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As you all know, someone got a hold of a snippet of the new OGL 1.1 draft. A few people (publicly and privately) have asked me to weigh in based on my Tome of WotC Criticism. Sorry, but I’m not going to make the same mistake many people did jumping to conclusions about the OGL 1.1, so I’m certainly not going to comment on its text that I haven’t read. I’m also not relying on Gizmodo’s interpretation due to all of humanity’s experience with news media. I will remind you all that the current OGL isn’t a real license. No one has signed it, it’s terms for otherwise accepting it are laughable, and it doesn’t actually license you anything.
Beating a Dead Horse
WotC owns its expression of the game mechanics, but despite their implications, they never license that to you. The OGL (even assuming it’s real) uses terminology appearing in both the Patent Act and Copyright Act, saying “this stuff is what we’re licensing.” Those things are stated to be patentable subject matter in the Patent Act and are expressly excluded from copyrightable subject matter in the Copyright Act. And just to be on the safe side, the OGL says (in case it’s not already obvious, paraphrasing):
If any part of what we’re licensing falls under copyright or trademark [you know, such as the specific expression of game rules!], then we take that out of Open Gaming Content, stick it in Product Identity, and don’t license it to you.
No matter how seriously you take the OGL as a license, there’s simply no way to interpret, “processes, methods, routines, and procedures” as including anything copyrightable, which means nothing copyrightable is being licensed. So, despite the SRD containing WotC’s expression of game rules, and despite WotC’s claim to be allowing you to use that material, WotC is free to pull the rug out at any time and say, “You used out expression!” They never actually license it to you because the SRD is not in any way incorporated into the OGL.
Back on Point
It’s a bit hard to answer your questions or respond to your concerns when they’re all based on so weak a foundation, but here’s something on point. There’s a huge debate going around as to whether the OGL can be revoked. For those that say it can, you’re wrong because there’s nothing to revoke. It isn’t real. For those that say it can’t, you’re referencing language from the FAQ and OGL itself that suggests that. Why do you think that language makes it so clearly irrevocable? The FAQ itself states that “people will just ignore [a revocation] anyway.” How is it that a real license can simply be ignored? Because it’s not a real license. The answer to both groups is the same. You’re both right because you’re both wrong.
While the originally stated intentions were noble, this is, at least for at least the past decade or so, a big sham, and it’ll be very interesting to see whether the OGL 1.1 addresses these fatal shortcomings. Even worse for WotC, here’s an attorney taking the OGL seriously and threatening WotC with a lawsuit if they don’t clarify their position on revocation. To defend against any such lawsuit, or even to respond to the letter, may require WotC to take my OGL post and just read it. They’ll have to admit the OGL is a sham. Funny.
For now, though, I’m in the same holding pattern as you. Until we see the text, we don’t know. If, however, the OGL 1.1 corrects its errors as I’ve identified them, my arrogance level will rise so high that, well, I’d probably qualify for employment with WotC legal.
Blog posts cannot substitute for legal advice. If the topics discussed in this post are relevant to a real case you have, please consult an attorney.
I tweeted yesterday!
My dad was born 11 years after #Sherlock's creation and died 25 years before it expired. There is nothing good about a #copyright that easily outlives someone who was over a decade late for its creation. "Limited Times"? By whose standard, #Methuselah's? Copyright needs reform. https://t.co/eoYxaFS9aG
— Rob Bodine, gsllc@chirp.enworld.org or @dice.camp (@GSLLC) December 29, 2022
Okay, it was a retweet. Whatever. Don’t be a pedant. That’s my thing.
To what am I referring when I invoke Methuselah? I’ve discussed the term of a copyright before on another blog, linking to a handy flowchart, but none of that is required reading. All you need to know is that the “term” of the copyright is how long it lasts, and I’m here to argue that it lasts far too long.
Constitutional Authority
Congress’s authority to grant copyrights comes from the Arts and Sciences Clause.
[The Congress shall have Power t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Article I, Section 8, Clause 8
The Sciences and Discoveries are the subject of patents, and the Arts and Writings are the subject matter of copyright, though these terms are being used more broadly than you’d ordinarily use them. For example, a sculpture is a “writing” in this context because sculptures can be copyrighted. I’m not going to get into that. You’ll fall asleep before I get to my point.
