Hey all-
I've been busy typing away on my manuscript for Awesome Adventures, a Fate 3.0 game, hoping to make this my first published product. (And gaining yet more respect for anyone who's done it before.)
Fate has quite a bit of SRD text, by way of Spirit of the Century. While I'm revamping the system in a couple of ways, much of the text is very applicable (and well written!) For the portions of the system that are staying the same, I'm tempted to copy and paste from the SRD.
Is this bad form? What's the propper game publishing ettiquette here?
The SRD's text is open to be freely copied by anyone who wishes to do so for any product, as long as the SRD text is clearly marked OGC and the OGC license is included in the product. See the FAQ from WotC here (http://shadow.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/srdfaq/20040123c). And note the on-line SRD's legal page (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/legal.html): "Permission to copy, modify and distribute the files collectively known as the System Reference Document ("SRD") is granted solely through the use of the Open Gaming License, Version 1.0a." One could actually legally publish the SRD as a book and charge money for it.
greyorm got it right. The SRD is out there for folks to copy and paste. :)