Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 15, 2023, 07:35:04 PM
So maybe the industry needs a few "new" systems, so you can put "Powered by (Insert system name here)" {Don't really like the Powered by because it feels like PbtA} or something like that so the buyer KNOWS your game is compatible with mine at a glance.

It's not just Apocalypse World. I think the "Powered by GURPS" line might even predate Apocalypse World.

http://www.sjgames.com/poweredbygurps/

Quote from: jhkim on January 15, 2023, 08:36:29 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 15, 2023, 07:35:04 PM
So maybe the industry needs a few "new" systems, so you can put "Powered by (Insert system name here)" {Don't really like the Powered by because it feels like PbtA} or something like that so the buyer KNOWS your game is compatible with mine at a glance.

It's not just Apocalypse World. I think the "Powered by GURPS" line might even predate Apocalypse World.

http://www.sjgames.com/poweredbygurps/

Oh, goodie, that changes things, then I don't have an issue with the Powered by thingy.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 15, 2023, 07:35:04 PM

1000% agreed, I would still like to be a way to signal compatibility with other games WITHOUT listing them all, the OSR branding did that until they started mixing retroclones of other systems.

So maybe the industry needs a few "new" systems, so you can put "Powered by (Insert system name here)" {Don't really like the Powered by because it feels like PbtA} or something like that so the buyer KNOWS your game is compatible with mine at a glance.

Right. It might be that *MY* game doesn't do as well as yours, and that means I can spend time and effort potentially losing money, but because we like one another, I can say "Hey Geeky, love your game and your mechanics - can we work something out?". We can make our own arrangement and you can create your own license etc. This is exactly what's happening with Pathfinder and Savage Worlds. It can happen elsewhere too. And everyone wins.

We don't *need* D&D.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 15, 2023, 07:35:04 PM
1000% agreed, I would still like to be a way to signal compatibility with other games WITHOUT listing them all, the OSR branding did that until they started mixing retroclones of other systems.

I think most D&D and OSR games are pretty compatible if you include ascending and descending AC. The differences when it comes to modules are trivial although it would be nice to have a rosetta stone statblock everyone used to ensure compatibility.

I don't trust Paizo, but I'll read their license when they launch it. I fully expect they'll go the morality clause route, both as CYA and virtue signalling.

I'm more interested in what Troll Lords will be offering.

Quote from: Spinachcat on January 16, 2023, 12:38:44 AM
I don't trust Paizo, but I'll read their license when they launch it. I fully expect they'll go the morality clause route, both as CYA and virtue signalling.

By contrast, I fully expect Paizo to not have a morality clause because it is in their best interests to...

A) appear to be as different from Hasbro as possible. Releasing an ORC that is just a 1.0a with "irrevocable" and "cannot be deauthorized" added wins them universal acclaim within the entire hobby and once again sets them up to be the central fixture of the hobby like they were in the D&D 4e era making it all the easier to push the woke agenda to a much broader audience.

B) not allow anyone other than themselves to be able to employ a morality clause, lest the woke "progress" past where even Paizo is able to follow and they get cancelled from the very license they created. Making a third party law firm the arbiter means they can't guarantee they won't be hit eventually. They wouldn't want that degree of risk.

It is important to note that this is not a position taken with the expectation of altruism by Paizo. Rather it is based on what is most in line with their cynical self-interests.

Virtue signaling is all well and good, but only when it doesn't actually affect their bottom line. They are nothing if not hypocrites.

Quote from: S'mon on January 15, 2023, 03:09:50 AM
Certainly if ORC has a morality clause, it won't be an open licence.

Yup, the major licenses used in open source world have all refused to put in any type of morality clause. And if they tried to pitch one with  such a clause to one of the major open source non-profit to run it, they will not handle it.

Not just this specific issue but the runup to a new license (or version) is always fraught with drama. Either they fuck up or they don't. Even if they don't there will be folks complaining as their pet peeve is not included. Not just what being talked about here, whether it open enough, whether it should require any original game mechanics that are included to be open as well not just those based on the content being used. And so on.

