Something as I was surfing some of Pundits old blog entries. The bold-type stuff was done by me.

Quote from: RPGPundit...And now, Mongoose somehow got the rights to the name Runequest. As far as I understand it, that's all they had the rights for, though they apparently are also publishing the Glorantha setting so they must have worked out the rights for that too.

One thing I know they DON'T have the rights for is the Chaosium rules for Runequest. Those rules being the "basic roleplaying" system, the same one that powers Call of Cthulhu and Elric.

So what does Mongoose do? It rips off the rules anyways.

You see, little known fact here: game companies can't actually copyright the rules of a game. They can copyright the specific rulebooks, so you can't just cut and paste the rules and publish them yourself. But as long as your actual rulebook is original, your RULES don't have to be. Anyone can publish D&D, or Call of Cthulhu, or Vampire the Masquerade, or True 20, as long as they re-write the rulebook.

Frankly, I'm surprised that more companies haven't decided to do that. I'm also kind of surprised that Mongoose would be the first, and not some small-time no-name company...

  I'm suprised too, I thought mongoose had a little more ground to stand on when they made MRQ. It seems I missed a few threads when MRQ came out.

  I'm am suprised that there hasn't been more "borrowing" of system mechanics by other small press publishers in light of the precedent made by mongoose.

  However this may be due to the fact that d20 is already "open".


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Chaosium's borrowing of D&D's attributes might be a slightly earlier precedent.

Oh yeah, because stealing 20 pages of rules and then rewriting 100 pages of setting material and support is a brilliant move.

You can't patent mechanics because that would destroy the entire RPG market.  You can copyright the wording, so direct plagerism is out.  But if you feel like rewriting the rules, then that's mostly ok.  Cripes, if Mongoose got the rights to the game and the setting, not getting the rules as well is a bug, not a feature.

Anyway, if people wrote a vampire themed game that happened to use a system very similar to Storyteller, then they could be held legally liable.  That's pretty blatant, as a whole.  But the mechanics themselves are just one part of the mess.


I mean, without "borrowing" and adapting of mechanics, there would be just D&D.  TSR (or was it wizards?) tried to patent funny-sided dice.  And CCG mechanics, which would have made M:tG the only game in town.  Actually, ironically, without borrowed mechanics, there'd be no Storyteller games at all, since they stole the dicepool idea from Shadowrun.

Quote from: CaudexChaosium's borrowing of D&D's attributes might be a slightly earlier precedent.

I've always seen Palladium's early parroting of D&D mechanics as a more blatant early example.

OK, there's three different types of intellectual property being conflated here: patents, copyright, and trademarks.

Patents are something you get to give you the exclusive right to exploit something you've invented, for as long as the patent lasts. So far as I understand, you can't patent the rules of games - hence all the RPGs out there with strikingly similar mechanics.

Copyright, however, is the author's right to control things that they write. It's what lets you stop people plagiarising your work. However, if someone completely rewrote your work, you wouldn't be able to sue them. To use the BRP example, Chaosium may have lifted a bunch of stats from D&D, but they sure as hell didn't steal Gygax's descriptions of how the stats worked word-for-word, that would have been dumb.

Lastly, you've got trademarks. These are things like titles, characters, images - things which you want to keep control of which identify your product or brand. In this case, the trademark is the name "Runequest". Chaosium don't have the trademark to Runequest - Issiaries have it, and they've reached a deal with Mongoose to let them use it.

From an IP perspective, because Mongoose weren't simply reprinting the old RQ2/3 rules - they did a complete rewrite - and because they own the RQ trademark, there's nothing to be done about it.

Now, the OGL, and similar open gaming initiatives, is mainly about trademarks, and to a lesser extent about copyright. The D20 and RQ OGLs are only secondarily about letting other people use the D20 or Runequest system - sure, you can copy-paste the system details from the SRD, but if you rewrote them entirely and published them you couldn't be sued for it (so long as you didn't infringe anyone's trademark). The real reason OGLs are such hot shit is the trademark angle: if you adhere closely to the RQ or D20 licences, you're allowed to use the "Runequest" or "Dungeons and Dragons" names on your product, which is very valuable in the marketplace.

