The ORC Alliance Grows

Steve Geddes wrote:

Yeah - I expect “compatibility licenses” will still be a thing.

Like you could release things using just the OGL but had to euphemistically refer to “the worlds oldest roleplaying game” - the OGL specifically rules out “compatible with <trademark>” unless you utilise a further, separate license.

Wizards had the d20 license which imposed further restrictions.
Paizo has the Pathfinder Compatibility license.

(I never read it, but I think this was technically what the GSL was for 4th edition - you could still release 4E compatible products using just the OGL, you just couldn’t say that).

You could with 4e, but only because of being able to hack together material from the 3.5 SRD with uncopyrightable rules elements.

You can use rules elements from 4E which arent in the 3.5 SRD precisely because they arent copyrightable..

Since it's pretty clear that the entire point of this OGL update is to kill their competition, and ensure another Paizo never rises from the ashes of their own mistakes again, why WOULDN'T they abuse that part of the license to stifle competition?

Agreed on everything, but just an ironic side note on this part. The funny thing is that it's this exact same behavior that in part gave rise to Paizo in the first place. For 4th Ed WotC switched to a more restrictive license, and in its' first draft tried to make it so anyone who used it couldn't use the OGL anymore. That part was eventually dropped, but the damage was done, companies fled from WotC and their new GSL, and Paizo created Pathfinder so they could have a currently supported game to write material for. Now once again WotC is going to a new edition (although I suspect one that'll be better received than 4th), and once again are trying to introduce a more restrictive license and again make it so anyone who uses it can't use the OGL 1.0a. And once again companies are fleeing, and creating their own open systems to continue doing what they have been, in this case Kobold and MCDM, previously Paizo.

You'd have thought they'd have learned their lesson from 15 years ago. But they have not. This time it's even worse. They're still trying to put that OGL genie back in the bottle, but it was designed specifically so they couldn't.

You'd have thought they'd have learned their lesson from 15 years ago. But they have not. This time it's even worse. They're still trying to put that OGL genie back in the bottle, but it was designed specifically so they couldn't.

I think the lesson they learned was to burn down the previous edition so their rivals couldn't use it to publish their own content and compete for the customer base.

Doktor Weasel wrote:

You'd have thought they'd have learned their lesson from 15 years ago. But they have not. This time it's even worse. They're still trying to put that OGL genie back in the bottle, but it was designed specifically so they couldn't.

I think the lesson they learned was to burn down the previous edition so their rivals couldn't use it to publish their own content and compete for the customer base.

Basically. There's a decent argument that the OGL was a bad business decision in the first place, but the attempts to kill it have been self-destructive.

They'd probably do better by just forgetting it and not having any kind of open licensing for new editions, while not trying to control stuff based on the old SRDs.

I had to go back and reverse-engineer where i got that from. You're correct that it's not in the current OGL, it's part of Paizo's compatibility license.

Quote:

4. Usage Restrictions

The license granted hereunder is expressly limited to use of the Compatibility Logo and Font in printed books, electronic books, and freely available websites that are compatible with Pathfinder Second Edition. Anyone seeking a license for any other use should contact Paizo at licensing@paizo.com.

You may not use the Compatibility Logo or Font in a way that suggests Paizo owns, endorses, or is in any way responsible for any part of your Product, or for any conduct of your business, or that suggests that you have any relationship beyond a mere license with us, unless we have a separate agreement that lets you do so. You also may not state or suggest that we guarantee your Product's compatibility with Pathfinder Second Edition.

The titles of your Products may not include any Paizo trademarked terms (or marks confusingly similar thereto), including "Pathfinder," "Pathfinder Second Edition," or "Pathfinder Roleplaying Game."

You may not use Paizo's trade dress for your Products or advertisements—that is, you may not design your Products or advertisements to look confusingly similar to Paizo's products or advertisements.

You may not do anything illegal in or with your Products.

