From: "Weldon Dodd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> kevin kenan wrote:
> > > The benefit of keeping a world closed is in maintaining a coherent
> > > geography, politcal situation, racial make-up, history, etc....
> >
> > Right, but is that benefit more valuable to the users? It seems to me
> > that the right to use, copy, modify and distribute the material is
> > more valuable to users than the benefit of a single, consistent
> > storyline that can not be modified and shared.
> Which users are you talking about? If we're talking about end-users
> in the sense of DM's that are running adventures in the setting,
> then the closed world might be better in terms of the
> self-consistency and coherency of the materials.
This is not excluded by making the setting open. If someone wants a
single, consistent storyline then he can choose to always use
"Maggie's Distribution" or whichever one he prefers.
> If you're talking about d20 authors, then the open content is
> obviously valuable to the author who wants to add some more flavor
> or detail to his materials by drawing from open content.
Right.
The only group of users who might think an open setting is less
valuable is the group who would otherwise control it. The reasoning
seems to be based purely on profit motives (not that this is a bad
thing): if the setting were open, then people would be less likely to
buy material produced by the owners since the owners would have to
compete with everyone else.
-kenan
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For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org