This is a typical article on the subject
https://www.zdnet.com/article/you-cant-open-source-license-morality/

If ORC contains a morality clause then those behind it will quickly find out that the major open source non-profits will not support them.

In addition if the new license contains the clauses in the OGL that limit our normal rights in regards to copyrighted content "product identity" (i.e. citing compatibility, etc.) then they will also find it rough dealing with the open source foundations.

Quote from: estar on January 16, 2023, 07:31:28 AM
In addition if the new license contains the clauses in the OGL that limit our normal rights in regards to copyrighted content "product identity" (i.e. citing compatibility, etc.) then they will also find it rough dealing with the open source foundations.

Funny thing though, according to Geeky and the others pushing for use of Creative Commons licenses you absolutely CAN exclude Product Identity (or anything you want really) while using an Open License just by including a notice that those elements are not covered by the CC-by-A and CC-by-SA license.

Similarly, depending on the interpretation of "cannot assert or imply connection with" in Section 2(a)(6) of the CC-by-A and CC-by-SA says;

No Endorsement. Nothing in this Public License constitutes or may be construed as permission to assert or imply that You are, or that Your use of the Licensed Material is, connected with, or sponsored, endorsed, or granted official status by, the Licensor or others designated to receive attribution as provided in Section 3(a)(1)(A)(i).

That sounds an awful lot like the OGL1.0a's "can't indicate compatibility with the Licensor's product" to me... i.e. a random Licensee shouldn't be able use your system to write "the pedo's guide to grooming" and include "a supplement compatible with [Your System Here]" in two inch high letters on their cover and leave it to you to explain to laypeople how "a supplement compatible with" isn't actually a legal claim of a connection to your product.

In other words, those OGL provisions people have been bitching about as too restrictive seem to actually be part and parcel of Creative Commons licenses... or are close enough that if they aren't then an expansion of Freedom of Association protections to allow the Licensor to choose their associations and not suffer harm to their reputation among customers who don't even know there was a legal difference between "perpetual" and "irrevocable" from third parties indicating compatibility or "a supplement for"... well, that does not feel like a bad thing now that I'm looking at a license from the direction of a provider of content instead of a user of it.

Bottom Line. If you know and trust a person, you don't need a license for them to use your work; a handshake is sufficient. Licenses and contracts exist to protect the rights when the parties and their intentions aren't fully known. Open Licenses by definition allow others to use your material without even contacting you.

Thus, when you evaluate the protections and restrictions offered by a license you should never assume best intent by both parties, but rather that each opposing party has malicious intent towards the other and what does the language of the license do to mitigate the risk of malicious action against the other party.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 16, 2023, 09:06:20 AM

Quote from: estar on January 16, 2023, 07:31:28 AM
In addition if the new license contains the clauses in the OGL that limit our normal rights in regards to copyrighted content "product identity" (i.e. citing compatibility, etc.) then they will also find it rough dealing with the open source foundations.

Funny thing though, according to Geeky and the others pushing for use of Creative Commons licenses you absolutely CAN exclude Product Identity (or anything you want really) while using an Open License just by including a notice that those elements are not covered by the CC-by-A and CC-by-SA license.

Similarly, depending on the interpretation of "cannot assert or imply connection with" in Section 2(a)(6) of the CC-by-A and CC-by-SA says;

No Endorsement. Nothing in this Public License constitutes or may be construed as permission to assert or imply that You are, or that Your use of the Licensed Material is, connected with, or sponsored, endorsed, or granted official status by, the Licensor or others designated to receive attribution as provided in Section 3(a)(1)(A)(i).

That sounds an awful lot like the OGL1.0a's "can't indicate compatibility with the Licensor's product" to me... i.e. a random Licensee shouldn't be able use your system to write "the pedo's guide to grooming" and include "a supplement compatible with [Your System Here]" in two inch high letters on their cover and leave it to you to explain to laypeople how "a supplement compatible with" isn't actually a legal claim of a connection to your product.

In other words, those OGL provisions people have been bitching about as too restrictive seem to actually be part and parcel of Creative Commons licenses... or are close enough that if they aren't then an expansion of Freedom of Association protections to allow the Licensor to choose their associations and not suffer harm to their reputation among customers who don't even know there was a legal difference between "perpetual" and "irrevocable" from third parties indicating compatibility or "a supplement for"... well, that does not feel like a bad thing now that I'm looking at a license from the direction of a provider of content instead of a user of it.

