WotC To Give Core D&D Mechanics To Community Via Creative Commons

Wizards of the Coast, in a move which surprised everbody, has announced that it will give away the core D&D mechanics to the community via a Creative Commons license.

This won't include 'quintessentially D&D" stuff like owlbears and magic missile, but it wil include the 'core D&D mechanics'.

So what does it include? It's important to note that it's only a fraction of what's currently available as Open Gaming Content under the existing Open Gaming License, so while it's termed as a 'give-away' it's actually a reduction. It doesn't include classes, spells, or magic items. It does include the combat rules, ability scores, and the core mechanic.

 

[Jer]

Is any of that off?

My understanding is the same as yours.

There may be some confusion between the CC-BY and the CC-BY-SA licenses. The CC-BY-SA are share-alike licenses which DO have the restrictions that @Yaarel notes. CC-BY, on the other hand, just requires you to note the contributions of the people whose work you have incorporated.

IMO CC0 is the license that Wizards really wants to use for this stuff if they want to release it to the community and keep their names out of it. CC0 is basically "there's no real way to legally release something to the public domain clearly, so we created a license to let you do the closest thing to it." It requires no attribution at all and allows free mixing of anything under it. And if Wizards wants to protect their name from bad actors it's actually the better choice.

 

[Haplo781]

I am just waiting for someone to make an RPG that decouples HP into Stamina, Morale, and Meat so we get a core Warlord healing class baby.

I'll do it myself if I have too.

Star Wars d20 Revised had "vitality" and "wounds" (terrible names btw) where your wounds were equal to your Constitution score (not modifier, score) and represented meat damage. They were protected by your vitality, meaning you would only lose wounds if you were out of vitality - unless you took a crit.

It's a cool mechanic that wasn't really implemented very well for a variety of reasons.

 

[Haplo781]

How can I avoid work by googling if you just sent me to a link for something very affordable!

(I guess I need to order and download it...)

EDIT: Did the ordering... resisting downloading until I check all the urgent deadlines.

Are deadlines ever really truly urgent though, maaaan?

 

[Staffan]

As for what that line is from when things sharing a similar structure starts looking like infringement, I'm going to say that it's not a very clear cut decision. In fact, when it comes to music, I think they are rather Blurred Lines.

 

[rknop]

vstamin

I am just waiting for someone to make an RPG that decouples HP into Stamina, Morale, and Meat so we get a core Warlord healing class baby.

I'll do it myself if I have too.

Starfinder has Stamina, HP, and Resolve... Not quite the same thing, but pretty close to what you are saying.

The implementation may well not be what you're thinking about, though.

 

[Haplo781]

vstamin

Starfinder has Stamina, HP, and Resolve... Not quite the same thing, but pretty close to what you are saying.

The implementation may well not be what you're thinking about, though.

Ok, ok, I'll check out Starfinder already.

 

[Justice and Rule]

it offers both sides protection. The 3pp that they won’t get sued and WotC that they do not have to find out that most of their stuff is not protected by copyright, so it can stay in this undefined zone where everyone simply pretends it is theirs for as long as 1.0a exists.

Yeah, this is why it's important to defend OGL 1.0a: it's an extra defense that covers a lot of important areas. Even if you move to a new open license, having OGL 1.0a makes certain things less in doubt because it comes from Wizards themselves.

 

[rknop]

Can you explain why you think the SPLC is "biased"?

I'm not the one you're asking but:

Everybody is biased. In that when it comes to things like morality clauses, many people are going to disagree about what's offensive and what's not offensive.

This is one of the big reasons why morality clauses absolutely do not belong in open licenses. Open licenses need to be just about the legality of what can be reused, not about the tastefulness of it.

System licenses -- i.e. things that are from a specific company that says "here are the terms under which you can reuse our stuff specifically" -- can have such things, because then it's entirely up to the judgement of the copyright/trademark owner if they approve of somebody else's use of their stuff. And, the "O"GL 1.2 is exactly this -- it's not an open license, it's a license for reusing D&D stuff. (The name is very deceptive.) Whether or not it would be a good idea for anybody to agree to letting WotC judge whether their stuff passes offensiveness muster is a different matter, but if that's what they want to do with their license, fine.

But for an actual real open license, which is about openly sharing content, then morality clauses have no place. It's just not the right place to try to police that sort of thing. It muddies the waters and undermines the openness of it all. The open source software movement has struggled with this over the years with some trying to put in "you can't use this software for evil" clauses in their licenses, and it never works out. Here is one article about the issue. The Open Source Initiative FAQ has a short answer to the general question. There is also Richard Stallman's essay at the Free Software Foundation on the issue. The comparison is not 1:1, because those are mostly about who is allowed to run your software, but the general principle applies. If you try to include morality clauses in your open license, it undermines the open license both by making it not really open any more, and by making it effectively unenforceable, since an open license isn't about sharing one company's content.

 

[Staffan]

vstamin

Starfinder has Stamina, HP, and Resolve... Not quite the same thing, but pretty close to what you are saying.

The implementation may well not be what you're thinking about, though.

That's actually pretty close.

Basically, what is HP in D&D/Pathfinder is split fairly evenly between Stamina and Hit Points in Starfinder (slanted toward HP at early levels because of a one-time species bonus and SP at later levels because Con bonus). Stamina represents general badassitude that lets you shrug off damage, and hit points represent actual injuries. When you take damage, SP are depleted first, and when you're down to 0 you start taking HP damage. SP can be fully recovered by taking 10 minutes and spending a Resolve Point (of which you have level/2 + your main stat bonus), but HP require actual long-term rest or magic/tech to recover. Resolve points can also be used for some other things.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I am just waiting for someone to make an RPG that decouples HP into Stamina, Morale, and Meat so we get a core Warlord healing class baby.

I'll do it myself if I have too.

Mine has Fatigue (which adds up rather than being depleted), and Physical and Mental Trauma.

Your friends can reduce your fatigue fairly easily out of a conflict, and even when your ally does something cool via a critical success on a check, the whole team (who sees it) reduces fatigue by 1d.