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The book's price tag is justifiably hefty. Do you think I am going to purchase Deep Magic first, a book I can use in my infrequent games but not in my writing, or Ultimate Psionics, a book that I can use in my infrequent games and maybe get inspired to write some psionic spirits in a future product?
Two-hundred Twenty-one pages of the 378 pages are Open Content. That's a lot of room for Open Content inspiration. This seems ... flimsy.
Of the 150ish pages which is Product Identity, that includes the 10 pages of opening introduction/TOC/backer names, 20-pages of sample spellcasters (which draw on Midgard canon), the 61 pages of new magic (which have large sections also drawing on Midgard canon), 32 pages of Symbolic magic (which also draw heavily on Midgard canon of Ankeshel, Bemmea, the Margreve, and Northlands), and the 12 pages of the constructs section-- which probably could have been OGC, but I know there is the Homunculus book, so that might have been a consideration on making it PI.
Yes, why would they make sections relating to their setting PI? That's just...wait, no, that makes sense. Sooooo, looking at it, what's PI and what's OGC pretty much make sense to me.
-Ben.
From a publisher POV, one of the biggest problems with making everything OGL is that before you know it, someone or other has published pretty much everything the average player needs from your entire product in their own product or website.Apart from near-comprehensive web sites like d20pfsrd.com, has this happened?
Apart from that in itself being enough in some cases, yes, I've seen products that consist of nothing but text copy+pasted directly from other products.
In the case at hand, I imagine Kobold Press have done this to prevent copy+paste republishing of their work. As others have said, more than 50% of the book is OGC, I honestly think anyone calling them out on not opening it 100% is taking things too far. Some 3PPs may enjoy the additional promotion from making their work close to 100% OGC, but that's no reason to start criticizing others for not doing the same (and I'm not talking about your post here, you were polite and simply expressed disappointment, but others have since started jumping all over KP for not making it easy to make straight copies of the rules text of their book. They have the right to use the OGL to protect parts of their work as well as to use it to open others, how much of each is their decision.)
I'm a *huge* OGL proponent, but I think in hindsight one thing it should have included was a clause to (at least optionally) prevent the verbatim reuse of entire paragraphs of text, ensuring anyone reusing content at least took the time to rewrite it into their own words. Unfortunately it's far too late to do that now.
Come to think of it, I'm almost certain I've seen a declaration in at least one book (can't remember which publisher) saying something to the effect of "All rules within this product are declared open game content, but our precise textual expression of them is Product Identity" (aka "feel free to reuse anything here, but you have to rewrite it, no copy+paste.) - that may well be the way to go. I'll have to see if I can dig up where I read that (unless I just dreamed it, which actually isn't that unlikely with some of the vivid dreams I've had recently.)
Okay, fine. Which books have been "nothing but text copy + pasted directly from other products", Matt? Just a few names, please.
Okay, fine. Which books have been "nothing but text copy + pasted directly from other products", Matt? Just a few names, please.
That's dangerously close to making an attack on specific products, which I'd really rather not do. But there's certainly more than a few compilations of OGL [insert type of thing here] consisting of nothing but text taken directly from other publisher's products out there. Heck, back at the beginning of the OGL some people even reformatted the original 3.5 SRD and tried charging for it (no idea how successful or not that was, though.)
It's perfectly legal to do, it's something you accept by declaring something as OGL. The point isn't that people have copied things verbatim, it's that there's nothing wrong with someone choosing to keep some of their work closed, either.
Okay, fine. Which books have been "nothing but text copy + pasted directly from other products", Matt? Just a few names, please.
I cannot give you a name, but I was down at Ubercon in Newark in 2003, talking with a publisher in a booth in the dealer room. That publisher joked with the publisher in the booth next to him, how he had republished almost the entirety of the second publisher's OGL work on something (underdark creatures, I think) in a new product of the first publisher's on something similar, but with some added material. They were pleasant about it, but the second one did call the first publisher a jerk, though in a laughing tone.
That was the apex of the d20 OGL glut, though-- but I can say that it did happen, though I can't recall who the publishers were. I'm sure that if I got in touch with the con organizers (who run Dreamation now, I believe, a great "reverse" convention), they might have the records to tell me.
-Ben.
Okay, fine. Which books have been "nothing but text copy + pasted directly from other products", Matt? Just a few names, please.That's dangerously close to making an attack on specific products, which I'd really rather not do. But there's certainly more than a few compilations of OGL [insert type of thing here] consisting of nothing but text taken directly from other publisher's products out there. Heck, back at the beginning of the OGL some people even reformatted the original 3.5 SRD and tried charging for it (no idea how successful or not that was, though.)
