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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Orcus" data-source="post: 1129998" data-attributes="member: 1254">I never answered the question regarding my example of the tomes of ancient knowledge. In fact, I used it as an example because I think it can go both ways.I like the comment you made about you have used similar death's door rules for 15 years. That is what I am talking about. Clearly, you came up with those rules before there was d20 so it is hard to say that the "concept" of a rule that deals with death's door must inherently be derivative of the d20 SRD--heck, lots of us had that rule long before d20 ever existed. The issue is, is something derivative and therefore open by default simply because it is described in d20 terms. Many people argue "no." Rules can be created and are deserving of protection as newly created concepts even though they are expressed in d20 terms.I, frankly, havent come to my final opinion on this yet. My question is: if that is the case then when is something derivative and when is it an enhancement over prior art? I think that is a question that is hard to answer. My suggestion to publishers is to only close rules that are truly novel--a new way of doing things or a true improvement--not simply a different way to do things in the same system.The best example I can think of would be the Sanity check in CoC. I think everyone will agree that that rule mechanic is (or at the time was) very unique to the original Call of Cthulhu. That mechanic is in fact one of the key cool unique things about the game. I think something that novel should be protectable. And if something of similar "novelty" and uniqueness was created by a d20 publisher, that should be protectable. For example, a new morale system (I know, the system doesnt need it, but this is an example) for d20. That could be protectable. Or a brand new spell system totally different that the d20 core system (a la Monte's templates). I think that is protectable.The question, IMHO, is not "did you think of that same rule too". So the fact that someone else though up the idea and had it as a homebrew rule isnt really that relevant.ClarkPS--I have had the same death's door rule since I can remember. It never made sense to me that the sickly Con 6 elf Wizard could lay there bleeding as long as the Con 20 dwarf stud. I have used negative Con since I can remember. It has always seemed like such a simple fix.</blockquote>

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