Limited Times
My focus is on “limited Times.” What does that even mean? From who’s perspective must the term of the copyright be limited? The artist? The general public at the time of creation? Humanity in general? An ant? Depending on your choice of perspective, “limited” could be a few minutes or a few centuries, and who’s to say that one interpretation of that vague phrase is better than another? (Spoiler alert: Me; that’s who.) Unfortunately, a 7-2 majority of the Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft (2003) seems to think it’s effectively unlimited. (Methuselah; remember?) I’m here to tell you why they’ we’re dead wrong.
By the way, you don’t get to blame this on Republicans or Democrats. Justice Ginsberg wrote the majority opinion, and Justice Scalia joined her. Though the two dissenters, Justice Stevens and Breyer, would be considered “liberal” by a layman’s standard, some conservatives would have joined their dissent. Fortunately, I’m smarter than all of them.
Call me smart, right now!
First, lets dive into some Constitutional text. The clause secures rights to “author[s],” not owners, for a limited time, and that’s an important distinction. Even if you sell your copyright, you’re always its author. Look up “copyright termination” for an example as to how this distinction can play out. So, if we’ve secured rights to authors for a “limited time,” then the perspective should be that of the author, not an ant or humanity in general, and not even a purchaser of the copyright (i.e., the owner). Thus, the term of a copyright shouldn’t be designed to outlive the author itself, even if he or she has sold their copyright. Otherwise, it’s not limited from the author’s perspective.
But that’s a bit philosophical, gets complicated when dealing with corporate authors (i.e., works made for hire), and subject to (barely) reasonable disagreement, so let’s further ground ourselves with history.
The first Copyright Act was passed in 1790, one year after the Constitution was deemed to be in effect. Therefore, the same people that debated and approved of the Arts & Sciences Clause did the same for that Copyright Act, and they granted authors copyrights with a term of 14 years eligible for renewal for another fourteen only “if, at the expiration of the said term, the author or authors, or any of them, be living” (emphasis added). The 1790 legislature was trying to keep copyrights from outliving their authors, and they’re the legislature that wrote the Arts & Sciences Clause. Who better to know what they meant? Of course, you can’t provide a guarantee in this regard, because unless you murder someone, etc., you don’t know when they’ll die. The mechanism that was used was the best way possible to minimize copyrights outliving their authors in a way that could be reasonably expressed in a statute, while recognizing that people’s dependence on a copyright might also outlive the author by a bit.
By 1831, members of Congress had lost sight of the original intent of the Founders. The Copyright Act was amended to grant a term of 28 years extendable for another 14, and in 1909, the term became 28 years extendable for another 28 years. For both of those acts, Congress had dropped the requirement that the renewal couldn’t outlive the author, as their heirs could still renew the copyright. While both of these laws should have been declared unconstitutional, even they show a clear intent to keep the term short enough that most people living during the time of a copyright grant would see the work pass into the public domain. That is, even with the 1909 statute’s possible 56-year term, a copyright born during my father’s lifetime would not have outlived him, and certainly would not have outlived the majority of the general public alive at that time. If someone grew up reading Sherlock Holmes, they should have been able to write fan fiction as adults without fear of getting sued.
Mickey Mouse is a Dick
Then Disney started lobbying Congress for longer copyright terms, and all hell broke loose. The current copyright term for a human author (as opposed to a corporate author) is life of the author plus 70 years, or 70 years beyond the life of the last living author for a joint work. Based on my interpretation, life plus anything is unconstitutional, but now the term is life of the author plus another person’s lifetime. This is insane. Note well that the purpose of intellectual property law isn’t to reward authors and inventors for a job well done. That reward is just a mechanism. It’s the means by which we encourage creation and invention. The purpose, however, is to make sure that the public has access to such subject matter. We employ the mechanism to limit affordability for a while so that creators and inventors have an incentive to create and invent in the first place, but the public must eventually gain full access to it. That’s the entire point of encouraging creation and invention in the first place. However, if I write a song today, no member of the current public, or even their children’s public, will ever see it in the public domain. Again, that’s an insane interpretation of the Arts & Sciences Clause cutting against its very purpose, so it simply cannot be the correct one.
Patent Law
We also see support for my interpretation in patent law. While the term of the patent has changed, it’s still only 17 years and not extendable. Thus, my interpretation is consistent with how patents were, and still are, treated. The fact that patent term is stricter is not because their legal foundations are different — they’re both grounded in the Arts & Science Clause — but rather the fact that patents represent a stronger intellectual property monopoly than copyrights. Still, the copyright monopoly is strong enough to warrant similar treatment.