It's perfectly legal to do, it's something you accept by declaring something as OGL. The point isn't that people have copied things verbatim, it's that there's nothing wrong with someone choosing to keep some of their work closed, either.
Seems to me a book published with no new content DESERVES to be attacked, to be honest. It also seems to me examples from more than ten years ago indicates the problem is growing smaller. And no, there is nothing wrong with keeping things closed. It's just that if "someone else might copy what I wrote and publish it themselves" is to be a valid argument for keeping your stuff closed, I want to see that it is a real problem today.
It also seems to me examples from more than ten years ago indicates the problem is growing smaller. And no, there is nothing wrong with keeping things closed. It's just that if "someone else might copy what I wrote and publish it themselves" is to be a valid argument for keeping your stuff closed, I want to see that it is a real problem today.
That's the only example I'm aware of, but I did not become really involved in even paying attention to OGL publishing affairs until 2007ish. I'm not a great source on such an example, other than the one I can provide. I'd want to ask others.
But as I was saying, the sections which are closed in Deep Magic seem to be in sections where the material is fairly intertwined with other material which is heavily rooted in Midgard canon, and I am pretty solid with my Midgard canon. Trying to untangle the mechanics from the setting in those sections would likely be more text/effort than the space provided would easily allow-- but, again, I don't make those decisions. Just looking at the TOC, I see clockwork, and leylines, and other material that I know references the world because I helped write and compile it.
And making material PI which is relevant to one's setting is pretty much what PI is for.
-Ben.
Seems to me a book published with no new content DESERVES to be attacked, to be honest.
That's dangerously close to making an attack on specific products, which I'd really rather not do.
On another day of the week, there's a chance I'd do that. Right now I've got a different morality hat on. I may be in a completely different mindset tomorrow ;)
I'm leaning towards them wanting to prevent any online copy-pasta of the entire rules content of the book, and this soon after release I'm 100% behind them if they want to prevent that.
Even if it isn't, I guess I just don't see where the rest of us get to decide where they ought to be drawing their OGC line in their products, with the exception of anyone actually purposely wanting to buy that book in order to develop OGLed material from it (I can certainly understand Alexander's earlier reservations there, although at the end of the day I doubt KP will mind too much if they lose a few sales from game designers as long as players are able to use the product as intended.)
It feels to me like criticizing a novel author for having the gall to copyright their work rather than releasing it under a Creative Commons license so the rest of us can give away copies online :) I'd rather see people treating the product purely on its gaming merits, not on its lack of usability in their professional capacity (which at the end of the day is almost certainly not the purpose KP produced it for.)
Honestly, I really want to keep this side of the line and defend Kobold's decision rather than cross it into attacking specific other people and publishers for their own business models (especially as they're not doing anything actually wrong, per se.), it's just that my guess (and it is just a guess, which makes it even more important to me not to start calling out names here) is Kobold's reasons for their OGC choices are based upon how those other business models reuse OGC.
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I can verify that unless the publisher has specifically said we don't have to, PCGen always asks permission before putting a dataset for each source book into distribution. Even then I usually shoot the publisher a note when it does so they can get some PR buzz from it if they want.
And when there was first talk about the 4e OGL (which wasn't released yet under the GSL). The licensing manager for WotC (who name escapes me at the moment he's no longer with WotC) had a couple of discussions about adding a line to the new license requiring that there needs to be a bibliography requirement for for EVERY OGL item that was used in a source book so that a) the original publisher/author could get credit, and b) clear up a LOT of the clutter from Sec. 15's.
The licensing manager for WotC (who name escapes me at the moment he's no longer with WotC)
At risk of going wildly off-topic, I want to say Rich Redman?
Being OGL or not has only ramifications for potential publishers, it does not impact GM/players at all, why is this even a thread? Not being OGC simply means KP has control over their content. Why is this a big deal to a non-publisher? The complaint makes no sense whatsoever.
The licensing manager for WotC (who name escapes me at the moment he's no longer with WotC)At risk of going wildly off-topic, I want to say Rich Redman?
Definitely off-topic. Scott Rouse and Linae Foster. They were often seen on the forums at Enworld.
/threadjack.
-Ben.
Yes it was Scott, was going to look up my thread on Enworld to verify but was distracted by work work.
And to answer GP, it's a concern be cause it "can" affect the consumer by affecting collaboration and creativity which can then affect the d20 market. Not saying that is but it's a valid concern.
