>Sorry, the actual questions were thought up whilst reading your post, >they were not actually aimed at your post in any way, I should have >made that clearer... To be honest I should have started a new thread. > >I was just wondering as I was reading your post that in theory WOTC >released the d20 system so people could make their own RPG's that >may not be fantasy orientated (or an i wrong there?). However I just >find it a little confusing that they also chose to make it so that if you do >so you cannot use D20 logo. > >I for one already find it confusing when I go to buy a 3rd party product >and see D20 on it, then begin to wonder whether its compatable with >the DND 3Ed or whether its for something differnent.
well, IMHO, the restrictions on use of the D20 logo are sufficiently specific that anything that properly bears the logo is compatible with D&D3E. at worst, a little conversion work may be necessary (i.e., Sleeping Imperium). but that leads me to something that i've been wanting to bring up, and just haven't gotten around to. now, the way an ogl works is that subsequent works are always considered derivative of the source, no matter how many steps removed. this, IMHO, is Good, and intentional. but i've been noticing that it leads to some interesting effects for games that go through multiple iterations. is there any point at which something should *not* be considered derivative? let me give a specific example. our cyberpunk-genre game, Tech Noir, is currently based on the D20SRD. about a third of the rules come from the D20SRD, about a 3rd come from The Sleeping Imperium, and about a third are our own (though in many cases clearly derivative of one of the above). no problem so far. however, the changes are such that it fails to pass most basic compatibility tests (frex, Ryan's description of the core of D20), though conversion is trivial. still, enough is D20 that there's no question it should be considered a derivative work. now, it is currently undergoing a significant revision of the rules (roughly equivalent to the change from AD&D1 to AD&D2, or ShadowRun 1st to ShadowRun 2nd), but will still likely end up obviously D20-based to the casual reader. however, it looks like v.3 may be something like this [stating it much in terms of comparison to D20, given the point of this message]: level-less; class as descriptive rather than prescriptive; attributes range from -5 to +5, and are not the D20 standards; skills range from 0 to infinity; no magic, magic items, races, classes, or monsters from D&D; essentially no carry-over weapon stats; experience on a different scale than D&D; armor absorbs damage; active defense skills; hit points don't increase with level; tasks resolved by rolling 3d20 and keeping the middle one; cyberware limited by a combination of XP cost and game-world issues; feats purchased with points, like skills, rather than as level boons. in short, the only thing that will be left of the D20SRD, if anything, will be a few feats and skills--and those might have altered descriptions/definitions. it's possible that there won't even be that commonality, or the commonality will be no more than between any two RPGs (ever notice how similar the skill lists are between any two RPGs of a similar detail level?). in other words, the change from v1 to v3 of Tech Noir would be comparable to the changes from v1 to v2 of Heaven & Earth or Blue Planet--a whole new system. here's where the interesting (to me) part comes in. if all three versions (or even just v.2&3) are released to the public, it obviously has to be considered derivative, and released under the WotC OGL. but what if none of the game saw the light of day except for v3? if the final system were no more derivative of D20SRD than is, say, [the current] Talislanta, would we have to release it under the WotC OGL and cite the D20SRD as a source? it seems to me that it would be reasonable to say "yes, we started out with a D20-derived game, but then we threw all that away, and now it's our own creation". for that matter, while others can only re-use your stuff under the terms of the WotC OGL, you retain your own rights to the material and can do whatever you want with it. so would it be reasonable to release a new version of a game with all D20SRD-derived stuff excised, and not list the D20SRD as a source, or not release it under the WotC OGL? in short, if you have access to the original, is there anything stopping you from deriving something from it and ignoring the antecedents? [i think the answer is an unambiguous "no"--provided there's no copyright infringment, of course.] that's not my concern. what i'm wondering is does this create an unintended disincentive to contribute stuff along the way? that is, if you suspect that your final work may not be D20-based, why release any of the interim steps, when, at best, they put some stuff out there that you're not using any more (so stuff built off of it likely won't benefit you, either) and, at worst, doing so potentially saddles you with obligations for the final work, without any gains). i suppose, to sort of answer my own question, this is all sidestepped if the same person(s) are doing the revisions, and thus have access to the source material directly, without going through an ogl. but something still doesn't seem quite right. to use an outlandish analogy, it seems rather like me crediting Gutenberg as a source for my book, because he invented the printing press--at what point does an author fall off the chain of derivation as being too far removed from the current work to be relevant? [i know: under every open content license, never. i'm speaking philosophically.] [btw: lest anybody get up in arms about this, remember that we're talking at least 2 iterations into the future, and where exactly we're going is undecided, so none of this may come to pass. and, i've glossed over the fact that v3 will pretty obviously be derivative of the Sleeping Imperium stuff, which in turn cites the D20SRD, so whatever the end result, it'll be released under the WotC OGL and cite the D20SRD, even if we don't use any of it directly. i'm not planning an end-run around the WotC OGL with this, but i needed an illustration.] -- woodelf <*> [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://webpages.charter.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://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