But, But, But . . . .
What about trademarks? Trademarks are probably the weakest of intellectual property monopolies, so that alone justifies their indefinite term (only as long as you’re using them in commerce). Similarly, trade secrets are indefinite, but only as long as they remain secrets. However, there’s an additional consideration as to why these two forms of IP are treated differently: They originate in state law, and the federal government can regulate them only indirectly through the application of the Commerce Clause. I’m sure you’re dozing off, so I have no intention of digressing into that discussion. Just understand that these two forms of IP aren’t subject to the “limited Times” qualifier because they don’t arise from the Arts & Sciences Clause. If you’re still awake and would like to understand this a bit better, you can read my post on how state and federal law intersect on trademarks.
So that’s it. We have a problem, and there’s nothing any of us can do about it. Nevertheless, I’ll shout it from the rooftops: Copyright needs reform.
Rob Bodine is a Virginia attorney focusing his practice on real estate and intellectual property law. He’s currently Virginia counsel with Cardinal Title Group, a Virginia title insurance and settlement company. Rob is also a licensed title insurance agent in Maryland and Virginia.
In case the tweets are ever deleted, here’s an image of them.
Blog posts cannot substitute for legal advice. If the topics discussed in this post are relevant to a real case you have, please consult an attorney.
I’ve previously dispelled a common misconception between copyrights and trademarks. In summary, the “doctrine of laches” does not apply to copyrights. That is, if a copyright holder doesn’t enforce their copyright, they don’t lose the copyright. The doctrine of laches does apply to trademarks. Bayer’s Aspirin is an example of a trademark that fell prey to the doctrine of laches and was subsequently “genericized.” But there’s a legal twist to this story.
The German company, Bayer, held a patent in acetyl salicylic acid (“ASA”), and a trademark in Aspirin to identify it. The patent expired in 1917, but they continued to sell it under the brand name Aspirin, so the trademark lingered. Due to World War I, Bayer lost all its assets including its intellectual property. A new, company, bought those assets (including the trademarks “Bayer” and “Aspirin”) and continued selling ASA using the Aspirin trademark. Unfortunately, “considerably more than 220 tons” of counterfeit Aspirin flooded the U.S. market. This ASA was sold as “aspirin” throughout the general public, but with perhaps only an insignificant percentage of exceptions, manufacturing chemists, retail druggists, and physicians didn’t use or sell the infringing ASA.
In Bayer Co. v. United Drug Co., 272 F. 505 (S.D.N.Y. 1921), Bayer sued to enforce the trademark, and the result was, despite the Honorable Learned Hand’s claim, a first in the law. Here’s the relevant quote, which I’ll next explain.
The case, therefore, presents a situation in which, ignoring sporadic exceptions, the trade is divided into two classes, separated by vital differences. One, the manufacturing chemists, retail druggists, and physicians, has been educated to understand that “Aspirin” means the plaintiff’s manufacture, and has recourse to another and an intelligible name for it, actually in use among them. The other, the consumers, the plaintiff has, consciously I must assume, allowed to acquaint themselves with the drug only by the name “Aspirin,” and has not succeeded in advising that the word means the plaintiff at all. If the defendant is allowed to continue the use of the word of the first class, certainly without any condition, there is a chance that it may get customers away from the plaintiff by deception. On the other hand, if the plaintiff is allowed a monopoly of the word as against consumers, it will deprive the defendant, and the trade in general, of the right effectually to dispose of the drug by the only description which will be understood. It appears to me that the relief granted cannot in justice to either party disregard this division; each party has won, and each has lost.
Id. at 513-14.
What all of this means is that, to the general public, aspirin was no longer a trademark. Anyone could sell ASA to the general public and call it aspirin (with a small A), because to the general public, they were the same thing. However, Aspirin (with a capital A) was still a distinctive mark among manufacturing chemists, retail druggists, and physicians, because they never treated it as a generic term. As professionals in the industry, they weren’t burdened by having to call the generic drug acetyl salicylic acid (or monoaceticacidester of salicylicacid), so they continued to do so. Also, those professionals weren’t willing to trade in infringing goods, so they never did.
The net result was that the trademark was no longer applicable to the general public, but it was still valid when selling to manufacturing chemists, retail druggists, and physicians.