Not sure I understand this. Are you only looking to republish the material in Deep Magic? Or are you planning on using it in a game?Neither. No author/publisher sits down and says, "Gee, I bet I can make oodles of money by retyping the Genius Guide to the Dragonrider and publishing it as my own product."
Unless you are a publisher only interested in the PI material, not the spells and other Open Content, then how can you not "play in the playground?"Technically I'm an author, not a publisher, but semantics.
I'm an author, and the last time I checked I'm not fictitious.
Ah, in this case I understand, I thought you were dealing in hypotheticals. Now I feel bad for thinking you were fictitious.
Yes it was Scott, was going to look up my thread on Enworld to verify but was distracted by work work.
And to answer GP, it's a concern be cause it "can" affect the consumer by affecting collaboration and creativity which can then affect the d20 market. Not saying that is but it's a valid concern.
Honestly, I can't see how. I am a 3PP, so being OGL/OGC is a concern for me, but as far as the rest of my game table goes, nobody else designs, so OGL/OGC means nothing to them.
Now if you are a GM/player that is involved on the collaborative side of a Pathfinder based Kickstarter project, I could see it have some effect, but then as a collaborator, they are no longer GM/Players, rather developers. So again, developers aren't normally standard GM/Players - and for them, OGL is completely meaningless.
Yes it was Scott, was going to look up my thread on Enworld to verify but was distracted by work work.
And to answer GP, it's a concern be cause it "can" affect the consumer by affecting collaboration and creativity which can then affect the d20 market. Not saying that is but it's a valid concern.
Honestly, I can't see how. I am a 3PP, so being OGL/OGC is a concern for me, but as far as the rest of my game table goes, nobody else designs, so OGL/OGC means nothing to them.
I can see the point of view of "As a player, I'd like to see more publishers building on each others work so I can use their products together rather than as an unreleated mishmash, therefore I'm concerned with how much of a product is open game content."
However, I still feel that's very much a secondary thing if a publisher wants to take steps to protect against mass reproduction of the meat of their book using the OGL.
Now, unfortunately, all I have to go on here is the words I'm seeing people put online, as I don't have a copy of the book to check anything for myself, and I see conflicting statements ranging from the OGC being near-unusable to it just being a matter of separating out the majority which can be reused from the smaller part that's been declared closed.
Personally, I feel that OGC that actually needs a little bit of careful stepping around and possibly rewriting to ensure you're not infringing on something is a good thing. I have very little sympathy for anyone that looks at it and is upset that they can't copy+paste swathes of text for reuse. I have considerably more sympathy for someone that truly wants to take that work and expand upon it but can't because a key rule fell into a non-OGC chapter.
I'm kinda on the fence when it comes to players wanting the product to open certain things, because that's dangerously close to dictating to a publisher what material they should or shouldn't hold back as closed content - and quite frankly, if publisher A chooses to close their setting, how is that really any different to publisher B choosing to close a few rules? They may each place different values on different things, and may each have specific issues they're attempting to avoid. Both have invested money into getting that content written, and both have a right to protect that investment to ensure they get paid for it. Both have the right to determine which parts of their work get closed in order to ensure enough material of value remains within their product line for people to want to spend money on it.
I'd love to be able to play in certain playgrounds and design new areas of existing worlds (and in some cases, areas of worlds *have* been made OGC to allow people to do that) but I certainly don't feel I have any innate right to that, any more than I feel I have any right to expand on the development work someone has put in with rules design unless they themselves choose to let me. I'd love for Cubicle 7 to put the Vortex system under the OGL, but the fact they haven't doesn't get it any bad marks in my head because I find it's still a fantastic system to play - I just can't sell a product based upon it*
I can absolutely understand a writer/developer not spending their hard-earned cash on a product when they can spend it on one that meets their needs better. I can understand to a degree the disappointment a player might feel because the product can't be expanded upon by 3PPs. I don't however like to think it's something people will start getting up in arms over and demanding change for, as that could begin a nasty trend in demanding that publishers turn over the rights for their work to be freely distributed, and that's the main concern that I have here.
* Yes, okay, I could by "filing off the serial numbers" and stepping gingerly around trademarks and copyrighted text, but that's not really what this is all about, and I'd also feel like somewhat of a jerk if I did that.
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Heck, I came to them asking if they wanted to post it.Yep. Just like Dreamscarred Press, Total Party Kill Games, Jon Brazer Enterprises, and many, many other publishers who specifically asked me to post their content.
Out of curiosity, what would you do if a publisher asked you NOT to post any of their content. That's an honest question ...
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Out of curiosity, what would you do if a publisher asked you NOT to post any of their content. That's an honest question ...
