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Where Daemons and Dragons Collide
In a quick question-and-answer session on the Wizards of the Coast website, Ryan goes into the bits and pieces of his idea, paying homage to Richard Stallman and the Free Software movement as the basis for his crusade. He makes it rather clear that people will be able to write their own modules and game systems using the D20 System, and sell them on their own, without permission from Wizards of the Coast.
Like computers and caffeine, Dungeons and Dragons is a geek staple. The chances are good that geeks who aren't 'clued in' to the Free Software movement may get their first impression from reading a paragraph about it in a RPG manual. For the system to arrive on store shelves, though, it needs support from individual stores and distributors. The good thing is that they're excited about this, too. I recently spoke to Tony Kautz at Bridgetown Hobbies and Games, an RPG shop located in Portland, Oregon.
Slashdot: What was your first impression of the 'opening' of the D20 System?
Tony: I think it is a really good idea. The reason why Second Edition and Second Edition Revised did well is because they were based on the First Edition, which had a lot of resource material available. When they change the rules to the D20 system from the one they're using currently, a lot of their previous statistics won't be usable. Now that they've opened it up for other people to make supplements using their rule system, it'll make resource material a lot more available and a lot less expensive, because they'll have to compete with competitors with their own rule system.
Slashdot: Do you think that your store would carry D20-compatible modules and home-grown games using the system?
Tony:Yeah. We'll probably carry just about anybody that we can get a hold of. Some companies are too small to use distributorships, and so they have to do direct, like via mail order or online, but everybody else we will. We're pretty open to any manufacturer that comes along.
If you build it, they will come. One of the key reasons that Dungeons and Dragons is so popular is because you're limited only by your imagination. Experienced gamers thrive on being able to make their own choices and doing things their own way. Sounds like Linux system administration 101, doesn't it?
Needless to say, Open Source software developers think that the extension of the Open Source ideology into different industries is a fantastic idea. Downtime developer Justin Wheeler shares his thoughts with us: "The whole concept of keeping things open is the way most business should have been from the beginning. Imagine if Einstein kept the theory of relativity private? We'd not be able to work on it, or build on it. When thoughts are kept within a small group/society, others don't have a chance to work on them. If everyone has a chance to help at it, the company may find something that they missed. Companies often fear they're going to lose money if they give out their trade secrets. If Coke gave away their recipe, do you honestly think I'm going to brew up my own batch of Coke when I'm thirsty?"
Cooperation and a Laissez-Faire approach from Wizards of the Coast may make the D20 System the most popular approach to Open Gaming the world has ever seen. Until the boxes hit the store shelves, we'll just have to wait and see how successful Ryan Dancey is in promoting the ideals of Free Software and Open Source in the RPG arena.
Take that thought to open games, specifically D20. How many role playing systems are out there? I'd guess that there are at least 10 major ones, and 100+ althoughter. And because they've been around for 20+ yrs, they've been well established, so that most people that play RPGs will be familiar with two or more systems.
So what if someone tries to add something for a 'closed' RPG system to the open system? Sure, concepts may be brought across, but I'm thinking more along the lines of specific tables. A good example is incorporating the critical hit tables that the Rolemaster system offered with D20, word for word. Does the OGL prevent this? Does WotC have protection from other RPG makers in case this does happen ?
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
This is *DEFINATLY* different from how AD&D was dealt with in the past.
;-P
For those of you not familar with the earlier days of the internet, the past owners of AD&D went *NUTS* during the early days of the internet. Many gamers had developed optional reference guides, GM managment programs, etc, releasing them as public domain software. They all ended up with very LONG letters from lawyers demaning that they stop creating these programs, and delete all copies of source, etc, that they had. It was quite funny when some of the 'warez' where simple dice rollers and optional hit tables..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
The PHG will be a hardcover book, full-color artwork on every page, on non-cheap paper. It'll be printed in huge quantities, and will be able to get printing costs as low as possible. They're also selling it at a lower margin, because they expect to sell lots.
Your CHB couldn't be printed, in small lots, for as cheap as they could. It'll be considerably more expensive, if the production quality is as good.
So, first thing to go is the full-color artwork. You simply won't be able to make it cheap enough. Grayscaling the artwork is still probably out of the question, because it probably won't look good, and you'll want to go with as cheap a printing process as you can get. So you want line art... but you'll have to come up with all that on your own. Yuck. Ok, no art in the CHB. Suddenly, you've got a smaller potential market.
