Re: OT-ish, Making an doucment of NPCs for download

I'm pretty sure that one of the d20 System publishers was given permission 
to create a parallel version of one of the creatures that WotC claims as PI. 
I can't remember what monster it was. There was some chatter on the Open 
Gaming Foundation mailing lists about it. I think someone thought it might 
be copyright infringement, but they were put straight.

Interestingly, the ESD Policy would *seem* to allow you to create a 
Spelljammer conversion that includes the text "Mind Flayer Nautiloid" even 
though "Mind Flayer" is declared as PI in the new (3.5) SRD. I'm not sure 
exactly how that one would work in a law court, however the ESD Policy only 
applies to non-commercial conversions from old D&D products to the d20 
System. (I wonder if WotC PIed "Brain Eaters of Falx". :-) )

The official websites for out of print products (Beyond the Moons, 
Athas.org, Planewalker.com, etc), would *seem* to be operating under a PI 
licence. However, it is possible that they are able to bypass the OGL 
entirely, because they have an agreement directly with WotC.

Lets not forget that Beyond the Moons is about helping D&D fans to carry on 
playing Spelljammer - it isn't about getting the D&D for free. So if BtM 
doesn't duplicate things that are easily accessible in the Monster Manual 
then I don't really have a problem with that.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bill Olander" <brainhurts@?????.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2007 1:36 PM
Subject: Re: [SPELLJAMMER] OT-ish, Making an doucment of NPCs for download


> P.S. For Spelljammer related stuff. Unless you're the official site, the
> only way you can use setting names is if you do a conversion of an 
> existing
> document through the ESD program. Then you could hypothetically convert 
> all
> the ships in the main box set, have them on your website and create links 
> to
> them that way. I've yet to see anyone do this however which is why I say
> Hypothetical.
>
> On 5/1/07, Bill Olander <brainhurts@?????.com> wrote:
>>
>> Lets see. OpenGL is not the same as OGL. OpenGL is a graphics program.
>>
>> MindFlayers aren't Open Content because Wizards of the Coast has
>> determined that they are one of those things that defines what D&D is. 
>> All
>> sorts of fantasy can have dragons, orcs, goblins, etc.. but if you have a
>> MindFlayer or a Beholder, THAT is 'Dungeon & Dragons' (tm) and they are
>> loosing part of what makes them unique (and thus your business) whenever
>> someone else uses it. And the fact that someone else is giving away for 
>> free
>> what they want to charge you for makes it even worse.

I've got to say that as a Spelljammer fan, I want to see conversions of the 
bits of Spelljammer that don't exist under 3e/3.5e. WotC have already 
converted the beholder and mind flayer, so I don't need Beyond the Moons to 
do *another* version of the same thing.

I'll admit that it would have been nice if WotC had put mind flayers and 
beholders where I could copy and paste them, but a GM only really needs the 
monster stats for themselves and a photocopy from the monster manual would 
probably work for most SJ games.

>> On 5/1/07, Steven <steven.james.1@??????????.??.uk> wrote:
>> >
>> > Ok, the legal mumbo jumbo of the OpenGL stuff is extremely confusing 
>> > for
>> > me,
>> > (thanks to Dave for helping though).

Well, I didn't help that much if you are still confused.

:-(

>> > I had an idea:
>> >
>> > I keep all NPCs I make, in a .doc format. It saves tons of time if I
>> > have
>> > that available. I print 'em up and keep in an A4 folder, and can slip
>> > 'em in
>> > with different names/gear as need quickly.
>> >
>> > So, if I put such a file on my site, free, what all should I do for the
>> > Open
>> > Gl stuff?

Lets have another go. The Open Game Licence (OGL) allows you (the owner of 
*your* game content) to grant everyone in the world the right to reuse some 
of your game material without you loosing your copyright. The bits you let 
people use are called "Open Game Content". You can also exclude bits you 
don't want people to reuse, by defining them to be "Product Identity".

If you are happy for people to use 100 percent of your product then the 
easiest thing to do is say "This product is 100 percent Open Game Content" 
and forget about defining PI. You must make some sort of declaration about 
OGC and PI and I'd go with that one if you are happy to open your entire doc 
file up for sharing. Your declaration can go anywhere. Some people put it at 
the beginning of a document, but it is OK to put the declaration at the end 
(just before the licence) if that keeps it out the way of your game content.

Section 15 was something that I think you had a problem with before. Section 
15 is basically a list of all the copyright declarations of *all* of the 
sources you used when you created your doc file. (Note that this also 
includes your *own* product!)

You always need to include the copyright notice of the OGL itself. It looks 
like this:

"Open Game Licence v 1.0 Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc."

If your NPCs are fantasy ones then you are almost certainly basing them on 
the SRD and also need to include the copyright declaration for that. If you 
are using the 3.5 rules then this is the SRD copyright declaration you would 
be quoting:

"System Reference Document Copyright 2000-2003, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; 
Authors Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Rich Baker, Andy Collins, 
David Noonan, Rich Redman, Bruce R. Cordell, John D. Rateliff, Thomas Reid, 
James Wyatt, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson."

Notice how WotC include additional information (about the authors). This 
sort of thing is optional (to the original author/owner) but once they 
decide to add stuff it is compulsory to anyone reusing their material.

As Bill said you need to include your own copyright declaration in there. If 
you wanted it to be short it would probably look a bit like this:

"Silverblade's NPC List: Copyright 2007, Silverblade's Suitcase."

But if you want to expand it a bit more, you could include your website 
address (or anything else) and make it look more like this:

"Silverblade's NPC List: Copyright 2007, Silverblade's Suitcase. 
www.silverblades-suitcase.com"

(If you use other OGC to create your NPC document then you also need to 
include all the copyright declarations from the section 15 of their copy of 
the OGL.)

There are several FAQs about the OGL here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/welcome

>> > And, for Spelljammer, why are beholders/mind flayers seemingly
>> > not
>> > in the SRD stuff? That's asinine beyond belief :/

Not having these monsters in the SRD, doesn't stop you from putting them 
into your Spelljammer games - it just stops commercial d20 System publishers 
from putting them into their fantasy worlds. The only real loss to the SJ 
community is that if you use these ready-made d20 System fantasy worlds as 
groundling worlds in new crystal spheres, none will have beholders or mind 
flayers built into their culture. You will have to add the monsters yourself 
if you want them.

The SRD isn't designed to stop Spelljammer fans from having fun. It is 
designed to stop other RPG publishers from cloning D&D and selling their own 
versions. Other publishers can put out campaign settings that are 
"compatible" with D&D, but WotC have just held back a couple of things that 
they think are special.

David "Big Mac" Shepheard
Virtual Eclipse Role Playing Club
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/virtualeclipselrp/links/d20_system_001071937434/Spelljammer_001071430476
http://www32.brinkster.com/virtualeclipse/