Ryan Dancey Answers to OGL questions

[Mark CMG]

In 1999, I envisioned the OGF as a resource to push for adoption of the OGL and the overall "concept" of openness as it related to games. I believed at the time that the OGL would be used by a small community of fan publishers mostly writing adventure content, and perhaps alternate class & spell lists (similar to the "netbook" community from NNTP days). If felt that there would need to be an independent advocacy group separate from WotC to push for wider adoption of the concept.

Turns out, I was completely wrong, and adoption of the OGL, and the concept of "open gaming" proceeded quite nicely without any major disruptions.

So I don't think that the precise names of the license or the support structure are all that meaningful.

Fair enough.

I do wish that "OGL" hadn't been adopted as a synonym for "D20 without the D20STL" though. That's an improvement I'd make to a 2.0 version of the OGL; some sort of naming protection of its own. May be too late to matter though.

I doubt it harms WotC to have folks think of the OGL in that way though it might be somewhat limiting to the OGL itself. Companies with systems they want to expand through other publishers under the OGL are likely better off creating somethign akin to their own d20 STL.

 

[Ry]

Hi Ryan,
I was wondering: Excluding the stuff put out by WotC, do you have a soft spot for any of the OGC material put out since the OGL began?

 

[Chaos Disciple]

Ryan
Thank you for making this thread and for your informative posts (here and elsewhere)

I would like to apologize for the thread (That will not be named -for legal reasons ofcourse ) involving D&D's trademarks copyrights the OGL and all that legal stuff. I was not trying to"stick it to the man" in any way and I hope my confusion didnt create any trouble. I really hope you dont think I was tryinig to be rude; but anyway I could have used a more passive approach. And just so you know I do understand the purpose of the OGL and I support its use for handling tricky copyright material.

Also, thank for you for explaining your take on the relationship between copyright material to game designs. You seem well versed in law but fall short in your understanding of RPG mechanics. But thats good because deep understanding of a RPG system is counter productive to enjoying it (distracts the imagination and can reveal flaws which cause power gaming); especially when playing games is much more fun for most people. Im one of a very small minority because even though I really enjoy playing RPG's theres is no doubt RPG designing has always been far more entertaining to me.




Just a brief update on the game systems I have designed.

I am now happily aware of the fact trademarks copyrights and the OGL are NOT relevant to my game material, although I did not know this prior to that other thread.

Oh and one question though its not related to the OGL i hope you will reply to it. (Feel free to answer it in a new thread to avoid getting this one off-topic)

Even though I cant own the ideas in my game (because no one can) Im now simply curious about the best way to introduce and distribute this (100% legal for public use) game material it to the community.

Also the whole system must be delivered to the community as one package of rules (about 100 pages) because the sub-systems only work when used with each other.


If you have any good sugestions I very interested (Scott your input would be nice to).

 

[RyanD]

Hi Ryan,
I was wondering: Excluding the stuff put out by WotC, do you have a soft spot for any of the OGC material put out since the OGL began?

The first Swords & Sorcery/Necromancer monster book that came out before the 3E Monster Manual I carried around the halls of Wizards of the Coast like a proud father. I did not hand out cigars, but I was sorely tempted.

The signed copy of 3 Days to Kill from Atlas Games, which was one of two OGL licensed 3rd party products on sale at GenCon when 3E released (the other was from Green Ronin).

AEG's D20 Toolbox was for years the only 3rd party book I carried to my regular D&D game.

I think that AEG's Spycraft 2.0 is about the most complete "contemporary world" roleplaying resource in one book imaginable, d20 or no d20.

Ptolus from Monte Cook is the last D20 fantasy RPG product I purchased, and it was very worth the price. (I just bought the Star Wars Saga book a week or two ago, so that would be my most recent D20 purchase outright).

Testament, from Green Ronin is one of the most interesting sourcebooks I own, and I have a real interest in running a bronze age campaign eventually, for which I think it will be critical.

A Game of Thrones from Guardians of Order both perfectly captures the world of George Martin's "Song of Ice & Fire", and that world is pitch-perfect for high fantasy roleplaying, making a killer 1-2 combination.

I'm not home as I write this, so I can't look over at my game shelves and remind myself of the other several dozen books I should probably put on this list.

I'll finish by saying that the outpouring of adventure content from so many publishers, in so many form-factors, has really been its own reward. If the OGL had accomplished nothing but enabling that material to be commercially published, I would consider it a success. When I was 12, I dreamed of someday publishing my own "D&D adventures". The adventure is, to me, the real "art form" of roleplaying games. It is the place where all the parts have to come together to work as a whole, and where the entertainment locked up in the rulebooks is unleashed. Done right, it can be a life-changing experience. So to all those people who wrote, edited, illustrated, playtested, published, bought & played the wonderful OGC adventures, you all have my deepest gratitude for realizing the vision of Open Gaming.

Ryan

 

[Yair]

Ryan: A question related to your signature. Is there a reason the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license isn't listed in the open gaming foundation's recommended licenses?

Thanks again for all the replies. It's always a pleasure to read your thoughts.

 

[Gez]

An example of this in the SRD would be the class level charts. The selection, arrangement, and presentation of the class level charts is absolutely copyrightable (i.e. which class gets which combination of save bonuses, to hit bonuses, and class features).

I would have thought that the copyrightable part wouldn't be so much the table as the choice of bonus progression types (good, median, or bad). Because the save and attack bonuses are quite straightforwardly formulaic: full, three-quarters, one-half for BAB, third or half+2 for saves. Sometimes, even class features are, depending on which class we're talking about.

