|It might well be that if you derive a work from the SRD (only)
|and then use
|the marks of one of Wizards' competitors in a manner which is
|unauthorized
|by the OGL, AND IT DOESN'T HURT Wizards, that they would have
|no interest in
|pursuing a breach of contract suit with your work. That has
|interesting
|implications for 'compatibility guides', doesn't it? If you
|want to go this
|route be sure you check with your lawyer first, I might be
|smoking crack.
|
|-Brad
Well now there is an interesting question isn't it. I'm going to use the biggest example that I can here. Say that you're Steve or Clark right? You've been looking at the SRD and have come up with some damn nifty ideas for how to convert from the White Wolf Storyteller system to a d20 game. I dunno why, say Mormo, Mother of Snakes has decided to spawn a new race and the best way to describe them would be a translation of the Setites.
So, in their infinite graciousness, WhiteWolf publishes the How to convert Setites to d20 rules, following the d20stl so they can use the shiney logo and making sure to keep Setite PI because they don't want to open up something like that for obvious reasons. The rules themselves are now OGC however.
Now I, being only a programmer and weekend DM take a look at these rules and go.. WOW. These can be expanded upon. So I use all that nifty OGC and create a way so that all my Aberant characters can get converted to d20. I take it all and publish it up on my own web site, leaving it all under the OGL alone because, heck I really don't want to bother and don't care if the d20 logo gets me more hits to my web site. Plus, my version has something to do with character creation while WhiteWolf was smart enough to avoid those phrases when they did their version. IE. My version reads, "Rather than rolling 3d6 like you to in..." Where as the WW just said: "The Charisma trait is a combination of the Charisma, Manipulation, and Appearance.." Blah blah blah.
Now, I'm already starting to walk the wire a little bit here because while WhiteWolf happens to own the ST system, I don't. I don't think they'd do anything to me because look at all the homebrewed Vampire games out there..but now I've taken their OGC and expanded on it (Kinda the point of the OGL actually, probably part of the reason why there were so few Skills in the player's handbook).
Next step, someone at Palladium (Just because they were mentioned recently) is surfing the web and comes across my web page. I did a really good job and he likes my work. They've been looking to get into the d20 market and think that this will go great in their newest book. A supers expansion for rifts (As if they needed it). This book holds all sort of great stuff, including some classes for rifts and their parallel d20 counterparts, something similar in terms of races, etc. Paladium has a little side dinky RPG project going (kinda like Sage.. ugh) so in appendix1 they put in conversions to that system. Appendix2 is stuff they lifted off of my web site and Appendix3 is the OGL itself.
Palladium may or may not be in trouble at this point.
1. If they put the d20 logo on it, the stuff from me has character generation stuff in it so they are in violation of the d20 STL.
2. Assuming they keep the d20 logo off it, the conversion is still a conversion to WW material. They have to be VERY careful about the wording. Under the OGL they are still fine though. There has been no breach of the OGL at all, but they have used WhiteWolf material without asking and will probably be getting a letter in the mail soon enough unless they were good and made very vague references to Aberrant. Which I don't see them capable of doing because on my Web Page I was kinda explicit about it being an Abberant conversion, you really have to since while I like the game alot, it's not instantly recognizable quite the way '3rd Edition' is.
That was fun.
-Bill
