Confused about what the Open Game License covers

[Crimeo]

The Pathfinder PRD states:

Quote:

This compendium of rules, charts, and tables contains all of the open rules in the system, and is provided for the use of the community of gamers and publishers working with the system.

Yet the actual legal text of the OGL for pathfinder includes "trade dress" as not-open Product Identity, and this includes:

Quote:

trade dress; artifacts, creatures, characters, stories, storylines, plots, thematic elements, dialogue, incidents, language, artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, likenesses, formats, poses, concepts, themes and graphic, photographic and other visual or audio representations; names and descriptions of characters, spells, enchantments, personalities, teams, personas, likenesses and special abilities; places, locations, environments, creatures, equipment, magical or supernatural abilities or effects, logos, symbols, or graphic designs

I have bolded just some of what appear to be glaring contradictions that the PRD is "the open rules in the system."

The equipment chapter is listed in PRD, but "equipment" is product identity?
The spells chapter is listed, but all spells are PI?
The whole bestiary is listed, but "creatures" are PI?
Doesn't "special abilities" pretty much wipe out all classes as kosher?

Also, things like "language" and "concepts" would seem to apply to every single sentence in the entire work.

Am I missing something here? It seems like potentially nothing whatsoever in the "Open" Game License is, in fact, open? Or at best, only a random, unreliable smattering of it? I wanted to make a sweeping rewrite of some core d20 stuff and was excited about the OGL making it possible, but now I'm not seeing very optimistic wording here.

I'm guessing I probably AM missing something, though, since Paizo has clearly used a ton of d&d spells, basic creatures, "concepts" etc. and has not gotten sued into oblivion. How?

[Zaister]

Your second quote comes from the OGL article 1 section e, but is not quoted fully. Here's the full quote:

Quote:

1. Definitions: [...] (e) "Product Identity" means product and product line names, logos and identifying marks including trade dress; artifacts, creatures, characters, stories, storylines, plots, thematic elements, dialogue, incidents, language, artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, likenesses, formats, poses, concepts, themes and graphic, photographic and other visual or audio representations; names and descriptions of characters, spells, enchantments, personalities, teams, personas, likenesses and special abilities; places, locations, environments, creatures, equipment, magical or supernatural abilities or effects, logos, symbols, or graphic designs; and any other trademark or registered trademark clearly identified as Product identity by the owner of the Product Identity, and which specifically excludes the Open Game Content;

Note the bolded part, this seems to be what you are missing. Open Game Content for the PRD is explicitly declared right at the top of the OGL page:

Quote:

Product Identity: The following items are hereby identified as Product Identity, as defined in the Open Game License 1.0a, Section 1(e), and are not Open Content: All trademarks, registered trademarks, proper names (characters, deities, etc.), dialogue, plots, storylines, locations, characters, artworks, and trade dress. (Elements that have previously been designated as Open Game Content are not included in this declaration.)

Open Content: Except for material designated as Product Identity (see above), the game mechanics of this Paizo Publishing game product are Open Game Content, as defined in the Open Game License version 1.0a Section 1(d). No portion of this work other than the material designated as Open Game Content may be reproduced in any form without written permission.

[Crimeo]

Quote:

Open Game Content for the PRD is explicitly declared right at the top of the OGL page:

Yes, open content is defined as "everything that isn't PI."

But spells, for example, are listed as PI (since they are included among trade dress, which is included in the paragraph above). So they wouldn't be open content then. Nor are creatures, equipment, or special abilities: a crippling minefield of exceptions.

Quote:

Product Identity: The following items are hereby identified as Product Identity, as defined in the Open Game License 1.0a, Section 1(e), and are not Open Content: All trademarks, registered trademarks, proper names (characters, deities, etc.), dialogue, plots, storylines, locations, characters, artworks, and trade dress. (Elements that have previously been designated as Open Game Content are not included in this declaration.)

Open Content: Except for material designated as Product Identity ...

All that stuff above, since it is trade dress, is thus seemingly not open content.

[Matthew Downie]

Shh! If you're right, you might get Pathfinder sued into oblivion!

[Zaister]

You still keep forgetting that everything listed is PI, except for the clause "which specifically excludes the Open Game Content."

Trade dress in the list is just one of the things in the list. The list is not meant to specify what trade dress is. Spells and equipment, for example, are not trade dress. Trade dress is the general design and look-and-feel of a product. Including trade dress in the PI means you can't publish 3rd party books that look exactly like Paizo's books. It means you can't use the background artwork used in rulebooks, and so on.

The statement at the top of the page is by Paizo, and it says such-and-such is PI; everything else is Open Content. Thus declared it is specifically excluded from the list in article 1 section e.

[Crimeo]

I think you're right that trade dress is not important here, and was a syntax misunderstanding.

However, that would still only open up access only to NEW spells written by Paizo themselves, NEW creatures, etc. Since they are not claiming such things of their own to be product identity.

