Or at least that’s my understanding with all I’ve learned today ;) Mechanics are fine, "Creative" things like classes not.
> If not who on earth needs OGL to publish anything they would want to publish?
IIRC the video game Solasta: Crown of the Magister is D&D5e under OGL, so they used a lot of SRD things.
> Turn-Based Tactical RPG based on the SRD 5.1 Ruleset
It is generally a wise idea to not anger the druids anyway. :)
> IIRC the video game Solasta
Oh yeah. I did not think about video games. Makes sense.
Fear keeps the local publishers in line. Wizards of the Coast is basically the only big player in the industry, backed by an even larger corporation.
"Third party publishers" are usually hobbyists or single-person operations, who really benefit not having to work under the threat of lawsuits or even C&Ds.
And the RPG industry does have a history of that: TSR, the originators of D&D, were rather litigious, resulting early game companies like Judges Guild having to really conceal their NPC stats to not use verbiage from AD&D.
Later TSR sued Mayfair for their Role Aids line (IIRC, Mayfair was helmed by one of the chief people now responsible at WotC). And then there was Palladium, makers of quasi-D&D and the ultimate kitchen sink setting Rifts, who really didn't like early online presence.
Never mind that your most likely "publishing house" drivethrurpg.com has WotC as a big partner.
Technically legal is one thing, having a license that's shared by thousands of other people who would be on your side out of poor necessity seems like a better foundation for your small game company.
https://magicuntapped.com/index.php/articles/item/501-filing...
Plus there is little reason to pick a fight -- Paradox is an online publisher and has it's own slew of IPs. Not a fight worth picking, and one that might be expensive, esp. against an established player in a different market and country.
What Paizo would or could do now is a different matter. They might say that PF 2E is distinct enough, especially if some 2.5E thing would remove some remaining verbiage or direct lifts from old OGL material. They might also just do a deal with WotC. Gates and Jobs at Tanagra.
Dumbest decision I've seen Paizo make since the last one.
In retrospect if that was their goal, it would have made sense to use a different copyleft license for the open content that did not include a clause that paints Wizards as the body to update the license, especially given the mechanics of using PF 1E content in 2E requires subjective decision making compared to the relatively automatic 3.5 -> PF1E or PF1E -> SF compatibility.
1. simplify things for 3rd party publishers. rather than worry about multiple licenses, just publish under the same one as pathfinder 1e, 3.5e, and 5e, that they already know like the back of their hand
2. save costs. writing a new license is expensive. it apparently would have delayed release of the pf2e system and significantly increased the cost
3. cover their ass just in case WotC thinks pf2e is still too similar to d&d
there’s really no way they could have foreseen a rugpull like this. everyone thought the OGL was ironclad until yesterday. hindsight is 20/20 though.
Could they?
This almost looks like a poison pill to me. If WotC was forward thinking enough, back in the 3.0 days they used the OGL to trick competitors into a trap.
As time has gone on the main competitor to 4e is now Pathfinder... thus taking the oxygen out of the room and leaving less space for non-OGL competition.
Now Paizo has enough of a real business built on Pathfinder, but not the endless war chest of Hasbro. It seems to me like they would probably need to cave and make a deal with Hasbro rather than try to carry on some kind of fight that puts their livelihoods on the line.
And as a player I can be dismayed with what Hasbro is doing, but knowing that Pathfinder is at risk now I have no reason to switch to them. But there's no obvious alternative to 5e and Pathfinder that has any real traction...
I don't think moving from a license which Wizards is trying to rely on ambiguity to claim it allows them to pull the plug to a license which definitively allows them to pull the plug is a business safe move. Especially since the new license requires you to accept the end of OGL v1.0a so there's no way back if you do sign.
Add to that that Wizards has pulled the plug on them before, _twice_, first by kicking them out of their official adventure publishing role, then pulling the plug on their position as an online retailer of first party 3E PDFs, and there can't be much trust for Wizards from Paizo.
Paizo could have made this decision before (without the one way nature, even), and choose not to in the 3E to 4E days. Charting their own path instead took them from the a small adventure path publisher to the #2 publisher in tabletop games, so it worked out for them, so I don't see why Paizo would choose to deal with Wizards here.
Finally, I'm not sure tabletop publishing is that high margin a business. I'm not sure Paizo could afford 25% of their revenue, or even if they got a sweetheart deal like 10% on account of their size. Plus the aforementioned trust issues regarding keeping that split long term would still be there
I think OGL came from a realization that this sort of thing wasn't good.
What it was created to do, and what Hasbro is leveraging it to do, are two different things. The same thing happened with 4E/the GSL, which everyone's forgotten but was essentially the beta run at Hasbro trying to invalidate the OGL.
The thing is, Hasbro doesn't even need to invalidate the OGL. They recaptured so much of the market with 5E and the OGL-agnostic, IP-friendly Dungeon Master's Guild that they could just stop publishing and supporting OGL-compatible products altogether. As long as One D&D doesn't botch things as badly as 4E, I don't think the current market would care.
