> Steve Wieck
>
> Why is it unreasonable to expect another OG publisher to buy CC
> in order to
> reference the monster stats for use in their own book (not that
> we won't all
> be swapping product anyway)? Or even why is it unreasonable to desire fans
> to buy the book to use the monsters rather than pull them off a
> website for
> free.
It isn't per-se, but it is nearly meaningless in the larger scheme of
things. If you sell one book to a guy who wants your OGC, that is one sale.
If that guy then uses your new monster abilities in his own book and sells
10,000 copies, you don't get a penny whether he bought the book or not.
That's OGL. That one copy is a drop in the bucket.
I think what you did in the CC is perfectly reasonable (keeping the names &
descriptions private), but you have to let go of the idea that you have any
influence at all regarding how somebody else should use or acquire OGC you
produce. Worrying over it will only cause you heartburn and make your hair
fall out.
> To DM's point, yes it will happen, and yes any sane OG publishers had best
> be prepared for it, but my issue is why would I ACTIVELY support websites
> that seek to do this? By extension, why would other OG publishers actively
> support it or go about creating such a site themselves?
For the same reason that WotC does it - to support your core products. Some
products don't fall into this category, but for those that do it makes
sense. Creature Catalog is a fine example where most of the OGC is tied to
a commercial product so tightly that it cannot be separated in a useful
fashion. Therefore, anybody who wants to use the names of monsters is going
to be contacting WW/S&S for permission and you can use that to create an
opportunity to drive sales of your book (by requiring the use of a specific
phrase, or demanding advertising space in a product that uses your monster
names, or whatever).
However, you can still produce OGC only material that will drive the sales
of the CC. Cull out the new rules in the back of the book and post them for
download on your web site. Then post a teaser creature or a combat
narrative with one of your new creatures using one of these new abilities on
your site (which is still copyrighted by WW/S&S) and it could easily inspire
players to go buy your book to find the creatures that use those rules.
Since you have no control over how this material is used anyway, lose
nothing by giving it away, and it becomes a very cheap marketing ploy.
For those products in which the OGC inside them won't drive sales of that or
other products, there is little to be gained by producing an OGC-only
reference for that product.
-Brad
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