I'd probably honor the request depending on...
a) my mood
b) how I feel about the publisher
c) my current workload
The reason I say that is that as it is I really don't have the time to do everything every single publisher creates. That's just not going to happen. So I have to pick and choose what to post. Generally the priority is Paizo stuff first, then stuff publishers explicitly ask me to add, then stuff users ask me to add, then stuff I think is just too good not to add. For example, if I see some rules for how to handle X and X currently isn't covered in the rules anywhere, I add that (again, if I have the time.)
If there is a request by a particular publisher NOT to add their content, they're usually safe simply in that I'm likely to never get to their content anyway. However, if said publisher has been a routine pain in my rear previously, and if the content they are asking me NOT to add is really good AND open game content, I might still go ahead and add it. I will say though that we're speaking theoretically since in the 5+ years that the site has been live there is only one real instance of a publisher asking me not to post their content and this publisher now has a different position. I'll say for the record though that during that span of time none of that publishers content was added to the site, open or otherwise.
Heck, I came to them asking if they wanted to post it.Yep. Just like Dreamscarred Press, Total Party Kill Games, Jon Brazer Enterprises, and many, many other publishers who specifically asked me to post their content.
[threadjack]John, I would dearly love to see the content of the Direlock on the d20PFSRD site* - I just don't think I will get the time, even with your kind posting of the YouTube clip on how to do it... If some kind soul were to do this for me I would be deeply indebted to them...
* as well as any future products FGP produces....
[/threadjack]
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John, I would dearly love to see the content of the Direlock on the d20PFSRD site* - I just don't think I will get the time, even with your kind posting of the YouTube clip on how to do it... If some kind soul were to do this for me I would be deeply indebted to them...
* as well as any future products FGP produces....
I know you asked this before and this is an example of me just plain not having the time previously to actually do it. So even with a publisher explicitly asking me to add content sometimes it doesn't happen. HOWEVER, with that said, I'm doing it now Morgan. I really can't turn down that kind of request :D
Thanks so much John, I really want to have more people see and play/use a Direlock. I sent you a PM...
Ah, in this case I understand, I thought you were dealing in hypotheticals. Now I feel bad for thinking you were fictitious.
Makes me feel glad that not believing in a person's existence doesn't cause them to cease existing! ;-)
Makes me feel glad that not believing in a person's existence doesn't cause them to cease existing! ;-)
Ah, in this case I understand, I thought you were dealing in hypotheticals. Now I feel bad for thinking you were fictitious.
Though you have to admit it makes for an awesome plot hook when it does happen :)
I'm a *huge* OGL proponent, but I think in hindsight one thing it should have included was a clause to (at least optionally) prevent the verbatim reuse of entire paragraphs of text, ensuring anyone reusing content at least took the time to rewrite it into their own words. Unfortunately it's far too late to do that now.
I can imagine few things as horrifying as this scenario. The same wheel, described in twenty different belabored ways? No thanks!
Speaking as a fan, writer, and publisher, finding large nuggets of PI interspersed in rules sections is like biting into the rotten peanut M&M. You might feel like the OGL doesn't have a lot to do with you personally, but I can tell you as a creative that if I'm reading a book and discover some of the best bits can't be used or elaborated on, I'm pretty much done with it. As a result, you don't encounter what I might consider some of the best material in print. Okay, maybe the publisher sells a few more downloads. In the meantime, their legacy disappears into the bargain bins of history.
It's particularly irritating with things that mix PI with public domain material. For goodness's sake, if you are going to publish a version of Dagon, any Dagon, do us all a favor and open that puppy up. Baphomet, Baba Yaga, and all the rest: if you're going to use public domain material, be content to put your stamp on it and move on. It's just horrible when you entangle your work in something public domain, making it that much trickier for everyone else to use the same material you mined (and at no charge, at that).
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I'm a *huge* OGL proponent, but I think in hindsight one thing it should have included was a clause to (at least optionally) prevent the verbatim reuse of entire paragraphs of text, ensuring anyone reusing content at least took the time to rewrite it into their own words. Unfortunately it's far too late to do that now.
I can imagine few things as horrifying as this scenario. The same wheel, described in twenty different belabored ways? No thanks!
I feel that should be up to the original writer writing that description to determine whether or not their specific descriptive text is something they'd like reused or not, tbh. I doubt anything relatively mundane would be worthy of such protection, but I can certainly imagine writing a few pages of rules and thinking "hey, giving other people the right to expand upon this would be fantastic... but I'm uncomfortable with the idea of anyone just taking it wholesale with a few mouse clicks."