I had a discussion during Winter Vantasy: The Return with Erik with respect to Wizards of the Coast’s (“WotC”) new stat block format. The new stat block has some rearranging of material, but that wasn’t the subject matter of the conversation. We were discussing the removal of spells and spell-like abilities from the new WotC stat block. Erik doesn’t like it and referenced my concerns about the complexity within the current stat block format. Erik referred to my position as “ridiculous,” but WotC’s switch proves that Erik’s view is the minority one. I didn’t have a large enough internet footprint to prove it on my own. More importantly, however, Erik understandably mischaracterized my position. I wasn’t saying that the Monster Manual got it wrong. In fact, quite the opposite. I’ve mentioned before that I think it’s the best RPG bestiary I’ve ever read. My concern is that WotC didn’t supplement it properly, then attempted to shut me down when I did.
Important Note: I’m not 100% certain that WotC’s stat blocks have been changed in the way we’re all assuming they were. I’ve seen a sample of the new format (below), but it was for a low level creature whose stat block would be simple anyway. Thus, this discussion comes from a place of partial ignorance, and I may get some things wrong. Take this all with a grain of salt.
When you look at a complex stat block (e.g., Mummy Lord), unless you have a truly eidetic or nearly eidetic memory, there’s no way you can effectively run that stat block as written, especially if the encounter is a combat encounter. There’s too much going on, and what we’ve all seen (and I actually got Erik to admit to an extent!) is that every DM just gives up and resorts to using the common spells they all know: Magic Missile, Hold Person, Fireball, Counterspell, etc., even for higher spell slots. Why? Well, first you must figure out which sourcebook contains the spell in order to look it up. If it isn’t a Player’s Handbook spell, you may not know, so you wind up searching through a couple of books before finding the correct one. Second, you must read the spell, which could take a while if it’s not one like Fly. If it were a spell like Fly, you may not have to look it up at all, which is why Fly is one of the spells to which DMs eventually resort. Something like Control Weather has far too much going on for most people to memorize. Erik is sometimes willing to do that, but there are very few players whose eyes don’t glaze over with boredom during that long process. Moreover, if you’re playing with a real-world time limit (e.g., convention play), that’s certainly not time you have to waste. At the table, the spell’s details should be right in front of your face. I don’t understand why anyone would disagree, and those with eidetic memories shouldn’t care one way or the other.
That said, in theory these stat blocks provide a framework for the culture of that creature. (In my second stat block/copyright post, I mathematically proved that WotC fails to do so, but that’s not relevant here.) So, the Monster Manual itself shouldn’t eliminate that complexity (I know; WotC can’t win with me), but rather use it as a framework for creating specific monsters within that cultural framework but suited to the encounter at hand. That last sentence is a tough read, so here’s an example. (I’m going from my memory, which is not eidetic.) The Couatl has both offensive and divination spells. If your encounter involved the Couatl using Detect Thoughts to aid in an interrogation, then you wouldn’t need the Couatl to have Shield. On the other hand, that position would be reversed if the Couatl were to engage in combat against the PCs (i.e., it would need Shield but I don’t think, from memory, Detect Thoughts would have value). The Monster Manual stat block provides you the spells a Couatl needs for all situations, but not every Couatl will appear in all situations. In fact, I doubt any will unless the Couatl is a PC, but a Couatl PC is clearly not what I’m talking about. For NPCs at the table, you need only the spells that that specific NPC will need in that specific encounter. Everything else muddies the water. However, it’s good that all situations are covered by the general stat block in the Monster Manual, because that’s what you use to build such table-based stat blocks.
So, in my ideal world, this is how WotC (or any game designer with sufficient resources) should approach their stat blocks. Make them as complex as WotC did in the Monster Manual, using only spell names as shorthand to make the stat block printable, but modify their online tools with check boxes allowing DMs to pick which spells and spell-like abilities appear on a final stat block at the table (whether in hard or soft copy). For that final stat block at the table, make sure that the spell descriptions are presented fully so that there’s no need to resort to multiple hardcopy resources to know details that are relevant to the combat, but at the same time make sure that the stat block isn’t cluttered with irrelevant details. If there are no online tools, provide one-stop stat blocks for all NPCs (as I did) as a PDF. They could also provide PDFs containing generic spell entries with coded placeholders such as, “Magic Missile, Atk: [L]+3+IntMod, . . . .” (or whatever it is), so that DMs could copy and paste them into their own stat blocks as needed. All my project did was the one part of that process that I could, which is something WotC didn’t do.
