Conaill said:
Another sticky situation is the inclusion in woodelf's unfinished version of "the `missing' character generation and advancement rules". Legally, he's probably ok, because he's not copying the PHB/DMG material, he's just paraphrasing it. But it's definitely pushing the boundaries, and if WotC got annoyed enough that they decide to push the issue, I doubt woodelf or FluidDragon have the resources to stand up to them...
IANAL...
OK, officially, games cannot be patented, and only the specific expression of a game's rules can be copyrighted. Ryan Dancey has made a fairly convincing argument that an RPG is not simply a bunch of algorithms, and if it ever went to court the rules,
in toto, could well be deemed copyrightable. You also cannot patent or copyright a simple mathematical formula or expression, nor an algorithm, unless it is in some way unique and innovative. In fact, in the case of math formulae, you might not even be able to copyright the unique expression, under the reasoning that a math formulae is a universal truth and there *is* no "unique expression" involved in writing it down. The triangular number series predates English, and its use as the progression scale for RPG characters is at least as old as Ars Magica. Rolling dice and summing them is, likewise, very old, and the specific chargen method i included is older than WotC--and is the method most groups i've ever known used for D&D, at least since the early 80s.
Furthermore, i got both of those without looking at a D&D3E book--just from oral transmission (and not even me asking someone--it just came up in passing). I don't own any WotC books (well, 'cept The Primal Order--but that's a horse of a different color), and figured those bits out long before i ever saw one of the (then-new) D&D3E books. Finally, the derivation of the ability rolling method is my old house rule, not anything D20--you'll notice that it specifically does *not* specify which of the 4 dice to drop when totalling. Presumably, most people will drop the lowest die, but, way back when, that was the change i made to the method in the rulebook: explicitly allowing you to take a lower score by dropping other than the highest die.
Finally, i think that Monte Cook, among other people, probably has a pretty good handle on what's legal, here. AU includes the chargen/advancement bits quite a bit more explicitly (choosing a race, all that good stuff), and i don't see anyone giving him a hard time.
I contend that (1) there's nothing WotC can do, legally, to stop you including the chargen mechanics from D&d3E in any RPG you want, (2) there's nothing in the WotC OGL that could even conceivably have a bearing on this matter, (3) plenty of people have gone a lot further than i have without repurcussions, and (4) Ryan himself has, IIRC, stated explicitly that there's nothing stopping you from recreating the chargen info from D&d3E in your D20 System (but *not* D20 Logo) product.
Now, if you want something that might be tweaking WotC's nose a bit, that'd be the inclusion of the three characters "d20" in the title of my work. I am perfectly confident that i am legally in the clear, but i'll note that the new DMG makes a claim (undefendable, IMHO) to "D20" as a trademark. However, despite numerous D20 System-related registered trademarks, i'll note that WotC/Hasbro has *not* attempted to register a trademark on "D20", and i think this is in part because they know perfectly well they'd never get away with it. It's both a descriptive, and a common term in the RPG industry--either of which is likely to bar it from trademark status.
Oh, just in case: IANAL, just well-informed.
edit: just realized that my post seems really defensive. Didn't mean it to be that way at all. Rather, i just wanted to make it clear that i am perfectly aware of where i am and am not treading the line, legally--and that the chargen/advancement bits are perfectly legal. In fact, very early on they (WotC/Dancey) implied they would even be included in the SRD. When they weren't, i asked, and i think it was Ryan explained that they'd decided to minimize complications and release a fully D20STL-compliant SRD, so that you didn't have to know to leave out some bits to get a D20 logo, or debate exactly which bits to leave out. Still a big mistake, IMHO.
