Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
What's an OGL? An SRD? What's OGC? A Quick Primer!
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Iosue" data-source="post: 7692004" data-attributes="member: 6680772"><p>Yes, you can do that. Abjurer is not a term that lends itself to being copyrighted or trademarked, in this case. You can take the name "Abjurer" and create a whole new subclass with it. In fact, Wizards would like people to do just that.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>A game mechanic is any kind of procedure used to run a game. Basically, the rules of a game independent of the text used to express that in a rule book. </p><p></p><p>For example, the rule for Battlemaster superiority dice is as follows:</p><p>"<strong>Superiority Dice.</strong> You have four superiority dice, which are d8s. A superiority die is expended when you use it. You regain all of expended superiority dice when you finish a short or long rest. You gain another superiority die at 7th level and one more at 15th level."</p><p></p><p>This is the text from the PHB. It's copyrighted, so it cannot be used verbatim in another product. However, what it is describing is a system where a player has a pool of four eight-sided dice, which they can spend, is replenished at a certain points in the game, and which is added to when they player reaches certain levels of play. That system is the game mechanic, and it cannot be copyrighted.</p><p></p><p>You can say, "Specialist Fighters get four d8s, called combat dice. You can use a combat die to perform certain actions described below. Any spent combat dice are restored after a short or long rest. Your combat dice increase by one at 7th level and 15th level." And that's totally okay. Any number of games share mechanics with D&D, such as levels, hit points, armor class, and dice pools.</p><p></p><p>So, <em>in theory</em>, one could create a subclass, called, say, "Abjuring Wizard", that uses the same exact mechanics as the PHB version, but with all the names changed and descriptions reworded. The thing is, at that point things become dicey. Because while <em>in theory</em> that is just a new expression of uncopyrightable game mechanics, <em>in practice</em> it has never been tested in court with role-playing games. Which means that if WotC was inclined, they might sue you for infringement, and the court would have to decide if taking a collection of mechanics that WotC has put together, changing the names, and rewording the description constitutes infringement. Some people think you would have a very good case if it went to court. But WotC has a legal team and deep pockets. They could make it so cost-prohibitive to pursue in court that you have to settle.</p><p></p><p>To date this has never happened, even though people have used the 3.5 OGL to create virtual clones of previous editions that were <em>not</em> covered in the 3.5 SRD. Generally, it's thought that this is because WotC doesn't really care about previous editions. But they may take a quite different view of that being done with the current edition. So the general answer to your question is, "In theory, you could. In practice, you probably shouldn't."</p><p></p><p>As a disclaimer, I Am Not A Lawyer, and this is not legal advice. WotC's response to questions similar to yours has been, "Consult a lawyer," and it's not a bad response.</p><p></p><p>All that said, WotC has provided an elegant solution to the conundrum. Use the DM Guild instead of the OGL, and you can use any of the core rules and all sorts of other IP without worrying about infringement. You have to sell it on their marketplace, which means WotC and OBS each take a 25% cut of each sale. However, what you lose to them might be gained in greater visibility and full compatibility with 5e. The OGL is meant for taking the rules of 5e and creating a new game, say, a space game, or a western game, or for creating a whole new campaign setting that will have different subclasses, backgrounds and the like from what is offered in the WotC campaign settings. Trying to end-run around the limitations of the SRD in order to create the same content that WotC already did is not really in the spirit of the OGL, and really more trouble than it's worth.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Iosue, post: 7692004, member: 6680772"] Yes, you can do that. Abjurer is not a term that lends itself to being copyrighted or trademarked, in this case. You can take the name "Abjurer" and create a whole new subclass with it. In fact, Wizards would like people to do just that. A game mechanic is any kind of procedure used to run a game. Basically, the rules of a game independent of the text used to express that in a rule book. For example, the rule for Battlemaster superiority dice is as follows: "[B]Superiority Dice.[/B] You have four superiority dice, which are d8s. A superiority die is expended when you use it. You regain all of expended superiority dice when you finish a short or long rest. You gain another superiority die at 7th level and one more at 15th level." This is the text from the PHB. It's copyrighted, so it cannot be used verbatim in another product. However, what it is describing is a system where a player has a pool of four eight-sided dice, which they can spend, is replenished at a certain points in the game, and which is added to when they player reaches certain levels of play. That system is the game mechanic, and it cannot be copyrighted. You can say, "Specialist Fighters get four d8s, called combat dice. You can use a combat die to perform certain actions described below. Any spent combat dice are restored after a short or long rest. Your combat dice increase by one at 7th level and 15th level." And that's totally okay. Any number of games share mechanics with D&D, such as levels, hit points, armor class, and dice pools. So, [I]in theory[/I], one could create a subclass, called, say, "Abjuring Wizard", that uses the same exact mechanics as the PHB version, but with all the names changed and descriptions reworded. The thing is, at that point things become dicey. Because while [I]in theory[/I] that is just a new expression of uncopyrightable game mechanics, [I]in practice[/I] it has never been tested in court with role-playing games. Which means that if WotC was inclined, they might sue you for infringement, and the court would have to decide if taking a collection of mechanics that WotC has put together, changing the names, and rewording the description constitutes infringement. Some people think you would have a very good case if it went to court. But WotC has a legal team and deep pockets. They could make it so cost-prohibitive to pursue in court that you have to settle. To date this has never happened, even though people have used the 3.5 OGL to create virtual clones of previous editions that were [I]not[/I] covered in the 3.5 SRD. Generally, it's thought that this is because WotC doesn't really care about previous editions. But they may take a quite different view of that being done with the current edition. So the general answer to your question is, "In theory, you could. In practice, you probably shouldn't." As a disclaimer, I Am Not A Lawyer, and this is not legal advice. WotC's response to questions similar to yours has been, "Consult a lawyer," and it's not a bad response. All that said, WotC has provided an elegant solution to the conundrum. Use the DM Guild instead of the OGL, and you can use any of the core rules and all sorts of other IP without worrying about infringement. You have to sell it on their marketplace, which means WotC and OBS each take a 25% cut of each sale. However, what you lose to them might be gained in greater visibility and full compatibility with 5e. The OGL is meant for taking the rules of 5e and creating a new game, say, a space game, or a western game, or for creating a whole new campaign setting that will have different subclasses, backgrounds and the like from what is offered in the WotC campaign settings. Trying to end-run around the limitations of the SRD in order to create the same content that WotC already did is not really in the spirit of the OGL, and really more trouble than it's worth. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
What's an OGL? An SRD? What's OGC? A Quick Primer!
Top