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<blockquote data-quote="Kem" data-source="post: 3642662" data-attributes="member: 18158">Tables are not specifically Rules.&nbsp; It is &quot;Game Data&quot;. It is information used by rules to determine how to play the game. By showing that a simple formula is used to create the table, you can duplicate the table via that formula because you are using a form of a game rule to make it. If the values are chosen to be good, as in the Blue Book example, you have no &quot;Rules&quot; on how to create the table.This is why the EXP table in D&amp;D is rather easy to duplicate. The same exact table (created by formula) exists in many other games (Might and Magic 6 comes to mind as a game pre-dating D&amp;D 3.0). However a custom built XP table is much harder, if not impossible, to duplicate. As is the chart of what spell at what level.Now Game Rules are not protected.&nbsp; However the PHB is protected as a work.&nbsp; And its tables, charts, examples, wording of rules, are protected. (IIRC in so far as the wording of the rule is not the most base expression of said rule).Of course, a bit of what I think about this is due to my opinion on the seperation of Rules and Information. Which I will admit is based more on how programming works as opposed to how OGL/Copyright specifically works as thats where my experience dealing this comes from.(Look at Open Office vs. Microsoft Office or .Net Framwork vs. Mono or an even better example Cgywin or Wine being used in Linux - You can Patent how something works, but the expression of how it works is the only thing protected)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Kem, post: 3642662, member: 18158"] Tables are not specifically Rules. It is "Game Data". It is information used by rules to determine how to play the game. By showing that a simple formula is used to create the table, you can duplicate the table via that formula because you are using a form of a game rule to make it. If the values are chosen to be good, as in the Blue Book example, you have no "Rules" on how to create the table. This is why the EXP table in D&D is rather easy to duplicate. The same exact table (created by formula) exists in many other games (Might and Magic 6 comes to mind as a game pre-dating D&D 3.0). However a custom built XP table is much harder, if not impossible, to duplicate. As is the chart of what spell at what level. Now Game Rules are not protected. However the PHB is protected as a work. And its tables, charts, examples, wording of rules, are protected. (IIRC in so far as the wording of the rule is not the most base expression of said rule). Of course, a bit of what I think about this is due to my opinion on the seperation of Rules and Information. Which I will admit is based more on how programming works as opposed to how OGL/Copyright specifically works as thats where my experience dealing this comes from. (Look at Open Office vs. Microsoft Office or .Net Framwork vs. Mono or an even better example Cgywin or Wine being used in Linux - You can Patent how something works, but the expression of how it works is the only thing protected) [/QUOTE]

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