Looks like the Third Imperium and the entire Traveller line will have a third party content program.
http://support.drivethrurpg.com/hc/en-us/articles/208597136-Mongoose-The-Travellers-Aid-Society-TAS-
And HOLY SHIT is the fight on about that......
Tucked away in the TAS agreement is the legal part which tells you that all copyright to the work submitted goes straight to Mongoose Publishing. So if you have an already established setting like Orbital or Clement Sector, Mongoose will own it if you post it via TAS. I have not seen one 3PP for Traveller want to touch that yet because they do not want to lose their IP.
Quote from: jeff37923;895449And HOLY SHIT is the fight on about that......
Tucked away in the TAS agreement is the legal part which tells you that all copyright to the work submitted goes straight to Mongoose Publishing. So if you have an already established setting like Orbital or Clement Sector, Mongoose will own it if you post it via TAS. I have not seen one 3PP for Traveller want to touch that yet because they do not want to lose their IP.
Everything I needed to know about Mongoose, I learned from their worthless "SRD" which excluded anything needed to play the game or create characters. ;)
So this is a MgT2 version of the DM's Guild?
Quote from: CRKrueger;895470So this is a MgT2 version of the DM's Guild?
Pretty much. There's been some talk that the agreement is boilerplate and is identical to the other "community" agreements in place at OBS, including the one for MWP's Cortex system.
For the record, here's what everybody's upset about:
Quote“User Generated Content” shall be defined as the copyrightable elements included in your Work, such as original characters, scenes, locations and events. User Generated content shall not include the illustrations and cartographic artwork included in your work. Per the terms of this Agreement, you expressly agree that your User Generated Content, once submitted to the Program will become Program IP and useable by other members of the Program as well as the Owner as described in this Agreement."
No Reversion. Due to our licensing arrangement with the Owner and the collaborative nature of the Program, you are granting us broad licenses in your Work and your User Generated Content included in your Work, and the rights to your Work will not be reverted once it is published in the Program. You will have the ability through online tools at OBS websites to stop public display and sale of your Work on OBS marketplaces, but not to stop the sale of works of other authors in the Program even when such works use your User Generated Content that you originally created in your Work and thereby became part of the Program IP for other authors to use.
Harl Quinn
I don't see how they could avoid something like that. DM's Guild style publication goes beyond the OGL, you get to use other people's IP, what other people have submitted to the store. If someone decides they no longer want their product to be part of it, then it would affect all the other products that might use that original product.
Quote from: Tod13;895457Everything I needed to know about Mongoose, I learned from their worthless "SRD" which excluded anything needed to play the game or create characters. ;)
That's actually the point of a SRD though. It's not meant to replace the rulebook, it's meant to be designate what content other publishers/parties can use in their products. Most SRDs don't have character creation
Quote from: jeff37923;895449And HOLY SHIT is the fight on about that......
Are you in the mongoose TAS forum? Is it going on there? I saw the gripping on CotI, I forgot my login to mongoose.
I don't really see what the furore is about. DM's Guild and TAS are an electronic replacement for submitting articles and adventures to a print magazine such as Dragon or Dungeon. You get paid but you lose the rights to your work. It seems to me that it should only be approached by enthusiastic amateurs that just want to get published or by individuals/companies that want to use another's IP (Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, OTU, etc.) Everyone else should avoid them and publish via OGL or as an unofficial product. That way they retain the right over their work.
Quote from: dragoner;895485Are you in the mongoose TAS forum? Is it going on there? I saw the gripping on CotI, I forgot my login to mongoose.
No, I have been following everything through Facebook and CotI. Much more information on those channels.
For those interested, here is the full text of the TAS agreement:
Quote from: TAS AgreementThis Community Content Agreement (this “Agreement”) is a binding agreement between you, the individual identified by your customer account on this website or the legal entity you represent, and OneBookShelf, Inc. (“OBS”) the parent company of website marketplaces including DriveThruRPG, RPGNow and more.
