> korath > > I was thinking, if I were to reverse engineer a non-OGC class, race, > feat, spell, etc, down to it's basic components, and then rewrite it > using my own descriptions, would I have the Authority to Contribute this > re-engineered class under the Open Game Licence, even though it's not > entirely "original", and the only actual changes are descriptive in > nature ? Game mechanics cannot be copyrighted, so in theory this is possible. It isn't the game rules you have to worry about though, but the descriptive text. Lets say you wanted to copy D&D dwarves. You decide to rename them 'Shorts' in your game, and they have all the same game rules as dwarves. So far, so good. But once you start to fill in the descriptive text you may run into trouble. Do they live great fortresses underground, in hilly and mountainous regions? Are they fond of hearth and home? Do they love gold? Are they fine smiths? Do both men and women wear beards? These sort of details are outside of the scope of game rules, so they enjoy a higher level of protection under copyright law. You'll probably have a harder time re-engineering this sort of thing that you expect, depending on how much background material you put into these guys. Now, dwarves are actually a very bad example because they are not an original creation of D&D. There are plenty of public-domain sources for all the material I just mentioned. So long as you can find such a source as the foundation of your re-engineered class you'll be in pretty good shape, but be careful if you have a hard time finding historical/mythological references. You might take a clue from the Halfling class and compare it to Tokien Hobbits to see just how close you can get. Often you can get VERY close, but it is ultimately up to the original copyright holder to say when you've crossed the line. Then a judge gets to decide if you did. -Brad ------------- For more information, please link to www.opengamingfoundation.org
