OGC indicated in a product?

Again, as Jurgen pointed out, it varies considerably from publisher to publisher. In addition to the method of varied font faces he mentioned, I've also seen some publishers use shaded backgrounds or boxes around the text to denote OGC, as well as a couple of books that simply state in the table of contents or credits page what in the work is OGC. The license requires OGC in a work to be 'easily discernable by a reasonable reader', so as long as it's clear what is OGC, youve followed the rules.