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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8872004" data-attributes="member: 42582">The OGL doesn't license classes, or other D&D concepts.It licenses copyrighted works.So if you want to publish a book that talks about clerics, the relevant questions are (i) does my book contain material in respect of which someone else (eg WotC) owns the copyright, or that would in some other way infringe copyright that they enjoy? If it does, has that person licensed me to publish the material in spite of their copyright?If you were to reproduce the text found in a new WotC publication (say, an Unearthed Arcana document, or a new PHB, or a revised SRD) then the answer to the first question is probably yes - as in, WotC probably enjoys copyright in the text you are trying to reproduce.And as per [USER=463]@S'mon[/USER]'s posts upthread (see from around post 241 to post 245), that text is probably not licensed under the existing OGL v 1.0a as that applies to the current (non-revised) SRD.If you were to were produce new text, written by you, that conveys the same information as WotC's new text, then you would enjoy copyright in your new text. Would it nevertheless infringe WotC's copyright? That would depend on the details, some of which S'mon fleshes out in those posts - eg is your text derivative of some WotC text in respect of which you do not enjoy a licence?My very rough intuition is that if you are publishing a new cleric sub-class, invented by you, that happens to gain sub-class features as the same level as a cleric would as described in WotC's Unearthed Arcana, new PHB or revised SRD, then you are probably not infringing WotC's copyright. Whereas if you are trying to reproduce a cleric sub-class that WotC has published, using your own words, the argument that you are infringing their copyright becomes stronger.Some people will reiterate that game mechanics can't be copyrighted. This is true. But WotC's text that talks about (eg) how a life cleric gest such-and-such an ability at such-and-such a level is, at least arguably, not just a game mechanic. It is also a text that tells us about the (imaginary) priests of the gods of life. WotC enjoys copyright in that text, and it is the relationship of your text to that text (and to other similar text that appears in WotC's Unearthed Arcana, new PHB or revised SRD) that is of most relevance to whether or not you are infringing WotC's copyright.I want to reiterate that my intuition is very rough, and you could not confidently act on it without getting legal advice which was able to refer to the actual details of your proposed publication and the WotC publication that you are inspired by.</blockquote>

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