This Agreement covers your participation in and use of The Travellers' Aid Society and the OBS websites that administer it, (the “Program”).
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You accept this Agreement by clicking “I Agree” to set up and submit a new title (the “Work”) to OBS.
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Owner’s IP includes any and all Traveller tabletop roleplaying materials and content made available to you through the Program including, but not limited to:
Traveller rule sets
Portions and elements of Traveller campaign setting(s)
Artwork and other graphic templates and materials
Owner’s IP may be amended at any time and for any reason whatsoever without liability to you. However, any Work published in the Program prior to the removal of Owner’s IP will not require the removal or amendment of that Work.
(b) “Program IP” shall be defined as any User Generated Content (defined, below) distributed by the Program.
(c) “User Generated Content” shall be defined as the copyrightable elements included in your Work, such as original characters, scenes, locations and events. User Generated content shall not include the illustrations and cartographic artwork included in your work. Per the terms of this Agreement, you expressly agree that your User Generated Content, once submitted to the Program will become Program IP and useable by other members of the Program as well as the Owner as described in this Agreement.
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Quote from: yojimbouk;895488I don't really see what the furore is about. DM's Guild and TAS are an electronic replacement for submitting articles and adventures to a print magazine such as Dragon or Dungeon. You get paid but you lose the rights to your work. It seems to me that it should only be approached by enthusiastic amateurs that just want to get published or by individuals/companies that want to use another's IP (Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, OTU, etc.) Everyone else should avoid them and publish via OGL or as an unofficial product. That way they retain the right over their work.
I can help you there.
The 3PP have been told for the last five months that TAS would be similar to the DM's Guild but would have several important differences. Among those differences would be that publishers (such as myself) who had settings independent of the Official Traveller Universe would have their IP protected while The Official Traveller Universe would be a playground for anyone who liked (much as you state in your post). So many of us (myself included) put a lot of effort, work, and funding into creating versions of our products which would use the new rules Mongoose had released.
We discovered that we would lose our IP in the terms and conditions on the page where we upload products. Simply put, if I had taken Mongoose at their previous word and not carefully read the terms and conditions, then I would have just turned my IP over. It felt very sneaky and underhanded. Many of the other 3PP had the same problem.
GKG's intention was to continue one line using the 1e OGL version of the rules and produce a second line using the 2e rules on TAS. Obviously, that second line has been canceled.
So that's why there is a furor. There are other problems with it as well but that's the primary problem. Most of us feel as if we just barely avoided a trap.
It seems like WotC has come up with a way of getting rid of the OGL. First they tried to kill it by making a version of D&D, 4e, that was so different, you couldn't use the OGL really to cover it. That didn't work out too well, but Paizo sure was appreciative. :cool:
Then they come up with the DM's Guild. You lose a 15-25% margin over what you could do via the OGL, but you get access to most of their IP. Want to make your own Priest classes for each of the Forgotten Realms gods and get paid for it? No other way to do that before besides spending lots of money and time negotiating with WotC.
Now you have the same thing with MgT. You lose a larger cut and get access to the Third Imperium. You always wanted to publish your 450 page epic campaign to prevent the fall of the Solomani? Now you can. No approval needed, no money spent up front. What you lose is only getting 50% of the sales instead of 60-75% of the sales.
Obviously, for the guys publishing their own stuff that only relies on the system and not the IP, it would be suicide to post your stuff up on DM's Guild or TAS, and OBS, WotC or Mongoose don't make that explicit enough.
But, getting rid of guys like Gypsy Games through slow strangulation is the whole point of the exercise.
- New system, so the old one isn't compatible.
- New license, so anything other than the OGL or CCP is gone.
- New marketplace, where the brand identity you've worked so hard to cultivate is gone.
These OBS "Community Content Programs" are there for three things...
- So you can make some money by promoting the larger companies' brand and IP through content creation - essentially it's a marketing and market share plan.
