For one of our D20SRD-derived games, we've altered the basic d20 roll to "mid20": roll 3 d20s, and discard the highest and lowest. Now, it suddenly occurred to me that i don't think this qualifies as "derivative" of any rules in the D20SRD--it's its own beast. It seems to me like it's "beneath" the D20 System, rather than built "on top of" it. Moreover, i wouldn't think that the simple act of rolling a die or dice, independent of how the results of those dice are interpreted or applied to any other part of the game, *could* be copyrighted--seems too much like an "idea" to me.
So, what do others think: would the description of the mid20 roll be required to be OGC, as derivative content? Or could it be kept closed?
[FYI: i can't *imagine* keeping it closed, even if it were possible. In addition to it being silly, and contributing towards a definition of IP that i don't want to support, i don't think its protectable in any way (save, *maybe*, trademarking the term), due to its "idea-ness", so doing so would probably never survive legal scrutiny. Moreover, we came up with it precisely because we think it's a vast improvement when applied to the D20 System, and we think that pretty much all D20-based games should use it, so doing anything to discourage its propagation is counterproductive.]
--
woodelf <*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://webpages.charter.net/woodelph/
The Laws of Anime <http://www.abcb.com/laws/index.htm>: #26 Law of Feline Mutation Any half-cat/half-human mutation will invariably: (1) be female, (2) possess ears and sometimes a tail as a genetic mutation, and (3) wear as little clothing as possible, if any. _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
