>>From: "Justin Bacon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> >>Sword & Sorcery Studios, to me, was the epitome of a company acting within >>the letter of the OGL but not the spirit of the open gaming community. >> >>Their PI zealousness is absurd, and too many people have taken their cue >>from them. (Which isn't to say that none of their PI is legitimate. >>"Mithril Golem", for example, is a perfectly legitimate piece of PI. But > >Lets not be an ass and rip them up too badly based on one of their first >products. When the CC I was released (the volume you are quoting) there >was a tremendous amount of uncertainty about the OGL and its uses. Their >follow on "Relics & Rituals" is a treasure of open content, clearly >labelled, with almost no strings attached. > >You seem to be speaking from a *very* uninformed standpoint on several >issues here. I would not overly criticize a very early adopter from > >trying to err on the conservative side.
May I make one point here... these products are in chronological order by release date: Creature Collection I - quite closed. One of my "useless OGC" examples. Relics & Rituals - Not quite as open as I would like, but usable. One of my "useful OGC" examples. Creature Collection II - published with exactly the same restrictions as CCI. In other words, this did NOT follow the precedent set by R&R but instead returned to the the "useless OGC" format. Mithril, City of the Golem - crippled OGC. OTHER PRODUCTS (NOT SURE OF CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER) PUBLISHED UNDER THE SSS BANNER: To Stand on Hallowed Ground (Swords Against Deception, The Ghost Machine(this was from their Fiery Dragon Subsidiary)) - crippled OGC. W1 - Crucible of Freya - crippled. R1, R2 - Rappan Athuk (from Necromancer Games Subsidiary) - crippled. L1 - Demons and Devils (Necromancer subsidiary) - crippled. Nature's Fury (Fiery Dragon subsidiary) - crippled. Ghelspad Gazetteer - not published under the OGL and hence not useful for our discussion. I was quite looking forward to CCII based on the license in R&R. When I got the CCII and looked at *its* license, well, I was VERY disappointed. It seemed to me like a company going in retrograde. If we can't judge them on CC only, we also can't judge them on R&R only. We have to look at the whole spectrum - and since the pattern has not been to continue with a liberal release of OGC, I cannot in good conscience say that they are opening up more as time goes on. I want to point out that I like their products and I like their company - I think it's among the best out there. This is not to be an attack on Clarke. But I *do* take issue with the fact that R&R seems to have been a flash in the pan and we are now back to "crippled" OGC. I have listed most of their products above and of 10 products released under the OGL, 9 have been crippled. It seems to me that the aberration was NOT the Creature Collection but rather that R&R was the aberration. :-( If you're going to praise SSS for R&R, you have to be fair and condemn them for their other products. --The Sigil _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
