"Dungeon Master" is a trademark. Even if it was legitimatly included in the OGL, all that anyone else can do with it is use it as an in-game term; i.e., "see your Dungeon Master for more information." If "Dungeon Master" is PI, then we can't use it at all--but the closest thing to a PI declaration is in the d20Guide, and the most recent (3/4) version of it doesn't have the trademark 'Dungeon Master" included therin save for the explicit permission to refer to the "Dungeon Master's Guide."On the other hand, an obvious, accidental inclusion in one (or a handful) of places of a term that they are also clearly on record as saying would >not< be licensed as OGC gives them all the ammo they would need to prevail at court in an attempt to squash that material's use.
The ambiguity of being able to refer to the game's referee as "Dungeon Master" is rather irritating, and simple enough to fix for Wizards one way or another.
*sigh* Does anyone know who the current point-of-contact for questions like this is? Is Andy still at the job, or has he been shuffled away?
Remember: The point of the OGL is to reduce the threat of litigation toRyan, "Dungeon Master" is a game term. It's not clear to cause problems--and I doubt that there's a solid list of what is or isn't supposed to be OGC anywhere, or that can be constructed from WotC's public statements over the past four years.
the lowest point possible when using other people's game content.
Taking something from a document that has been demonstrably released in
error that you >know< is likely to cause you troubles and using it
anyway defeats the whole purpose of the OGL.
Still, the polite thing to do is ask in this kind of ambiguity--and the intelligent thing is to share the answer, such that Wizards isn't inundated with identical requests.
DM
_______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
