Just a few thoughts (mostly a rant) from me on the whole OGC Designation issue... I skipped around in my reply, so this may be somewhat disjointed, but hopefully the message gets through...
>In theory publisher should have a huge battery of feats from other d20's to >use in their modules and monsters; there should be a huge battery of spells >to use as well. Should be. There isn't. Why? Complex OGC designations (see below). >>And, of course, open means open. While, as far as I can tell, all sharing >>done thus far between publishers has been cordial, and by permission, it's >>neither unethical or illegal to simply copy what you want without >>informing the source that you're doing so. (Though, of course, it's a GOOD >>thing that there's cooperation between publishers!) I absolutely agree that cordiality is a must and furthermore one of the most pleasant things about this industry. I think it is a good idea to tell someone you will be using their stuff (if you can). >>In the future, as D20 publishers fail, there will be a lot of OGC whose >>publishers have vanished into the mists. This is flat-out wrong. Given the ever-increasing complexity people are putting their OGC through, we will have NO usable OGC even after these publishers are gone. If every company were to fold today, how much usable OGC would you *really* have (see below)? >Lots of publishers are currently getting the benefit of using open content >such as the SRD and yet closing material to such an extent that it's >unusable by anyone else. As a fan, I will say that this is what frustrates me the most about the way publishing companies do business. Maybe this is skewed somewhat, and maybe I'm cynical, but it seems to me that the whole spirit of the Open Gaming License was to make a friggin' huge mass of Open Gaming Content available - so that people could pick and choose and mix and match. You would see all sorts of innovations and cross-published stuff (i.e., an OGC idea from one company getting used in a product by another company). What I have seen, however, is the same thing I have seen from the RIAA and the Movie Industry and pretty much every "Big Industry" - the attitude that "the less we give out, the better. After all we wouldn't want anyone using any more of our stuff than we have to let them." This attitude seems to exist in every industry from the RIAA (charging an "assumed piracy" fee on every tape sold, for instance) to software companies (ever since we went from "selling software" to "restrictively licensing software in a one-sided agreement that totally favors the producer"). But this is another rant entirely... back to the point... With the noted exceptions of the SRD, the DnDCC/FaNCC's Netbooks (with their attempts to be 100% OGC), Relics & Rituals (SSS - with its extra license for using spell names), and several Green Ronin products (Legions of Hell and the Freeport series, for instance), the designation of OGC in pretty much every product on the market makes it, for all intents and purposes, unusable and therefore effectively closed (scream all you want that it is "open" but for all practical purposes it's worth less than my cat's litter box). This is my own opinion, and I haven't researched stuff statistically enough to back it up, but IMO, at least 90% of all products released under the OGL and d20STL have exactly ZERO *Usable* Open Gaming Content in them. And to be honest, as a fan, I cannot express how strongly that turns me off. Suffice to say it turns me off to the point where I almost certainly will not buy products if their complex designation has crippled their OGC to the point of unusability. I have been waiting for some company to take this ludicrous idea of following the letter of the law (releasing OGC) but not the spirit of the law (by crippling the OGC released to the point where it really isn't OGC at all) to its logical conclusion and release a book in which all punctuation marks, pronouns, and prepositions are designated as OGC, and *nothing else* is (and they would probably be between 30-50% "OGC" by word/character count). >I'm not trying to provide a means of getting access to open content without >making your work open too; I'm trying to provide a means of making large >portions of one's work open and available to others while minimizing the >worry that someone take your entire text, slap some art around it and >release the same book. I agree that this might be an unfounded worry since >the main problem seems to be normal piracy but I have it anyway. Am I the >only one? I do see the publishers' fear on this one - somebody takes your hard work and undersells you. But I have to agree with the points that have already been made - there's no real incentive to do so - everyone who already wants the thing has one by the time you take to turn around your undercutting publication (granted, electronic publications could be more quickly ripped off, but the point still holds). >The difficulty of ripping stuff off while maintaining OGL compliance goes >up drastically the more complex you make your Open Content and PI >designation; that's a strong incentive to use complex designations. The >side effect of that is that complex designations also prevent legitimate >use, use a publisher might want to promote. Precisely my point. But I honestly think (cynically) that the whole point of complex