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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wicht" data-source="post: 6526886" data-attributes="member: 221">Board games are actually great examples though of how building on other people's mechanics produces better content, and how to do it. Its well understood in the board game community that rules themselves are not copyrightable and mechanics are copied all the time with board games. One game, say Dominion, makes Deck Building as a mechanic a viable way to play. Soon other games are taking that mechanic and running with it. Likewise, card drafting is made popular by 7 wonders. Suddenly Sushi Go, Among the Stars, and other games are using the mechanic in new and innovative ways. Likewise, nobody blinks when a game like King of Tokyo copies the "yahtzee" mechanics of dice rolling, or Diamonds uses trick taking as the key mechanic for its game. Its actually expected that most games will primarily use established mechanics for game-play.  What you don't want to do, though is repackage the same game, with the same theme and slap a new name on it. But sharing mechanics is a boon to everyone. Also, back to OGL, I agree that the OGL lets you use other people's text, but that doesn't change my point that most of that text being shared is still mechanics in some fashion or other.</blockquote>