>Marc Tassin wrote: >>I have had this discussion too many times but for the new people, >>here it is. It is unfair to expect designers and publishers who have >>put blood, sweat, tears and in many cases lots of money into the >>creation of a unique and interesting world, to open those up for all >>time. Once material is open it stays open. So to say "open the >>whole spell" is to say "give up ownership of the thing you have >>created." > >WotC did it. In fact, if you're producing SRD-derived OGL material >(and practically everyone is), you're playing in the sandbox WotC >opened up for you.
while i think most of the companies producing D20 stuff have opened too little, or given away only the required part (the mechanics) without the part that makes it useful (the name and/or description), that's pretty much what WotC has done, in fairness. first of all, i think they took too much of the narrative bits out of 3E (the non-combat/non-opponent elements of monsters, frex). the D20SRD then removes what little was left, for the most part. i've noticed that spell descriptions often even have the (redundant) one-sentence summary that starts them out removed, and monsters don't even have cursory descriptions. and, of course, there never was much setting info in the core rulebooks, and WotC does'nt appear to be planning on openning up any of, say, Forgotten Realms. so, i'd say that WotC pretty much set the tone that most others are using: release rules, and absolutely nothing else. [this doesn't explain those who aren't even releasing all their new rulesy stuff.] >Green Ronin did it. Atlas did it. Others have as well. > >Sword & Sorcery Studios, to me, was the epitome of a company acting >within the letter of the OGL but not the spirit of the open gaming >community. Their PI zealousness is absurd, and too many people have >taken their cue from them. (Which isn't to say that none of their PI >is legitimate. "Mithril Golem", for example, is a perfectly >legitimate piece of PI. But PIing "Moon Cat", "Unholy Child", and >"Wood Golem" *is* ridiculous. This has been much alleviated with >their "goodie" license in R&R.) > >Well, actually, Malhavoc is even worse. "Let's release an entire >book full of new spells and feats, and place *none* of it under the >OGC except for one monster template." Bah. > it seems to me that Green Ronin and atlas (and a couple others) are the exceptions to the rule demonstrated by SSS and WotC. -- woodelf <*> [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://members.home.net/woodelph/ If any religion is right, maybe they all have to be right. Maybe God doesn't care how you say your prayers, just as long as you say them. --Sinclair _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
