Where is the Unearthed Arcana SRD?

[Voadam]

For that matter, an RTF would be far more useful as a resource than a PDF would.

Well this is easy to read on screen and fairly easy to copy and paste from and would look prety good printed out.

The only issue seems to be when copying you get the line breaks and a few words don't seem to come out right.

 

[Cergorach]

Well this is easy to read on screen and fairly easy to copy and paste from and would look prety good printed out.

The only issue seems to be when copying you get the line breaks and a few words don't seem to come out right.

Exporting to rtf fixes that problem, i've also planned a html version that will be running on my site and should be even easier to copy/paste from.
Could you please give me an example where the words don't come out 'right'? I might be able to fix that (i hope).

 

[Planesdragon]

I have, the problem is that none of these do exactly what i want them to do. You could effectively make a D20 product that has nothing to do with gaming. .

You couldn't do that with the Prometheus Compataiblity License. We based the license broadly on the d20STL, but added in a requirement for compatability with the "Prometheus Reference Documents" -- the SRD by a differnet name.

Whatever you do, please don't make yet another logo; you can probably use the d20 trademark on your UASRD, or you could use Prometheus or one of the two or three no-license logos out there. But yet another logo doesn't help anyone at all in making a clear indicator of compatability.

 

[woodelf]

I mean, you don't expect third-party d20 publishers to be obliged to release SRD of their products, do you? Other than declaring what is OGC and what is not, there's nothing in either license that state you must provide SRD. Unearthed Arcana fulfilled the terms of the OGL. It even has the OGL attached to the product.

Legally obligated? No. Ethically? Yes. IMHO, that's exactly what's wrong with the WotC OGL--it fails to actually continue the open-source analogy into the world of print publishing and demand that the "source" be available--in this case, editable digital files. [Well, and i have problems with the trademark and PI protections, but those are another argument.] IMHO, for that very reason, the WotC OGL fails to be a functional open-content license, because permission is not sufficient. Just as in software you need access to the sourcecode to be practically able to reuse, in RPGs you need access to digital files to be practically able to reuse. The point of open-content development is to remove impediments to reuse, and having to scan/OCR or retype is a huge impediment.

 

[woodelf]

Because the point of the OGL -- and by association, OGC -- isn't to provide the world with free rules and books. The point of the OGL is to provide publishers with tools that they can reuse, rewrite, or otherwise adapt to their own products.

Says you. WotC has made it very clear from the get-go that the point for them is core rulebook sales, and that they are both fully aware of th possibility of complete reuse, and condone it (from their FAQ way back when the WotC OGL and D&D3E first came out).

And, if we trace the WotC OGL back to its roots in the open source community, we can see that, while there ar econflicting motives and opinions, a large part of it stems back to Stallman and others from the '70s and '80s who believe that the whole point is free software and code--analogously, free rules in the RPG case. So, i don't think it's unreasonable, in the absence of actual mind reading, to say that the point of the WotC OGL is to get lots of free RPG rules out there...in order to drive sales.

Just about everything I have published has been 100% OGC. While that means it would be legal for someone to strip the text out of my PDFs and post them online, it doesn't mean that I'd be happy about it. Such action would, I guarantee, affect the amount of OGC I release in the future.

And i'd never do that. If it's good enough to reuse, it's good enough to respect the original publisher. And if it's not good enough to reuse...well, that should be self-evident.

If i suddenly found myself wanting to reuse a noticable chunk of your stuff--let's say an entire short PDF--i'd probably drop you a line. "Hey, i think this is the coolest thing, and i'd like to incorporate it into my _______. Now, i'll of course give proper credit, and this'll probably help drive your sales, but if you want, i can leave it out." And if you ask me to leave it out, i'll do so--and probably still put a pointer in to your product ("If you want more detail on this aspect, i strongly recommend X by Y, which is fully compatible with these rules"). But if you tell me to leave it out, i might just include it out of spite, because i have a real problem with someone saying "here, feel free to reuse this" and then following up with "please don't reuse this".

And this is likely true with WotC as well.

