ORC Vs OGL

[Old Man Henerson]

Hi,

I am currently considering designing a setting/campaign book for BRP for commercial and I was a bit confused about the difference between the ORC and the OGL and which one is better to use.

The information about the ORC, Linked Here and Here, includes a PDF with all the content of the new version of the Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine. What confuses me, is that it has game mechanics that the OGL, Linked Here, lists as prohibited content. Namely: augments, passions, reputation, sanity and others.

My main question then is this, Is the OGL and its prohibited content binding on the ORC, or is the OGL outdated or not connected at to the ORC at all?

Thanks in advance!

[Mugen]

There's no connection between BRP OGL and ORC.

Use ORC. 🙂

[Ravenheart87]

Use ORC and forget about the OGL

[Atgxtg]

Yeah use ORC.

If I recall correctly, the reason why ORC was created in the first place was that WotC could/was pulling the rug from under OGL. ORC prevents that, as it is free from the WotC license. So using ORC protects third parties from WotC.

And yes, not everything in BRP games is covered under ORC. SO some things you can use, at least not as is. You can recreate some things that aren't under ORC,  or make replacements for them.

[Jex]

While the other posts here have pretty much covered it, I thought it might be worth explaining in a little more detail for clarification.  The page in your last link listing the Prohibited Content pertains to the BRP Open Game License, which was released along with the previous edition of the BRP core rules in 2020 (and which was a separate entity from Wizards of the Coast's Open Game License, though partly based on it).  The latest edition of the BRP rules is licensed under the ORC instead of the BRP-OGL, and has fewer restrictions; under the ORC you still can't refer to specific Chaosium settings and properties like RuneQuest, but most of the mechanics previously fenced off as "Prohibited Content" under the BRP-OGL are now fair game.

Quote

Product Identity elements in this product include all artwork, illustrations, and graphic design, including runes and geometric symbols that are not part of the Latin alphabet or Hindu-Arabic numeral system, and all trademarks, including Call of Cthulhu, Chaosium, Future-World, Magic World, Pendragon, RuneQuest, Superworld, and Worlds of Wonder.
With a very few exceptions (trademarked terms), the text of BASIC ROLEPLAYING: UNIVERSAL GAME ENGINE is available for personal and commercial use under the ORC license.

So, yeah, the BRP-OGL and the ORC are two separate licenses, and the Prohibited Content terms of the BRP-OGL are not binding on the ORC; that page listing Prohibited Content is now outdated and can be safely ignored.  I guess technically the BRP-OGL is still legally in effect and you could publish something under it based on the previous edition of the BRP rules, but given the much more favorable terms of the ORC there's absolutely no reason to do so.  Just ignore the BRP-OGL, use the ORC, and you're free to make use of sanity, passions, reputation, and any other rules (but not trademarked terms) in the BRP core book.  (Just make sure of course that you follow all the terms of the ORC license and give Chaosium the appropriate credit.)

[Old Man Henerson]

50 minutes ago, Jex said:

While the other posts here have pretty much covered it, I thought it might be worth explaining in a little more detail for clarification.  The page in your last link listing the Prohibited Content pertains to the BRP Open Game License, which was released along with the previous edition of the BRP core rules in 2020 (and which was a separate entity from Wizards of the Coast's Open Game License, though partly based on it).  The latest edition of the BRP rules is licensed under the ORC instead of the BRP-OGL, and has fewer restrictions; under the ORC you still can't refer to specific Chaosium settings and properties like RuneQuest, but most of the mechanics previously fenced off as "Prohibited Content" under the BRP-OGL are now fair game.

So, yeah, the BRP-OGL and the ORC are two separate licenses, and the Prohibited Content terms of the BRP-OGL are not binding on the ORC; that page listing Prohibited Content is now outdated and can be safely ignored.  I guess technically the BRP-OGL is still legally in effect and you could publish something under it based on the previous edition of the BRP rules, but given the much more favorable terms of the ORC there's absolutely no reason to do so.  Just ignore the BRP-OGL, use the ORC, and you're free to make use of sanity, passions, reputation, and any other rules (but not trademarked terms) in the BRP core book.  (Just make sure of course that you follow all the terms of the ORC license and give Chaosium the appropriate credit.)

Thanks so much! That clears up a great deal of my confusion about the OGL and the ORC. I definitely preferer the ORC's freedom, so that was my first choice. I don't have any intention of carbon copying Chaosium's current settings, and the only mechanic I am interested in working on is creating a sort of corruption system that is similar to passions and sanity Those terms are not trademarked right?

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah use ORC.

If I recall correctly, the reason why ORC was created in the first place was that WotC could/was pulling the rug from under OGL. ORC prevents that, as it is free from the WotC license. So using ORC protects third parties from WotC.

Wow! I did not know that WotC had such power over everyone, did they create the OGL?

[Jex]

10 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Wow! I did not know that WotC had such power over everyone, did they create the OGL?

They created the original OGL, yes, but that doesn't give them power over other open licenses.  The BRP-OGL was partly based on the Wizards of the Coast OGL, but was legally separate from it, and WotC had no power over the BRP-OGL.