You might feel like the OGL doesn't have a lot to do with you personally,
Er, no, I stated pretty much exactly the opposite :)
It's particularly irritating with things that mix PI with public domain material. For goodness's sake, if you are going to publish a version of Dagon, any Dagon, do us all a favor and open that puppy up. Baphomet, Baba Yaga, and all the rest: if you're going to use public domain material, be content to put your stamp on it and move on. It's just horrible when you entangle your work in something public domain, making it that much trickier for everyone else to use the same material you mined (and at no charge, at that).
I couldn't agree more.
I think you misunderstand my stance on this. If anything, I was talking about a better way to prevent to protect work than having to intersperse it with PI, which as you say makes things too difficult to do anything with (although, I'll still say is up to the publisher in question if they really want to do it that way), and replacing that with a far simpler "you can reuse and expand upon this as much as you like, as long as it's used to create your own work and isn't just a mass copy+paste that gives people an alternate source for the content of the book." Another alternative could be "All of the content in this book is available for reuse, as long as you don't reuse more than 20% of it in any given end product." (and 20% is a number off the top of my head, the idea is simply to prevent a verbatim copypasta of the entire open content - plus I'm well aware that already gives the loophole of simply publishing five books, it would need thinking out far more than I'm capable of doing between 7:55 and 8am in the morning ;) Perhaps an even more useful clause would be "Any product reusing Open Game Content must have at least 50% original text." thus allowing reuse of as many elements as you want as long as you provide a decent amount of your own material too.)
As it is, the OGL doesn't provide for that type of protection, and thus we're stuck with that far more archaic mechanism of publishers interspersing PI in things. Therefore it's all academic anyway, unless anyone's thinking of creating a different license for a whole new game system.
I don't see much value in discouraging verbatim reproduction. I don't believe that publishers need that kind of protection. I really doubt someone is going to create a real business out of simply republishing other people's work without any kind of added value, even just compilation.
The great strength of the OGL, in my mind, is that people in different times and places, strangers even, can collaborate. Open Game Content is wealth. The need to gatekeep some material as PI reflects the need for branding; I distrust it as a means of controlling content.
Virtually everything I have written of a generic nature is freely available as Open Game Content. I'm not aware of anyone republishing my work without alteration, and if I were, I'm not sure how I would be able to tell if they were even costing me money. Mostly, I assume that people will be inclined to spend their money on the original content providers, and that if my work becomes so thoroughly replicated that I can't truly claim it as my own any more, that's a sign I need to do something new.
I think the idea that you have to enforce scarcity to get people to pay you is an idea that belongs in the past.
I don't see much value in discouraging verbatim reproduction. I don't believe that publishers need that kind of protection.
The great strength of the OGL, in my mind, is that people in different times and places, strangers even, can collaborate.
I think the idea that you have to enforce scarcity to get people to pay you is an idea that belongs in the past.
In principle, I agree on all of those. If the claims that this particular product's OGC is locked up behind too many PI doors to be usable, though, and if that's in order to avoid seeing the meat of the book's content online within weeks of publication (two ifs in a row makes me wary of the fact I could well be completely out of the ballpark, of course), then I can certainly see the value in discouraging verbatim reproduction (at least when such reproduction consists of every single word of OGC in the product), if only to give publishers more confidence in opening things up as OGC safe in the knowledge it'll only be used to help create new products and not as a cheaper alternative to buying theirs.
I'm tempted to think of the "fair use" clause in copyright, which has specific restrictions on what you can and can't do even if your derivative work falls under its umbrella. Unfortunately that runs into far too much of a legal minefield (precisely the thing the OGL was supposed to simplify down to a level that encouraged reuse) if something similar were to apply here.
I dunno, I could well be overthinking things, but my first thought when I see people talking about PI interspersed amongst rules text (or closing entire chapters containing rules off as closed content) is that it has been done to prevent republication as-is, and my second thought is then that republication is then the root issue causing that added difficulty in reuse by those that simply want to expand on the product.
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Speaking as a consumer, if it were not for the OGL and particularly d20pfsrd.com I doubt I would have ever bought a 3rd party product, and while my wallet would probably be happier I would have missed out on the excellent work of Dreamscarred Press, Rite Publishing, Frog God Games, and so many others. I am an exclusively internet based GM, every game I run is play by post or chat based, so having something be OGL or not is huge for me. I can't buy a book and show it off to the players, who live all around and who I've never met in person, unless it is open content somewhere and I can link them there. If it weren't for d20pfsrd there would be dozens of 3rd party options (and even more Paizo non-core options) my players would be unable to use. And while yes, for some of them this has been an opportunity for them to use the rules and never buy the book, for others they have jumped on the chance to buy the book to go along with the mechanics. And even if they don't have the book, if a player uses an option from a 3rd party source I try to pick it up myself even if the source is open and freely available online.
