Ryan Dancey Answers to OGL questions

[Delta]

Ryan, thanks so much for taking the time to discuss the OGL these days! I have a question relating to one thing I was really surprised to see you say in the recent thread:

Second, WotC benefits from the expanded pool of designers making content compatible with its own work. It can bring the best of that material into D&D, and it can hire the best of those designers and add them to its staff.

I'm surprised about the part in boldface -- I know that was originally the intention for the OGL/SRD, but I had the impression that had not really ever happened in the 7 years since the OGL has been available. Frankly, post-3.5 edition, I'd definitely given up on personally ever seeing that happen. Has any rules-based content initially published by a 3rd party under the OGL ever been incorporated into a WOTC branded D&D book (aside from some monsters)?

Assuming the answer to that is "no" (or close to it), let me also ask: Has the amount of re-incorporation of 3rd-party OGL material in WOTC products been more, or less than you initially expected? Have you been disappointed by how much that option has been utilized? Do you expect there to be more or less of it in the future?

 

[Kem]

A problem I've constantly encountered with OSRIC is that I keep seeing these very confident pronouncements from people who haven't read the document thoroughly, and I have to say that I really do find that rather frustrating.

There seems to be an assumption that I must be some amateur punk who hasn't taken legal advice, and after a year of these imputations I have to admit that I'm getting a little tired of it. I have taken plenty of legal advice on these subjects and I've produced OSRIC with all due care.

I hope you know he isn't saying that.

It may seem implied. However, he goes over what issues could arise from a product like OSRIC. He even says he has a problem with it.

He doesn't however say that you haven't gotten legal advise, or that you have not been careful.

There are things, however, that bother him about it. And he names them. If you have already gone over those things for the issues he states, then he will admit that his opinion is wrong in this case (as he actually did in his second post).

 

[Kem]

Ryan, thanks so much for taking the time to discuss the OGL these days! I have a question relating to one thing I was really surprised to see you say in the recent thread:



I'm surprised about the part in boldface -- I know that was originally the intention for the OGL/SRD, but I had the impression that had not really ever happened in the 7 years since the OGL has been available. Frankly, post-3.5 edition, I'd definitely given up on personally ever seeing that happen. Has any rules-based content initially published by a 3rd party under the OGL ever been incorporated into a WOTC branded D&D book (aside from some monsters)?

Assuming the answer to that is "no" (or close to it), let me also ask: Has the amount of re-incorporation of 3rd-party OGL material in WOTC products been more, or less than you initially expected? Have you been disappointed by how much that option has been utilized? Do you expect there to be more or less of it in the future?

I know it did happen for Unearthed Arcana and Weapons Locker. (Weapons Locker in particular is almost totally from another book).

Other then that, the second part of that quote is true (I wanna say Mearle but I might have the name wrong.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I hope you know he isn't saying that.

It may seem implied. However, he goes over what issues could arise from a product like OSRIC. He even says he has a problem with it.

He doesn't however say that you haven't gotten legal advise, or that you have not been careful.

There are things, however, that bother him about it. And he names them. If you have already gone over those things for the issues he states, then he will admit that his opinion is wrong in this case (as he actually did in his second post).

Sure, that's true.

Since launching OSRIC, I've seen many attempts to imply that it's illegal, and since these claims were (a) false and (b) directly damaging to what I'm trying to do, which is to put the licensable or non-copyrightable part of a much-loved and wanted ruleset back in the hands of the fans at no profit to myself, I've become very grumpy about them.

OSRIC's legality is between myself and WOTC, and I have discussed it with their representatives. I don't intend to provide any further information on our discussions on a public messageboard, except to say that those discussions ground to a halt over a year ago now and OSRIC remains available.

 

[Flynn]

I'm surprised about the part in boldface -- I know that was originally the intention for the OGL/SRD, but I had the impression that had not really ever happened in the 7 years since the OGL has been available. Frankly, post-3.5 edition, I'd definitely given up on personally ever seeing that happen. Has any rules-based content initially published by a 3rd party under the OGL ever been incorporated into a WOTC branded D&D book (aside from some monsters)?

I know it did happen for Unearthed Arcana and Weapons Locker. (Weapons Locker in particular is almost totally from another book).

Other then that, the second part of that quote is true (I wanna say Mearle but I might have the name wrong.

May I point out the two OGL monsters in the back of MM2, as well as the admitted inspiration of True20 and other OGC in the creation of Star Wars Saga Edition? Here are two more very visible integrations of products of the OGL back into WOTC products. The first was reasonably direct, and came with OGL entries of their own. The second came into D20 through inspiration, but the influence is easily visible.

There are also a good number of WOTC feats that were first available as OGL before being rewritten for the WOTC splatbooks. The Netbook of Feats, in particular, lost a good number of feats in the translation to v3.5 two years ago since certain feats were integrated into WOTC's core product lines.

I definitely think WOTC has cherry-picked what they liked out of OGC as they go along, and will likely continue to do so.

Just My Observations, Anyway,
Flynn

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Two monsters and one major book are not "significant amounts of OGC" in my opinion. However, I doubt Wizards will ever heavily adopt anyone else's content. It will always go the other way - people want to use Wizard's content.

 

[Yair]

Since the purpose of the OGL is to remove potential grey areas, we wrote it to be as sweeping as possible. Someone, somewhere, might decide that they feel game mechanics are copyrightable. By specifically including them in the OGL, we remove the potential for future litigation over the matter, no matter what happens to the law itself.

I see. Then it does follow that one could release the game mechanic as open content without releasing its expression. Interesting.

Thanks a lot for your reply

Yair

 

[Mark CMG]

Ryan Dancey Answers to OGL questions

Does it bother you when people call the Open Game License the Open Gaming License, or when people call the Open Gaming Foundation the Open Game Foundation? If you could go back would you synch up the nomenclature?

 

[Delta]

May I point out the two OGL monsters in the back of MM2, as well as the admitted inspiration of True20 and other OGC in the creation of Star Wars Saga Edition? ...
The Netbook of Feats, in particular, lost a good number of feats in the translation to v3.5 two years ago since certain feats were integrated into WOTC's core product lines.

Those would be exactly the kind of examples I'd love to see -- 3rd-party designs brought into WOTC core rules books (like 3.5 PHB or Star Wars Saga Edition) under the OGL. But you're specifically asserting that the OGL was not actually invoked for those purposes, do I understand that correctly?

 

[WayneLigon]

I'm surprised about the part in boldface -- I know that was originally the intention for the OGL/SRD, but I had the impression that had not really ever happened in the 7 years since the OGL has been available.

I would like to ask a related question on this point. Is (or do you feel) that the reason this has not happened due to public relations? I could see a lot of foolish negative criticism thrown at WOTC such as 'well, now we see how WOTC views the third party people: free content generators for a lazy corporation who then repackages their work for three times what the original authors charged'. I'm wondering if that's the case.