This, of course, means that the "vanilla" D20 OGL - the one which is less tightly controlled but doesn't let you use the D&D name, as opposed to the tighter D20 licence which lets you use the D&D name - is nigh-worthless. It's a piece of paper allowing you to use rules which aren't patentable anyhow. All it's good for is letting you copy-paste bits from the SRD into your rulebook.

Quote from: Caesar SlaadI've always seen Palladium's early parroting of D&D mechanics as a more blatant early example.

Ooh, I'd forgotten about them. That's a much better example.

Quote from: CodexArcanumActually, ironically, without borrowed mechanics, there'd be no Storyteller games at all, since they stole the dicepool idea from Shadowrun.

A niggling point, but I'd imagine the dicepools in WoD were 'stolen' more from D6 Star Wars than Shadowrun.  (Rein*Hagen and Tweet wrote an early sourcebook for the D6 Star Wars game, and that book came out at least a year or two before SR.)

And, of course, as we all know, the 'D6 system' in it's infancy was created for the Ghostbusters RPG, published by WEG, but designed by Chaosium.

Quote from: zombenA niggling point, but I'd imagine the dicepools in WoD were 'stolen' more from D6 Star Wars than Shadowrun.  (Rein*Hagen and Tweet wrote an early sourcebook for the D6 Star Wars game, and that book came out at least a year or two before SR.)

According to the credits Tom Dowd (of Shadowrun) was also working on Vampire First Edition. Does that count as "stealing"?

Note that I put 'stolen' in quotes, because that's the term CodexArcanum had used.  I don't think there was any 'stealing' or 'plagiarism' or anything involved at all.  "Inspired by..." perhaps, or 'evolved from'.

I'll chime in here with my various dillemmae, because I take it that it was my MARINER preview/playtest thread that got your juices flowing.  I seem to have run myself up against almost every related problem in this sort of endeavor, and they are as follows:

1) Mechanics
Indeed, dice mechanics aren't protected by copyright.  Anyone can be "inspired" by a mechanic and copy it for their own game, making only the most cosmetic of changes if he or she wishes.  As long as actual text isn't borrowed, this is fair ball.  The only issue at stake here is a matter of integrity -- do you recognise and fairly credit your inspiration?  Do you ask permission to use the mechanics, whether you feel the legal or moral need to do so or not?

2) Subject Matter
This gets a little stickier, because one can create a pastiche or an homage to an existing intellectual property, commonly viewed as "filing the serial numbers off".  Again, one can claim "inspiration", but matters like this often become more contentious, with people being more protective about retaining ownership of their ideas, even just the spirit of their ideas. On our humble rung of the food chain, claims of IP infringement are seldom pursued, mostly because there's little or nothing to gain by it.  As above, if you intend it as an homage or pastiche, do you credit the source of your inspiration?  Do you ask permission first?

3) Text
Here's the most obvious gaffe possible.  Use someone else's text, word-for-word, and it's plagiarism, pure and simple.  Use someone else's text with only minor changes to the content and wording, and it's still plagiarism, though not so pure and not so simple.  In cases like this, you have to ask permission to use the text first, possibly licensing it for a fee.  With an agreement in hand, you can reprint or adapt the original text to your satisfaction, though probably requiring the final approval of the original author.

Now, what if you've decided to use a set of mechanics from another game, but you create all the text and tables yourself from scratch?  Yes, technically and functionally, you've avoided plagiarism, but the original author will take a look at your game and rightfully point out that all you've done is re-word his or her game, especially if you use a similar setting.

