--- "Martin L. Shoemaker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > PRODUCT IDENTITY: Martin L. Shoemaker declares "Group Mind" to be > Product Identity as defined under the OGL. > > OPEN GAME CONTENT: All sections marked "GAME EFFECTS" are Open Game > Content as defined under the OGL. All other sections -- particularly > those marked "STORY EFFECTS" -- are NOT Open Game Content as defined > under the OGL. > > GROUP MIND > > STORY EFFECTS: Group Mind allows a telepath to "invite" a circle of > companions into his mind, allowing them to mentally communicate with > each other through him, over any distance. The telepath can have a > limited number of companions in his circle (five plus himself is > common, > but the number may vary), and must touch each companion for a time to > add him to or remove him from the circle. GM NOTE: This should settle > once and for all the age-old problem of "Oh, we were talking > out-of-game. The guards weren't supposed to hear that." > > GAME EFFECTS: Group Mind gives all characters in the circle a +2 > synergy > bonus when they cooperate on tasks, in addition to any standard > synergy > bonuses; and it allows them to coordinate attacks: if characters in > the > circle act in the same intiative to attack a single target, their > damage > rolls combine for determining Massive Damage. The telepath can have > up > to (WIS/2) companions in his circle (not counting himself), and must > touch each companion for ten rounds to add him to or remove him from > the > circle. > > [Assume for the sake of example that I included the OGL here.] > > **************************************************************** > > This approach gives you maximal control of what remains closed, while > still properly opening everything that is derivative and thus must be > OGC. It also takes more work: it requires that the designers > understand > the OGL and write in an OGL-friendly format; or it requires that an > OGL > editor review the text and extract all derivative parts into separate > blocks. Neither is easy, so I can kind of understand why some > publishers > use the catch-all declaration (but I wish they wouldn't).
As a customer, I would find that version most annoying. Basically you've written every sentence twice: "affects a number of people including the caster" vs. "affects WIS/2 people". No matter how good your editing, something OGL will end up in a story element or the story element and game elements will conflict under certain circumstances. >From an economic view, you are showing me the EXACT fluff/crunch ratio of the book. This may not be such a good thing for some people. Those who favor crunch, over time, will get annoyed at the story element sections. >From my 100% OGC advocate point of view, I have to ask, what have you really "protected" by keeping the story element out of my hands? Most annoying is that you PIed the name of the spell. Makes it completely useless from my perspective. Personally, I think Wizards can still fix this. They just have to add a clause to the d20 license that clarifies what clearly means and says your OGC declaration cannot include an phrase that basically means "all content derived from OGC is OGC." Once that circulated for a while, they could then update the OGL itself. The beauty of this is they don't have to polute the OGL until they know what will work. Of course, this assumes that they care. Joe Mucchiello Throwing Dice Games http://www.throwingdice.com __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
