Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="dcollins" data-source="post: 63536" data-attributes="member: 876">Well. I guess that I'll have to chime in and say that even revised, and directed specifically to publishers, that this rant is ill-conceived (particularly in the mini-rants at the end).Yes, D&amp;D has technical terms defined, and a writer should not be sloppy or mistakenly abuse those terms. However, to assert that the D&amp;D game forbids any alternate use of those terms is incorrect as well, especially in the cases of descriptive text and narrative passages. I would certainly not want to see writers banned from 90% of the linguistic repertoire used in fantasy novels, legends, and myths, just because the D&amp;D game is forced to use some of them in a technical manner.Here are a couple other considerations:- For d20 published materials, is it not the case that the &quot;open gaming&quot; content must be clearly separated from the &quot;product identity&quot; content? Then it should be harmless to use the technical terms in the identified OGL statistic blocks, but for the writer to be free to any usage they wish in the rest of the piece.- Is it not the case that certain established game worlds and licensed properties will have word usage at odds with those in the technical D&amp;D lexicon? Then in those d20 materials, one would have no choice but to use the terms in a multitude of senses, or else SKR would be arguing that such licensed properties should be barred from the d20 mark. The most obvious example: if someone, one day, combines Lord of the Rings content with the d20 license, it would be ridiculous to argue that they need to change all the Tolkienesque usages for &quot;elvish&quot;, &quot;enchantments&quot;, and so forth. I'm sure there are other, more subtle examples in other published properties and campaign settings.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="dcollins, post: 63536, member: 876"] Well. I guess that I'll have to chime in and say that even revised, and directed specifically to publishers, that this rant is ill-conceived (particularly in the mini-rants at the end). Yes, D&D has technical terms defined, and a writer should not be sloppy or mistakenly abuse those terms. However, to assert that the D&D game forbids any alternate use of those terms is incorrect as well, especially in the cases of descriptive text and narrative passages. I would certainly not want to see writers banned from 90% of the linguistic repertoire used in fantasy novels, legends, and myths, just because the D&D game is forced to use some of them in a technical manner. Here are a couple other considerations: - For d20 published materials, is it not the case that the "open gaming" content must be clearly separated from the "product identity" content? Then it should be harmless to use the technical terms in the identified OGL statistic blocks, but for the writer to be free to any usage they wish in the rest of the piece. - Is it not the case that certain established game worlds and licensed properties will have word usage at odds with those in the technical D&D lexicon? Then in those d20 materials, one would have no choice but to use the terms in a multitude of senses, or else SKR would be arguing that such licensed properties should be barred from the d20 mark. The most obvious example: if someone, one day, combines Lord of the Rings content with the d20 license, it would be ridiculous to argue that they need to change all the Tolkienesque usages for "elvish", "enchantments", and so forth. I'm sure there are other, more subtle examples in other published properties and campaign settings. [/QUOTE]

Verification