- Get rid of the smaller companies that do their own thing with generic systems and don't need the Brand/IP of the larger companies.
- Have OBS partner with so many companies under these CCP agreements that new startup pdf websites like TableTopLibrary.com will have a much harder road.
Now I don't think Monte Cook or Margaret Weiss ever had an OGL for their systems, so they're not trying to get the money from OGL publishers "back to where it belongs", but the CCP model is troubling, because more and more companies are now going to have a choice of releasing via OGL or CC and essentially getting nothing, letting other people make money off their systems, or going with the OBS CCP and get 25% of all community content.
CCP is meant to be the OGL killer.
So, who's writing the CT/MgT1 retroclone? ;)
I was hoping to do a pay-what-you-want for all my Traveller apps. Basically free app stuff for Mongoose Referees/Players/etc. But Matthew won't allow software still. I guess a lot of Referees are sitting on apps they've written.
Quote from: jeff37923;895449And HOLY SHIT is the fight on about that......
Tucked away in the TAS agreement is the legal part which tells you that all copyright to the work submitted goes straight to Mongoose Publishing. So if you have an already established setting like Orbital or Clement Sector, Mongoose will own it if you post it via TAS. I have not seen one 3PP for Traveller want to touch that yet because they do not want to lose their IP.
First off, no the copyright doesn't go to Mongoose. The exact wording grants TAS the EXCLUSIVE right to your work. If Mongoose wants to use it outside of TAS they have to enter into a separate agreement with you. And it is the exact same license for all four programs.
Which I why I recommend only publishing under any of the four if and only if your project absolutely doesn't work without the publisher's IP.
Quote from: Gypsy Knights Games;895502I can help you there.
The 3PP have been told for the last five months that TAS would be similar to the DM's Guild but would have several important differences. Among those differences would be that publishers (such as myself) who had settings independent of the Official Traveller Universe would have their IP protected while The Official Traveller Universe would be a playground for anyone who liked (much as you state in your post). So many of us (myself included) put a lot of effort, work, and funding into creating versions of our products which would use the new rules Mongoose had released.
We discovered that we would lose our IP in the terms and conditions on the page where we upload products. Simply put, if I had taken Mongoose at their previous word and not carefully read the terms and conditions, then I would have just turned my IP over. It felt very sneaky and underhanded. Many of the other 3PP had the same problem.
GKG's intention was to continue one line using the 1e OGL version of the rules and produce a second line using the 2e rules on TAS. Obviously, that second line has been canceled.
So that's why there is a furor. There are other problems with it as well but that's the primary problem. Most of us feel as if we just barely avoided a trap.
In that case, I can understand your outrage. Seems very poor of Mongoose. Was it a case of their spokesman pulling stuff out of his ass rather than checking the facts, or do you suspect something more sinister?
I'm not sure that I agree with CRKrueger that this is a concerted attempt to kill the OGL. It seems more to be allowing 3PP to publish works while protecting the owner's IP. However, the high visibility of DM's Guild and TAS may well end up overshadowing OGL works that it ends seeing OGL support dry up. I hope that it doesn't.
One thing I don't like about DM's Guild is that you can't search by 3PP only by author as DM's Guild is the publisher for all items. This makes it hard to find works by publishers you trust. It also makes it hard to find OGL works by the 3PP. If OBS don't change this then I might start to believe CRKrueger's conspiracy theory.
Quote from: JeremyR;895475That's actually the point of a SRD though. It's not meant to replace the rulebook, it's meant to be designate what content other publishers/parties can use in their products. Most SRDs don't have character creation
Lots of SRDs have all the rules and character generation out there. The Mongoose one also excluded the bonus table needed to determine if skill and combat roles succeeded. It would have been simpler and more honest to do a license like EABA that is straightforward and allows supplements.
Quote from: yojimbouk;895574If OBS don't change this then I might start to believe CRKrueger's conspiracy theory.
