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Message: <blockquote data-quote="robconley" data-source="post: 7691158" data-attributes="member: 5636">In general you put a paragraph some where that explains in plain English what is open content and what is not.In practice there are two extremes.The first is to just say the entire document except for the art and certain trademarks are open content.The second is to say something like this.Designation of Open Content: Subject to the Product Identity designation above, all creature and NPC statistic blocks are designated as Open Gaming Content, as well as all material derived from the SRD or other open content sourcesThis is typically used in adventures where the only the stat blocks are open content and the rest is considered an original work and declared product identity. This also is used a lot in supplements that are licensed property (For example Conan, Stargate, etc)When this is used the work is pretty much useless in terms of reusing it. However far more common with supplements is that the declaration of open content will say that the text in shaded areas or the following chapters are considered open. In which case it is clear what portion of the work is open and what is not. It what I did with the my own Majestic Wilderlands Supplements. It has three sections, the first two are 100% open content, the third (the setting description) is declared product identity.My view is that the author should designate everything about that spell as open content. If he doesn't then he is being a jerk and not acting in according to the spirit of the OGL.For you as the author? Hand the work to a couple of your friends. If they can figure it out then you are done. If they can't then work some more on your deceleration of open content. Yes the author has the copyright to all original content.The Open Game License is about giving one author giving permission to use their work under certain conditions. The condition set by Wizards for the d20 SRD and now the 5e SRD is that anything you use or DEVIRE from, you have to give others the same right to reuse that content.As for your original content it up to you to decide to share. My advice is to be generous. Don't get worked up about sharing the fluff of a spell or a monster. Likely it won't make much sense without the stuff that you clearly declared as product identity. So put all your spells in a chapter, all your monsters into a chapter, and declare both of those open content. That way you have covered yourself in regardless to anything you used from Wizards.But some authors are really not happy doing this. They feel possessive enough about their work that they only want to share the minimum. If this is the case then probably what best is to hire an IP attorney to comb over the work and give you advice as to what you must declare open content. But then again, even a IP attorney can't tell you how things will play out in court. So again if you don't want the headaches then be generous as to what you make open content.Finally put away your 5e books. Don't look at them or use them as references while you are writing. Only use the SRD. Where author screwed up in the initial days of the 3.0 SRD was using their MMs, PHBs and DMGs while they write.</blockquote>

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