You must use your best efforts to preserve the high standard of our trademarks. You may not use this License for material that the general public would classify as "adult content," offensive, or inappropriate for minors.

You may not release any Products under this License until August 1, 2019 (the release date for Pathfinder Second Edition).

I also like the wording on this better than WotC's. You must make your best effort, so trying and screwing up isn't grounds for termination, intent is important. One example I'm thinking of was some of the concept art for PF2, showing Orcs with very gorilla like features, such as knuckle walking. This was apparently intended to be a way to make PF's style unique, like they did with Goblins and Ogres in Rise of the Runelords and Kobolds in the new edition. But it was brought up that it was kind of getting into Unfortunate Implications territory with all the racial baggage around orcs and the history of depicting other races as more like apes, so was scrapped. So I'd say if that wasn't caught and scrapped, it wouldn't be a violation. It'd be an embarrassment and probably get an apology and ceasing to use the style when it was called out later, but the intent wasn't malicious, so wouldn't result in a license termination.

I also like how instead of making Paizo the sole arbiter of what is offensive, it defines it as what "the general public would classify as "adult content," offensive or inappropriate for minors." Which makes it so it's not as easy to use as a loophole to terminate a company's license unless they actually did intentionally do some awful stuff (like the case with Star Frontiers, which is being used as the justification for this clause).

So I'd hope any morality clause in the ORC would be more like the one in the Pathfinder Compatibility License and not the WotC one. But I'm not sure it really should have a restriction on Adult Content. That's fair to not want associated with the Pathfinder brand, but having an actual open license I think should be open for exploring more mature themes (Paizo of course leaned into this a bit early on). So would probably be more appropriate to be left to the individual companies and their brand licensing.

Tangentially, it is a little sad to see a game that early on cut its teeth on edgier, more sex-positive content now being so cautious towards anything risque. I get that Paizo won't publish it officially, but I wish we could see some 3PP R-rated content delving more into gods like Calistria and Nocticula.

Anyways, yeah, there shouldn't be anything about Adult Content in the ORC. That would make me just miserable. It would completely freeze out a ton of creators and force an artificial "family-friendly" label on basically all TTRPG publications (outside of Creative Commons stuff like PBTA).

Open letter:

Dear Erik,

I saw you on Roll for Combat today. Thank you for taking what was quite a lot of time to keep us up to date with the progress! I was excited to see many including Mongoose Publishing, Necromancer games, and of course Paizo taking part in this effort.

I am writing because I am a recently retired software engineer (Apple) and have been looking at what I would like to do for the next few decades. One thing that strongly appeals is to write digital tools for my favorite TTRPGs. These might be things like digital character sheets or random encounter + treasure generators for the iOS store.

As I look into this — the current kerfuffle could not be a better education! — I find that in an effort to protect their core IP from competitors, many game developers have walled off enough of the specifically valuable parts of their games that it is quite difficult to produce quality digital tools. For example, if I want to write a character sheet for a 5e wizard, I am only licensed by the SRD to assist the user if their character belongs to the evoker subclass, and not any of the others. Obviously, this would be quite a disappointment to most players, especially once they realize they can not advance beyond level three! If we wall off the specifically recognizable and maybe even trademark-able parts of the game from the digital character sheet, we in a specifically targeted manner damage the player experience.

(I do not dispute the authors’ right to do this. I am just questioning the state of the art that drives them to hobble their own creation in this way.)

Some digital character sheets work around this problem by having an independently downloaded library of additional content produced with months or years of effort by shady individuals / devoted fans. However, this does not ensure that the original content producer is properly paid, or the content is accurate or complete or is current with errata. Finding and installing such hacks is dreadful user experience! Few have the chops. The hacks do not well present the game.

We should do all we can to ensure the game is properly paid for and licensed. What we have here is an unsolved interoperability barrier between the game design world and the software world. I may be premature, but I feel that even many Grognards have come to see the value in computers for TTRPG play. It may be time.

