Releasing Unearthed Arcana OGC...

[Wulf Ratbane]

Actually, I would love to see publishers move more towards a consolidation and standardization of the rule set. For example, there's at least 4-5 different nautical rule books out there... don't you think it's time someone bit the bullet and came up with a compendium of "best of" rules?

You mean something along the lines of, "All the best rules, all in one book?"


Wulf

 

[Henry]

If you REALLY want to be considerate of WotC, six months wouldn't be a bad time period. (Ryan and Sean K. have both said before that most of the sales are done in 90 days from release). I'm just curious as to whether or not their statement of OGC in Unearthed Arcana will let you reprint almost in entirety (I didn't look at the statement extremely closely).

 

[Ranger REG]

I'm just curious as to whether or not their statement of OGC in Unearthed Arcana will let you reprint almost in entirety (I didn't look at the statement extremely closely).

I hope you are referring only to the OGC portion of the book. I have yet to examine the book myself and read their copy of the OGL and legal notice page(s).

 

[Cergorach]

From UA:

Product Identity: The following items are hereby identified as Product Identity, as defined in the Open Gaming License version 1.0a, Section 1(e), and are not Open Content: All trademarks, registered trademarks, proper names (characters, deities, artifacts, places, etc.), artwork, trade dress, and the names and game statistics for the following monsters: beholder, displacer beast, gauth, githyanki, githzerai, mind flayer, slaad, umber hulk, and yuan-ti.

Open Content: Except for material designated as Product Identity (see above) and the githyanki/githzerai, slaad, and yuan-ti bloodlines in Chapter 1, the contents of this WIZARDS OF THE COAST game product are Open Game Content, as defined in the Open Gaming License version 1.0a Section 1(d). No portion of this work other than the material designated as Open Game Content may be reproduced in any form without written permission. To learn more about the Open Gaming License and the d20 System License, please visit www.wizards.com/d20.

 

[kingpaul]

Wow. That book is mostly OGC. I have birthday just around the corner. I think I know what I'm going to be getting.

 

[Henry]

I'm just curious as to whether or not their statement of OGC in Unearthed Arcana will let you reprint almost in entirety (I didn't look at the statement extremely closely).

I hope you are referring only to the OGC portion of the book. I have yet to examine the book myself and read their copy of the OGL and legal notice page(s).

What else would I be referring to in the above post?

 

[Conaill]

You mean something along the lines of, "All the best rules, all in one book?"

Excatly. Not so much *alternate* rules as in UA, mind you. But rather supplementary rule sets of which various different versions have appeared from different publishers.

The nautical rules are a good example, and could probably make up a book all by themselves. "The Ultimate Nautical rulebook" or somesuch. All crunch, no fluff. Do some serious playtesting and/or polling to figure out which rules work best for which problem (e.g. for assigning ship stats, or for ship-to-ship combat) and collect them all in one place, with some attribution of which book they came from. If you want, you could have some alternate rules in sidebars as well.

Steampunk and creation of inventions is another area where we have several different sources out right now (with Steam&Steel - hopefully - coming out soon as well). Heck, Mongoose alone has at least three different rules for creating constructs (in Quintessential Gnome, Powerclasses: Artificer and Enchanted Arcana: Constructs).

 

[Ranger REG]

How do Ethics and plain old fashioned "good taste" fit into the whole thing?

Well, ethics and good taste vary among individual.

I mean, crap, there's a ton of OGC in the Unearthed Arcana that I would love to use for a book I'm in the process of writing, but two of my friends have already said using 3rd party OGC is like being a "copy cat."

Personally I'm very happy that the material was made OGC, but in the end, will using it make my product look like a cheap carbon copy of the U.A?

That depends on the product you're designing. As someone earlier stated, why reinvent the wheel when you found a perfectly good rules/mechanics that is already OGC that would well in your game?

I mean that's what OGC is there for: to be re-used or modified for you game product. Like re-using computer codes or subroutines. Challenge your friends. Design the game and have them playtest it. If they feel that the OGC mechanics work for your game, then they should insert foot in mouth.

 

[Ranger REG]

What else would I be referring to in the above post?

You could also be including text that is neither designated OGC nor PI in your reference.

But I see you do not mean that.