Christian
01-27-2002, 01:33 PM
I've been kicking around the idea of opening some of the content of Scrollworks. This idea came to me as I was cleaning the garage and came across boxes and boxes of Dragon. Thousands of pages of material that is, for all intensive purposes, lost. Sure, you can buy the Dragon CD Rom, but I think that there is some unrealized potential. Imagine if some motivated publisher gathered some of the neat ideas, gave them new life, and then introduced a new generation of gamers to that material?
I don't want the NPCs, locales, and misc info in Scollworks to fade away after an issue has had its run. I want folks to take the articles and enjoy them, either in a commercial or personal capacity. I'd like to see what changes people could make to the material and how they'd alter it to make it their own, without fretting overly about legal issues.
I can make an article available to others simply by declaring it open game content, but this serves only those who work under the OGL/d20STL. So here's my thought: Identify the Open Game Content (such as stat blocks) in my usual manner, but release the text of the article (that has no SRD derived material) to the public domain, as well as the related art.
Let's use an NPC as an example: The NPC description and artwork is public domain, and the stat block is Open Game Content. I think this is key, because if I were to release the NPC description as Open Game Content, then anyone who used that description would have to abide by the terms of the OGL. I want to avoid that because I want to free up the info as much as possible.
Are there any special considerations about releasing material to the public domain that I need to consider? Do I simply declare something to be free for all to use in any capacity they see fit?
This was long. Thanks for reading.
I don't want the NPCs, locales, and misc info in Scollworks to fade away after an issue has had its run. I want folks to take the articles and enjoy them, either in a commercial or personal capacity. I'd like to see what changes people could make to the material and how they'd alter it to make it their own, without fretting overly about legal issues.
I can make an article available to others simply by declaring it open game content, but this serves only those who work under the OGL/d20STL. So here's my thought: Identify the Open Game Content (such as stat blocks) in my usual manner, but release the text of the article (that has no SRD derived material) to the public domain, as well as the related art.
Let's use an NPC as an example: The NPC description and artwork is public domain, and the stat block is Open Game Content. I think this is key, because if I were to release the NPC description as Open Game Content, then anyone who used that description would have to abide by the terms of the OGL. I want to avoid that because I want to free up the info as much as possible.
Are there any special considerations about releasing material to the public domain that I need to consider? Do I simply declare something to be free for all to use in any capacity they see fit?
This was long. Thanks for reading.