A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

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deadPan c
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by deadPan c »

Thanks, I had somehow forgot there was a seperate thread for the OGL.
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greg
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by greg »

How about stat blocks? Is there anything in the stat blocks we need to tag as SRD text?
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Boggo
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by Boggo »

greg wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 10:53 pm How about stat blocks? Is there anything in the stat blocks we need to tag as SRD text?
if it matches the SRD (which is very unlikely since the combat mechanics are quite differently handled) most of the things in the stat blocks are also mechanics and therefore uncopyrightable, however it's still worth giving them an eye over to make sure nothing too close is there
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by greg »

The ability score abbreviations are in the SRD.
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by Boggo »

greg wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:08 pm The ability score abbreviations are in the SRD.
and are prior art they all pre-date, came from Wargaming where the original iteration of that game came from
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by Solomoriah »

Being in the SRD does not disqualify them. The abbreviations are older than that, and besides are likely considered "obvious." We won't be touching them at present.
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greg
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by greg »

Maybe I should scrub through these threads and post a list of things that are in the SRD but aren't unique to the SRD.
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by Boggo »

Solomoriah wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:14 pm Being in the SRD does not disqualify them. The abbreviations are older than that, and besides are likely considered "obvious." We won't be touching them at present.
this!

I can literally go to my bookshelf and get games printed pre-1974 with those abbreviations in them from multiple publishers
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by Warlock »

Just registered to throw my two cents in. I have always favored CC-BY-SA over OGL, so I'm excited by this news! IANAL, however it's possible explicitly excluding the former Product Identity from the license statement would be sufficient, but I think it would be nice to have CC licensed artwork if possible. The name, Dragon Logo, Eye, etc. would most likely be suited for trademarks which opens up new legal options. Trademarks in open source aren't unheard of (see Linux). I'm a little wary of newly written licenses attempting to replace the entire functionality of the OGL, and hope you'll take the simplest viable option.
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knghtbrd
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by knghtbrd »

Rutibex wrote: Sat Jan 07, 2023 6:21 pm I'm glad to hear this! I was in the process of putting together a creative commons D&D, but seeing as thats the plan here I'm just going to contribute to this project. We all deserve a truly open D&D!
I had the same idea. Specifically my last game was very informal (NO rule book) and I have owned nor even opened the cover of a 5E book. My last D&D books were 2E, early 90s, my mommy bought them, and I haven't had them in over three decades. So I figured if you give me a summary of something in the 5E SRD, that should satisfy any reasonable expectation of a clean room recreation.

But y'know what? Hasbro can't revoke the OGL 1.0(a). THEY said so themselves. I still want that 5E drop-in compatibility because Cynthia Williams and Chris Cocks can jump in a gelatinous cube. But with less of a pressing need to create a drop-in 5E immediately, I'd rather join this effort to completely extricate an existing project like this one from Hasbro.

I do know a little bit about Copyright from my history with Debian, and the Soviet Union still existed when I played my first fantasy RPG. I also have skills with development tools, at least a little web development. I'm no artist or anything on that score, but I can pound out a document and I've gotten surprisingly good at (re)writing CSS, mostly to add dark mode to sites that accidentally don't have it built in. *glares* 😉

I'm a bit late on this, so I hope I don't retread too much ground in this thread.

coureur_d_bois wrote: Sat Jan 07, 2023 5:33 pm
artikid wrote: Sat Jan 07, 2023 2:52 pm :
AC = Defence
HD= Fight Dice
:
I would try to keep the original acronyms as they are what everyone uses and what might ensure compatibility with other OSR systems and legacy material of the original game.

AC = Armor Category
HD = Health Dice
HP = Health Points
etc.