The hardcover may have to go, too, because they're pretty expensive.
You also can't do a simple search-and-replace on the text to get rid of the trademarks, because it's not in the computer, it's on paper. Scanning and OCRing all that will take a lot of time, or a fair bit of money. Sure you want to do that?
Ok, even assuming you get this far before you give up, you need to be able to sell it. You don't have a vast distributer's network like WOTC does. You aren't owned by Hasbro, which has an even _larger_ one. So, you have to try to find a distributer who will sell your short-run CHB, which looks like junk, next to the PHB (less than $20).
Sure, maybe you'll be able to do it. You won't be able to compete enough to make a ding in WOTC's sales. And why would you want to? Sell D20 modules, make much more profit!
Read the license, please. It's at the OGF website and looks quite modelled after the GPL. In particular, it allows you to reproduce, verbatim, the rules (subject to trademark restraints).
Not a moot point. The chargen the give you would probably be limited to Windows. (Most of their stuff these days is.) If you don't run it, you might want to write your own.
You might want to write your own to have it use your house rules for certain aspects.
You might be writing a cool internet-enabled RPG client, to allow the computer to handle the mechanics and have a separate (voice or text) channel for inter-player communication. You'd probably want to be able to generate characters in that.
You might also want your internet-enabled client to be able to advance characters by level, which is also restricted by the D20 license.
That's true. They're all 30 level necromancers from the underworld. One look and the player will fall madly in love with them, upon which the necromancer has total control over you. A saving throw v. death is allowed, however. Seperation is possible if you either kill the necromancer or remove the player from the girlfriend forcefully for one month and hermetically seal him in a cave. You should also have cold water available in the cave. Some high-level priests (the Zen ones) have claimed limited success by allowing the character to transcend the girlfriend... but such things are legends.
If you don't put the D20 trademark on your product, the D20 TL does not apply. All the D20 TL does is tell you when you are allowed to use thee D20 trademark.
It would be like Sun releasing Java's code under the GPL, but requiring that you pass a certification test to use the Java trademark. The certification test doesn't stop you from using the code however you like; it just says under what conditions you can call it Java.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Cute word, "legitimately". The answer is that
1) There is no on-point precedent as to whether or not your work would consitute a derivative work. None. There are lots of legal theories that get mouthed a lot, but there has been no actual rulings, so all they are is theories.
2) You can't afford the legal fees to fight Hasbro on point 1.
Steven E. Ehrbar
D20 under OGL:
Can distribute the core product: YES
Can modify the core product: YES
Can write add-on products: YES
Can call your version "D20": NO
Netscape 6.0:
Can distribute the core product: YES
Can modify the core product: YES
Can write add-on products: YES
Can call your version Netscape: NO
Steven E. Ehrbar
Now, I have yet to find a post of mine where I say anybody should sing the praises of Hasbro for this. I just don't think it deserves all the crap its getting. No other RPG company is going to let you release your own commercial version of their system without a court fight or paying them something. Not FUDGE -- read the commercial license demanding in-kind payments. Not Fuzion -- they don't let you print core rules. Not GURPS Lite -- the .pdf itself includes a warning. Only Hasbro.
So no, I'm not saying sing their praises. I'm just saying lay off the crap.
Steven E. Ehrbar
The D20TL only applies to the trademark. You will be able to "distribute the whole damn thing" as long as you don't call it D20.
I'm on the OGL mailing list. The D20 System Reference Document, including everything you need to put out a complete RPG, will be under the OGL. IF uninformed ranters and anti-big-buisness yahoos don't undercut Dancey and convince Hasbro/WotC to abandon the project...
Steven E. Ehrbar
Argh...
You want a parallel? Imagine Sun releases te Java source under the GPL, but keeps the Java trademark reserved for people who conform to their compatibility tests and add a dependency on a single Sun library. How HORRIBLE! They're DEMONS! They won't let you call it Java!
On the other hand, FUDGE is *not* Free, it is semi-free, with a restrictions on commercial licensing and required in-kind royalty payments.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Can I sell an improved version of the Player's Handbook under their D20 license?
But you can under the OGL. You just can't give it the "D20" label.
Can I compete with their core rules while still leveraging the available third-party source material as a result?
Yes. There's been extensive discussion on the OGL mailing list as to how to do exactly that.