Bottom Line. If you know and trust a person, you don't need a license for them to use your work; a handshake is sufficient. Licenses and contracts exist to protect the rights when the parties and their intentions aren't fully known. Open Licenses by definition allow others to use your material without even contacting you.

Thus, when you evaluate the protections and restrictions offered by a license you should never assume best intent by both parties, but rather that each opposing party has malicious intent towards the other and what does the language of the license do to mitigate the risk of malicious action against the other party.

Nope, I never said you can exclude "anything you want", I said you have to declare which parts of the work don't fall under the license, since the license doesn't erase copyright protections (that's called public domain) you have the right to exclude the art, your product's name, and other copyrightable materials from it.

Citing compatibility doesn't fall under copyright, it falls under trademark, and the license doesn't deal with that, ergo it has zero to say about it.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 16, 2023, 04:37:15 AM

Quote from: Spinachcat on January 16, 2023, 12:38:44 AM
I don't trust Paizo, but I'll read their license when they launch it. I fully expect they'll go the morality clause route, both as CYA and virtue signalling.

By contrast, I fully expect Paizo to not have a morality clause because it is in their best interests to...

A) appear to be as different from Hasbro as possible. Releasing an ORC that is just a 1.0a with "irrevocable" and "cannot be deauthorized" added wins them universal acclaim within the entire hobby and once again sets them up to be the central fixture of the hobby like they were in the D&D 4e era making it all the easier to push the woke agenda to a much broader audience.

B) not allow anyone other than themselves to be able to employ a morality clause, lest the woke "progress" past where even Paizo is able to follow and they get cancelled from the very license they created. Making a third party law firm the arbiter means they can't guarantee they won't be hit eventually. They wouldn't want that degree of risk.

It is important to note that this is not a position taken with the expectation of altruism by Paizo. Rather it is based on what is most in line with their cynical self-interests.

Virtue signaling is all well and good, but only when it doesn't actually affect their bottom line. They are nothing if not hypocrites.

I hope you are right, but I don't agree. I think Paizo's leadership are true believers in progressive totalitarianism. And woke true believers never let anything stand in the way of crushing those they disagree with. It is always their highest priority.

They don't want universal acclaim. They only want acclaim from the right kind of people. They literally don't view people who disagree with them as legitimate members of society who matter. They view them as Nazis, to be punished and opposed no matter the cost.

And progressive totalitarians never consider the fact that the vanguard of societal transformation might pass them by and leave them as the "bigots." It is a curious but consistent blind spot for them. No matter how many times it happens to others, until it happens to them, they never seriously countenance that they might be next. They truly believe that the cutting edge of woke thought is always obviously correct and supported by all of the good loving people, and since they are good loving people, they will never not be on the cutting edge, supporting the latest thing. It's axiomatic for them.

Like I said, I could be wrong. If Paizo is struggling financially, the prospect of outright losing the company (or having to lay off a huge number of people, etc.) can sometimes snap someone out of this ideological mindset. But I'm not counting on it.

Quote from: Plotinus on January 16, 2023, 09:56:48 PM
I hope you are right, but I don't agree. I think Paizo's leadership are true believers in progressive totalitarianism.

I think Lisa Stevens & Vic Wertz believe in a lot of things, including the Seattle State Religion of progressive totalitarianism. That hasn't stopped Stevens firing the horrible SJW fanatic Jessica Price when she became too much trouble. My expectation right now is no Morality Clause in the ORC. But we'll see.

Quote from: estar on January 16, 2023, 07:31:28 AM
Not just this specific issue but the runup to a new license (or version) is always fraught with drama. Either they fuck up or they don't. Even if they don't there will be folks complaining as their pet peeve is not included. Not just what being talked about here, whether it open enough, whether it should require any original game mechanics that are included to be open as well not just those based on the content being used. And so on.