Perhaps in your effort to provide an open game licensing agreement, you might find additional value if it also provided an optional means to ensure that content can be used legally by players’ third party digital tools. For example, in addition to buying traditional OSE content on DriveThruRPG, could not one also purchase a XML file with the copyrighted content suitably categorized for use in a third party digital tool, thereby allowing the digital tool to be published without violating copyright, and the user to use the tool to enhance the TTRPG experience legally, to the benefit of all involved.

Toward this end, I’ve identified a few items that could be considered to be included the ORC effort that might help:

Add licensing language specifically for “deep reader” apps to allow them to escape legal difficulties from simply presenting paid content in useful ways. To illustrate, consider a slippery slope argument starting with a PDF reader or web browser. You publish your game design as PDF or HTML. The reader draws it on the screen or the page. However, it adds its own value added features that would not be present on the bound work. It is now searchable. It can be reformatted to be printed bigger or smaller. Maybe it can be repaginated or the text flow differently around a graphic pasted on the page width. It can be annotated. I possibly could even write my own PDF reader and sell it for $5 without triggering complaint from the game author for copyright violation, even though from one perspective my product has clearly republished his work for personal profit. However, continuing to advance down our slippery slope, there could be a complaint if my PDF reader also learns to roll virtual dice where it detects something with the form “6d6+12” in the text, or draw magic missile animations in the margins on pages where those words appear. Inching further, suppose it scrapes the PDF content and through some AI or clever heuristics makes the included embedded character sheet automatically calculate ability bonuses or perhaps add a pop up menu for each empty spell book line to populate it with known spell names and descriptions found later in the document. At some point, we must ask how different is all this from a digital character sheet? Why is it permissible for a PDF reader to dully and unimaginatively reproduce static work as such, but it is impermissible for a smart reader to add value? Does a musical artist litigate the maker of an amp with a digital equalizer?

As a software designer, I find these cutoffs confusing and completely arbitrary. The gaming world’s inability to reach consensus or even well describe what is permissible and what is not makes it impossible to make good tools for fear of expensive legal consequence. I would even go so far as to suggest this is why we have never had really good character sheet apps (outside of specifically licensed games and VTT apps), even though this is clearly to the benefit of player and indie game publisher alike. The ORC would benefit from some well thought out rules as to what a “deep reader” app for game content can do without threat of legal sanction.

Along these lines, if ORC specifies a game description file format (e.g. XML with some suggested tags) that the game SRD can use, defining a loosely structured file containing descriptions and quantities associated with equipment, classes, spells, and other discrete items that the player might need, this would save the game community months or years of legally questionable work duplicating the content for use with their favorite tool. Note that I am not suggesting a fully architected file format that drives a computer game. To escape copyright, what we minimally need is just a file containing a list of copyrighted text snippets that it is permitted to use and maybe some associated numerical values for various game elements (e.g. “to hit bonus” = +1) indexed by appropriate keywords (“name” = “long sword”.) that the player can call on to void typing in game content when they need it. One such file format is here: see https://github.com/kinkofer/FightClub5eXML collections, but something like XML would suffice just as well and there are good tools available for that.

Finally, if there was a store where such files could be sold, maybe with a scheme to enable tools writers to securely and privately respect and support game authors’ rights to profit off their work, it may be that such an additional revenue source would drive interest in widespread use of the ORC simply beyond the desire to do the right thing.

It’s well past time the game world and the software world had a rapproachement. I hope you will use this opportunity to do just that.

I honestly think a morality clause for a creative project is always a bad idea.

The ORC won't be paizo owned and it's not meant to control content.

It should be the market that decides what sells and what doesn't.

Rather all you would need is a rating system that given the context of the work, determines it's rating. Similar to movies. Maybe don't have the 8 year old play this system/adventure whose lore/plot revolves around these unsavory elements.

But all a morality clause does is stifle creative ventures. No that doesn't mean I personally want to play a ttrpg all about slavery and bigotry. But you be damned sure I'd fight for someone's right to play it.

