Unearthed Arcana SRD on hold...

[jchristl]

Feh. Ya just gotta learn to ignore the various contrarians who want to lecture and bicker with a false air of expertise and making a big deal out of nothing.

Ha, yeah. Well, I will still be finishing the OCR of the document, at least for my own use (I have already scanned the damn thing in) - until that day comes along when I feel comfortable enough to release...

Anyway, thanks for the offer. It was a big undertaking anyway, and you weren't getting a ton of volunteers.

No, there seemed to be only two or three guys that had any interest. And those that didn't volunteer, I can easily understand. It would have been a monster of a project to do... and noone was getting paid for it...

 

[BOZ]

hey, to those of you who want to do stuff like this (on anywhere other than enworld, i would suggest); i would worry a whole lot more about what WotC itself has to say than what your detractors would say. you can have 50 people screaming about how illegal your project is, but if WotC sees it and doesn't say anything - guess what, you're not in trouble! if you really really really want to know what bugs the company (and this is to people on both sides of the issue) why not take your concerns straight to them (through their message boards would be one way)? say "hey, i was curious if this little project of mine would offend your IP rights, and if so, how could i avoid doing so?" and if you see someone doing this stuff you could go, "hey, i saw someone using your stuff in the wrong way! oooooh, they're in trouble! want another apple, teacher?"

 

[jchristl]

The OGL license has no bearing whatsoever on message board discussions about a product! If I'm going to write a post that says "I just bought Unearthed Arcana, and I think it's pretty keen!" There's nothing in the OGL that applies or says that I can't do that, and beyond that, there's nothing I've done to make myself bound by that license as a part of that discussion.

Steve, you said it better than I, my friend...

Joe

 

[philreed]

I just can't believe how upset some people are getting over this OGL issue. And by that, I mean rational, intelligent and decent people. This post is a great example. The OGL license has no bearing whatsoever on message board discussions about a product! If I'm going to write a post that says "I just bought Unearthed Arcana, and I think it's pretty keen!" There's nothing in the OGL that applies or says that I can't do that, and beyond that, there's nothing I've done to make myself bound by that license as a part of that discussion.

I didn't take your post as snarky at all.

I'll agree that messageboard posts USUALLY have nothing to do with the OGL. For the common fan, a messageboard post means nothing. It's when you cross the line and start releasing OGC that messageboard posts become more than a post.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I am sorry that this topic seems to have bred some ill will. And I thank you for the thought.

Something that you may want to take notice of is that a fair number of the naysayers and contrarians are people who make their livings off of OGL and the SRD, if they err on the side of caution it is better than having a friendly letter from WotC. (And from what I gather WotC really is polite and friendly about it, especially compared to some companies that sue at the first chance they get.) And there are people who have gotten those letters on fan driven projects. (PCGen comes to mind.)

Perhaps you can take one small portion of the OGL material in UA - stripping out IP, then build upon it, adding some extra options, this would be a fair use of the material if you cite the source in the license, and would draw less fire than merely cutting and pasting the contents of the book.

Sometimes it is fun seeing how a given bit of OGL material is picked up by several companies, and how it mutates over time. The Open Naval Combat System from Mongoose Publishing's Seas of Blood comes to mind - Swashbuckling Adventures, Skull & Bones, and Mongoose Publishing's own Book of the Sea all take that system and build on it, changing it to fit their needs - which is where the OGL has its greatest strength in my opinion, a system that works can be used by multiple parties rather than having folks reinvent the wheel.

The Auld Grump

 

[DaveStebbins]

I know, one thing that currently irritates me about RPG fandom are the self appointed amateur Copyright lawyers who love to nitpick and shoot holes in fan projects done in goodwill towards the community and in good faith attempts to follow the law.

In my case, I once posted my homemade Dark*Matter to d20 Modern conversion to the web. <snip> When I made mention of this on message boards, all the comments I ever got were hostile remarks about how suchandsuch wasn't properly documented in the Section 15 of my OGL, or how this one line was improper PI. Plenty of comments, all of which were hostile amateur legal advice and not one word ever on the quality of the actual writing or wanting to talk about the substance. It certainly left me with an ill taste of trying to share my hard work with d20 fandom in general.

Rules and fluff are a matter of taste, but the OGL is a legal license and how well you use or abuse it could have legal and binding ramifications on others. If you wrongly declare something as OGC and someone else later uses your material, both parties can be held liable for breaches of the license. The comments people make may sound petty and hostile to someone who is dabbling in the OGL for fun, but for many of the people making the comments, you are dealing with a part of their livelihood. If enough people screw up the OGL (well-intentioned or not) it becomes muddier and less meaningful over time, it becomes more difficult for anyone to reuse OGC, and it also becomes less likely that Wizards will release anything else as OGC. At this point we also need to consider whether Wizards will open future editions of the game like the current one. I'm sorry that no one gave you feedback on the creative side of your project, but I can understand why people would point out errors in the legal side.

Again, this isn't just for fun, the OGL is a binding, legal, license (with ramifications for misuse) which you enter into when you use it. The earlier suggestions are made, the easier it is to make corrections before material which could muddy the license for everyone becomes widespread. It may sound like people worrying about a worst-case scenario (it is), but if that worst-case scenario could affect MY income, I'd definitely be making suggestions to help people comply with the license when I see errors.

-Dave

 

[Nifft]

Feh. Ya just gotta learn to ignore the various contrarians who want to lecture and bicker with a false air of expertise and making a big deal out of nothing.

For practice, the D&D Rules forum is just down the hall...

-- N, itpicker