This is a typical article on the subject
https://www.zdnet.com/article/you-cant-open-source-license-morality/

I was a contributor on a number of projects that Coraline Ehmke tried to subvert with his Contributor Covenant.
This was an overt attempt to push individuals deemed toxic by progressives off projects.
Several folded but a quite a few told Coraline that he could go pound sand.

Quote from: S'mon on January 17, 2023, 10:31:17 AM

Quote from: Plotinus on January 16, 2023, 09:56:48 PM
I hope you are right, but I don't agree. I think Paizo's leadership are true believers in progressive totalitarianism.

I think Lisa Stevens & Vic Wertz believe in a lot of things, including the Seattle State Religion of progressive totalitarianism. That hasn't stopped Stevens firing the horrible SJW fanatic Jessica Price when she became too much trouble. My expectation right now is no Morality Clause in the ORC. But we'll see.

While this is true. I would submit she (Lisa) should be running a company that would never hire a person like Jessica Price in the first place. Which brings us to the real issue. There is Crazy, and there is also Batshit Crazy. Lisa might be the former, and Jessica the latter, but they're both cut from the cloth. Jessica's cut has ass-stains on it... which apparently was too much even for the Progressive Totalitarian of Lisa S..

Quote from: Plotinus on January 16, 2023, 09:56:48 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 16, 2023, 04:37:15 AM

Quote from: Spinachcat on January 16, 2023, 12:38:44 AM
I don't trust Paizo, but I'll read their license when they launch it. I fully expect they'll go the morality clause route, both as CYA and virtue signalling.

By contrast, I fully expect Paizo to not have a morality clause because it is in their best interests to...

A) appear to be as different from Hasbro as possible. Releasing an ORC that is just a 1.0a with "irrevocable" and "cannot be deauthorized" added wins them universal acclaim within the entire hobby and once again sets them up to be the central fixture of the hobby like they were in the D&D 4e era making it all the easier to push the woke agenda to a much broader audience.

B) not allow anyone other than themselves to be able to employ a morality clause, lest the woke "progress" past where even Paizo is able to follow and they get cancelled from the very license they created. Making a third party law firm the arbiter means they can't guarantee they won't be hit eventually. They wouldn't want that degree of risk.

It is important to note that this is not a position taken with the expectation of altruism by Paizo. Rather it is based on what is most in line with their cynical self-interests.

Virtue signaling is all well and good, but only when it doesn't actually affect their bottom line. They are nothing if not hypocrites.

I hope you are right, but I don't agree. I think Paizo's leadership are true believers in progressive totalitarianism. And woke true believers never let anything stand in the way of crushing those they disagree with. It is always their highest priority.

They don't want universal acclaim. They only want acclaim from the right kind of people. They literally don't view people who disagree with them as legitimate members of society who matter. They view them as Nazis, to be punished and opposed no matter the cost.

And progressive totalitarians never consider the fact that the vanguard of societal transformation might pass them by and leave them as the "bigots." It is a curious but consistent blind spot for them. No matter how many times it happens to others, until it happens to them, they never seriously countenance that they might be next. They truly believe that the cutting edge of woke thought is always obviously correct and supported by all of the good loving people, and since they are good loving people, they will never not be on the cutting edge, supporting the latest thing. It's axiomatic for them.

Like I said, I could be wrong. If Paizo is struggling financially, the prospect of outright losing the company (or having to lay off a huge number of people, etc.) can sometimes snap someone out of this ideological mindset. But I'm not counting on it.

I give it a 50/50 chance that Paizo will add a morality clause to ORC, equal to a coin toss.

Paizo are true believers in their neo-Marxist "struggle" against "the Nazis" and all the "bigots" with "isms" and "phobias". But this is a unique situation in the TTRPG industry (and hobby), so their survival instincts might kick in enough to prevent them from committing corporate suicide....by adding a morality clause. A morality clause would make the ORC license unusable, which would be bad for Paizo. Are they stupid enough to add one in? I have no idea. People are much less practical and sensible than they used to be.

Edit: Slight edit. Paizo, not Hasbro.

Eric Mona first agreed in a thread with me (after I convinced him) that they can't have a morality clause. The Paizo account later confirmed that the ORCLicense itself wouldn't have a morality clause.