I fully appreciate that some (most?) game designers can’t do this. Online tools are a huge investment of time and resources they may not have, but some in the gaming community do. Game designers simply need to stay out of the way and allow the community to do that heavy lifting for them. On the other hand, WotC has both the time and resources to create this ideal that appeals to the most people, but they’re still getting it wrong, probably because there’s more profit in selling a new hardcopy (which I suspect will be very good nonetheless).
So yeah, WotC can’t win with me, but only because they’re choosing to lose. We’ll see how the final product shakes out.
Blog posts cannot substitute for legal advice. If the topics discussed in this post are relevant to a real case you have, please consult an attorney.
Note: This post was written almost two weeks ago, but last Thursday night, this topic came up again with my friend, Stephen Radney-MacFarland. It’s an issue that just won’t die, especially in the gaming industry because of WotC’s ridiculous OGL claims.
I read two online posts in as many days making a persistent claim that continues to astound and annoy me. One article here.
Yeah, that even includes supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. The music can be copyrighted, and the lyrics as a whole can be copyrighted, but not that one word. You may trademark a single word, but the protection for trademarks is different. There’s a lot more flexibility when it comes to using a word that’s trademarked.
I completely understand that you don’t understand copyright law. That’s no crime; it’s complicated. However, if you don’t, you should be asking questions, not making authoritative statements on the issue. I don’t know the first thing about performing brain surgery. I’m not ashamed of that, nor should I be, but the day I give advice on how to perform it, please call me out for those ignorant ramblings.
If you’re making an argument relying on the copyrightability of a single word, name, or title, your argument is legally and logically invalid. If your conclusion is correct anyway, it’s mere coincidence.
As I’m continuing my data entry of 1e monsters into my database, I relearned a rule I don’t ever recall from my 1e days: Magic resistance isn’t a constant. A monster’s magic resistance is calculated based on an 11th-level caster, adding/subtracting 5% for each caster level below/above 11th. For example, if a monster’s magic resistance is 50%, then a 10th-level caster has only a 45% chance of piercing it, whereas a 12th-level caster has a 55% chance of piercing it. Once again, this sent me down a rabbit hole, though a shallow one.
First, some obvious context. There are a lot of conditions or effects you can place on an enemy creature. These effects become available at various character levels throughout the game, getting progressively more problematic (interesting) as one progresses in level. If you give a low-level character too powerful of an arsenal, it makes the game boring because 1) it’s too easy at lower levels, or 2) if the monsters also get that same arsenal, you run out of effects to earn, and the game becomes the same for far too long during the adventuring life of your characters. Put another way, your 20-level system could have a sweet spot from levels 1-5, with levels 6-20 being identical. I’m sure this is obvious to everyone. Basic stuff.
Here’s where all of this took me. Going beyond 1e, other editions made it a lot easier, for example, to make saves. Save bonuses continued to go up, but certain abilities screwed with that system. For example, in 4e characters might eventually gain the ability to save at the start of their turn rather than the end. One response that undid the value of that ability was that some high-level characters couldn’t be hit by low-level characters no matter the attacker’s to hit modifier, weapon, or d20 roll. That was simply a feature of the NPC.
Magic resistance is a simple, open, uniform, and thus elegant way to implement this. It was a way of resetting the system when characters got to be a certain level. Monster’s still got saves, but a lot of high level spells didn’t grant saves. No worries. The monsters remained a challenge because they didn’t need a save. Magic resistance gave them a secondary sort of save. Another example that wasn’t developed this way, but should have been, was the hellfire created by 3.5e’s Mestopholes. It was fire that penetrated fire resistance, and it was said to worry Asmodeus greatly (see Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells). Something like that could have, again, more elegantly been used to reset the bloated system of resistances while still keeping things interesting. Granted, this would require a subtle touch, but 1e magic resistance didn’t piss off the masses, did it? The tiers of 4e (i.e., heroic, paragon, and epic corresponding to 10-level ranges) were perfect for such periodic adjustments. Unfortunately, the desire of game designers to hide their mechanics prevents such elegant mechanics, resulting in unnecessary bloat and math at the table.
Game designers should focus on their characters, campaign settings, and adventures. Mechanics should be streamlined.
That’s a weird title, I know, but it relates to something that’s bugged me about what appears to be a universal approach to game design. It manifests in two general ways.