Obviously it is the publisher's right to decide not to make their content open, and I have bought and greatly enjoyed Kobold Press excellent materials before and will again I'm sure. On the other hand, if I can't show the options to my players they become rather less useful to me as a GM. Learning that symbol magic and undead creation are not OGL are the only real disappointments I have with this product, though it would be cool to have the stat blocks of the example casters available in an SRD format for gaming and to show people the awesome reincarnated Druid. I love having rune based/symbol based magic options for PCs to learn but know none of my players are going to shell out for this book just to be able to read about the awesome in that section, and I'm not going to post copy written stuff for all to see on a play by post forum. So unlike the spell less ranger, which a player of mine bought immediately after seeing on the SRD, the symbols and undead creation will be for my eyes only.
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As a consumer, the OGL in 3rd party non-paizo products is important in two ways:
One, it makes a project/work more visible. Several times I have stumbled upon a product via D20pfsrd that I didn't know existed. I can also get a feeling for the quality of the publisher that I wouldn't perhaps get via a link or post on a messageboard
Secondly...I like to know that a class or rules system isn't going to be orphaned and never supported again. To me this is the biggest benefit of having OGL in paizo products. A lot of rule systems have been created that have received little support in official products, but have later gotten a lot of support in 3rd party products. But the same thing extends for 3rd party products. I like to know that if I am interested in a specific class or magic system, it might get continued support. That's not the case if it isn't made OGL and the company switches gears to support a completely different product.
In principle, I agree on all of those. If the claims that this particular product's OGC is locked up behind too many PI doors to be usable, though, and if that's in order to avoid seeing the meat of the book's content online within weeks of publication (two ifs in a row makes me wary of the fact I could well be completely out of the ballpark, of course), then I can certainly see the value in discouraging verbatim reproduction (at least when such reproduction consists of every single word of OGC in the product), if only to give publishers more confidence in opening things up as OGC safe in the knowledge it'll only be used to help create new products and not as a cheaper alternative to buying theirs.
I have two suggestions.
1. Right Pricing
To be blunt, many PDFs are overpriced. Charging more might net you more sales in the short run, but the ultimate effect is likely not that people pay more money, but that they purchase and enjoy fewer products. In an OGL environment, that means overpriced products are shrinking the potential audience. Somewhere between "app pricing," which is not going to happen because the volume isn't high enough for the costs of development, and over-pricing, there is a zone I think of as "right-pricing." If your single class book is less than the cost of an impulse purchase, potential customers are not going to pirate it, and other publishers are going to have a tough time intercepting your sales. For larger books, I think in terms of $10/20/30... is this book small, medium, or large? Plenty of people will spend $30 on new PDFs if they perceive they are getting value. Even if someone republishes your stuff in two weeks, they've already lost the edge. Further, they probably don't have access to the art resources to make it looks as good, they certainly don't have the time to market it (you did market it, didn't you?), and they aren't going to enjoy a lot of customer goodwill. If one of the bigger players does something so crass as to undercut smaller players, it's going to become known, pretty quickly, where the material came from... which hopefully will drive customers right back to you, to see what other awesome things you've done. Personally, I buy a lot of PDFs well after their heydey, taking advantages of sales and deep discounts to fill up my library.
Figure out how many copies you think you can sell, multiply by your favored price, and don't spend more than that on development. If you aren't sure, "50" is a good number of sales to shoot for right out of the gate.
2. Pre-Orders
It's impossible for people to re-purpose what you haven't released. If you think you have a $10,000 idea, by all means, run a Kickstarter or an extended pre-order, and you'll get your money up front. This is also a way to gauge whether you might sell more than 50 or 100 copies of something, and set your budget accordingly.
If you price correctly, and try to sell as much as you can right out of the gate, or even before the book is published, you need not worry much about piracy, and even less about other publishers trying to re-package your bread crumbs.
I have two suggestions....
What does any of this have to do with the amount of OGC in Deep Magic?
-Ben.
I was responding specifically to Matt's concern that publishers might be reluctant to release material as OGC because of concerns about making money off their products.
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Because I don't want this being left on an off-topic response, and I think it's worth restating, I'm repeating this:
Two-hundred Twenty-one pages of the 378 pages are Open Content. That's a lot of room for Open Content inspiration. This seems ... flimsy.