Why did WotC kill the D20 license and force 3PP publishers to go with the 4e GSL or stay with the "no longer supported by a current game version" OGL?
Probably the same reason Mongoose killed their existing licenses and are forcing 3PP publishers to go with the TAS or stay with the "no longer supported by a current version" OGL. If Mongoose didn't intend to deprecate OGL Traveller 3PP and leave them with a "Give us a cut or you stay with a Legacy system" decision, they wouldn't have pulled the existing licenses like WotC pulled the D20.
So why? Because it's in their economic self interest to do so. The OGL has been absolutely fantastic for D&D, RuneQuest, and Traveller as game systems out in the wild. It's been not so fantastic for WotC, Mark Miller (although he got paid by Mongoose), Chaosium, and Mongoose, who see people using it to make money creating content without paying them a dime (of course the fact that in a lot of cases the small company generated content is more creative).
You can't ever kill the OGL, but you can try to make it irrelevant to your company, which is what WotC did with 4e. They've since learned from that mistake and 5e has a 400 page SRD published under the same OGL as before, but again, it's completely devoid of IP, you need to go to the DM's Guild for that, and only for Forgotten Realms. They're trying to get the best of both worlds, hopefully it will work for them. Margaret Weiss Productions and Monte Cook Games have good fan policies for free content but no OGL allowing publishing. Mongoose has canceled their other licenses and made a new game that isn't very compatible with MgT1. Mongoose is making the same move WotC did with 4e, but they haven't made a game so different from Traveller it's not usable. Traveller fans are used to dealing with 12 different versions as it is.
CPP is a community. Everything you publish belongs to the community to be freely used by all, including you. All you pay is 25% to OBS and 25% to the company whose IP you want to write for. Now, they allow you access to the IP, so you can do stuff that was absolutely unthinkable unless you were an actual paid WotC, Mongoose, or whoever author. WotC starts seeing the DM's Guild make some money I'm sure other settings will be added to the list. If people are going to be doing conversions of old material, that will probably boost the sales of the old material as well.
So it's easy to see why WotC and Mongoose are doing it, so why is OBS, same thing, it's in their economic interest. People are starting to realize what a de facto monopoly they have on RPG PDFs, and are starting to talk about alternative options. This murmur returns and increases every time they wield the banhammer. OBS needs exclusive content, something the new websites won't have.
So we have a cool new community that lets people do something they never did before - write content for IP they don't own and get paid for it.
Of course, the side effect will be to have less smaller gaming companies coming up to challenge the larger ones, because a lack of branding, name recognition and their own IP will make it much harder for them to grow a successful company. Another side effect will be to reinforce and maintain OBS' market position as Supreme Overlord of RPG PDF sales.
So when you have something that looks like a grassroots community that helps new RPG authors but in reality eliminates competition for the corporations that set up the community, then I don't think there has to be smoke-filled rooms and twirling mustaches, but I think it's a little naive to think that WotC and OBS were just sitting around trying to do the best for the RPG community and just randomly stumbled upon the strengthening of their market positions as unexpected perks.
Quote from: The Butcher;895544So, who's writing the CT/MgT1 retroclone? ;)
CT hack, but retroclone sounds good, it's not totally, but if you like CT you could get a handle on it, plus 3D maps and more hardish sci-fi.
Quote from: Gypsy Knights Games;895502GKG's intention was to continue one line using the 1e OGL version of the rules and produce a second line using the 2e rules on TAS. Obviously, that second line has been canceled.
What's to stop you doing what many 5e OGL publishers did before the 5e SRD was released? Just release a 2e compatible book under the 1e OGL. That might encourage Mongoose to produce a 2e SRD.