So great that's slightly helpful, but I still don't see how they're managing to promise us open access to any of the D&D original things of the type listed in that list: spells or creatures etc. Because the WOTC text (bottom half of page) never included any of that stuff in open content in the first place: it still lists it all as product identity. So I think you're right that Paizo's text is super forgiving, but how can Paizo have the authority to tell us we can use things freely if they themselves were never given free usage of those things?

Isn't it kind of like me giving you a library book for Christmas?

[Zaister]

Nope. Wizards of the Coast also provide a definition of Product Identity and Open Content with the original SRD. Check out the Revised (v.3.5) System Reference Document site. There you will find a link "Legal Information". This file has the following information:

Quote:

The following items are designated Product Identity, as defined in Section 1(e) of the Open Game License Version 1.0a, and are subject to the conditions set forth in Section 7 of the OGL, and are not Open Content: Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master, Monster Manual, d20 System, Wizards of the Coast, d20 (when used as a trademark), Forgotten Realms, Faerûn, proper names (including those used in the names of spells or items), places, Red Wizard of Thay, the City of Union, Heroic Domains of Ysgard, Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo, Windswept Depths of Pandemonium, Infinite Layers of the Abyss, Tarterian Depths of Carceri, Gray Waste of Hades, Bleak Eternity of Gehenna, Nine Hells of Baator, Infernal Battlefield of Acheron, Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus, Peaceable Kingdoms of Arcadia, Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia, Twin Paradises of Bytopia, Blessed Fields of Elysium, Wilderness of the Beastlands, Olympian Glades of Arborea, Concordant Domain of the Outlands, Sigil, Lady of Pain, Book of Exalted Deeds, Book of Vile Darkness, beholder, gauth, carrion crawler, tanar’ri, baatezu, displacer beast, githyanki, githzerai, mind flayer, illithid, umber hulk, yuan-ti.

All of the rest of the SRD is Open Game Content as described in Section 1(d) of the License.

[Crimeo]

Uh ok. Interesting. What on earth IS that license itself referring to then?

"Heres a bunch of rules... Now go forget all those rules you just read. They're all b#&~@##s. Use these instead." ??

It was written by the D&D publishers but doesn't apply to D&D? SO confused. Much more optimistic though.

[Zaister]

You must understand that the OGL and the SRD are two different things. The OGL is just a licence. It provides a legal mechanism for publishers to make their content freely and legally usable by others, and by which a publisher can freely and legally use another publisher's content. If you use the OGL, it requires that you declare which of your content can be reused (the Open Game Content) and which cannot (the Product Identity). This declaration must accompany the OGL, but is not part of it.

Most publishers use this so all rule mechanisms are open while campaign stuff and proper names remain closed. But it need not be divided up like that. If I remember correctly, both Green Ronin and Malhavoc Games, for example, did not open up their original content as Open Game Content in some of their products published for D&D. I also remember a monster book where the statblocks were open, but the monster names were not.

The SRD, on the other hand, is a compendium of rules extracted from the D&D core that Wizards of the Coast defined as Open Game Content under the provisions stated in the Open Gaming License. You can use and reuse it, provided you keep the terms of the license, such as always including a copy of the license. You can not, however, use anything Wizards of the Coast declared as Product Identity, such as mind flayers or beholders, or refer to the Forgotten Realms, or even D&D (or, in fact, any trademarked term). The latter is why OGL products of the time always said they were "designed for the world's most popular roleplaying game."

The SRD cannot live without the OGL, but the OGL can basically be used by anyone for anything, not necessarily derived from D&D. You can publish your own, completely original RPG under the terms of the OGL if you like. Just make sure you follow its provisions, and, for example, define what is Product Identity and what is Open Game Content.

[Zelda Marie Lupescu]

Here's an example..

Hideous Laughter? OGL spell

Tasha's Hideous Laughter? NOT an OGL spell

Also pretty much any spell in the Forgotten Realms books is probably IP an not legal to be republished.

and yeah there were a FEW (small few) companies able to reference Dungeons and Dragons directly (like White Wolf's "Sword & Sorcery" imprint was one) but that's because they ran everything by WotC first and got certified... and because they had special permissions to publish a lot of TSR IP that Wizards licensed to them, like the Ravenloft campaign setting.

[Zaister]

Note that while the OGL forbids reference to trademarked terms, a publisher can, in addition, use another license to be granted the right to use these terms by the trademark holder. Zelda referenced how White Wolf were able to do this back in the days.

Currently Paizo provides the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Compatibility License that publishers can use to refer to certain trademarked terms of Paizo's, such as Pathfinder itself, or the names of various rule books. This still does not allow publishers to use Product Identity, such as anything from their Golarion campaign setting. These are indeed available, too, via another license, the Paizo Community Use Policy, but this is not available for commercial entities, and anything created with this license attached to it must be freely available.

