From: "Kyle Rode" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> I appreciate any feedback,
To summarize a seemingly deathless thread on r.g.f.d; our position as a
company is that creating a work of any significant scope that incorporates
material covered by the D&D copyrights is not permissible without a license
from us.
So, the basic value to the OGL combined with the D20 System Reference
document is that you will be able to create such works without worrying
about litigation from WotC.
However, that's just the "stone" in the stone soup. The real "meat &
potatoes" of Open Gaming will be the content contributed by designers in
addition to that basic starting material.
At first, those contributions may come slowly as publishers create works
which are mostly proprietary and "Open" only in the most basic sense.
However, there are plans in the works for extensive Open Content with little
or no proprietary component at all; and around those projects I expect a
substantial volume of material to rapidly accrete.
I also see an equally valid benefit in constructing a standard, simple legal
framework to allow this type of distributed development. Without such,
gaming will always labor in a twilight between clear legal precedent and
ambiguous wording of the law. In that twilight, no reasonable source of
capital funding will participate in a venture designed to create material
compatible with the largest player network (D&D, aka D20). Open Gaming
makes the sun come up and removes this barrier to enhanced development.
That done, I think the ability to get external financing, once the basic
business model for Open Gaming has been worked out through trial and error,
will be much easier than it is now. Availability of such financing should
contribute to a second round of explosive growth in Open Gaming Content.
Ryan
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For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org