Quote from: The Butcher;895544So, who's writing the CT/MgT1 retroclone? ;)
Looks like these guys are on top of it.
http://www.rpgnow.com/browse/pub/6213/Universal-Machine-Publications
Quote from: CRKrueger;895598Mongoose is making the same move WotC did with 4e, but they haven't made a game so different from Traveller it's not usable. Traveller fans are used to dealing with 12 different versions as it is.
Traveller situation is a bit unusual in that you got your fans of a particular editions and then an equally strong base of fan for the Third Imperium setting. I get the feeling that many Traveller fans don't give two shits about Mongoose Traveller 2nd edition but are drooling over the prospect of writing Third Imperium material. IF TAS succeeds it will be cause of the interest in the Third Imperium setting.
Quote from: CRKrueger;895598CPP is a community. Everything you publish belongs to the community to be freely used by all, including you. All you pay is 25% to OBS and 25% to the company whose IP you want to write for. Now, they allow you access to the IP, so you can do stuff that was absolutely unthinkable unless you were an actual paid WotC, Mongoose, or whoever author. WotC starts seeing the DM's Guild make some money I'm sure other settings will be added to the list. If people are going to be doing conversions of old material, that will probably boost the sales of the old material as well.
We got two kinds of Community Content Programs. We got DMs Guild and Mongoose which are trying to promote a RPGs and settings. Then we got Cortex and Cypher which are RPGs only. Now for Cortex and Cypher there is no OGL equivalent so those programs are the only game in town if you want to publishing anything for those two games. Unfortunately the copyright license is going to severely limit their appeal. You would be a fool to publish an original setting with either of those two program. And the reaction to TAS among the various publisher of original Traveller setting supports this.
In contrast the DMs Guild has Forgotten Realms, and Ravenloft with perhaps more to come. Mongoose has the Third Imperium. Now those setting have wide appeal and the deal is a good one for somebody who want to play with those setting.
Of the four program to day, Wizards is the one to completely done it right. They have 5e SRD under the OG for so who have original content and want to adapt 5e. However if you want to play with all of 5e with Forgotten Realms and Ravenloft thrown in then the DM's Guild is the program.
Quote from: CRKrueger;895598Of course, the side effect will be to have less smaller gaming companies coming up to challenge the larger ones, because a lack of branding, name recognition and their own IP will make it much harder for them to grow a successful company. Another side effect will be to reinforce and maintain OBS' market position as Supreme Overlord of RPG PDF sales.
Ah that where I disagree. Because the same technology that propels all of this has dramatically lowered the barriers of entry for everyone. While it not likely that an original game with an original setting will suddenly burst on the scene and be THE RPGs of the late 2010s, early 2020s or whatever. The ability of an author to exploit any level of success (marginal, moderate, good, or the latest hot thing) has been multiplied by several order of magnitude thanks to the progress of technology.
The fly in the ointment is that we are in truly new territory so it very hard to figure exactly what to do at any given moment. One big problem is that everybody is desperate need of trusted sources to help figure out what is crap and what is good for them. So far nobody has figured out a really good answer for that problem.
Quote from: CRKrueger;895598So when you have something that looks like a grassroots community that helps new RPG authors but in reality eliminates competition for the corporations that set up the community, then I don't think there has to be smoke-filled rooms and twirling mustaches, but I think it's a little naive to think that WotC and OBS were just sitting around trying to do the best for the RPG community and just randomly stumbled upon the strengthening of their market positions as unexpected perks.
I think people are realizing how fragile their hold is on their current position is and the pressure is forcing them to innovate. Whether the idea is any good or not, who knows. Talk to me in a year and even then much of it will be inconclusive. The only thing that I involved with in the hobby that I am confident in that the classic D&D will be supported and played for a long time to come. For that matter 3.X/Pathfinder will also last a long time. If Paizo falters, so much of it under the OGL that people can mine it for years.
Quote from: yojimbouk;895808What's to stop you doing what many 5e OGL publishers did before the 5e SRD was released? Just release a 2e compatible book under the 1e OGL. That might encourage Mongoose to produce a 2e SRD.
