{ The following comments are related to the utility of the license, not it's
language or structure. As far as I'm concerned, it's a reasonable Open Game
license, and a fairly clearly written one, at that. }
Here are some questions I have.
>From the DRL Faq, Section 22:
"Here's an example. You create and publish online the Dominion of Curzon.
You give a complete account of Curzon's history, geography, peoples,
religions, customs, and so on. You give stats for leading Curzonian Games
Master Characters. All that is fine. Your work is Compatible only: it is
based on DR but does not reproduce or modify DR.
Then you create new Beasts, complete with stats, that inhabit Curzon's
woodlands. These are modifications to Dominion Rules; they are an 'addition
to...the substance and/or structure of Dominion Rules' (see the definition
of Modification in Section 2). You also create new Priestcraft Skills to
suit Curzon's religions."
I have no problem understaing the Priestcraft skills bit. The other two
parts confuse me though.
How can statting out an NPC and statting out a monster be treated
differently by the license? Either the license views the use of stats as a
Modification, or it does not. Why do you think the two are different?
(When I first read the "compatible works" clause, I thought you were
proposing a way to write a totally rule-free work and then cross-identify it
with the Dominion Rules concept; like a novel. But the FAQ seems to
indicate that you expect people to create materials like "Kingdom of
Kalamar" from Kenzer & Co. - that is, a product that includes some portions
of the Dominion Rules game systems...)
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OK: Now, let's tackle the Larger Works clauses.
As I originally envisioned it, a "Larger Work" was a definition that would
allow a license to permit the use of game rules and not require everything
else in the work to be infected by the licenses' copyleft. Instead of
trying to enumerate what comprised non-game IP, the definition itself would
handle the division and thus make the license simple to read and use.
When last we left this issue (say, March or so), the general consensus
seemed to be that "Larger Work" definitions were a good idea, but that
actually getting one that could survive all the potential challenges might
be beyond the current state of the art in license design. The guys at
Dominion decided to continue to work down this path, and the DRL 1.0
presents the fruits of their labors.
First concern: Does this clause take material that is not a Rule or a
Modification and subject it to the other terms of the license?
>From the DRL 1.0:
"6.1. Larger Works. You may create and Distribute Larger Works. Larger Works
are governed by all the terms of this Licence."
I believe that it might. Nothing in this clause says that the non-game IP
content is >excluded< from the terms of this license - rather, it says that
the work, in the whole, is governed by the terms of this License.
Second concern: What rights are you granting to your contributions?
>From the DRL 1.0:
"5.5. Your Grants. You hereby grant to Dominion Games and all third parties
a non-exclusive, world-wide, royalty-free Licence, under intellectual
property rights owned or controlled by You, to copy, modify, and Distribute
Your Modifications of the same scope and extent as the licence granted by
Dominion Games under this Section."
OK, so the copyleft covering the materials you are contributing only covers
Modifications. This is a good escape hatch for IP; if the definition of
Modifications can be drawn narrowly enough to include rules, and exclude IP,
the license will have succeeded in protecting the IP aspects of Larger
Works.
Third concern: Is a "Modification" defined narrowly enough to include game
rules and materials that use game rules, and exclude non-game materials?
>From the DRL 1.0:
(Definitions)
""Modifications" means any addition to, deletion from, correction of,
translation of, and/or other change to, the substance and/or structure of
Dominion Rules."
It is very dicey. "Substance" is a dangerous word. Let's go to the FAQ.
"2. What do you mean by 'Modification'?
Any change you make to the Dominion Rules roleplaying system is a
modification. Examples include:
* Changing any rule (for example, changing the rule that a roll of 12
always fails).
* Expanding on existing rules by adding new Attributes, Skills, weapons,
armour, Spells, races, beasts, etc.
* Adding new rules not currently covered in DR, such as treasures and
magical items, miniature battle rules, psionics, or character classes.
* Translating Dominion Rules from English into another language."
And here you have the heart of the problem. Bullet point #2 indicates that
Dominion Games believes that DRL will infect any portion of your IP that you
use Dominion Rules to describe, to the extent that those rules are used in
the description of that IP.
In fact, the FAQ to the contrary, I think Modifications would include NPCs
if they are given game stats as well - in fact, I think Modifications
include >anything< you give game stats to.
And this is exactly where the original discussion about Larger Works broke
down. This is the problem with RPGs in general, in my opinion: The rules
can become so intertwined with the description of objects manipulated by the
system that it becomes nearly impossible to figure out where the rules stop
and the non-rules content begins.
=====================
Now, an even more troublesome bit: Outside of Modifications, you are not
granting anyone the right to use your content when you contribute something
using the DRL 1.0. Even if you want to.
So >non< Modification content is not covered by the permissions granted by
the License, and could not be used by other people without separate
permissions.
A troublesome contributor could argue that the >only< parts of a given work
that the DRL 1.0 covers are the parts that are either rules that modify some
other DRL'd content, and material that is statted using DRL'd content.
Adding a whole new rule subsystem, provided that it did not alter or use an
existing subsystem, would not be a Modification, therefore, it would not be
covered by the DRL. And the DRL makes no provision for a contributor to
voluntarily extend the license to cover that material, because only Dominion
Games has the right to contribute wholly new material. Everyone else is
restricted to contributing just Modifications.
Since there is no requirement in the language of the License to specify what
the contributor considers Modifications to be, there is no way for a 3rd
party to safely extract the DRL'd content and re-use it.
This seems to be a structural problem that Dominion might want to fix, since
part of the envisoned Dominion concept are worlds created by other people
that are copied, modified and distributed by the joint development
community. As it stands now, there's no way to use the DRL to accomplish
that safely.
In fact, Dominion itself could potentially argue that the "Dominion Rules"
themselves are a Larger Work, and the non-rule material in the Dominion
Rules cannot be used by other people without separate permissions. The
definition of "Dominion Rules" in the license extends only to the "Dominion
Rules roleplaying system". This is one problem with using the term "rules"
in a License - "rules" are not defined anywhere, and they are used in the
title of the core product for this project; which >will< cause problems in
court if anyone litigates.
Ryan
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