Quote from: Elliot WilenNow, Mongoose's RQ is pretty clearly a derivative of the original Chaosium RQ in other ways, like the place names and the races and how they are described, etc. This would be covered by copyright law. And the name Runequest, plus maybe other distinctive elements of the game that help identify it to consumers, is covered by trademark. But pretty clearly, Greg Stafford retained all those rights when he left Chaosium, and was able to license those IPs to Mongoose.

And this is the part where my brow furrows in consternation.  I understand the technical and legal "how" (and thank you for taking the time, Elliot), but I'm ill-at-ease with the realpolitik "how".  I suppose it's a bit like being friends with both members of a divorced couple.

!i!

You might find some perspective on page 4 of this discussion with Greg Stafford over at the Acaeum:

http://www.acaeum.com/forum/about4109-0-asc-60.html

Notably

QuoteWe made big money with the CCG Mythos. It is a great game, being much, much more than just two teams bashing each other. Charlie did a great design job on it, and he did most of the artist assignments and coordination. I handled the administration, getting investors and so on. It is REALLY expensive to make a CCG. But it paid off, and we were all very, very happy.
But we had differences of  opinion about what to do as a follow up. I lost the discussion, and several supplements and extensions were made for the game. I was very, very unhappy with the resultant financial situation.
Debtors came a-knocking, and when the other partners decided to give away the Pendragon line rather than pay off the paltry debt that it was being used as collatoral for, I decided to leave Chaosium, the company I had started. I negotiated to take out with exactly what I came in with: Glorantha and its games. I left everything else to them.

Now I'd note that a similar outcome might have led to Greg keeping the Chaosium name along with the Glorantha stuff, and the other people keeping CoC, Stormbringer, etc. under a new company name. What I mean is that Stafford has about as much of a moral claim to BRP as Chaosium does.

But there are other parties involved, namely Steve Perrin and Ray Turney, who actually invented the bulk of the rules. I know that Perrin was involved in some of the work (at least playtesting and suggestions) for Mongoose (though he wasn't credited, I think he may have gotten paid), and also may have contributed to the current Chaosium Basic Roleplaying System project. There was a lot of talk about this over on RPG.net a while ago, which may also have touched on how much compensation/recognition Steve got for the use of his system by Chaosium itself. Looks like he was at least credited for CoC 1e and Elfquest based on pen-paper.net.

I guess the upshot is that it's not too strange that Stafford, Chaosium, and even Perrin (SPQR)are able to make & sell games based on BRP. The only slightly puzzling thing is connecting the legal fact that Chaosium explicitly retained rights to the textual expression of the rules, to the "moral implications" of the company breakup. Maybe Stafford or someone has commented on that elsewhere, I don't know. But it seems that MRQ is certainly different enough from previous incarnations to piss off a lot of people, and given that other games such as Unknown Armies and Harnmaster are very close "genetically" to BRP, without paying any royalties, I don't see why Stafford's licensee should be especially prevented morally or otherwise from doing as they have. (Not to say that they shouldn't be blamed for other stuff; reportedly MRQ has problems with the writing and presentation, as well as the aforementioned complaints about the rules.)

Le sigh.  This story depresses me every time I hear an added nuance to it.  

!i!