In essences this means I could use items from the Wizards SRD that are under the OGL such as feats and equipment, but not monsters which are only under the d20 license?No. Use of the monsters is fine as well. The way it works is this:
- You can have the full contents of the "System Reference Document" (SRD) available to you.
- The SRD contains eveything from core classes, skills, feats, general game mechanics *and* the monsters, along with weapons, armor etc.
- When you use the contents of the SRD, you choose to either abide by the rules of the D20 license, *or* the OGL.
- Basically, the D20 license gives you access to the "D20" brand and logo, but the OGL allows you greater freedom for good "interactive" and "level up" software.
- Naturally, "paper" publishers have no need for interactive and "level up" capabilities, so they go for the D20 license.
I'm feeling particularly woolly-headed right now, so bare with me ;)As long as you're not *distributing* SRD content (like algorithms implementing game mechanics) in compiled (unreadable) code, you're okay.
I'm OK if my PBM hides such things as dice rolling and damage amounts ans instead uses phrases to describe say combat, e.g. a near miss, a devasting crushing blow. Even though it's using the d20 items in the background?
If you develop a personal PBEM server which compiles SRD game mechanics and sends out results, you're okay. You cannot, however, make your server software available to other people (whether its free or not is irrelevant).
So if all the SRD mechanics where held in human readable XML, you could release non readable code to use it? I wouldn't want to do that anyway as I'm pretty much deep in open source software. Actually if I where to make any money out such a project, it would be through the service of running games, organising players, providing community areas etc, rather than selling software.
Hmmm... the situation is much more flexible than I first thought.
Yes, open source distribution is okay. Your major stumbling block is that your stuff is only useful to people who are capable of setting up an appropriate development environment for your open source, and building the application for their own personal use.
I think you have an obvious ethical dilemma here with providing the open source, where difficult practical issues abound, and what would likely happen. I think I'd rather not spell it out, though.
Regards,
Luke
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