Ryan Dancey Answers to OGL questions

[RyanD]

Not for nothing, Ryan, this is an amazingly cool idea for a novel. Did you just come up with that as an example, or is such a book actually in the works?

I have intended to write this novel each year for 15 years. I'll get to it eventually.



Ryan

 

[EditorBFG]

I used to see a lot of products where game mechanics that were entirely dependent on (and heavily interwoven with) existing OGC from the SRD were seemingly declared Product Identity. I have never tried to use such a thing like this in a product, since I don't really understand this kind of thing as well as my boss does. But his edict has always been that Big Finger Games always declares all game mechnanics OGC, and my reading of the License leads me to believe that SRD-derived mechanics must be OGC. As I said, it is not my job to make these kinds of calls, but isn't there a point where a game mechanic is so OGC-derived that it cannot be declared product identity?

 

[Yair]

Yes, although this question leads to my conclusion that you don't really understand the point of Product Identity.

Oh, I understand the point. It's the way it goes about it that I find confusing.

Thanks for your kind and informative replies, as ever.

Yair

Edit: I'd like to add that the reason for my confusion, I think, is that I think of Product Identity as little nuggets of dark-matter in a sea of open-game-content text. So a chapter might be designated as OGC, for example, but where it says "Darth Vader" in that chapter there is a "hole" in the OGC. What Ryan just kindly explalined to me says that it can be the other way around entirely - a seas of PI text interposed with havens of designated OGC. It's a different mental image.

Another point is that I indeed thought that PI provides protections beyond the law. That it is possible, for example, to claim the name "The Bad Ass Homegrown Games Association" as effectively a trademark even though it isn't registered, and even deny any possibility to claim compatibility or otherwise use this name in any portions of derived works (e.g., the user can't say "When I'm talking about the Mindrapers, I'm talking about Illithids" - even in the introduction to the work). Apparently I was mistaken.

 

[Mythmere1]

I've deleted this post as possibly containing too much legal stuff.

 

[Committed Hero]

I believe that when, and if, a modern RPG case is ever litigated over copyright issues, that case will write all-new law, creating a whole new category of copyright protections. It will have the same kind of impact that the software copyright litigation did. The courts have never seen anything like a multi-book TRPG, and "simple" rules like "games can't be copyright" will be tossed in favor of a much more nuanced examination.

I even think it is possible that lower level courts would look at a TRPG and essentially say "that's a novel, not a game", and proceed from that basis (the result would be sweeping and massive increases in the protectability of RPG content, but then you'd have to untangle 30 years of publishing history where games are clearly derivative of one another without licenses or intra-publisher agreements, and that could get real messy, real quick.)

The arrow of law points in favor of the publishers on these issues. As intellectual property has become more and more important to the global economy, courts have been increasingly likely to extend broad & strong protections to IP ownership. The odds that RPG content will be found to be protectable increase steadily and there is no reason to suspect a reversal in that trend is likely.

Still, there are older concepts in the common law that would undercut the publisher's argument as it relates to the development of roleplaying games (which you mention in the middle paragraph). I would love to write an amicus brief if such a case arose.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

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.

(This is not a comment about the quality of any particular product line.)

I would argue that being "lazy" in that manner is exactly what I want.

IMO the difference between a great supplement and a mediocre one is a little playtesting, a little balance analysis, and a little editorial control. Cherry-picking is a good thing.

I would much rather pay $30 for a book where I might use 90% of the material, then $10 for a similar sized book where I might use only 30% tops.

This is partially a matter of trust. If the book is full of mostly winners, than I as both a player and a DM am more likely to use some of the material. Once it becomes apparent that the majority of the material in a book needs tweaking/sanitizing, it is hard to convince a DM to allow any of it into his game.