[Paladin of Baha-who?]

The OGL is lawyerese written by lawyers for lawyers. The fact that you, presumably not a lawyer, do not understand it, means that it is working as intended.

Why do you want to know? Are you wanting to get into being a 3rd party publisher?

[Drahliana Moonrunner]

To put it simply. if the Paizo content you're looking to use/borrow/steal is NOT printed on either the PRD, or on the original SRD, it's not open content, unless specifically called out as such on publication.

What are you looking to do? If you're looking to sell a product you're limited by the OGL.

IF you're looking to publish fan fiction, or produce other material for free. (this includes NOT asking for donations) You should check out the Community Use Policy FAQ

[Paladin of Baha-who?]

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

To put it simply. if the Paizo content you're looking to use/borrow/steal is NOT printed on either the PRD, or on the original SRD, it's not open content, unless specifically called out as such on publication.

That's not exactly the case. The rules content in books other than on the PRD is OGL too. Proper names are not, however. That's why d20pfsrd.Com can use material from the players companions and campaign setting books, as long as they obfuscate the proper names, e.g. Dawnflower Dervish is renamed "dervish of the dawn" since the Dawnflower is an epithet of Sarenrae and thus a proper noun.

Some proper names come from other sources, as well. So you can have an NPC who serves Asmodeus (e.g. Way of the Wicked), Mephistopheles, or Lamashtu in your commercial work, since those names are from mythology and literature and were not invented by Paizo. You're out of luck on Desna, Shelyn, Sarenrae, or Norgorber, for example, because they were.

You can use Baba Yaga as a BBEG, since that name is from Russian folklore. You can't use Tar-Bathon. You can have cultists of Cthulhu show up, but not cultists of Nocticula.

[Drahliana Moonrunner]

Paladin of Baha-who? wrote:

You can use Baba Yaga as a BBEG, since that name is from Russian folklore. You can't use Tar-Bathon. You can have cultists of Cthulhu show up, but not cultists of Nocticula.

While you can use Baba Yaga, you can't use the Paizo specific expressions of her, such as the layout of her hut, her Dark Riders, nor their depiction of Rasputin.

And again, it all depends on what you're doing. If you're doing a free publication, you have more options.

[CWheezy]

d20pfsrd only changed the names because they are a store as well.

it is why archive of nethys has everything with proper names on his website

[Garrett Guillotte]

Also note that new publications can change what's covered as product identity. For instance, skymetal names were product identity until the Technology Guide released them.

[Vic Wertz]

I'd like to clarify a bit back on the topic of the original question. (This is pretty much what Zaister said, with a bit more detail.)

The OGL itself includes a definition of Product Identity:

OGL wrote:

"Product Identity" means product and product line names, logos and identifying marks including trade dress; artifacts; creatures characters; stories, storylines, plots, thematic elements, dialogue, incidents, language, artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, likenesses, formats, poses, concepts, themes and graphic, photographic and other visual or audio representations; names and descriptions of characters, spells, enchantments, personalities, teams, personas, likenesses and special abilities; places, locations, environments, creatures, equipment, magical or supernatural abilities or effects, logos, symbols, or graphic designs; and any other trademark or registered trademark clearly identified as Product Identity by the owner of the Product Identity, and which specifically excludes the Open Game Content...

That last clause tells you that if you want to know if something is Product Identity, first you need to see if the publisher has declared it as Open Game Content, because that statement trumps this list. If it hasn't been declared as OGC, but it appears in the list above, then it would be Product Identity.

Paizo's typical OGC declaration* looks like this:

Typical Declaration wrote:

Product Identity: The following items are hereby identified as Product Identity, as defined in the Open Game License version 1.0a, Section 1(e), and are not Open Content: All trademarks, registered trademarks, proper names (characters, deities, etc.), dialogue, plots, storylines, locations, characters, artwork, and trade dress. (Elements that are in the public domain or have previously been designated as Open Game Content are not included in this declaration.)

Open Content: Except for material designated as Product Identity (see above), the game mechanics of this Paizo Inc. game product are Open Game Content, as defined in the Open Gaming License version 1.0a Section 1(d). No portion of this work other than the material designated as Open Game Content may be reproduced in any form without written permission.

*:

Note that our declaration occasionally varies from this, so it's important to check the specific statement in each product you wish to draw from.

So to parse that, technically, the OGL tells you to look at the Open Content declaration, and our Open Content Declaration tells you to look at *our* statement of Product Identity, and then tells you if it's not on that list but it is a game mechanic, it's OGC (even if it's in the PI list contained within the OGL itself).

So, even though the standard OGL boilerplate lists (for example) "spells" as PI, because "spells" is not on *our* PI list, our Open Content declaration makes the game mechanics of our spells OGC. However, if a spell listing included something on our PI list (such as the proper name of a deity), then the bit that's PI would not be OGC, though the rest of the mechanic would be.