Some congrats to Bastion...

[Lizard]

I just picked up Arms&Armor and Minions. I haven't reviewed them in detail, so this isn't a comment on their quality. Rather, it's praise for their OGC.

The whole damn book, modulus artwork and cover.

Sweeeeet.

There's lots of cool crunchy bits in there, and I'd like to see other publishers use them. In an era of "Everything is product identitiy, except the stuff we really can't possibly claim, and even that is set up in such a way as to be useless", Bastion deserves kudos for respecting the spirit of the OGL, not trying to play the game of "How can I close everything and still be OGL-compliant?".

 

[Vanuslux]

I haven't bought anything by Bastion yet, but I definately think that's cool.

 

[JoeGKushner]

That's one of the reasons I enjoy them and Green Ronin.

To be honest so far with the whole Product ID thing, it seems pretty unnecessary. How many companies have made use of OGC material? It would seem, without detailed analysis, very few.

 

[trancejeremy]

Actually, Green Ronin has apparently changed their Open Content policy. Only the 2 appendices were open content in Hell in Freeport...

 

[JohnRTroy]

I got that book too. Nice stuff.

However--what the hell is it made of? It smells so bad--jeez. Talk about "new book smell". That thing seems to be 10% Varnish.

 

[Lizard]

That's one of the reasons I enjoy them and Green Ronin.

To be honest so far with the whole Product ID thing, it seems pretty unnecessary. How many companies have made use of OGC material? It would seem, without detailed analysis, very few.

PI is used for two main reasons:
1)You don't want people using stuff which you might be able to license later. Setting info, NPC names, and so on are not things which need to be made 'open' in order to share game mechanics. I'd love to see a lot of the 'crunchy bits' from "Magic of Faerun" opened up, but I don't think WOTC should give up Elminster.

2)There was a very real fear early in the OGL project of shady companies basically scanning and OCRing open content and then releasing cheap knockoffs, or fans doing the same and putting it all on the web. This hasn't occured for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that s get off on stealing -- taking stuff which is legal to distribute, and then distributing it, isn't an adequate sustitute for sex for them. Only actual theft can satisfy them, so they just scan the whole book and upload a PDF, which remains illegal no matter how much OGC there is.

 

[Nikchick]

Actually, Green Ronin has apparently changed their Open Content policy. Only the 2 appendices were open content in Hell in Freeport...

The amount of Open Content in Green Ronin products is determined book by book, sometimes based on the publishing agreement that we have with the author(s) of the material. Hell in Freeport was a bit less open, while Arcana: Societies of Magic was entirely open.

In general I think you will find that Green Ronin's products are among the most open among the major publishers. It is certainly our intention to support the spirit of the OGL and to include as much open content in our books as we can.

Regards,
Nicole

 

[DPG Darrin]

As a publisher, I've found that there are 2 ways to handle open game content.

The first way is to take the open content directly from the book and insert it into your own product (Note that we have not done this and will not do this without first touching base with the original publisher of that product to get their blessing).

The second way to use open game content is to reference the material and point the reader in the direction of the original publication. If its a monster, include detailed stat blocks along with descriptions of abilities, but no physical description. The advantage of doing it this way is that it behooves the reader to purchase the original product, and it keeps your own book from being too much of a frankenstein and avoids the danger of producing a book with little of your own content included. We've done this with some monsters on an upcoming product, and in this case we did touch base with the publishers to make sure that they would be OK with it.

That being said, so far the most generous D20 companies with regards to open game content have definitely been Green Ronin and Bastion Press. Fantasy Flight Games and Mongoose deserve honorable mentions in this category as well. Ultimately I think that making monsters and magic open game content is a great call on the part of the publisher because it encourages other publishers to treat their creations as core, and reuse them. Making the entire city of Freeport open source was an act of generosity and faith in the integrity of the other publishers in this industry.

 

[Glyfair]

That being said, so far the most generous D20 companies with regards to open game content have definitely been Green Ronin and Bastion Press. Fantasy Flight Games and Mongoose deserve honorable mentions in this category as well. Ultimately I think that making monsters and magic open game content is a great call on the part of the publisher because it encourages other publishers to treat their creations as core, and reuse them. Making the entire city of Freeport open source was an act of generosity and faith in the integrity of the other publishers in this industry.

I would have to lump Sovereign Press into the honorable mention category. Almost all the rule elements in the core book is OGC, and nearly the entire Codex Mysterium is OGC. Among other things, that includes the entire magic system.

Glyfair of Glamis

 

[trancejeremy]

I would also add AEG.

Their evil sourcebook, with the exception of proper names, is entirely open content.

And Pinnacles pretty good. Much of Weird War 2: Blood on the Rhine is open, all the classes and feats and such except the background stuff they made up.

What I liked about Sovereign Press is that while they used open content, they improved on it.

For instance, they took the idea of the Sailor class from Dragon Lords of Melnibone, and turned it from just a variant of the Expert (just the Expert with all 10 expert skills picked) into a full fledged class with special abilities.