Of the 150ish pages which is Product Identity, that includes the 10 pages of opening introduction/TOC/backer names, 20-pages of sample spellcasters (which draw on Midgard canon), the 61 pages of new magic (which have large sections also drawing on Midgard canon), 32 pages of Symbolic magic (which also draw heavily on Midgard canon of Ankeshel, Bemmea, the Margreve, and Northlands), and the 12 pages of the constructs section-- which probably could have been OGC, but I know there is the Homunculus book, so that might have been a consideration on making it PI.
And I'll correct myself to say that 230 of the 378 pages are open content. That's 60% of this book and the lion's share of the new material. The portions which are Product Identity are Product Identity probably because they include references to Kobold Press' setting of Midgard, and rather than try to swiss-cheese-open content the remaining 148 pages, they got back to the business of delivering their KS deliverables.
-Ben.
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Under the license Kobold is using, the mechanics derived from OGC (the mechanics of new feats, new spells, new words of power, etc.) appears like it should be designated as OGC. Under the license it looks like in a work using the license the new rules mechanics elements expanding on existing OGC (the mechanics of new feats, spells, words of power) should be OGC and clearly identified as such.
The OGL has a method for protecting descriptive and setting elements, that is the Product Identity provisions. The designation Distant Scholar quoted indicates Kobold is using those by declaring their descriptive setting elements as PI and therefore under the license not freely copyable or useable by other publishers without a separate agreement.
If Kobold is not declaring derivative mechanical stuff like new feats and words of power as OGC as Distant Scholar indicates then bad show, under the OGL that mechanical stuff is supposed to be OGC and useable by anyone. It is a term of the license Kobold and every pathfinder material publisher is using.
The impact is fairly small, it mostly only impacts websites like d20pfsrd and other publishers who want to use or expand on those mechanical aspects of the game with limited impact on nonpublishers who only get stifled development and use of this stuff in other works, as if it were WotC non-open material. Still, it is disappointing.
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Under the license Kobold is using, the mechanics derived from OGC (the mechanics of new feats, new spells, new words of power, etc.) appears like it should be designated as OGC. Under the license it looks like in a work using the license the new rules mechanics elements expanding on existing OGC (the mechanics of new feats, spells, words of power) should be OGC and clearly identified as such.
That bit can be read two ways. If you've directly derived a feat from another OGC feat, then yes. If you wrote a feat completely from scratch, you could probably claim it is completely original and not derived from any existing mechanics (the fact it's "a feat" likely isn't enough by itself IMO, any more than if something is "a spell"). I've certainly seen it done that way. Legally, my guess would be that it would probably come down to whether a particular feat used any trademarked game terms it was reliant on the OGC to be able to use (and many game terms are in such common usage they probably wouldn't count.)
Something like a new monster, where there's the need to be able to produce an ordered stat block full of game terms, that one's fairly clear - you really need to declare the stats of any new monster as OGC in order to be able to give them a stat block derived from the original layout. Anything that doesn't use such a stat block and is mostly paragraphs of text is a lot fuzzier.
We'll likely never know for sure where those fuzzier boundaries truly are in the eyes of the law, as it would take a court judgement to clarify them for certain, and I don't think that could happen unless someone took offense at how their OGC had been reused in a product (i.e. saw something derived from their own OGC appear elsewhere as fully closed content), didn't get the requested fix within the time limit defined, and wanted to push things.
As it is, after thinking more on the topic I'm tending towards thinking closing individual PI terms in your work is better than closing entire chapters. You can come up with your feat or spell, open the mechanics, but use a term from your own PI in the title (and elsewhere in the text description if you wish.) Anyone else could then derive from it, but they would have to rename it and replace any usage of PI terms you may have used in the description to make it their own - simple copy+paste redistribution is then out, but developmental reuse can continue as intended.
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Under the license Kobold is using, the mechanics derived from OGC (the mechanics of new feats, new spells, new words of power, etc.) appears like it should be designated as OGC. Under the license it looks like in a work using the license the new rules mechanics elements expanding on existing OGC (the mechanics of new feats, spells, words of power) should be OGC and clearly identified as such.
That bit can be read two ways. If you've directly derived a feat from another OGC feat, then yes. If you wrote a feat completely from scratch, you could probably claim it is completely original and not derived from any existing mechanics (the fact it's "a feat" likely isn't enough by itself IMO, any more than if something is "a spell"). I've certainly seen it done that way. Legally, my guess would be that it would probably come down to whether a particular feat used any trademarked game terms it was reliant on the OGC to be able to use (and many game terms are in such common usage they probably wouldn't count.)