“Damage Type” Magic Items
What could be cooler than a flaming sword, right? It’s a sword made of metal but is on fire. That’s great. It’s also an appropriate item for a weapon-using character advancing to an appropriate level. Except that it isn’t. It’s actually a curse. If you have a +1 longsword that does 1d8+1 damage, and I have a +1 flaming weapon that does 1d8+1 fire damage, in most cases, we have the same chance of doing the same damage. However, when we face a fire giant, you’re still doing 1d8+1 damage, and I’m doing 0 damage unless I pull out my non-magical dagger. All my fire damage is negated by the fire giant’s resistance. But hey, that’s okay. When we face a frost giant, you’ll still be doing 1d8+1 damage, but I’ll be doing double damage (2d8+2) damage, right? Right? Well, no. Against the frost giant, we’ll both be doing 1d8+1 damage because frost giants inexplicably aren’t vulnerable to fire damage. From a logical perspective (i.e., flavor), it makes sense that they would be, and from a gaming perspective (i.e., having fun), it would be an appropriate trade off considering that fire giants nerf me. However, I rarely see vulnerabilities in monsters when in fact every single resistance a monster has should always be countered by a meaningful vulnerability. That would appeal to both logic (flavor) and game theory (fun).
The pretentious among us (no judgments; that’s me too) may respond that it doesn’t necessarily make you weaker; it just holds you in place. But that’s the same thing for all intents and purposes. In 4e, a +x magic weapon would do an extra xd6 damage, but for a fire weapon, that extra damage would be fire damage. So, the fire weapon wouldn’t make you weaker than you already are, but it would make you weaker than what you should be. At a given level, if you’re expected to have a +2 weapon, then eliminating your extra 2d6 of damage against fire giants is effectively the same thing as weakening you when facing those monsters. You’re weaker than your contemporaries, which means you’re far better off selling the flaming sword than keeping it. In any event, it’s no reward to find one.
I know that curses can be fun, at least for old-school D&D players, but the flaming sword isn’t meant to be a curse, so it shouldn’t be. Yet it is. Consistently. Why? Even in 4e where vulnerabilities were more common than any other game I played, they were still relatively rare, and when they existed, they didn’t balance. That is, a fire giant with resistance to fire of 10 was (of course) vulnerable to cold, but his vulnerability was only 5. Maybe the game was balanced around this discrepancy (not as far as I can tell), but even if so, all this accomplishes is to make the game more frustrating. If you adjust the math so that they could both be 10, people would feel like their found items were actual rewards for a job well done. As I’ve previously discussed, mathematical advantages and disadvantages are illusory. The real money is in doing cool things and telling a good story (the latter not being relevant here). Making yourself useless against fire giants is uncool. Making yourself insignificantly more useful against frost giants is almost as uncool (though it might mathematically come close to balance considering that you can still do a small amount of damage against the fire giant with your non-magical dagger). The boring magic items became better than a lot of the ones that would otherwise be cool.
I should know. I’m the arbiter of what’s cool.
Why do seemingly all game designers do this? It’s maddening.
The 4th Edition Invoker
Here’s another way this manifests itself, though it’s probably far less common. For those of you that never played 4e, the Invoker was a flavorful class. It was the divine equivalent of the sorcerer (c.f., Divine Soul from 3.5). That is, Invokers channeled divine energy not through research or training but through instinct. As a result, they lacked control over those energies, often resulting in self-harming feedback. This meant that, in addition to damaging the enemy, the Invoker’s attacks (usually) dazed the Invoker. Here’s a hypothetical example that demonstrates the problem. Let’s say the Rogue (a.k.a., Thief) has a 3rd-level power (that’s an “attack” in 4e) that does XdY+Z damage and on a hit immobilizes the opponent. The Invoker would also have a 3rd-level power that does XdY+Z damage and on a hit immobilizes the opponent, but then dazes the Invoker. That makes the 3rd-level Invoker weaker than the Rogue. Not just different (which is cool), but weaker (which is not). The class was always behind the curve, but there’s an easy fix for this. Change the Invoker’s power such that it also dazes the enemy in addition to the immobilization. That’s not a perfect solution – PCs are far more sensitive to conditions than NPCs – but it comes close enough for government work. It makes the flavorful self-harm worth it, and thus the class is viable. My experience is anecdotal, but I knew only one person other than myself that played an Invoker. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were among the least popular classes in 4e, and that’s probably a large part as to why.
