On Saturday, August 9, 2003, at 03:14 PM, woodelf wrote:
Has it ever been established for certain whether the description of character creation in the D20STL is definitive or exemplary? I don't think there's ever been an official pronouncement from WotC (though, if there has, i'd love to know), but Ryan Dancey's interpretation (stated after he left WotC) was that it was originally intended to forbid any product that told you how to make characters, regardless of the details.
That's all well and good, but all I really have to go on, from a legal point of view, is the d20 STL and system guide, which is very specific. It states you can't have character creation or advancement rules, but then goes on to state specifically what it means by character creation or advancement rules. It presents a definition. As far as I can tell, I do not violate the d20 STL's definitions and restrictions.
DarkTouch calls it a loophole. Considering the specific nature of the definitions, I don't see it as a loophole at all. They say "don't do _this_." So, I am not doing it.
I wasn't actually addressing your particular product, just the blanket statement that merely avoiding the stated definition will keep you safe. *If* Ryan is correct and WotC is still following that opinion, and lots of products start showing up that describe chargen in other ways (such as through point builds), they'll just change the license. Unlike the WotC OGL, they can change the D20STL at any time, with essentially no warning. It may not stop/affect you, but i think the person who first asked should be forewarned that its not ironclad safe--while i agree with you that the current license quite clearly only forbids D&D-style chargen, that might be as much because the license is worded sloppily as because that is WotC's intention.
--
woodelf <*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://webpages.charter.net/woodelph/
The Librarian of Unseen University had unilaterally decided to aid comprehension by producing an Orang-utan/Human Dictionary. He'd been working on it for three months. It wasn't easy. He'd got as far as "Oook". --Terry Pratchett _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