Heck one of my most compelling story moments in my campaign were my players freeing a group from slavery.

A morality clause would kill that soley because some people don't want to touch it, and I think it's fair if they don't, but they shouldn't have the right to silence it either.

I honestly think the truly bombastic fear mongering examples people like to give... Well, I've never seen them, and don't know of anyone that would want to play it. It would be a small market. Most people would not talk about it or say how there unsavory content.

The market would sort itself out.

I am admittedly a writer, so to see people so eager to silence others is concerning.

It's not viable for me at this time to spend thousands on all the companies fighting for this, but I'm still posting as a show of solidarity and support. ✊

I also like the wording on this better than WotC's. You must make your best effort, so trying and screwing up isn't grounds for termination, intent is important. One example I'm thinking of was some of the concept art for PF2, showing Orcs with very gorilla like features, such as knuckle walking. This was apparently intended to be a way to make PF's style unique, like they did with Goblins and Ogres in Rise of the Runelords and Kobolds in the new edition. But it was brought up that it was kind of getting into Unfortunate Implications territory with all the racial baggage around orcs and the history of depicting other races as more like apes, so was scrapped. So I'd say if that wasn't caught and scrapped, it wouldn't be a violation. It'd be an embarrassment and probably get an apology and ceasing to use the style when it was called out later, but the intent wasn't malicious, so wouldn't result in a license termination.

I also like how instead of making Paizo the sole arbiter of what is offensive, it defines it as what "the general public would classify as "adult content," offensive or inappropriate for minors." Which makes it so it's not as easy to use as a loophole to terminate a company's license unless they actually did intentionally do some awful stuff (like the case with Star Frontiers, which is being used as the justification for this clause).

So I'd hope any morality clause in the ORC would be more like the one in the Pathfinder Compatibility License and not the WotC one. But I'm not sure it really should have a restriction on Adult Content. That's fair to not want associated with the Pathfinder brand, but having an actual open license I think should be open for exploring more mature themes (Paizo of course leaned into this a bit early on). So would probably be more appropriate to be left to the individual companies and their brand licensing.

I think any "adult content" or "morality" questions should be left to specific brand licenses. The ORC should emulate the old OGL in being content neutral - releasing rules elements to be used as anyone sees fit. If you want to use another company's logo or brand your product as "Pathfinder compatible", that's where you need to match their moral standards.

Pink orcs against the bomb!

I am writing because I am a recently retired software engineer (Apple) and have been looking at what I would like to do for the next few decades. One thing that strongly appeals is to write digital tools for my favorite TTRPGs. These might be things like digital character sheets or random encounter + treasure generators for the iOS store.

Just a little suggestion. I would suggest thinking about making a spellbook. I don't know anything about the state of PF2 support apps on iOS, but on android, there's basically only one and it's abandoned and hopelessly outdated (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fyjham_ts.pathfinder_2e_ spell_db&gl=US). [Ok, there's at least one more, but it's unfinished and even older, from the authors of the 5e's below]

Martialmasters wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

I think you could have fit one or two more buzzwords in there, if you'd really tried. They just don't put effort into bait like they used to.

Still, every one of these posts does push me more towards wanting the wokest possible morality clause we can come up with.

Wouldn't make it open anymore imo.

I do agree with your previous point however, let morality clause and such exist when you want something to be stated as "pathfinder compatible" as per your example. Then you have to match the companies values.

As I said, that's my basic inclination, but then someone comes along ranting about the dangers of diversity and inclusion and I'm just "Nope, mandate queerness."

This feels like emotions taking over reasoning and it's something I've never been able to master. People have told me it's because of my autism that I tend to try to look at everything more logically and detached.

I think those people you mention might need a swift kick somewhere. But to me they are not worth compromising the license over.

I think that’s just a lack of emotional maturity.

It's not viable for me at this time to spend thousands on all the companies fighting for this, but I'm still posting as a show of solidarity and support. ✊

I think there's a Humble Bundle happening.