EDIT: After discussing this on Facebook with a friend, I want to add that the 5e sorcerer’s Wild Magic in 5e technically has a chance of creating negative feedback, but the chances of that are quite rare, and the bonuses it gives in the vast majority of cases (4d10 lightning damage to up to 3 creatures within 30′!!!) is amazingly beneficial. Clearly, Wild Magic is meant to be a boon, not a bust, and it absolutely is one. No balancing feature is needed, but technically Wild Magic by itself is a balancing act, and it certainly is an exception to the problem I’m addressing. Hence, I’m not surprised that the class remains relatively popular.
I think both of these things come from the same place. Again, I ask, why do game designers seem to take this approach? It seems obvious to me that this is a flaw in game design, but I’ve never seen a game even try to get it right, let alone succeed.
I played 1e Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (“1e“) from 1977 to 1982. I received the “blue box” for Christmas 1977, but by 1982, the Satanic Panic pulled me away. I came back in 2005 (completely missing 2e and 3.0e), but by then I was wrapped up in the current edition, 3.5. Last week (when I wrote this post), the 1e Unearthed Arcana had been generating a lot of chatter over on MeWe, but because it wasn’t published until 1985, I was never aware of its existence until long after I left 1e. With my impending return to 1e, I’m creating a database of all the 1e information I can gather and have just finished the slow process of data entry on 1e Unearthed Arcana spells. Having played the 3rd, 4th, and 5th editions, it’s amazing how much iconic material is in the 1e Unearthed Arcana.
Alarm, Evard’s Black Tentacles, Heroes’ Feast, Melf’s Acid Arrow, Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion, Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere, Stoneskin, and Tasha’s Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter (or their equivalents) are among many spells that are in most (or all) of the first Player’s Handbooks for later editions, but that didn’t enter 1e until Unearthed Arcana. I took those spells for granted as part of the game even though I never used them when I played 1e. So, if for no other reason, there’s no doubt that I’m going to allow Unearthed Arcana in my game.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: 1e has its problems, but there’s a ton of good in there.
Blog posts cannot substitute for legal advice. If the topics discussed in this post are relevant to a real case you have, please consult an attorney.
I’m designing a database for 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons and am close to finishing the data entry on spells. This brought a copyright issue to the forefront. Characters can be copyrighted. This isn’t a controversial position. However, the name of a character is not copyrightable, and unless a name is used as a brand for your line of products, it doesn’t even receive the (much weaker) protection of trademark. So why does everyone remove proper names from spell names when referencing D&D spells?
Copyrighting a Single Word or Short Phrase
While there is no “bright line” rule stating a minimum number of words necessary to secure a copyright, it’s well settled that a short phrase is not copyrightable. Either they lack tiny amount of creativity necessary for copyright (thus likely representing independent creation) or the merger doctrine applies. A simple Google search will uncover a multitude of articles supporting this notion.
Only nothing at all is more minimal than a single word, so there’s no doubt (outside of Poland) that a single word can’t be copyrighted. But even a short phrase, such as the name of a spell, can’t be copyrighted, especially where it’s descriptive of the mechanics of the spell (mostly the case).
The Nichols Case and Copyrighting Characters
The standard for copyrighting characters comes from Nichols v. Universal Pictures Corp., 45 F.2d 119 (2d Cir. 1930), in which the Court stated:
If Twelfth Night were copyrighted, it is quite possible that a second comer might so closely imitate Sir Toby Belch or Malvolio as to infringe, but it would not be enough that for one of his characters he cast a riotous knight who kept wassail to the discomfort of the household, or a vain and foppish steward who became amorous of his mistress. These would be no more than Shakespeare’s “ideas” in the play. . . . It follows that the less developed the characters, the less they can be copyrighted; that is the penalty an author must bear for marking them too indistinctly.
45 F.2d 119, 121 (2d Cir. 1930). This has since become known as the “well delineated character” test.
Can a spy be protected? Of course not. What if that spy uses sex as a tool of the trade? Don’t all spies (at least in fiction) do that? How about if he’s a martini drinker? Hmm, that sounds familiar. “Shaken not stirred”? Well. . . . Eventually, we get to the specific character of James Bond, and he’s certainly a copyrighted character, but it took a bit of detail beyond his name to get there. If I created a fictional character of James Bond who was an accountant, I’d be just fine. In fact, I could even have him joke, “I’m not that James Bond.” I’m not using Ian Fleming’s James Bond, just referencing him, and to the extent James Bond is trademarked, readers will understand from context that I don’t have the endorsement of whoever currently owns the character.
