Rogers Cadenhead wrote:
> This spaghetti open/closed stuff
> still sounds like an effort to derive value from the open work of others without
> risking anything valuable of your own. I hope publishers will feel compelled to
> contribute as much to the community as they take out.
The OGL is also attractive because it allows authors to share their material with
other gamers without having it disintegrated by other OGL authors. Imagine that I
release a product set in my own fantasy setting, utilizing the OGL. If that whole
product becomes OGC and someone else then sets their product in the same setting, they
could decimate the work I'm doing for my own follow-up product as consumers mistake
one author's interpretation for another. I would rather see adventures indicate what
is and what is not OGC than see authors specify what products this adventure is and
isn't associating with. ("This adventure is set in Fantasyland, but for anything to
make sense you must ignore modules "X," "Y," and "Z" because they were written by
another person and do not agree with this product.")
I can appreciate the thrill authors *will* receive, however, to watch other
authors brainstorm with their material. This thrill, and the general climate of OGC
authors, should be what motivates authors to make as much of their product OGC as
possible. If an inability to control how much of an author's material stays that
author's material will keep certain authors from contributing at all, I think the
price is too high.
Ideally, most products will be more Open than Closed, I agree. Ideally, it should
be a decision the authors *choose* to make.
word,
Will
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