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The quarantine has me doing a bit of blogging lately, which means I’m also looking at my stats. With respect to my posts regarding copyright and RPGs:

The posts are broken into two separate issues. Part 1 and part 2 are about the copyrightability of RPG stat blocks, and part 3 (not relevant here) is about the OGL. As to the first issue, to date, part 1 represents ~30% of text by page count and has 17,037 hits (edit 10/20/2020: 17,667 hits), whereas part 2 (70%) has only 704 hits (edit 10/20/2020: 802 hits). Moreover, part 1 spends much of its text on going over basic copyright principles that don’t represent the actual argument. It’s clear by the stats and the basis of the criticism itself (often peppered with personal insults) that the vast majority of (non-lawyer) criticism I’ve received is from people that have read only 30% (at most) of that argument. I know it’s long, convoluted, and at times poorly written (mostly because it targets two very different audiences); and you’re under no obligation to read it (or even care about it). However, it’s all connected, and if you’re going to criticize it, you should probably understand it first.

Or not. Free speech and all that.

Endnotes:

• 1/27/2023: In the continuing mess of the OGL 2.0, I have since written focused posts on certain critical topics, expanding on them and, I hope, making them clearer.
  • Consideration in the OGL 1.0/1.1
  • The OGL and the Problem of Acceptance
  • The OGL and the Problem with Patents
  • Something Stupid and Something Odd: Expressions of Game Mechanics
  • How About Something Constructive?: Public Domain
• Part 3 has only 703 hits (edit 10/20/2020: 849 hits), which is surprising. I thought it would be the most read post.
• Part 3.5 provides necessary clarification and correction to Part 3.
• Part 4 answers frequently ask questions and addresses frequently raised issues.
• Over on a lawyers-only subreddit, the attorneys seemed to want to discuss only my side note on patentability of the Shadow of the Demon Lord initiative system. I guess it’s great that they all agree that my argument is trivially correct, but Rob Schwalb has seriously hijacked my glory. I let him have it when I saw him last February.
• Stat blocks can be found for the
  • Monster Manual here.
  • Volo’s Guide to Monsters here.
  • Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes here.
  • Dragon Heist here.
  • Dungeon of the Mad Mage here.
  • Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica here.
  • Ghosts of Saltmarsh here.
  • Tomb of Annihilation here.
  • Tales of the Yawning Portal here.

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Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to nor endorsed the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)