My thoughts on OGL, GSL and beyond

As far as I'm concerned, the OGL is not so bad. One of the big benefits is that it is compatible with all the other OGL material out there. The only problem with the OGL is that it affords listing lots of Product Identity, and many publishers have done that. Assume for a moment that all the third party publishers had used the OGL without any Product Identity at all! Why, that would be awesome!

For some controversy around that (and a resolution in the case of Paizo), check out this thread: http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizo/custom…

<abbr><abbr>Alex Schröders last blog post..Comments on GM System vs. Player System</abbr></abbr>

Interesting but… confusing to those of us who don't follow this sort of thing. Could you post on the practical differences between the two so those like me could understand why you think one is better than the other? I never even heard of CC until last month.

<abbr><abbr>Viriathas last blog post..Game Mastering and Leadership Skills: Part 5</abbr></abbr>

I agree that the OGL is not so bad. But licenses like the CC are much better in my opinion. When you check out the license I linked in the post (or the one I use for my blog) you'll notice that it's much, much easier to understand than the usual legalese.

And although all OGL games should be more or less compatible to each other and D&D 3.5 you never were allowed to print onto the book that it's compatible to the Dungeon and Dragons rules. These are limitations a Creative Commons License usually doesn't have.

And I am not proposing Wizards should release the D&D rules under the CC (which I doubt they would ever

do) but I think the time is right for a ruleset available for free (under a CC license for example) that the community can really make their own without having to think about the legal side all the time.

By the way, for more information on Creative Commons, check out the official site.

I've struggled on my own contemplating what would be the best route. Here are a few of my thoughts on the matter:

1. OGL was great. It allowed game designers to freely use the most popular roleplaying rules on the planet: D&D. It's main benefit was the fact that it gave permission to use these rules without fear of legal issues. It does have the clause about not being able to explicitly state "Hey, I work with D&D!" but for those that wanted that extra mile, WotC had the official D&D and d20 licenses. I think the OGL is about as perfect a license as you can get for a product of this caliber.

2. Game companies probably won't ever go as far as giving all their stuff (anything worth having, anyways) away under the more "copyleft" versions of the Creative Common license. They are around to make money. You're taking a big chance not making anything off your hard work in the roleplaying game industry if you give your intellectual properties away.

3. You mention Open Source software in your post, but there is a big difference. The people who make the big Open Source stuff actually still make big money off it through techical support contracts. I don't see anything that is comparable in the RPG industry. Settings and setting specific stuff are the closest, but not close enough in my opinion.

4. If it is just about the rules, then copyright law already allows anyone to use them, at least within the United States. The United State Copyright Office Flyer 108 states: "The idea for a game is not protected by copyright. The same is true of the name or title given to the game and of the method or methods for playing it."

The main problem with this a big company like Hasbro (owners of WotC and therefore D&D) has the financial power to drag your ass through court, which hopefully incurs so many fees and costs that you'll want to settle out of court with them.

I've thought at length about this issue because I am currently developing a point-buy system based on d20. Should I use the OGL to protect (but also limit) myself? Should I cry "Freedom!" and just claim fair use? Will I license it under some copyleft license? I think I might just go the fair use way.

<abbr><abbr>Mad Brews last blog post..If RPGs Were Religions</abbr></abbr>

"I am sure something like this could work in the RPG business too."

…I'm not so sure. Specifically, I don't think it could work in the *business*. If a business is giving away its product for free, that means it must be making money from some other source, like advertising or the marketing of associated products that do cost money. Are there sufficient other sources to support a company in the RPG field doing so? I wonder. That's a pretty narrow field.

Well, if you want a free CC game, you need some talented people that are willing to do the work for free. Someone needs to just do it, don't hold your breadth waiting for a big company to step in. Whats their intensive?

It's different with software; they can make it open source and benefit from community input, then charge customers for support.

edit – Whats their *incentive?

Great comments everyone. I have to agree that I am perhaps a bit too idealistic when it comes to such things and a big company like Wizards (or all the others out there) will probably never release something under a more "copyleft" license.

The OGL is pretty nice and several other games use it as well, so it's probably the best we can hope for when commercial projects are concerned.

But Tom actually had the right idea: perhaps a free game system created by people from the community could be an interesting project although I doubt that a lot people would use it. Alas there are lots of people who would rather download a pirated copy of their favourite D&D rules instead of giving a free game a chance.

If I remember correctly, the reasoning behind the OGL (that was pretty radical at it's time and quite a departure from the "we sue our fans"-policy of TSR) was that if the gaming industry prosper, the largest company in the industry will prosper the most. Basically it was a business decision based on the assumption that the whole industry was basically in the same boat.

OGL worked out pretty well and d20 license probably even more so, but I guess they wanted to refine it. Given the amount of free power cards and such that has been made for 4E, it's obvious that it is still working in some form for the fans. I'm not sure about the publishers however, but I guess we have to wait somewhat longer for final evaluation, we're just barely a year into the 4E publishing cycle.

What I miss is an official SRD with more than just the headlines in the current one (if I'm missing something, please point me in the right direction). I guess however that with the DDI, wizards feel that they can't let "free" compete with their paid-for alternative.

<abbr><abbr>Jens Alms last blog post..Black Powder Weapons III – Feats, Powers and Classes</abbr></abbr>

Just a heads up for you, Stargazer, since you mentioned it; Eric Gibson is currently collecting the content for a release of the D6 system. according to a post he made at the WEG Fan Forums, it's going to be OGL. If you want more information:

http://www.wegfanforums.com/forums/showthread.php…

<abbr><abbr>Viriathas last blog post..Game Mastering and Leadership Skills: Part 5</abbr></abbr>

"Dungeonslayers" is using a CC licence.

Soon it will be available in english.

http://dungeonslayers.de/