The ORC was created largely in response to Wizards of the Coast trying to deauthorize its Open Game License (which was something that wasn't supposed to be possible, but the original OGL didn't explicitly say that, so they thought they could get away with it anyway).  In the face of enormous backlash, WotC eventually relented and even went so far as to release the 5E open content under a Creative Commons license (though not the open content from earlier editions, at least not yet... they said they'd do that later, but we'll see).  By then, however, WotC had already muddied the waters enough that many companies that had previously relied on the WotC OGL took measures to distance themselves from it.  In particular, Paizo, whose Pathfinder game was (then) licensed under the OGL, spearheaded a joint effort with numerous other game companies, including Chaosium, to produce a new open license that would be free of any influence from WotC and not subject to further shenanigans.  That new open license, of course, would be the ORC.

Again, though, the BRP-OGL was legally a separate license from the Wizards of the Coast OGL, and even if Wizards of the Coast had managed to effectively deauthorize its Open Game License that wouldn't have affected the BRP-OGL.  However, having been a part of the creation of the ORC, it made sense that Chaosium would release the next version of BRP under the ORC instead of its own custom license—and it was certainly simpler to sign onto what was intended as a new standard open license than for every company to have their own bespoke license.  (Besides, however well-intentioned, the original BRP-OGL had some issues—the amount of cordoned-off "Prohibited Content" being the biggest one—and the ORC is a better license anyway.)

So, TLDR: Yes, WotC created the original OGL, but it did not have any control over the BRP-OGL; while it's true that the ORC was intended to create an open license that would have no dependence on WotC, the BRP-OGL wasn't subject to WotC anyway and Chaosium could have kept using it instead of moving to the ORC—but it's a good thing that they didn't.

[Old Man Henerson]

20 minutes ago, Jex said:

They created the original OGL, yes, but that doesn't give them power over other open licenses.  The BRP-OGL was partly based on the Wizards of the Coast OGL, but was legally separate from it, and WotC had no power over the BRP-OGL.

The ORC was created largely in response to Wizards of the Coast trying to deauthorize its Open Game License (which was something that wasn't supposed to be possible, but the original OGL didn't explicitly say that, so they thought they could get away with it anyway).  In the face of enormous backlash, WotC eventually relented and even went so far as to release the 5E open content under a Creative Commons license (though not the open content from earlier editions, at least not yet... they said they'd do that later, but we'll see).  By then, however, WotC had already muddied the waters enough that many companies that had previously relied on the WotC OGL took measures to distance themselves from it.  In particular, Paizo, whose Pathfinder game was (then) licensed under the OGL, spearheaded a joint effort with numerous other game companies, including Chaosium, to produce a new open license that would be free of any influence from WotC and not subject to further shenanigans.  That new open license, of course, would be the ORC.

Again, though, the BRP-OGL was legally a separate license from the Wizards of the Coast OGL, and even if Wizards of the Coast had managed to effectively deauthorize its Open Game License that wouldn't have affected the BRP-OGL.  However, having been a part of the creation of the ORC, it made sense that Chaosium would release the next version of BRP under the ORC instead of its own custom license—and it was certainly simpler to sign onto what was intended as a new standard open license than for every company to have their own bespoke license.  (Besides, however well-intentioned, the original BRP-OGL had some issues—the amount of cordoned-off "Prohibited Content" being the biggest one—and the ORC is a better license anyway.)

So, TLDR: Yes, WotC created the original OGL, but it did not have any control over the BRP-OGL; while it's true that the ORC was intended to create an open license that would have no dependence on WotC, the BRP-OGL wasn't subject to WotC anyway and Chaosium could have kept using it instead of moving to the ORC—but it's a good thing that they didn't.

Yeah, the ORC is definitely a better choice since no one can definitively say that they own it. Just goes to show you that you should not get greedy.

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Wow! I did not know that WotC had such power over everyone, did they create the OGL?

Jex pretty much covered it, but the sticking point was that every OGL game used text from WotC OGL license. When WotC started backtracking on OGL all the other companies got a little nervous about the situation and ORC and other open licenses came about to avoid any problems. This was a much bigger issue for d20/D&D based games , as they have a whole cottage industry, than with other games. 

In theory it shouldn't have mattered if WotC stopped supporting OGL and released a new edition (which happened with D&D 4E), but in practice a new edition tends to kill off the old one, which is why you don't see much, if any, new D&D supplements for earlier editions. So the worry was that WotC could kill off all the 3rd pary companies making 5E stuff by releasing a non-OGL 6E. Which tey probably could have, if 4E had been more successful. Instead 4E lead to PAthfinder and third party compnaies getting large enough to compete with WoTC.

 

But basically ORC give third parties such as you more control over and security with their products. But you do have to be careful that what you use is actually covered under ORC.

[Mugen]

2 hours ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Wow! I did not know that WotC had such power over everyone, did they create the OGL?

Originally, their intent was to revoke the OGL. But even if it was not clear if they could, other publishers didn't want to take the risk.