The less common, “story being told” test isn’t relevant here, but in case you’re interested, see Warner Bros. Pictures v. Columbia Broadcasting Sys., 216 F.2d 945 (9th Cir. 1954), cert. denied, 348 U.S. 971 (1955) (“It is conceivable that the character really constitutes the story being told, but if the character is only the chessman in the game of telling the story he is not within the area of the protection afforded by the copyright.”).
Elsewhere when discussing the precise boundaries of copyright as it related to plays, the Nichols Court went on to add that, “[n]obody has ever been able to fix that boundary, and nobody ever can.” Nichols at 121. That makes copyright hard, but it’s not impossible, and sometimes it’s even easy. A name cannot be protected by copyright, even within the context of a spell name of a few words.
Tenser’s Floating Disc
So why do so many of you seem to think that you’re avoiding copyright infringement by avoiding writing, “Tenser’s Floating Disc,” “Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion,” and “Tasha’s Hideous Laughter”? Based solely on the text of the spell as written, can you tell who Mordenkainen is? Is Mordenkainen the wizard that wrote the spell? The wizard’s significant other, child, or pet? The name of the Wizard’s favorite watering hole anthropomorphized into the owner of a mansion? Even if the original spell as written by TSR contained the answers to such questions in sufficient detail to flesh out the character (it didn’t even try), a reproduction of the spell not including such information, but rather limited to the spell’s mechanical effects, wouldn’t infringe on the character of Mordenkainen just by using the name. The name isn’t what’s copyrighted; the combination of several traits defining the character are, but they’ve been left out.
Seriously? You think WotC can restrict use of the name, Tasha?
This is as ridiculous as, for example, using the word “Forgeborn” for “Warforged” as if WotC owns the word, “Warforged,” and that use of “Forgeborn” relieves the writer of any infringement of WotC’s text describing the species. Such a writer is focusing on the wrong thing. Think of it this way: If you think that dropping the name off of the spell cures your text of copyright infringement, then you concede my point that spell text describing the mechanical effect of a spell within the context of an RPG isn’t usually copyrightable. Great! However, you then must be thinking** that the name itself is where the copyright lies. That can’t possibly be true. It flies in the face of every knowledgeable commentator (again, outside of Poland) that’s ever addressed the issue.
** Unless, of course, you’re still under the mistaken impression that the OGL is somehow a valid contract, and that its terms, if taken seriously, wouldn’t constitute copyright misuse. But if you really want to know why that’s silly, you’ll have to read that long post.
There’s absolutely no legal reason not to use those names in spells, and it doesn’t hurt WotC at all to use them (other than perhaps robbing their arrogant legal department of their hubris). Why is this important? Because there are too many misconceptions about copyright law that have had far reaching consequences to the gaming industry and the gaming community in general. The text of the Open Gaming License and System Reference Documentcollectively foster this misinterpretation, and I suspect (can’t prove) that’s an intentional scam. If WotC legal gets you to focus on the word, “Tasha,” but does nothing to stop you from copying the text of the spell, then you still may be infringing whatever copyright they arguably have. If you do something that’s 100% legal later down the road, but it’s something they don’t like, they can go after you for that infringement. As I’ve discussedelsewhere, this can often lead to copyright misuse, but most gamers aren’t sophisticated or wealthy enough to hit back on those grounds. More importantly to the community as a whole, while using these names in spells is not creative on your part, your misconceptions eventually lead down the road of stifling your own creativity. The purpose of copyright is to promote creativity. When copyright law stifles creativity, its entire purpose vanishes, in which case we may as well not even have copyright.
You can’t know what you can’t do unless you also know what you can do.
Having worked in intellectual property law, I like to give proper credit where it’s due. I found this meme and was looking for an excuse to use it.
As I was doing my research as to who produced this, I ran into an issue. I saw this shared on Facebook by a connection (I don’t remember whom), but they shared it from another source, so that person shouldn’t get credit. It looks like they got it from thekratorianchronicles via Instagram, but based on a signature of sorts within the image, thekratorianchronicles doesn’t seem to have created it, so they also shouldn’t get credit.
So, credit belongs to “HORRORFLIX,” but who are they? Searches via Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook yielded far too many entities for me to figure out who owned it. With no logo, Twitter handle, URL, or other unambiguous identifier as part of the signature, I can’t give proper credit despite how important I think that is.
Play What You Want 