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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Matt Thomason" data-source="post: 8896015" data-attributes="member: 6777331">This is actually a tricky one to think about, and mostly comes down to how copyrightable a game is in the first place with or without the OGL.The main reason the OGL has "allowed" retroclones is that the OGL allowed the use of certain text such as "Hit Points", the six main attributes, etc, while any differences were purely in non-copyrightable mechanics (I would actually assume anyone using the phrase "THAC0" in a retroclone to be in possible IP violation because that term is fairly unique and not granted under the OGL, but reproducing the THAC0 mechanic to be absolutely fine.)For it to allow someone to create a 6e clone depends on 6e being similar enough to what has come before for the same foundations granted under the OGL'ed SRDs to be applied to 6e.  Therefore, it could be argued that if WotC don't want people copying 6e, they need to make it unique enough that people can't use material they currently have the rights to use to replicate it, and not simply tweak an existing system they have already given everyone license to use (of course, this would also likely result in that system not being recognizable as D&D and likely fail in its purpose.)  However, any new mechanics they may come up with are still not covered by copyright.  That means for them to have a unique, unclonable, protected work they would have to come up with an extremely unique mechanic that they could actually patent.   So the main reason the rights of these future D&D authors is not very protectable is because they're using so much from previous versions themselves instead of developing a new game from scratch.  The question therefore becomes - what really is the moral position of borrowing from people who themselves are borrowing heavily from previous iterations? Especially in that nobody really "owns" the D&D underlying game system anyway, only the trademarks attached and the specific rulebook text, layout, and artwork.It really all comes down to copyright law, and the fact it does not realistically protect in any way the work done by game designers (the people coming up with the mechanics in the studio, not the rulebook writers whose expression is protected), because I can always, OGL or no OGL, take your game and rewrite the rules to it in completely my own words (with a possible requirement to make a number of changes to game terminology such as stat names.)  Again, it's important to recognise that this can be done even if the OGL never existed in the first place, so it's not really something the OGL has enabled, although it has made it a bit simpler - while simultaneously ensuring people waive their fair use rights to, for example, refer to Wizards trademarks.  The OGL is a trade-off on both sides, and that's an important factor in this whole argument - without it, we could all just write a D&D adventure (or indeed, a complete ruleset) and slap "compatible with Dungeons & Dragons(TM)" on the front, but we would also have to be a lot more careful that we were making our work unique enough to not be seen as derivative of theirs (and that our compatibility notice was not prominent enough to make people believe we were selling under that trademark), and would also lose the safe harbor protection from receiving a C&D order in the mail.</blockquote>

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