If the Unearthed Arcana material is used as it was intended -- by publishers -- we could possibly see more OGL releases from WotC. If the Unearthed Arcana is posted for free online, the chance of future OGC releases from WotC will likely drop to zero.

Eh. Whatever. All the good stuff comes from other people anyway--i've got a lovely D&D game going without a single thing from WotC (not even the D20SRD). Yes, WotC got the ball rolling. That was then, this is now--do you prefer the first band in your favorite genre, or the best?

 

[woodelf]

If the 60% off sale at Amazon didn't entice these people to buy the book, chances are they never would have paid for it anyway. Thus, I don't think it should be considered a lost sale.

However, the contrary streak in me is thinking that at 60% off, i might just buy it and scan it and include the OGC in my next update to a real nice PDF of the D20SRD. [Which may be a while in coming, because it's something i do just for the gaming community, rather than for me--i prefer much less crunchy systems.]

 

[woodelf]

So, all the third party publishers should stop publishing since they also wouldn't want their hard work posted for free legal or not?

Who says they don't? We, for one, have been very careful about what we release as OGC. For some projects, 100% OGC--fully expecting vast chunks, even the whole thing, to get re-released by someone else, possibly for free. IMHO, if you're relying on people to not do what you've just told them they can do [reuse the text, subject to the terms of the WotC OGL], you're making a big mistake.

Now, i'm not advocating malicious reuse, deliberately intended to undercut sales or hurt companies. But the proposal for an OGC extract of Unearthed Arcana was to wait until sales were done anyway (more or less), and then post it online. Unlike Phil Reed's PDFs, most RPG books have a very finite sales-lifespan.

Don't take this the wrong way but ... you're too spoiled with convenience.

Do you have that same expectation for third-party d20 products from third-party d20 pubishers as you would have from products from WotC?

yep. And i'm disappointed when i buy an OGC-containing book, decide i really like some bits and want to reuse them for a project, and the publisher won't provide them in digital format.

As philreed stated earlier, the OGC and OGL is for content-sharing among publishers, much like the GPL regulate sharing computer codes among programmers.

And who decides who is a "publisher" and a "consumer"? How many sales do i have to have before i'm a publisher? Do only products above a certain price-point count?

Get a scanner.

It's rather high on my to-buy list, though for other reasons.

 

[BSF]

I love CMG's SRD. I even bought it and I'm not a publisher. Why did I buy it? It's a great reference and I do a bit of game prep away from all my books. Indeed, many times I do game prep with bad guys and then print it out on my computer. Less type/more convenience and I have a little more time to prep (or hang out with my family).

 

[woodelf]

Well, I tried being diplomatic in my earlier posts in this thread. But if it didn't get through to some who still demand a UA SRD like they have a sense of entitlement, I gotta bring the jackhammer down on them.

*shrugs*

But to use your analogy, they demand you to make the pie, not just the offered recipe and ingredients. IOW, your gift is not good enough, they want more for their convenience.

Hmmm...i didn't get that impression at all. I read people saying "hey, this'd be nice, and someone said they were gonna do it--have they?" and "if someone wants to do it, there's nothing stopping them". I don't think anyone is demanding an OGC extract of Unearthed Arcana--the only "demand" i've heard on that side of the argument is that people not simulataneously designate content as OGC and request others not to extract and distribute it.

As for Monte Cook's "jigsaw" OGC, only a serious designer would try to utilize his contributing content and put them to good -- and hopefully profitable -- use. Aside from that, gamers wouldn't concern themselves with OGC and PI if it is for their own personal use.

Huh? I don't think i understand that paragraph. Are you just saying that it would take a "serious designer" to compensate for the non-OGC widget labels, or something else?

 

[Voadam]

Exporting to rtf fixes that problem, i've also planned a html version that will be running on my site and should be even easier to copy/paste from.
Could you please give me an example where the words don't come out 'right'? I might be able to fix that (i hope).

First paragraph, second line "find" becomes ".nd"

That seems to be an issue with a number of words when I do select all and paste into a word document.