It might sell the most right now but if this truly is WotC slicing off their own nose to spite their face with overly aggressive legal tactics to extract money and control the market for D&D related goods, and as a consequence the community turn away from them… there’s a huge sea of available options that are completely unrelated to D&D, Champions, Rifts, Genesys, Feng Shui, Fate, Numenera, the plethora of hand that are Powered by the Apocalypse… there’s not just a sea but entire oceans of RPGs out there that don’t descend from D&D in any way and most of them are just plain better RPGs! If the community leaves D&D behind they will find so many better games to play that honestly… I’m starting to hope WotC are about to accidentally cripple the D&D brand. It might just be the best possible thing for the RPG industry and the player community as well.
The OGL is a sort of "you're definitely safe under these restrictions" promise. If you comply with it, the promise is that you definitely won't be sued. Of course, that promise is now being broken.
You are absolutely right about this being more of a promise not to sue, more than anything else.
The OGL says, here, crib from and directly reference this copyrighted text so you can eliminate broad swaths of reinventing the wheel and focus on your compatible content. Third-party publishers on shoestrings adopted it en masse for both litigation safety and convenience.
I understand setting an adventure in Faerun would be a derivative work, but surely it wouldn't if it's in a completely new setting? And repeating stat blocks from the Monster Manual is clearly a violation, but it seems to me I should be able to refer to the Monster Manual, as well as include my own custom stats for original creatures not from the Monster Manual, or even stats that I need to be different from those in the MM.
The fact that something competes is not enough; I can write a novel with wizards and dragons, and as long as I don't include characters or places from Tolkien or Harry Potter, it's not derivative, no matter how many themes and ideas are similar.
Referring to classes and spells from the Player's Handbook shouldn't be a problem, because the Harry Potter Encyclopedia can refer to everything from the Harry Potter book.
Am interesting aspect with publishing an adventure is of course that WotC also publishes adventures for D&D, but my adventure would not be derivative of those adventures; it exists entirely independent from them. It does not exist independently from the core rules (PHB, DMF and MM), but it doesn't compete with those.
If that would still count as a copyright violation, then the Harry Potter Encyclopedia would also be a copyright violation the moment Rowling publishes her own encyclopedia. I think that would be rather weird. Shouldn't a violation be a violation of a specific work, rather than the context around it?
Anyone can write a setting book. A setting book that references specific copyrighted text — like the contents of the SRD, including classes, spells, creatures, magic items, and certain non-mechanical terms — runs into OGL space.
If you create an entirely new set of terms and mechanics, you haven't created a derivative work, but you also haven't necessarily created a compatible work, and you certainly haven't created one as directly compatible as a potential competitor's OGL-compliant work.
If you aren't writing for distribution, then none of this matters anyway.
> And repeating stat blocks from the Monster Manual is clearly a violation
With the exception of some copyrighted monster names, it's explicitly not a violation under the OGL, and the ability to do so is a large part of the point of the OGL.
> but it seems to me I should be able to refer to the Monster Manual
You can't by name without a separate compatibility license, typically by way of publishing to the Dungeon Master's Guild, which is laden with a lot of other intellectual ownership gotchas.
> as well as include my own custom stats for original creatures not from the Monster Manual, or even stats that I need to be different from those in the MM.
If you can describe what "neutral good" or an "Armor Class" represents mechanically without resorting to a literal mechanical description in the SRD or covered by the OGL, go for it. The broader point of the OGL was not having to reinvent those wheels in every product a publisher created.
I understand that this is what they want you to believe. I don’t understand how it would be trademark or copyright infringement saying “go buy those people’s book and look up information there”.
> If you can describe what "neutral good" or an "Armor Class" represents mechanically without resorting to a literal mechanical description
But source books don’t do that. They say “so and so, neutral good, ac: 12” It is expected from the DM reading them that they already know what this kind of shorthand mean.
It's a violation of the OGL. So you can opt out of the OGL (and opt out of reprinting verbatim rules), try it, sell it, and see what happens:
> Use of Product Identity: You agree not to Use any Product Identity, including as an indication as to compatibility, except as expressly licensed in another, independent Agreement with the owner of each element of that Product Identity.
...
> The following items are designated Product Identity, as defined in Section 1(e) of the Open Game License Version 1.0a, and are subject to the conditions set forth in Section 7 of the OGL, and are not Open Content: Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master, Monster Manual, ...
This is why so many OGL works contain phrases like "core rule books of the 5th edition of the world's most popular pen and paper RPG" instead of "Monster Manual p. 132".
> Source books don’t do that. They say “so and so, neutral good, ac: 12” It is expected from the DM reading them that they already know what this kind of shorthand mean.
You're right, those are too generic of examples. Here are some real-world ones I've had to deal with as an OGL author:
- What are the mechanical ramifications of a sentient magic item with the Crusader special purpose that's engaging in a Conflict with its wielder?
- A creature has Burrow. Can they burrow through stone?
- "Eldritch Blast". Is it PI because of "Eldritch"? Is it OGL because one version of the SRD named it but omitted its mechanics?
- How do you sustain the spell effect of a Crown of Madness? Is that OGL because one version of the SRD omitted that paragraph?
- A dwarf has Dwarven Combat Training. What kind of hammer can they throw?
