Is using 5th Edition legal?

[Octavo]

I was happy to see that 5th edition is going to be fully supported in the new Scarred Lands player's guide, but I am curious as to how that's going to work, given that there's no OGL for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. The kickstarter mentions that the Gauntlet of Spiragos has not been released in 5th Edition in hopes that there will be an official statement (presumably from WotC) about the legality of 3rd party 5th edition products, but is that likely to happen?

[janetan2016]

Spam Removal

[Octavo]

In case anyone is interested, the Modifier podcast wrangled a lawyer onto the show to explain the new OGL.

http://oneshotpodcast.com/podcasts/m...gets-a-lawyer/

Hey, that's cool! Thanks!

[teleute]

In case anyone is interested, the Modifier podcast wrangled a lawyer onto the show to explain the new OGL.

http://oneshotpodcast.com/podcasts/m...gets-a-lawyer/

[Octavo]

Well, what do you know?! Funny how that worked out.

Well played.

I've decided to go ahead and back the KS. I like the 5th edition rules and am intrigued by the Scarred Lands setting.

[Wolfgar]

Man, it's almost like they knew or something.

[RichT]

Whoa, WotC created an OGL for 5th Edition, and it was linked on the Scarred Lands KS!
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/feat...e-document-srd

Well, what do you know?! Funny how that worked out.

[Octavo]

Whoa, WotC created an OGL for 5th Edition, and it was linked on the Scarred Lands KS!
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/feat...e-document-srd

[Octavo]

The Scarred Lands books were some of the earliest d20 books available on the market. Particularly in d20's early days, a lot of people jumped on board, their enthusiasm for making material outweighing their due diligence, and thus they violated the license in numerous ways (for example, by including the d20 logo on the cover, but not including the contents of the license in the book). The Scarred Lands books were early major examples of products which followed the terms of the license accurately.

Many of the people working on Scarred Lands now are the same ones who worked on it then, and have decades of experience both making games and working with the legalities surrounding them. It's safe to assume that they have a pretty good idea what they're doing.

Thanks for taking the time to respond, Ian. It's cool to know that the people who're working on Scarred Lands have had a lot of experience navigating these waters.

[IanWatson]

The Scarred Lands books were some of the earliest d20 books available on the market. Particularly in d20's early days, a lot of people jumped on board, their enthusiasm for making material outweighing their due diligence, and thus they violated the license in numerous ways (for example, by including the d20 logo on the cover, but not including the contents of the license in the book). The Scarred Lands books were early major examples of products which followed the terms of the license accurately.

Many of the people working on Scarred Lands now are the same ones who worked on it then, and have decades of experience both making games and working with the legalities surrounding them. It's safe to assume that they have a pretty good idea what they're doing.

[rat_bastard]

These people are professionals with decades of experience, of course they have their legal ducks in a row.

[Octavo]

I hope WotC sees it this way and doesn't try to shut down the 5th Ed book.

[Drake]

Writing material for "fifth edition" is not at all illegal without a license, so long as you don't do anything that actually is illegal when you do said writing.

To clarify what I mean, the OGL is not a "you may now write material for the d20 system" enabling license - you can write material intended for a game system all you want. It is a "you may include these specific terms and game details which are protected by trademark, copyright, or otherwise reserved as intellectual property."

The best example to make sure I am clear: If you want to say an ability you wrote gives "advantage" (a D&D 5th edition game term) and don't want to get in trouble for doing so without licensing which says you can, you take the Frog God Games approach and call it "tactical advantage" instead. It's different (legally speaking), while still being clear to someone trying to use it what it means.

I expect that what is meant by waiting for an announcement is that OP are waiting to see if they have to do what is being done by other 3rd party publishers now, change a bit here and there so that any legal issues are avoided, or if they can do what would be entirely more preferable of actually saying "Dungeons & Dragons" instead of "fifth edition" and using the same terms in other cases as well.

[Weimann]

I've no idea myself, but I've put down for a 5e pdf on the bet that they know what they're doing. I would assume they'd not make it if they didn't expect to get away with it.

[Trippy]

Well, they aren't the first third party publisher to use the '5E' moniker is all I know.