"Brian C. Robinson" wrote:
>
> On Tue, 31 Oct 2000, lizard wrote:
>
> > What must be avoided, though, is any sort of
> > pre-publication 'approval' process, or any content-based restrictions
> > (no sex, no violence, no nazis, no making fun of Bill Gates...) beyond
> > the mechanics-based ones already stated.
> >
> Has anyone thought about what WotC's reaction would be to a game
> using the D20 license that was in poor taste? Something like a game where
> you play Nazis during WWII and have to run a concentration camp or
> something that would be equally controversial? Would WotC make any moves
> to protect their investment in their trademark so that it would not get
> associated with this type of book?
This issue came up many times during early discussion of the OGL. At
present, the answer seems to be "We can't really stop someone from doing
that, but the market in general won't support it and we'd probably give
it far more attention by trying to stop it." After all, WOTC hasn't been
able to shut down things like "The Net Guide To Unlawful Carnal
Knowledge" and the like. Part of the 'price' of open source is accepting
the fact people will do Bad Things with your work. There's plenty of
people using Linux to power web sites which promulgate ideas Linus
Torvalds disagrees with. So it goes.
By the same token, there are DOOM and Quake mods produced by sick-minded
racists (isn't that redundant?) where you shoot African-Americans, Jews,
etc. No one has tried to blame such things on Id. It would be like
blaming Microsoft if someone wrote a racist tract using Microsoft Word.
The inclusion of any content-based restriction in the D20 STL would be
folly. For one thing, they're always too vague. One person's
"exploration of ethnic conflicts in a fantasy setting" is another
person's "racist propaganda". One person's "good clean fun" is another
person's "sexist exploitation". TSR went that route during the No
Nipples days, and it cost them respect. I don't think WOTC will repeat
that mistake -- especially when they can now take a somewhat high road
and leave the 'dark' settings (Like Scarred Lands) to other publishers.
