Question about OGL and d20 licenses

[ChimericDream]

I want to put my homebrew campaign setting online for public viewing, but am unsure about what I need in terms of legal information. I've removed all non-original content from my site, and anything that is SRD material links directly to the d20SRD site (feats, spells, etc). I want things like my classes, feats, races, etc to be available as open game content, but there's a lot of the setting (world description, some items, other such things) that I don't want to be available for use without permission.

How do I go about posting the proper information on my site? Do I simply post the OGL text in a location that's easy to find, then put a disclaimer that says what content is OG and what isn't? There's a lot to this that I don't understand... my strengths are with stats and some story.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Owen K.C. Stephens]

I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.

The first thing you need is a copy of the OGL, with a correct Section 15, as outlined in the OGL. The section 15 of your OGL must include the SRD, and any other OGC product you used as a source, and anything those products included in their Section 15.

Then, you need a way to clearly indicate what is, and what isn't, open game content. You could, for example, say "Everything from File 1 that is OGC is reproduced in File 2. Nothing not reproduced in file 2 is OGC." As long as both files are distributed equally, that's pretty clear. You can also say "All feats, spells, skills, classes and game stats are OGC. Everything else, including all other descritions and proper names, is Product Identity." Anything you claim as Product Identity other people can't use.

But the two core things are 1: Include a copy of the OGL with an updated Section 15 and 2: Clearly identify OGC, Product Identity and items not covered by the OGL at all. Make sure anything you borrowed from an OGC source is clearly listed with your OGC identification.

Owen K.C. Stephens
d20 Triggerman

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[Roudi]

What he said. And, quite frankly, I couldn't have put it better myself.

 

[cybertalus]

On his website Sean K. Reynolds puts colored boxes around everything that is OGC. That makes it easy to tell what is and isn't open content.

 

[arscott]

Rich Burlew's website is another great example:

http://www.giantitp.com/articles/gk7uKJeF296jRcx1NJw.html