designations is not just to prevent illegitimate use, but to prevent *legitimate* use as well. It just seems that the reason people are making stuff so convoluted is so that *nobody* can use their stuff in any fashion (legal or otherwise). The "reasonable" person has a tough time figuring out exactly what is OGC in most instances. I am a college graduate with a Physics degree, have a high IQ, am fluent in three languages, and yet I cannot decipher what is OGC and what is not in many publications - and in many cases, trained IP LAWYERS can't even do it! Stick to a freaking simple designation (e.g., "text enclosed in shaded boxes is OGC. All other text is not." or "All text in Chapter 4 is OGC. All other text is not.") Nobody can miss it if it's simple (even if you don't have a lot, I can't complain that I couldn't tell the difference). The tougher you make it, the farther you get from the "reasonable person" test. As a general rule of thumb, if it takes you more than 15 words to describe what is OGC and what is not, you have done a bad job. Attributed to Einstein is the quote, "if you can't explain it to a reasonably intelligent six-year old, you don't understand it yourself." Six year olds can figure out what is in boxes and what is not. They can figure out what is in chapter four and what is not. They have a much tougher time with, "all stuff in these sections that is not the proper name of an entity unless it is derived from the SRD." Keep it simple, stupid. Especially bad is the phrase "anything specifically derived from the SRD is OGC" - WTF is that? It provides NO information about what is OGC - how can I tell what you derived from the SRD? You can always argue "we thought of it ourselves" and since I can't get in your head, I lose. As a side rant on the ridiculous amount of stuff that is being called "PI" when in reality it isn't, I would like to say that in addition to including a 5% OGC minimum in the d20STL, I would also have preferred to see a 1% PI *maximum*. Anything published under the OGL is published as one of three things: 1.) OGC 2.) PI 3.) Neither of the above - IOW, *normally copyrighted material.* I could be wrong, but I thought PI was the things that made your work uniquely your own. In other words, stick to keeping things that used to be thought of as "trademarks" or "registered trademarks" PI. While a few specific creatures (e.g., Banedead) or spells (e.g. Fingers of Mormo) or NPCs (e.g., Elminster) ought to be PI as outstanding features of your world, I hardly think "Bartender #5" should be designated as PI. This is not the voice of a publisher or a lawyer, but the voice of the frustrated fan who feels that once again, the desire to make money is overcrowding the desire that he feels is more noble - the desire to contribute stuff that anyone can easily use to the game we love. I don't mean to "toot the horn" for the FaNCC, but I feel that they are the ones following the spirit of the OGL (even if their volunteer/fanclub status means they sometimes have trouble with the letter of the OGL). They're trying to grow the pot of USEFUL OGC, without complicated designations or attempting to find loopholes to keep their stuff out of the hands of others. At the same time, I recognize that it is precisely BECAUSE they are not professional publishers, these goals are easier to achieve. But I would at least like to see some of the professional publishers to take a couple of steps towards "sharing" some of their stuff... and a great start would by dropping the complex OGC designations and instead making anything "rules-oriented" and "modular" (and here I am specifically thinking of spells, monsters, NPCs, Feats, and Prestige Classes) OGC and saving your designation of PI for just a few selected things (and here I am thinking of specific important NPCs, a couple of spells if you must) and just release the rest (and here I am thinking of atmospheric, geographic, cultural, and other information that makes your adventure / supplement / sourcebook / campaign setting your own) as copyrighted material. I know you publishers on the list may balk at this, but this is what at least one fan who used to have an expensive d20 habit (my habit is much less expensive now that OGC designations have become a part of my "informed" shopping") would love to see. One other thing - is there any way to come up with a uniform system for designating OGC, PI, and "none of the above" text? I understand people want to use italics for emphasis, but why can't the following be adopted as a standard? --OGC is in normal text. --PI is "shaded" text (i.e., instead of on a white background it is on a gray background - this by nature would limit PI to acceptable amounts instead of the ridiculous amounts we currently see). --"Neither OGC nor PI" in italics. Reserve boldface and underlining for emphasis or headers. IMO "different fonts" for OGC are a bad idea (too tough to tell what's what), and obviously we don't want multiple colors in print books because that will drive the price WAY up (though an electronic book in which all blue text was OGC would be okay). Or, even better, follow WotC's lead with the SRD - make all OGC portions of your books available on your website. Then nobody is ever in doubt as to what is OGC and what is not. --The Sigil _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