The D20 license is akin to SCSL: you get to look at the source, and if you make complementary products, great. If you want to make and distribute core changes, though, HOW DARE YOU!
The D20 trademark license only governs the D20 trademark. Leave the D20 trademark off your product, and you can do anything you like with the system -- even sell core changes.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Simple enough; you will be able to sell your own D&D compatible products, rules mods, etc., without Hasbro's permission or having to worry about lawyers.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Indeed. As of January of this year, all the new TSR gaming modules, DRAGON magazine, DUNGEON magazine, novels based on the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms worlds, and so on have the WoTC logo instead of the old TSR logo. You'll notice the change immediately on the cover of the new Dragonlance novel DRAGONS OF A FALLEN SUN that just came out last week.
:-(
At the rate things are going, we may end up seeing the Hasbro label replacing the WoTC label, too!
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Well I hope D20 is a mechanically better system than AD&D's ludicrous table-driven approach.
Actually, from everything that I have seen it IS better. Check out Eric Noah's D&D 3rd Edition News for more complete information.
All the old terminology is still there, but instead of having all the reverse arithmetic of THAC0's and armor class, or the "You've gotta roll high to pass this saving throw check, but you've gotta roll low to make the attribute check," Everything has been standardized to be worked off of the d20.
For example, instead of having to look up on a chart what your saving throw vs Paralysis, Poison, or Death Magic was, the DM comes up with a number that you have to beat. You then use you're Fortitude bonus (which is now one of the three saving throws out there) and add it to your roll on a d20. Beat the number, you make it...don't beat the number...uhoh! This is the mechanic that the entire system is built off of now.
Check it out...Looks to be much more playable now.
"Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons...for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
It's an "improvement" from TSR's old position, but keep in mind that Dancey himself has repeatedly said that, while you can create D&D things, that he believes that WOTC has *OWNERSHIP* of those things you create.
Part of the gimmick here is that the "OGL" doesn't really give you any rights you didn't already have; what it tries to do is "give" you *FEWER*
rights than copyright law would normally give you, and then provide a framework for suing or harassing you if you try to exercise the intrinsic rights the law gives you.
Sneaky. It's no coincidence that a man who believes that references to a rule set create a "derivative work" is in charge of this stuff when Hasbro is starting to file suits on stuff like "anything someone might think is like asteroids".
(Obviously, it's not a derived work, because copyright covers the text, not the rules. Rules can't be copyrighted.)
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Pretty much. Read the following statement that Dancey makes in the article that was linked to:
In other words, you can make adventures or worlds or characters or whatever, but you can't make an RPG that competes with D&D. This is the MS model - feel free to create things for the users of our system, but don't you dare compete with our system.
I see this as an improvement from TSR's position, where you couldn't legally create anything for D&D, but this is a far cry from open source. It really ticks me off that this is presented here as an example of how "open source" is influencing other industries. Read the article carefully, folks; the ONLY influence is the word "OPEN".
Which license?
The problem is that there are two licenses on the site, the one you linked to and the D20 license, the latter which seems more likely to apply to the system rules. The thrust of the D20 license is that you can't reproduce things like character generation and experience tables - if you make adjustments, you have to post your changes.
In other words, it's a lot like saying that you can't distribute a modified Linux kernel - you simply have to distribute the diffs. While this suffices in most instances, occasionally it's a good thing to be able to distribute the whole damn thing.
That's the *point* of this plan - they make the most money on the Player's Handbook, so they'll become an exclusive producer. Somebody sees this cool RPG supplement in the shops, realizes it uses the D20 system, and buys the Players Handbook as well.
Frankly, I don't quite see the point of this. For novelty's sake, it's interesting, but there are far better truly-generic systems than D&D/D20 - GURPS, for one.
> For some information as to the chilling and horrifying goings on at TSR in those days
Yes, I will never forgive them for destroying GDW, the best map & counter wargame company there ever was (well, in their prime and IMO, at any rate).
Of course, GDW more or less handed them the axe to use, in a fit of terminal stupidity. (I suppose terminal should be taken quite literally there.) Still, I can never forgive the latter-day owners of TSR for this vile act.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Wow, I haven't touched a role-playing game in years, and I had no idea how much the business had changed until I read this article and did some investigating.