Also, I am pretty sure we are safe with much of the existing terminology since it was used in wargaming prior to the publication of the original game. Moreover, some OSR games that never included the OGL (i.e. Worlds Without Numbers) still use much of the terminology associated with the original game like Armor Class, Classes, Hit Dice, Morale, etc.
The enemies of Copyright are generality and generation, effectively: Facts, formulas, processes, and that which is too widely used/generalized to be "ownable" just can't be Copyrighted. The words used to express them can, though. How many of these terms exist widely outside of D&D? Many of them, at least. As such they needn't be changed for the sake of changing them.

In fact, a mechanical search/replace is more likely to be seen as evidence of infringement than a clear effort not to infringe a Copyright. It's really the arbitrary stuff you've gotta worry about. I remember the XP tables when I was a kid … they looked like someone pulled them out of their Highlander dimensional sword pocket. Probably because they did. THOSE would be easy to Copyright. Whereas the modern bonus/malus table for attribute modifiers is purely the result of a formula and we can copy it with impunity.
greg wrote: Fri Jan 13, 2023 11:16 pm Maybe I should scrub through these threads and post a list of things that are in the SRD but aren't unique to the SRD.
If you've not done this Greg, please do! You'd save me a ton of work as above if I decide to gently appropriate BFRPG later as the basis of a deliberately 5E-interchangeable edition (assuming that work is really needed), at least! And it might be useful if Hasbro ever decides to get real stupid and argue they can actually own those things.
Boggo wrote: Sat Jan 07, 2023 10:18 pm I'm pretty sure they can't do anything about spells using actual English words as names, like Sleep, Slow, Fireball etc, technically Polymorph would also be safe, though I would expect that to be on much shakier ground as, though it's a real world it's uncommon enough they could claim it's use as a magic spell is original.
Polymorph is fine. In fact in terms of names of spells, you probably only need to worry about things that contain names. I seem to recall a nerdy-ass voice actor using a spell called Bigby's Hand some years ago… That sounds like Copyrightable lore. Say you wished to implement this spell. If you call it Hand of Helping and rewrite the spell metrics from a basic description, the spell would play the same (which is what matters) but its precise duration, range, appearance, and capabilities might have some variance. I might describe this Hand of Helping as appearing as a white hand, but surrounded by a sort of blackness the eye perceives as kind of a "glow" rather than a smoke, shadow, or mist.

(Thank you Mr. Mouse Cursor for providing the above description.)

Solomoriah wrote: Sat Jan 07, 2023 7:12 pm Curiously, changing the license will free me from Clause 7, and I'll be able to call "their" game by name. But after all this time I'm not sure I'll ever be comfortable doing that.
Trademark usage laws apply, but you could have a short blurb in the intro talking about the history of role playing games deriving from wargaming, with D&D created by Gary Gygax/Dave Arneson being the first formalized rules to be widely circulated. If you want to irritate someone, describe these as useful guidelines, but note that Gary and other legends of the genre like Tracy Hickman have been quoted saying that you never needed any specific book to play.

If you really want to dump a salt basin into WotC's self-inflicted wounds, thank several people by name—former WotC employees—for releasing a set of (unspecified) RPG rules as open source to ensure that no corporation would be able to monopolize the genre and stifle the boundless potential of players and creators to the great benefit of community and corporation alike. And Never Mention WotC Even Once. 😈

As I said, I funnly support excising WotC from BFRPG and from the independent gaming community, but the fact is that I do know that WotC/Hasbro risks losing much of their ownership rights to D&D if they go after anyone for continuing to use the SRD documents published under the OGL 1.0(a). If they can FUD people into accepting new terms or scare people into making a mistake excising their property from the community, they will. "You can always try," says the DM.

But if they go after any of us, the rest will join the defense and start pulling out all the stuff showing not only that they said they couldn't remove or relicense the SRDs under onerous terms, but that the contents of the SRDs weren't even all that novel to begin with. And if they didn't think so before, they've gotta be thinking it now. They're slimy, not stupid. And I suspect it'll take the community less than a year to so completely excise the BBEG from our games that even, "You can always try," will be lost to them.

(I may have strong opinions about companies trying to steal open-source stuff…)
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