D&D 5E So, 5e OGL

[delericho]

I would say the Holmes estate can't claim copyright over retirement, either, but they sued over it. Can people use the distinctive plot elements unique to the 5E Monster Manual versions of OGL creatures? I'm not nearly so calm as you that they can't claim ownership over them.

It's worth noting that the articles says that they've sued claiming ownership but doesn't give any indication of whether they won or not. And it's further worth noting, then, that WotC could sue someone for using the Ettercap/fey war even if they have no legal grounds to do so and even if that third party had checked with a lawyer that it's okay - BobTheLawyer saying "you're okay" doesn't guarantee that WotC won't claim otherwise. (And, indeed, until precedent is set, all BobTheLawyer can offer is his informed opinion. There's no precedent as regards the OGL.)

Checking with a lawyer can provide some measure of confidence, but it can't provide any guarantees (at least as far as the OGL is concerned).

 

[Hussar]

Especially not these days when anyone with a computer can self-publish.

See, I disagree. We saw what happened when the bar was non-existent. Hundreds of products within a year of wildly varying quality and then a booming thud as D20 augured into the ground and crashed.

No thanks. I'll pass on that one.

And afaik doesn't EN World have a periodical 5e publication? So do you think [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION] consults a legal team every month before publishing? I'm thinking not but I could be wrong. So apparently you can publish a bunch of different material without having to go back and get legal advice each time.

 

[Nellisir]

See, I disagree. We saw what happened when the bar was non-existent. Hundreds of products within a year of wildly varying quality and then a booming thud as D20 augured into the ground and crashed.

No, we saw what happened when the OGL was new and shiny. I'm not going to rehash the same things I said before, but I think that sort of market speculation is a one-time event. The OGL is a known quantity now, as is self-publishing and PDF products. All of those were new last time around. It's a different equation.

 

[Mistwell]

Otoh I don't get out of bed for less than about fifty dollars an hour so I'm really not going to try to publish anything.

Which begs the question for your in-bed rates...thought that may follow an inappropriate path of questioning...

 

[delericho]

No, we saw what happened when the OGL was new and shiny. I'm not going to rehash the same things I said before, but I think that sort of market speculation is a one-time event. The OGL is a known quantity now, as is self-publishing and PDF products. All of those were new last time around. It's a different equation.

Exactly. See also: Kickstarter.

 

[Nellisir]

Exactly. See also: Kickstarter.

Ayup. I thought of that after I posted. Why gamble on printing a thousand copies when you can kickstart and get a solid idea of interest and prebuy quantities? You might get some PDF dreck, but that's par for the course. 15 years after the OGL and pdf publishing, and some people still sell crappy two-column pdfs with 12-point font, 1.5" margins, and crummy stock art put together in Word. (Not that I'm really knocking Word; I use it because I'm too lazy to remember how to use InDesign. But I try to make it look good....)

 

[delericho]

Ayup. I thought of that after I posted. Why gamble on printing a thousand copies when you can kickstart and get a solid idea of interest and prebuy quantities?

That wasn't actually quite what I meant, although it is true.

But with the d20/OGL glut, as with Kickstarter (and actually with the DotCom bubble as well), there's a pattern you can see in how it plays out: Phase One occurs when it's the "new shiny", at which point loads of people flock to it, there's plenty of demand and money to be made, so lots of companies put out often-shoddy products to fill that demand. Then Phase Two is the backlash, when people realise just how much drek there is out there, stop investing, and the market contracts very sharply.

And then you get to Phase Three when things settle down a lot. In Phase Three there's money to be made, but people are more discriminating in how they spend it - provided you have a 'name' or a track record (or, I suppose, a really intriguing offering) you can get investment, but the random newbie just can't. Hence Monte Cook and Reaper can get huge piles of cash from Kickstarter while others find it considerably harder.

 

[prosfilaes]

The WotC-Palladium lawsuit is quite relevant here. WotC apparently did consult an attorney, and they still got burned. Which brings up a very real question of whether a thousand dollars or whatever to an attorney is going to be a better deal then that same money to your artists.

WotC's sanction is vital to the security of even many relatively large producers. WotC was probably legally entirely in the right in the way they used Rifts, but that didn't help them all that much.

 

[Hussar]

A couple of other points. [MENTION=37579]Jester Canuck[/MENTION] brought up the idea about only being able to do setting books and adventures. That's not quite accurate. Primeval Thule includes new class information. So, it can be done.

Additionally, why would you have to get a lawyer to vet every single product? Wouldn't getting a lawyer consist of handing the lawyer the 3.5 SRD and OGL and then the 5e rule books and asking the lawyer what terms you can't use? What else would you need to check? For example, Advantage is obviously not covered by the SRD, so, you'd need to use a different term, like tactical advantage (no caps) and you'd be good.

What more does a lawyer need to cover?

 

[Jester David]

A couple of other points. [MENTION=37579]Jester Canuck[/MENTION] brought up the idea about only being able to do setting books and adventures. That's not quite accurate. Primeval Thule includes new class information. So, it can be done.

Maybe. It hasn't been done yet. (Both because the KS still needs $10k to hit that stretch goal, but also because it hasn't been published.)
We'll see how much class stuff they attempt. How many classes beyond the Basic rules they touch and the format class content takes.