Basically, following the huge success of the Magic and Pokemon card games and a general decline in standard RPG sales, Wizards of the Coast dwarfed TSR, SJG, and the other RPG companies. Wizards of the Coast then acquired TSR (which I always thought of as the number 1 gaming powerhouse) somewhere around 1998. They later acquired the chain of "The Game Keeper" stores, after opening a few of their own retail outlets. Finally, Hasbro acquired Wizards in 1999, but they're giving them pretty strong independence. Pretty crazy stuff, no?
Of course, the better system to open source would've been GURPS from SJG, which is already designed to work for any era, genre, etc. GURPS, though not without its flaws, was just amazing because SJG put out an unbelievably cool line of expansions/world books to hit genres most people had never thought of (e.g. GURPS Russia, GURPS Vodoo), and they even did games based on popular books (which weren't as high quality, from my experience), with a persistent rumor that Orson Scott Card was collaborating on an Alvin Maker series (I swear I read an excerpt from its beta version years ago, but I can't find any info on what happened to it, anybody know?).
Wizards' point about the network effects and the general prevalence of D&D players, however, is well taken. I think that most other game companies would probably avoid supporting it, because it would cannibalize their own sales (think Sun/Linux), but smaller game companies could do pretty well by putting out adventures, expansions, and so on.
--JRZ
Most colas taste pretty much the same anyway
Next thing you will be saying the Budweiser and Guiness are substitutes as well....
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Sounds like a return to the old days where DM's were encouraged to pick-and-choose and modify or enhance the rules to suit their own world/audience/imagination.
After the suits took control in the mid to late 80's everything became "Oh you can't do that because it's not OFFICIAL", which we all took as the utter BS it was. It was about this time that Gary Gygax was driven out.
At least WotC are acknowledging the way everyone who's ever been involved with D&D thinks and acts anyway.
This is wonderful news for the players and the future of the game and RPG's as a whole.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
You mean like Virgin Cola? Pretty much indistinguishable from Coke, and much cheaper. Coke accused them of stealing the recipe. People still drink Coke, though.
--
E_NOSIG
..community reputation, as far as I'm concerned. Their lawyering folk got a little miffed that someone had ported Magic to the Internet.
What followed was a quick lawsuit, and tremendous outrage from the online community. Eventually WoTC capitulated and decided to play nice. They are on, as it were, the cluetrain. Let's hope they stay there. I've got a page about it somewhere...
--
+&x
Incidentally, WOTC just picked up a comprehensive license for Star Wars, as West End Games lost it while trying to keep its head above water. I believe Lucas has a sizeable stake in Hasbro these days....hmmmmmmm.....
Mmmmm....kill JarJar with Paladin....
I'd like to see it listed on this page, after Richard Stallman has looked at it:
http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/ph ilosophy/license-list.html
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Secondly, I have some of the Demons supplements for AD&D produced by Mayfair games, which were really well done, addressed a need in the community (I was one of the ones who felt TSR really screwed up by attempting to sate the appetite of the Fanatics for Family values by removing demons and devils from their games, when we all know that only the utter destruction of D&D and RPGs in general would ever do that.) and caused Mayfair to promptly get sued by TSR. See this page for information. What irritated me was that TSR and later Hasbro could be in a position to suppress D&D altogether is they had a motivation (eg, fundamentalist boycott) to do so.
For some information as to the chilling and horrifying goings on at TSR in those days, please read:
The Gary Gygax FAQ
As someone who used to be avidly into pen & paper RPGs, I believe a popular, copylefted RPG would be the greatest thing to happen to RPGS since their original invention. I hope this is for real.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
I'm suprised that nobody has brought up either of two points I think are relevant to whether WOTC is embracing Open Gaming...
First, they took serious legal action against some people that were distributing new M:TG "cards" as stickers to be placed on top of old ones, as a private expansion set. I think they even uses different symbols for the mana, and backgrounds, but because they were obviously meant to be played with Magic, they went after them.
And WOTC actually has a patent(!) on many of their game mechanics. They've patented "tapping" a card, as in turning it sideways on the play area to indicate that it's been used. This is most definately NOT open...
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
Pretty sad.
Want to work at Transmeta? Hedgefund.net? AT&T?
Can your IM do this?
Not only that, but there already are gaming systems that are generic and have rules for all types of games. GURPS is the best known, but other games like Rolemaster are also somewhat generic.
It looks to like all they're doing is trying to make D&D more GURPS-like.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Girlfriend...Girlfriend?...