4) Layout
This is one that most people don't think about.  Your game is clearly inspired by an existing game, and you want to create a sort of visual in-joke by making your game look like the original.  Hackmaster is a good example, with its obvious nod to 1st edition AD&D; my MARINER covers are a much more blatant example.  All intended in good, respectful fun, but someone could easily claim that these are cases of product confusion, making one product look like another with the intent of borrowing another product's established popularity.  Maybe this is perceived simply as "coat-tailing", riding someone else's fame by being similar, or maybe it's perceived as being an outright attempt to confuse someone into mistakenly buying your product when they had intended to purchase the original.  You see this sort of thing in the supermarket all the time, with store brands making their packaging look very similar in color, content, and layout as more popular national brands.

So, over all, it's a rather sticky wicket to navigate.  What's your intent?  If you're like me, you just want to make an amusing homage to a non-current product, an in-joke among existing fans, but still a playable pursuit.  Games like Hackmaster, Castles & Crusades, and Mazes & Minotaurs fall into this category, too, to some degree or another.  If you're like some others, you may see the grey areas in some or all of the above points as loopholes to be exploited for personal gain.  Mongoose's RuneQuest is a confusingly above-board example of this in my eye.  GORE, the Call of Cthulhu mimic, is another example, borrowing both the mechanics and subject matter from Chaosium's game to create what is, effectively, a direct competitor.  I know the author has come about here to defend his efforts by pointing out the legality of what he's done, but the spirit of his intent is transparent.

Ultimately, "ripping off" someone else's game falls into the lap of the person holding the original game.  Does that person feel your game directly infringes on their ownership of that game?  Does he feel you did so in a good spirit?  That compliments the original game?  Does he feel that your game will detract from his, or directly compete with it?  Does he have the interest or the means to pursue any effort to control what you're doing with what he claims are ideas that he owns?  In short, you're free to proceed at your peril.

!i!

Quote from: zombenNote that I put 'stolen' in quotes, because that's the term CodexArcanum had used.  I don't think there was any 'stealing' or 'plagiarism' or anything involved at all.  "Inspired by..." perhaps, or 'evolved from'.

Now hang out, I didn't put fruffy little quotes around it, but I don't think they actually stole the mechanics either.  That was the point of my post, that it's ridiculous to accuse games of stealing mechanics from each other, and that "Inspiration" is a very good thing for the hobby.


Also, thank you for the clarification on the possible origin of the dice pool system.  The story I had always heard was that it came from SR, but as I wasn't gaming back then, I wouldn't know what came first.

Quote from: zombenA niggling point, but I'd imagine the dicepools in WoD were 'stolen' more from D6 Star Wars than Shadowrun.

Or from the first game to use dice pools at all (Tunnels & Trolls), which predated Ghostbusters by about nine years. Really, though, the WoD dice pools work much differently than either the WEG die pools or the Flying Buffalo pools. It's fair to say that they do, in fact, have much more in common with Shadowrun.

Did T&T use dice pools? I played it a bunch in the early 80's, but don't really remember.  I thought it was a 3D6+Add stat bonus kind of thing.  I'm probably wrong, however.

Quote from: zombenDid T&T use dice pools? I played it a bunch in the early 80's, but don't really remember.  I thought it was a 3D6+Add stat bonus kind of thing.  I'm probably wrong, however.

3D6? Three Dee Six?
I'd sacrifice half my goat herd to dreaded Fhrvrgngn if I'd be content with mere three platonic solids of any kind.
Characters use the dice of their weapon and add their general bonus, monsters use half their monster rating in dice, the rest added to that. Which can result in a _huge_ amount. And adding, as opposed to success counting, doesn't really make your job easier.

I really like the idea of collaborative combats, but the implementation always left me cold. Same reason I never liked WEG D6. For some kind of reason, I don't have any problems with rolling two dice, adding them, looking up the result on a table and adding that to my initial number, as the other WEG games did...

Quote from: zombenDid T&T use dice pools?

Back in the day we didn't call them "pools" but the term "buckets" came up a lot...you might have to roll 10-15 or even 20 dice for a big bad.

TheShadow
...resident T&T grognard