<<
Just a note. I'm not talking about closing game rules. Those would
stay open. I'm talking about opening up the Product Identity 100% but
keeping it within a closed system.
>>
I've never been talking about game rules. I've been talking about the
ideas that get added to the collective setting materials.
Like others have said, it's contradictory.
If you want to open up the Product Identity 100% along the spirit of the
OGL, I should be able to copy, modify, and distribute that Product
Identity without having to become part of a group, or have limits to
what I can distribute.
The best bet is to have a license like the d20stl, that is voluntary to
use, but provides the limitations.
<<
For example, a group of people get together and brainstorm ideas for a
d20 compatable module. Those ideas belong to everyone in the group but
only for the usage of that group. Anyone may join that group. The d20
game rules stay open to the world, but the Product Identity is only open
for people who are willing to contribute through group effort. Thus,
game rules stay open and ideas stay open.
>>
If you want this, create a d20stl-like license that sets out these
guidelines, create a logo, and then require people to use the license if
they want their module to be connected to the network of <<setting>>
materials. Once this is established, make announcements that only those
modules that use the logo are considered by the <<setting>> community of
developers to be for the setting. Products that don't use the logo
cannot claim connection to the network of <<setting>> materials.
<<
I think some of you keep thinking that I want to put game rules under
quality control. I don't. Never did. I want to open product identity
within a controlled system for the purpose of world creation.
>>
I know that. For instance, I come across the world, and I don't really
like all the gods that have been created and "approved" for the
setting, I decide to create "Blob, the Ubergod", and in his history he
came across to a world (which happens to be your setting), and writeup a
massive battle in which Blob completly destroys all the other gods. I
then take this, publish it up, say it's for your setting. This is what
you don't want. What you would want is for someone to post it to the
mailing list for discussion (which more than likely it'll get turned
down, hey, it's changing your cosmology completly ;-).
Now, creating a <<setting>> license and specifying all the guidelines on
how you can use <<settings>> Product Identity, I can still publish
"Blob, the Ubergod", but because I can't say "Can be used with
<<setting>>", or I can't use other PI that others would recognize as
being for <<setting>>, it'd be hard for others to link this to your
setting, and it couldn't damage continuity.
Isn't this what you would want. Everything would still be open how you
want it, you'd just have a license declaring to anyone that they need to
do various things before they can use the logo.
I'm finding that we're both thinking the same thing, just expressing it
differently.
<<
IMO, that's even closer to the spirit of open gaming than the OGL for
_group_ world creation projects.
>>
Create a license, and logo, and establish that the setting is open. Let
the license tell others what they need to do in order to create
compatible materials for <<setting>>.
--
Korath
http://www.korath.com
"He was already dead, he died a year ago, the moment he touched her.
They're all dead, they just don't know it." --Eric Draven, The Crow
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For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org