- Does the Grappler feat grant two or three benefits? If it's two, but your DMs' copy of the source text has three, which benefit was removed via errata? Do you assume your players/DMs even have the errata?
What you reference isn't always a detail you can assume the DM (sorry, GM) has available. The official SRD also isn't entirely OGL, and the contents of the SRD don't always match the text of their source works.
So when something you add to your setting, or to a creature or item, relies on the details an OGL/SRD wrinkle, do you play it safe and stick to what's covered by the OGL? Find something else? Ditch the OGL, rewrite all of the complicated interactions from scratch, and wind up creating a new game?
If you're a third-party publisher making three figures and paying freelancers by the word, do you tell the writer, "Sure, go ahead and rewrite all of the related rules from scratch", or do you tell them to stick to what's most clearly covered by the OGL?
Idk. Do you want it to burrow through stone? Write that down. Do you not want it to burrow through stone? Write that down. Do you not have an opinion? Leave it to the DM.
I’m not even following what you are saying. You are saying that you choose to publish under OGL because then it is defined how burrowing works? Or what is exactly that you are saying?
> Does the Grappler feat grant two or three benefits?
What? The Grappler feat is in the basic rules. How does this come up in your own published material? If some NPC of your making has it you just say “has the grapler feat” and then people can look it up what that means.
> Do you assume your players/DMs even have the errata?
Why do you care? How often did you received feedback like this: “We were playing the adventure published by trynewideas. The setting was trully breath taking, and the maps gorgeous. The fun quirks of the NPCs made combat very memorable. My players lowed it. That is until it all came crashing down because the grappling feat of the gladiators in the amphiteatre were slightly ambigous. Ruined the whole module for us. Sad.”
But that's ridiculous, right? Anyone can refer to a page in a book. If the OGL takes that away, then what's even the point of it? Well, I guess being able to make derivative works, but what if I don't want to do that? What if I want to make my own campaign world that's merely meant to be compatible with the D&D rules? The same way anyone can make a game that runs on Windows without needing a license?
WotC's entire reasoning that you can't do that, sounds to me like a far too restrictive interpretation of copyright law. I'm not a lawyer, but as far as I know, WotC's interpretation has never been tested in court.
I'm talking about copyright, not OGL.
> You can't by name without a separate compatibility license, typically by way of publishing to the Dungeon Master's Guild, which is laden with a lot of other intellectual ownership gotchas.
Says who? WotC doesn't decide the law. They can claim it's illegal, just like Apple can claim it's illegal to jailbreak an iPhone, but that doesn't make it law.
Just like the Harry Potter Encyclopedia can refer to Harry Potter characters without a license, an adventure should be able to refer to entries in the PHB or Monster Manual, as long as it doesn't directly copy significant amounts of text.
> If you can describe what "neutral good" or an "Armor Class" represents mechanically without resorting to a literal mechanical description in the SRD or covered by the OGL
My point is that I don't want to and don't have to. It's already described in another book that I expect people to own.
It's not that simple. The main thing to remember is that even a threat of an expensive lawsuit is a pretty credible one in the US, because of how the system is set up.
Yes, frivolous suits get thrown out pretty fast, but that's still not cheap (because you need to hire an attorney to communicate with the court on your behalf, because, again, the system is set up that way), and when it comes to copyright very few things are that clear cut.
Just with a mod for a game it's easy to argue that without the game there's no mod, so the mod is a derivative work.
And if your campaign is bolted to the mechanics, then it's not hard to argue that the campaign is basically genre-bending fanfiction (ie. copies the same themes into a new setting), so one might argue it should get the same legal treatment as a derivative work.
Even if it's ~90% that you would win the case, it might cost you a lot, that's why this matters to businesses. (It likely doesn't matter to individuals or small clubs that publish things for free.)
EDIT: I realize people might not know what an SRD is. It's basically the bare-bones document explaining the game and its mechanics with all the IP-encumbered names filed off. D&D 5E has an SRD (copy: https://www.5esrd.com/) which 3PPs use when making their own content for the system.
Let’s say I decide that I want to publish a DnD adventure.
Even with OGL I can’t say it is for DnD. They say I can’t even say it is compatible with DnD, but I have my doubts about that.
I describe a unique set and setting. Not using any Wizards of the Coast trademark in it. (Which honestly I don’t want because I want my thing to feel fresh and unique.) I don’t think the OGL licence would help me with that.
Then of course there is game mechanics. I don’t want to repeat the players handbook. (You wouldn’t expect this kind of material to repeat the basic rules anyway.) But i do want to use terms from it. For example I would write: “The 3rd chest in the second level is locked and magically trapped. The DC of the trap is 13. On activativation it deals 1d6 poison damage. Inside the chest a Shimmering Ghillie Suit. The suit is a legendary magical item which grants its wearer advantage on stealth checks.” Obviously this uses a lot of DnD terminology. (DC, advantage, poison damage, stealth check, legendary item) But it does not infringe on the copyright on any WotC property. (Assuming that I have made a search for the Ghillie Suit not appearing in any published materials yet.) Do i need OGL to publish this?
If not who on earth needs OGL to publish anything they would want to publish?