For example, if I look at a table like this one, I only see formulaic application (just conflate "level 0" with level 1 to get the Fighter's table):

level	attack	fortitude reflex will	class feature
   0	  +0	    +2	  +0	 +0	bonus feat
   1	  +1	    +2	  +0	 +0
   2	  +2	    +3	  +0	 +0	bonus feat
   3	  +3	    +3	  +1	 +1
   4	  +4	    +4	  +1	 +1	bonus feat
   5	  +5	    +4	  +1	 +1
   6	  +6	    +5	  +2	 +2	bonus feat
   7	  +7	    +5	  +2	 +2
   8	  +8	    +6	  +2	 +2	bonus feat
   9	  +9	    +6	  +3	 +3
  10	 +10	    +7	  +3	 +3	bonus feat
  11	 +11	    +7	  +3	 +3
  12	 +12	    +8	  +4	 +4	bonus feat
  13	 +13	    +8	  +4	 +4
  14	 +14	    +9	  +4	 +4	bonus feat
  15	 +15	    +9	  +5	 +5
  16	 +16	   +10	  +5	 +5	bonus feat
  17	 +17	   +10	  +5	 +5
  18	 +18	   +11	  +6	 +6	bonus feat
  19	 +19	   +11	  +6	 +6
  20	 +20	   +12	  +6	 +6	bonus feat

When looking at the Druid or the Monk, I see at least clear fiat for class features. But for the Fighter, the only fiat was in deciding they had good attack, good fort, bad ref and will, and the list of their bonus feat (plus weapon specialization, but this doesn't appear on the table in the revised edition). The NPC classes of warrior, noble, and commoner are even more clearly formulaic in that they don't have any class feature on their table.

If someone were to make a (non-OGLed) game with a gameplay similar to D&D's, but using different formulaic progression for the attack, fortitude, reflex and will equivalent. The table would be different (since the numbers wouldn't be the same), but it would still be clearly a clone of the fighter. Would that be copyright infringement?

 

[RyanD]

Ryan: A question related to your signature. Is there a reason the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license isn't listed in the open gaming foundation's recommended licenses?

Yes. Because I think the Creative Commons licenses are a confusing mess.

One of the primary goals of the Open Gaming project was to bring clarity and sense to the field of copyright as it applies to game materials. The Creative Commons system does not do that. Instead, it creates an even more confusing mess than the regular copyright laws do.

Too many people are looking for "loopholes" to avoid their responsibilities to the community, and to the creators of the content licensed for Open Gaming. Creative Commons gives those people a playground. If something can be misconstrued, used in error, overlooked, or outright ignored, some portion of the public will do it. We saw enough of this kind of nonsense in the first couple of years of working with the OGL (which by comparison is a dirt-simple license) that it seemed impossible to me to ever rectify the problems with the whole creative commons scheme.

Even after reading it again just now, I can't tell you if the CC-Attribution license would allow a user to insert a limitation requiring free distribution of derivative materials, for example. (Not saying it doesn't - saying that I can't easily figure out if it does or doesn't.) Many licenses of this type are designed to make sure you can't be forced to charge a fee for distributing the work, but they often leave a hole where someone can insist that you can't charge a fee even if you want to when you distribute the work.

I think the Creative Commons team is trying to kill too many birds with too many stones.

Ryan

 

[RyanD]

For example, if I look at a table like this one, I only see formulaic application (just conflate "level 0" with level 1 to get the Fighter's table):

My argument (if I was WotC) would be:

The decision to combine that base attack bonus, with those saving throw bonuses, with that feat progression scheme represents a copyrightable element of our work.

Now, by itself, that table (even if copyright) is not going to stop anyone from cloning that material. But it serves as a signpost that a court might follow to reach the conclusion that the work in question was an unauthorized derivative work. As I mentioned before, the more elements a work has in common with a given source work, and the more likely that commonality is the result of editorial decision, the more likely the work is going to be found to be infringing.

How much is too much? Answer: Impossible to determine.

Ryan

 

[Redwald]

Yes. Because I think the Creative Commons licenses are a confusing mess.

I don't find this answer very enlightening, given that the question was specifically about the CC Attribution-ShareAlike license, not CC-Attribution (a.k.a. CC-BY) which you characterized as confusing, and which is not the same as the CC-BY-SA license) or any of Creative Commons's other licenses.

You don't have to be sanguine about the scope of Creative Commons's mission to be able to isolate the Attribution-ShareAlike license, interpret it, and then endorse (or reject) it.

People can love Expedition to the Demonweb Pits without thinking that hardback superrmodules are a product type WotC should be focusing on, or otherwise endorsing WotC's strategy or management.

I don't see how judging one license's terms and text in isolation from one's feelings about its promulgators or organizational strategy is any different.

EDIT: For what it's worth, I don't entirely disagree with you about CC's strategy. But again, Linus Torvalds has unflattering things to say about Richard Stallman, but that doesn't stop Linus from using and continuing to endorse a license (version 2 of the GNU GPL) that Stallman wrote (with advice from Eben Moglen).

EDIT 2: having just reviewed both documents, I can't see how the CC-BY license is any more unclear about the legitimacy of added restrictions to compel or prohibit redistribution for a fee than the OGL itself is. Maybe you can recommend a portion of the OGL's text to Creative Commons for inclusion in a future version of their licenses.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

The rumor mongers can really take something like that and read (what they want to) between the lines.

Yes, I realise that. I've become very accustomed to being quoted out of context by people with an axe to grind.