D&D 5E So, 5e OGL

[Wicht]

The CC is more flexible (not being all-or-nothing) and isn't "owned" by WotC, which can be big sticking points.

Thank you for the links, but no-offense, but I am not convinced you know what you are talking about... Either that or you are using words to mean things different from what I understand them to mean...

The OGL is not an all-or-nothing license. You, as the participant, get to declare which parts of a book are Open.

The CC is an all-or-nothing license in and so far as the participant is declaring the entire book to be public domain.

As Umbran has already noted, the relationship of WotC to the OGL is not really one of ownership, except in and so far as the copyright of the OGL is concerned, which, due to the nature of the license is a pretty meaningless copyright. WotC has no proprietary interest in the OGL that can be enforced so as to prevent you from using it because they gave it away within the license itself. Using the OGL in no way ties you to WotC.

I had already read parts of that dragonsfoot discussion and reached the conclusion many of the people commenting there did not know what they were talking about either.

Also, I will note re: the discussion by David Hill, that it is possible to publish a book using both the CC and the OGL, and this has been done (by FATE obviously), but also by Kalos Comics for Bulletproof Blues.

The FATE link makes a better argument, though part of their argument is only valid for the CC-Attribute license, and not for the CC-Sharealike license, which some companies favor, nor is it valid for companies which release under both licenses. Indeed, the ability to publish a book using both licenses renders a good bit of their thinking void, except in and so far as they are opening their material to people who only want to use one or the other.

 

[Wicht]

Umbran, yes the text of the OGL itself is non OGC and itself copyrighted by WoTC.

Actually the license has to be Open in and so far as anyone can use it without notifying WotC.

The copyright, as I noted already, is a meaningless copyright for the most part. WotC has no right to prevent someone from copying the text and republishing it in their book, as the license gives them permission to do it in and of itself.

 

[prosfilaes]

As I said, I was being pedantic in response to someone telling us what we really wanted. There exists a system reference document of some sort, and it does us no good without a license.

Normally its called the rulebook, for most RPG companies.

For small games, maybe. Maybe I'm underestimating most gaming companies, but I'd assume that Steve Jackson Games had a rules compendium sitting in the back room long before they actually published GURPS Compendium I and II, and that White Wolf had a pile of notes in an attempt to keep some sort of consistency between WoD games.

That there is something different though... Because it sounds like you are talking about Campaign canon as opposed to actual rules...

Not particularly; a good rules system needs to keep track of random rules that maybe should have been in the basic book but instead are mentioned in expansions. A D&D-like system accumulates classes and races that are either core or one-offs never to be heard of again or for use in a limited line; all this needs to be recorded, at least by reference, in a document.

 

[Wicht]

For small games, maybe. Maybe I'm underestimating most gaming companies, but I'd assume that Steve Jackson Games had a rules compendium sitting in the back room long before they actually published GURPS Compendium I and II, and that White Wolf had a pile of notes in an attempt to keep some sort of consistency between WoD games.

Not particularly; a good rules system needs to keep track of random rules that maybe should have been in the basic book but instead are mentioned in expansions. A D&D-like system accumulates classes and races that are either core or one-offs never to be heard of again or for use in a limited line; all this needs to be recorded, at least by reference, in a document.

Eh, I would actually be surprised if most of the companies did not just use their published material once it was published. A massive document which contains all the rules from every expansion is actually more work to put together, I would think, then just pulling the right book of the shelf and cracking it open as reference, and it would not, imo, be easier to reference, unless you had spent copious amounts of time typing it up, correlating it, and generally making it a real book. But as you already did that once with the books you publish, it makes little sense to do it again in a different way for in-house-use, at least to me.

People with actual in-company experience at WotC, SJG, or WW can feel free to chime in and correct me.

 

[darjr]

I've just realized there does not need to be a full ogl for 5e. Just a license that gives access to those parts not in the existing srd/ogl.

 

[prosfilaes]

The OGL is not an all-or-nothing license. You, as the participant, get to declare which parts of a book are Open.

The CC is an all-or-nothing license in and so far as the participant is declaring the entire book to be public domain.

The CC is not all-or-nothing; it can cover any copyrightable work, including part of a book. One can publish a CC-BY-SA work in an anthology that is otherwise copyrighted.

The phrase "public domain" is a bad one here; the CC licenses never declare anything to be public domain. They declare things to be usable by the public, an entirely different proposal.

The NC, ND, and NC-ND CC licenses are not alternatives to the OGL; they are substantially more restrictive, and the reasons to use them instead of the OGL are obvious if you want no commercial or no derivatives.