No, sorry, you missed me there, I've been playing D & D at least 8 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week, for the last 10 years (when I'm not programming fax machines for a job). Must be some real high level non player character type I've not come across.
The Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game. No dice, four attributes, a handful of powers and a couple of background perks. That's all. How do you handle melee combat then? Whichever combatent has the highest Warfare attribute wins. Of course if they're close then role-playing out the combat using tactics, dirty tricks and other factors can swing it your way, but that's the essence of the rules.
And I quote, from the article:
Remember, this is a proposal. If this thing ever gets off the ground, I for one will count myself lucky.
--
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
This, if anything, makes the prospect of buying 3e even more tantalizing, since not only would I be purchasing an incredibly cool product, I'd be rewarding a company for its openness and fair competitive spirit.
--
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
Wizards of the Coast OWNS TSR. They have for quite some time, and anyone who visits TSR's website would find it painstakingly obvious.
Oh well, now I can't moderate this topic. I just really hate when people post about things they really have no clue about.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
Actually, Daemon is a far older term than either demon or Disk And Execution MONitor. The term Daemon originated with the Greeks, and indicated a beings of a level between mortals and gods. They usually represented a Platonic ideal of some human thing. Thus Socrates describes Eros as a Daemon. Of course the Greeks were very fluid about where exactly a being falls in the divine Hierarchy, and Eros has also ben describes as a god. The Romans (as they did with so much else) took over the Greek concept of Daemons. They expanded it slightly to make them "server beings" of the gods. Christianity came along, and redfined the old gods as fallen angels, thus they took the name of divine serants, daemons. The word eventually corrupted to demon. Actually if you used the old definition of Daemon, both angels and demons would be subclasses of the race daemon. AD&D for purposes of giving us a greater varity of things to kill seperatered Daemon as a race from Demon and Devils, just as they seperated Demons and Devils from each other. In actual Christian Mythos, all three are the same, but AD&D made them the embodiment of the NE, CE, and LE alignments respectivly.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
No, just political pr crap about not including angels in it. 8^) (Somewhere around Dragon 39, I think.)
Anyone interesting in creating their own Zork/Myst style games (read "interactive fiction") using a simple, straight-forward, GPL'd engine that can played via any java-enabled browser might want to check out The COG Engine. The first beta was released this past weekend, and we're looking for more developers over at the SourceForge site right now.";
System.out.println(ShameLessSelfPromotion);
Your Brain + EEG + LEGO Robots = Brainstorms
Wrong wrong wrong. Here are the ingredients in Coke (see this page)
:)
Citrate Caffein, 1 oz. Ext. Vanilla, 1 oz. Flavoring, 2.5 oz.
F.E. Coco, 4 oz.
Citric Acid, 3 oz.
Lime Juice, 1 Qt.
Sugar, 30 lbs.
Water, 2.5 Gal.
Caramel sufficient
Mix Caffeine Acid and Lime Juice in 1 Qt Boiling water add vanilla and flavoring when cool.
FlavoringOil Orange, 80
Oil Lemon, 120
Oil Nutmeg, 40
Oil Cinnamon, 40
Oil Coriander, 40
Oil Neroli, 40
Alcohol, 1 Qt.
let stand 24 hours.
The thing is, getting de-cocanized coca leaves (Fluid Extract of Coco) requires a special license from the gubment. Guess who owns the only license?
(note that this is an older recipe, but it's a starting point
If Coke gave away their recipe, do you honestly think I'm going to brew up my own batch of Coke when I'm thirsty?"
No, they think Pepsi, or someone else, would brew the same stuff, sell it at half the price and kill their profit margins.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
For the good of all humanity I'm submitting this patch to D&D:
+if(HoursSinceLastShower > 24) {
+ if(Player.Girlfriend)
+   Girlfriend.StormOut;
+ Player.Shower;
+}
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
The D20 game system will be under the OGL, but if you want to use the D20 trademarks, you'll need to follow the D20 license. It offers some restrictions, like not giving the rules for character creation (they want you to buy the PHB).
So, as an example, you could take the rules, change them, and release them as a different system (also under the OGL, kind of like the GPL). But you couldn't say it was compatible with the D20 system, and I don't think you could mention the D20 system at all.
Or, you could write supplements, new characters, modules, etc. and say it was compatible with the D20 system. The impression I've gotten is that the D20 license will not restrict things like that.
If you want to say "Compatible with D&D", you have to enter into a separate license for that trademark.
