For a while now I've been thinking about trying my hand at creating a game similar in spirit and execution to Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and offshoots. I'd rather not face the full bulk of work in implementing my own RPG system - I'd like to use D&D rules.
Now, reading about the subject it seems there is something called "The License" which allows a company to brand a game as D&D. This license seems to be exclusive, and let's just say I don't have the money to buy it :p.
Is it still legal for me to implement and release such a game? Commercially or open-source? I'm not sure exactly which edition would fit the best, but since Baldur's Gate is based of 2nd edition, could I go ahead an implement that?
in short: what are the issues concerning licensing and publishing when it comes to D&D?
Also: Didn't see any similar question...
Answer
You cannot brand your game as D&D, period. You used to be able to brand your game as being D20 System compatible provided you followed a number of stipulations, not the least of which is that you couldn't reproduce or include rules for character advancement (XP, gaining levels, etc.) which basically means a player of your game would need a copy of the D&D Player's Handbook to level up; obviously those requirements are not in any way geared towards computer games, and creating one that is in any way officially a part of the D&D universe is going to require you forking over boatloads of cash to WotC. However, when WotC released 4th Edition D&D, they withdrew the d20 License so you can no longer brand anything as d20. You can just take the 3rd edition rules under the OGL, so long as your rules are also under the OGL. I have no idea how that translates to non-print rules, though, and it may well just be fundamentally incompatible (ask a lawyer; programmer nerds won't be able to answer that for you).
You are basically free to use a ruleset that looks an awful lot like D&D at any time, though. Ever since the first computer RPG, D&D has been "ripped off" repeatedly, down to seeing obviously D&D-original mechanics like THAC0 showing up in a lot of old non-TSR-affiliated computer RPGs. You are legally obligated to avoid WotC trademarks (campaign setting names, iconic creatures like Beholders or Mind Flayers, etc.) and your rules cannot be a direct copy of the D&D source material. If you've got the same races with the same ability modifiers and the same feat tree and the same prestige classes, you're probably going to be in trouble. If you've got your own races and classes and a new "perk" tree and it just so happens that you have Primary Attributes that mathemtically work like D20's Ability Scores and a level advancement scheme that uses XP to gain levels and you get Primary Attribute increases every X levels and a new perk every Y levels and other class abilities each level... well, that's what just about every other combat-based RPG ever made has done and there's nothing WotC can do about it. A system that "feels" like D&D is one thing so long as nobody is going to look at it and think, "holy cow, that's D&D!"
I know it's not an answer to your question, but my advice is to just steer clear, if for the following reason only: different gaming mediums have different strengths and weaknesses, and the design choices and compromises made for one medium rarely make sense when transferred to another. D&D's rules work great in pen-and-paper games but do not work well in a computer game, an ARG or LARP, a card game, or so on. Even awesome classic D&D computer games like Baldur's Gate made a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle tweaks to the rules and even then still came out with worse experience than what could have been accomplished with a set of mechanics better suited to a point-and-click real-time dungeon crawler.
And really, inventing your own game mechanics isn't terribly hard in the grand scheme of things. If you can write a game like Baldur's Gate (something a team of fans working on GemRB has still yet to completely finish off even after years of work, and that's ignoring the development of any custom content!), you can absolutely write an RPG rule set. Doing so is going to take a tiny fraction of the time it'll take you to make the rest of the code and content for your game.
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