Both the CC-BY and CC-BY-SA licenses have big advantages in that they're recognized as Free licenses, recognized by the Free Software Foundation and the Wikimedia Foundation. PCGen does not ship with Debian because they don't consider Free, and while I'm sure a discussion on that could led us far astray, suffice it to say they have their principles and have made their decision on them. Having a license well-understood as Free instead of one that's debatable so can be a big advantage in working with groups outside of the RPG industry. They're also lighter weight than the OGL, not requiring the whole license to be repeated in every book. They both get rid of the trademark clauses; I doubt having "This product is compatible with the Pathfinder RPG; this product is neither authorized by or associated with Paizo, the publishers of the Pathfinder RPG." is a huge problem for most people.

The CC-BY is nice and easy for everyone involved; just provide the attribution, and don't worry about all the other stuff. The share-alike part of the OGL is as often as not a farce; there's pretty much nothing interesting reusable from the Scarred Lands Creature Collection, and there's a lot of books whose vagueness makes it hard to extract any OGL material. So stop stressing about it.

(It's interesting how different the D&D 3 and Pathfinder environments have been about this. The share-alike features of the OGL hardly came into play in the 3E era; they could have been left out. In Pathfinder there has been a lot more sharing at points. On the other hand, the Tomb of Horrors may not have had to share at all, given that they were licensing direct from WotC, and Pathfinder publishers could choose less than the most restrictive license they had available.)

The CC-BY-SA is tighter on its share-alike rules. I would say the CC-BY-SA part at least would have to be clearly separable. It might make some of the licensed works unfeasible, but at the same time it would make a lot more reusable material.

The CC licenses offer different things from the OGL. If you need something that's not exactly OGL, one of them might fit much better. And if you're worried about fitting in, remember the CC licenses are way more common (Wikipedia, etc.) and way more well known then the OGL.

 

[Wicht]

The share-alike part of the OGL is as often as not a farce; there's pretty much nothing interesting reusable from the Scarred Lands Creature Collection,...

That's debatable, I think. I have used creatures from them for Pathfinder compatible material.

Thanks for your input though. I think I am getting a grasp on how they work differently, and I can see why some might prefer the one over the other, depending on circumstance,...

 

[prosfilaes]

A massive document which contains all the rules from every expansion is actually more work to put together, I would think, then just pulling the right book of the shelf and cracking it open as reference, and it would not, imo, be easier to reference, unless you had spent copious amounts of time typing it up, correlating it, and generally making it a real book. But as you already did that once with the books you publish, it makes little sense to do it again in a different way for in-house-use, at least to me.

When TSR was assembling the book with every spell ever written for D&D, they found one in a footnote in a book that had no other spells in it. In which GURPS book did Cartography appear in? GURPS Terradyne. I don't know if it was first, but I suspect whatever it was, it was every bit as obscure. In which books were the swimming rules in the WoD?

It depends, but GURPS, certainly, would have benefited a lot from the handful of character pages photocopied and stuffed in a binder so Cartography could be found by searching the binder instead of 50 GURPS books. Likewise, if it isn't in the half dozen main books for the oWoD, how many were you going to search before giving up and making a new set of rules for swimming or something else not covered in the main books?

I've just realized there does not need to be a full ogl for 5e. Just a license that gives access to those parts not in the existing srd/ogl.

That seems to be the worst for all parties, in that it fragments the license for using 5E in a not particularly clear way for the reusers, and for WotC it convinces people to treat 5E as an extension of 3E and use the OGL, not whatever new terms they want to push.

 

[Wicht]

When TSR was assembling the book with every spell ever written for D&D, they found one in a footnote in a book that had no other spells in it.

Which would seem to indicate that they didn't have the sort of document you were suggesting, but went through the material by hand, one at a time.

In which GURPS book did Cartography appear in? GURPS Terradyne. I don't know if it was first, but I suspect whatever it was, it was every bit as obscure. ...(snip)... It depends, but GURPS, certainly, would have benefited a lot from the handful of character pages photocopied and stuffed in a binder so Cartography could be found by searching the binder instead of 50 GURPS books.

Never played Gurps, so I couldn't tell you.

and... Really? Have you ever tried finding things in a binder? Give me a good index anyday.

In which books were the swimming rules in the WoD? ... (snip)... Likewise, if it isn't in the half dozen main books for the oWoD, how many were you going to search before giving up and making a new set of rules for swimming or something else not covered in the main books?

My first guess would be Werewolf; if not that, then the one with the weresharks in it. But that's a poor example because that's a fairly rules-lite system and was never absolutely consistent about specific rules from one book to another.

 

[Jester David]

The OGL is not "owned" by WotC.

The first line of the OGL is: "The following text is the property of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. and is Copyright 2000 Wizards of the Coast, Inc (“Wizards”). All Rights Reserved."