Something like a new monster, where there's the need to be able to produce an ordered stat block full of game terms, that one's fairly clear - you really need to declare the stats of any new monster as OGC in order to be able to give them a stat block derived from the original layout. Anything that doesn't use such a stat block and is mostly paragraphs of text is a lot fuzzier.
We'll likely never know for sure where those fuzzier boundaries truly are in the eyes of the law, as it would take a court judgement to clarify them for certain, and I don't think that could happen unless someone took offense at how their OGC had been reused in a product (i.e. saw something derived from their own OGC appear elsewhere as fully closed content), didn't get the requested fix within the time limit defined, and wanted to push things.
As it is, after thinking more on the topic I'm tending towards thinking closing individual PI terms in your work is better than closing entire chapters. You can come up with your feat or spell, open the mechanics, but use a term from your own PI in the title (and elsewhere in the text description if you wish.) Anyone else could then derive from it, but they would have to rename it and replace any usage of PI terms you may have used in the description to make it their own - simple copy+paste redistribution is then out, but developmental reuse can continue as intended.
I disagree with your first point but agree with your thinking on the latter point :)
I think it is fairly clear that new pathfinder compatible feats and spells use OGC game mechanics as defined in the OGL. Spells have defined applicable class spell levels, schools of magic, casting times, range, duration, etc. that interact with other OGC rule mechanics in a mechanical way before you even get to the mechanics of the spell effect. Same for feats with their prerequisites and benefits.
If you do a dual stat book the non-OGC system stats do not need to be OGC, but the d20 mechanics I believe you do need to make OGC.
I agree it is better to PI terms or descriptive elements than not including d20 mechanical elements as OGC.
If you do a dual stat book the non-OGC system stats do not need to be OGC, but the d20 mechanics I believe you do need to make OGC.
I have no relevant opinion on this, as my entire legal education consists of owning The Paper Chase on dvd, but I think if you include any d20 mechanics in your publication, those just are OGC, because they have to be, given the definition of OGC in the OGL.
Speaking to the thread title, I'm perfectly happy with the proportion of Open Gaming Content to Product Identity in Deep Magic.
I disagree with your first point but agree with your thinking on the latter point :)
Honestly... I'm not even sure I agree with *myself* on it :) It's one of those weird fuzzy areas, I just think there's a possibility it could go either way if anyone ever dared to test it in court (and I wouldn't rule out the person with the more expensive legal team being the winner.)
Myself, I tend to err on the side of caution and stick with declaring any with d20-derived mechanics as OGC (but certainly not being adverse to the idea of shoving some PI terms into the text.)
On a sorta-related note, I've been toying with the idea of a limited PI license for my own products that would allow a GM to share OGC containing PI terms with their group (think something similar to the Pathfinder compatibility license or the d20 trademark license, but aimed at GMs to allow them to, for example, post copy+pasted excerpts on a forum that was limited to viewing by their players or over a Virtual Tabletop system without having to worry about the PI terms in there.)
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OGC always excludes PI. PI includes everything in the laundry list or " and any other trademark or registered trademark clearly identified as Product identity by the owner of the Product Identity." Original stuff, like M&M's "power points" can probably skate by as a "concept."
However, I don't see any way you could, for instance, rewrite the Toughness feat, making even substantial changes, and call the result PI. PI does not include "feats" or "game mechanics."
You can always open something up, because of the exclusion, but the reverse is not necessarily true: some things can't become PI even if you designate them that way. And you can't simply decide to avoid licensing any material that "uses" the OGC.
IANAL, but I'm not sure it's actually kosher at all to designate a new magic system as PI. You can designate the specific "spells" and certain "concepts." "Concept" is in the context of trade dress, registered trademarks, and identifying marks. I honestly don't know exactly what that's supposed to cover. I suspect that means that you can PI the term "Deep Magic" or "Rune Magic" or whatever if that's in the name of the product. It might mean you can PI things like "rune magic" as a "thematic elements," but that wouldn't stop someone from using "spoon magic," and it's not always clear to me how the OGL is going to react to indistinct terms. Which makes me really wish people wouldn't try to PI terms that describe things.
On a sorta-related note, I've been toying with the idea of a limited PI license for my own products that would allow a GM to share OGC containing PI terms with their group (think something similar to the Pathfinder compatibility license or the d20 trademark license, but aimed at GMs to allow them to, for example, post copy+pasted excerpts on a forum that was limited to viewing by their players or over a Virtual Tabletop system without having to worry about the PI terms in there.)
I think you're looking for something similar to the CUP rather than the compatibility license.