I'm not certain, offhand, what that would mean if say, you wanted to write a character generator. It seems to me that that wouldn't be allowed under the D20 license, but I'd have to ask for a ruling.
OK, I run one of the big AD&D hobbyist web sites (I get ~200k hits/month). I'm not posting it here, 'cause I can't take being /.-d. :-)
I've been writing AD&D rule expansions and collecting and editing alot of material from the Web for almost 10 years now. I'm also one of the two people involved in maintaining the Great Net Spell/Prayerbook stuff (I do the editing and rule-checking). I've had alot of dealings with TSR in their old incarnation, and also with WOTC when they first took over TSR, though none recently.
Here are the legal guidelines that govern add-ons to the AD&D system (that is, what you can legally do, and what can be published).
After about 7 years, I'm about 90% of the way through a complete, free, unencumbered re-write of the 1st Edition DMG + PHB. I've tried to be very aware of all these issues, and I suspect that the D20 initiative is really intended to head off the possible impact that works such as mine would have on TSR income (there are several others working on similar, free rule tomes).
To look at it in a simplistic view, all we've done is to clone Monopoly. There are large numbers of Monopoly-like clones out there: same rules, same board layout. However, notice they have different artwork and labels for things. This is what you can do.
To reiterate, Game Mechanics Are Not Protected . All TSR can do is prevent you from using their trademarks, exact text/layout and developed settings. Everything else is fair game.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
This is a shame. TSR has long been the M$ of roleplaying, extending their roleplaying system into any and all genres, including some that where is obviously didn't fit. The reason there have been so many additions (patches) is that for anything beyond a quick dungeon crawl, AD&D breaks down quickly in being able to handle the complexities of the rules.
AD&D has largely been a cludge, a hack, since its inception. It has since been surpassed by most other systems that are out there. WhiteWolf, FASA, SJG, and GamesWorkshop all had much more workable systems, that scaled much better. AD&D has just always had more money, more marketing, and a larger installed user base to allow it to maintian it's market dominance, despite the system being crap. The fact that most players would leave AD&D and not look back once they discovered some of the other systems out there only serves to prove how flawed the AD&D's system was.
The reality of the weaknesses in TSR's strategy was revealed once they faced a true open paradigm from the CCG's. It was small, lightweight, and portable, usable on a variety of hardware, and was able to cross a number of language and cultural boundaries by dealing with differng sytems iconically. The wooshing sound that was heard was the rush of players moving to the open CCG style. Of course we saw an incredible influx of different distributions, and there were those that were advocates of one or the other, but in the end it all came down to the same thing: playing cards.
Now, years after they've been beaten in the marketplace, so badly in fact that the've been bought out by one of the upstarts who 've caused their downfall, (And don't think that the upstarts isn't laughing about that every single day) they are forced to look for any way to recapture their glory days. And they release their system to the public.
Unfortunately, they still don't 'get it'. They have kept a number of the key components (D20, PHB) under their strict control, and you still need these to buy in. Sure, they say you can use D20 now, but what's preventing them from pulling that resource in the future, as Unisys has done with GIF's. No, what they are really trying to do is capitalize, finally, on what everybody has been doing all along, since the game was originally released:
Making up their own stuff.
--sugarman--
Look closely at what's happening... they're trying to control the source anyway through use of the "D20" trademark.
And they're claiming to be first, when critters like Steffan O'Sullivan's FUDGE has been doing this for a long time.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
The entire point of this is to mislead and misdirect. This is *HASBRO*. Remember, the people who are suing "clue.com" into the ground for existing? The people suing other companies because they claim to have a copyright on a "triangular ship with thrusters"?
The *SOLE* purpose of this is to try to crush all competing gaming systems, while preserving WOTC's rights.
Ryan Dancey is a scumbag. He also does not understand copyright law.
When asked about ownership of gaming materials created for use with the AD&D system (say, you run your own campaign, and you have a world), he said that WOTC owns them. He claims that anything that works with a gaming system is a derivative work of that system, and that *ALL* ownership and rights of derivative works goes to the "original" copyright holder.
He is a dangerous, slimy, man. Do not trust anything he says; he's probably wrong, and either way, his goal is to eliminate competition from his market by making his system the only viable one - while still holding all the trademarks and making sure everyone has to buy his products.
WOTC was bought by Hasbro; they are now expected to follow Hasbro's path of buying franchises and suing to eliminate competition.
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