Correct, it's got some Kobold Press titles, Frog God, and Castles & Crusades.

I removed several posts that violated community guidelines, as well as the threads that spawned from them.

Please read through the Community Guidelines prior to posting and err on the side of caution and being awesome to one another if you have any doubts.

-Jim

I honestly think the truly bombastic fear mongering examples people like to give... Well, I've never seen them, and don't know of anyone that would want to play it. It would be a small market. Most people would not talk about it or say how there unsavory content.

The market would sort itself out.

I am admittedly a writer, so to see people so eager to silence others is concerning.

The big examples I can think of would be dreck like FATAL or that leak of Star Frontiers: New Genesis with racism inserted. FATAL was a flop, and is only remembered due to it's extreme terribleness being unintentionally hilarious. So this being a good example of your point about the market sorting it out. And the Star Frontiers thing is more a copyright issue. But the later does point to why companies would likely want something like this in their brand compatibility license, as having that associated with your brand would be problematic. But in the ORC itself, it's not really necessary. That someone is using an open license doesn't really reflect on anyone else the way associating things with their brand does. Especially since the ORC won't be owned by a specific company.

I do not think they ORC should have any morality clause. Firstly, morality changes over time. Secondly, there are several major political divisions over such topics and it will absolutely occur to some people to twist every rule they can to silence anyone on the other side. Any tool provided for legitimate purposes can be twisted used for evil. No matter how well meaning the authors of any such morality clause, who ever comes after will eventually be less well meaning.

So I think it's best to leave the ORC out of such issues. Let the politicians handle it without giving them any reason to drag the ORC into the debate. That would inevitably marr what the ORC stands for.

Frankly, a morality clause could be fine, as long as it's not vague as hell, something that is frequently reviewed/revised and is not intended to be used as a weapon to score points.
Unfortunately they require a lot of trust on the part of the signer/user.

I find it very unlikely the ORC would have a morality clause. What nonprofit organization would want to be in charge of it if they had to police the content of over 1500 publishers? It's a costly and logistical nightmare. It's much more likely each company under ORC will have some way to protect their IP and trademark identity as they see fit.

This is a very good point.

Frankly, a morality clause could be fine, as long as it's not vague as hell, something that is frequently reviewed/revised and is not intended to be used as a weapon to score points.

Unfortunately they require a lot of trust on the part of the signer/user.

If it can be frequently revised, how does that work with an irrevocable license? If it can be revised, it can be changed to block things we don't want blocked.

I'll fully admit a lack of knowledge here.
You can't make minor wording changes without revocation?

EDIT: Yeah ok, just thought what a pain in the ass it would be to have to update all your printed products that had it included.
never mind :)

The problem is, who decides what kind of wording change is "minor"? It's the exact same problem. If a wording change can influence whether or not a work gets shut down, it's not minor, and why else would you change the wording at all?

The problem is, who decides what kind of wording change is "minor"? It's the exact same problem.

True.

I do not think they ORC should have any morality clause. Firstly, morality changes over time. Secondly, there are several major political divisions over such topics and it will absolutely occur to some people to twist every rule they can to silence anyone on the other side. Any tool provided for legitimate purposes can be twisted used for evil. No matter how well meaning the authors of any such morality clause, who ever comes after will eventually be less well meaning.

So I think it's best to leave the ORC out of such issues. Let the politicians handle it without giving them any reason to drag the ORC into the debate. That would inevitably marr what the ORC stands for.

Something I like to bring up whenever people advocate for these kinds of restrictions is that a lot of people see trans characters as inherently family-unfriendly and queer representation as inherently politically hostile. Those people are awful, to be clear, and don't have any kind of remotely valid point of view, but a "morality clause" is a tool they could use.

The state of West Virginia is actively trying to pass a law that would essentially ban trans people from being around children, classifying it as, from what I've read, a form of abuse. If the ORC implements a Pathfinder License-style "no publishing anything the general public would consider inappropriate for kids", well, guess who West Virginia conservatives want to classify as inappropriate for kids?

