On Thu, 5 Oct 2000, LaPierre, Bob wrote:
> So basically this also explains your positition on the novels. You
> don't think the >logo< should be used on non-game products. So if people
> want the stats to characters in Lizard's books then Lizard will either have
> to publish them seperately in a supplement or get Dragon to publish them as
> "Giants in the Earth". Is that about it?
Nothing prevents the inclusion of stats in a novel - as long as they are
included compliant with the OGL. The question was one of whether or not a
D20 logo could be used on a novel that included stats. Ryan's position
appears to be that the logo should be an indication that the product
carrying the logo is a D20 game product.
Personally, I think that even some of the game related stuff is stretching
the usefulness of the logo. That is some of the proposed D20 game
concepts (supers, cyberpunk, wildwest, etc.) may require sufficient new or
revised material that they will only marginally be useful to people
playing fantasy D20 (which is the base version, if for no other reason
than the existend of D&D). The value of the D20STL (or any such trademark
license) becomes increasingly less as it is used for increasingly
divergent products -- consumers become more wary of relying on the logo
after purchasing items that simply aren't really related to what they
thought the logo stood for. Now my concern is fairly easily conquered by
authors including separate identification of the type of D20 their product
is for, such as adding the word "fantasy" or "supers" somewhere near the
D20 logo. Given that I've heard mention of different attempts at both
supers and cyperpunk genre, this may even be insufficient if different
people develop different styles of a genre and the styles aren't very
compatible.
alec