The problem is, who decides what kind of wording change is "minor"? It's the exact same problem. If a wording change can influence whether or not a work gets shut down, it's not minor, and why else would you change the wording at all?

There's only one not-bad way to handle it, and I say not-bad rather than good. Basically, you spread the authority to make changes across the various companies still using it, giving all a say and requiring majority support. It also shouldn't change existing materials, but if it did, each license printing would include a website or something similar where the mist recent version could be found, thus hopefully avoiding recalls just to reprint.

I don't think we should allow such changes, but if we did, that's the way it should happen, distributed authority rather than a single master company.

Actually, that might be a good idea for avoiding having a single owning company, instead give one share of ownership to each company. There would need to be a few restrictions to avoid things like 6 companies being owned by one company, but something to that effect of distributed ownership of the license.

In that situation, just make a new license. People who want to switch over can.

In that situation, just make a new license. People who want to switch over can.

That rather defeats the purpose of the license and also interferes with the unity of the community, even if that is a purely social rather than legal issue, it's still a valid concern.

The point of the license is that it can't change. "Just make a different license" is how the OGl was supposed to work. You can't force people onto a license by majority rule. It has to be unanimous to begin with.

The point of the license is that it can't change. "Just make a different license" is how the OGl was supposed to work. You can't force people onto a license by majority rule. It has to be unanimous to begin with.

Which is why I didn't call it a good idea. But there is also sort of sameness that comes from using the same license, in addition to working as a rally for the community, which is why I can understand someone wanting to just make a needed change rather than just making a new license, turning the ORC into a sort of living document akin to the US constitution.

Laws are built-in morality clauses. The ORC should steer clear of that.

It is not the place of companies to decide what is moral and what is not.

Companies have a responsibility to make money.

They should not also have the responsibility to manage the social order.

And I feel even this here post of mine is getting too close to RL politics.

Let's celebrate, ORC-style.

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

The point of the license is that it can't change. "Just make a different license" is how the OGl was supposed to work. You can't force people onto a license by majority rule. It has to be unanimous to begin with.

Which is why I didn't call it a good idea. But there is also sort of sameness that comes from using the same license, in addition to working as a rally for the community, which is why I can understand someone wanting to just make a needed change rather than just making a new license, turning the ORC into a sort of living document akin to the US constitution.

I call it versioning.

And being extra clear that it does not void the past versions.

I trust the ORC's participants and their legal counsels to find the best way to word it.

I am beginning to feel thankful to WotC for their Gargantuan blunder. Because the consequences such as the ORC, the horde that assembles under its banner and the blow to the overwhelming dominance of 5e feel awesome.

Thanks to them, we are building the future of our beloved hobby right now.

Yeah, the whole idea of a morality cause is pretty political. For that matter, so is the whole idea of the ORC! :P

It's good to see that others recognize the inherent problem with including such a clause. I very much look forward to seeing the initial draft in February, and hope for the best license to serve the entire gaming community.

I do think a morality clause would be a bad (and hard to enforce) idea.
Morality is so subjective and so dependent on culture, country (in the US even in states…) and local law.

What is considered moral and legal in West Virginia would be considered illegal in more developed countries (and vice versa). And then I am not even talking about what constitutes morality in countries like Qatar. Let’s please stay away from “morality” in the ORC.

Yeah, the whole idea of a morality cause is pretty political. For that matter, so is the whole idea of the ORC! :P

If the ORC is political, then I'm voting to have the ORC replace my senator.

How can Anderson Morgan Gaming Join the ORC. Most we just streamed live on Facebook. First with 3.5 then Pathfinder. At one time I am just under an million subscribers. We did the you could make money streaming Dnd online. I had most high school and collage females. But they liked white wolf better. We had 7 to 13 players. Because are adventure path was written for 3.5 but after my art team moved or got busy, I have dm at gencon with both 4th and p1 st.