While not quite the difference between D&D 3e and 4e, MongTrav 1e and MongTrav 2e are pretty different especially in design sequences. Creature stats have been revamped for example. But character are still pretty much stated the same way with the six attributes and skills ranging from 0 to 4 or so. Jump drive is still jump drive but the actual numbers that go into building a starship has changed yet again. World stats are the same. Probably the most stable part of Traveller throughout the different editions.
Quote from: estar;895825While not quite the difference between D&D 3e and 4e, MongTrav 1e and MongTrav 2e are pretty different especially in design sequences. Creature stats have been revamped for example. But character are still pretty much stated the same way with the six attributes and skills ranging from 0 to 4 or so. Jump drive is still jump drive but the actual numbers that go into building a starship has changed yet again. World stats are the same. Probably the most stable part of Traveller throughout the different editions.
I confess I don't know the systems well enough to know the differences. I'd see that the character generation sequence was very similar but I'm not familiar with the design sequences. I can see that this would be a problem for 3PP that want to publish ship stats which is a large volume of the OGL material available. Sector/setting books sound like they should be largely unaffected. Adventures may be a problem if there are creatures involved.
I suppose the next question is can the changes in 2e be naturally extrapolated from the Traveller SRD, that one could feel safe publishing an unofficial 2e book? This is the situation the early 5e publishers were in.
Quote from: yojimbouk;895854I suppose the next question is can the changes in 2e be naturally extrapolated from the Traveller SRD, that one could feel safe publishing an unofficial 2e book? This is the situation the early 5e publishers were in.
Aside from boon and bane mechanic, probably not. The design sequences are pretty arbitrary from edition to edition and what I seen from the High Guard playtest it no less arbitrary than say the difference between Classic, Classic High Guard, Megatraveller, Traveller New Era, Marc Miller's Traveller,... well you get the picture.
Quote from: CRKrueger;895598So why? Because it's in their economic self interest to do so. The OGL has been absolutely fantastic for D&D, RuneQuest, and Traveller as game systems out in the wild. It's been not so fantastic for WotC, Mark Miller (although he got paid by Mongoose), Chaosium, and Mongoose, who see people using it to make money creating content without paying them a dime (of course the fact that in a lot of cases the small company generated content is more creative).
Emphasis mine. This note is just to clarify that while RuneQuest (D100 in general) has in fact gained some traction from the OGL, till some months ago Chaosium had nothing to do with any OGL, and no IP actually owned by Chaosium (Chaosium licenses RuneQuest, it does not own it) has ever been OGLed. Basically, Chaosium had nothing to do with any OGL until it changed hands in July 2015. It is entirely possible that they see the OGL as a problem now that they are redoing RuneQuest, which has an OGL version, but this is a point one could ask them directly.
For the rest, I see no reason to contradict you. The considerations you make are definitely sour, but they might well be true. Discovering that you are right about this subject would disappoint me, but it would not surprise me.
I read the title and at first wondered why someone was making a Rescuers RPG??? :confused:
Quote from: Omega;896099I read the title and at first wondered why someone was making a Rescuers RPG??? :confused:
That was the
Rescue Aid Society, and yes, a Rescuers RPG would be cool - at least IMO.
Harl
"
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In other words "We own your work forever. All of it."
That in a nut shell is what's so unappealing about this program.
At least the OGL lets you declare some contentr to be "product identity" and retain ownership of that. Presumably you would declare the bits that you came up with originally to be product identity. No option to do that under this agreement. You give all of it away, forever.
Quote from: DavetheLost;896645"In other words "We own your work forever. All of it."
That in a nut shell is what's so unappealing about this program.
At least the OGL lets you declare some contentr to be "product identity" and retain ownership of that. Presumably you would declare the bits that you came up with originally to be product identity. No option to do that under this agreement. You give all of it away, forever.
Which is why I recommend only putting up stuff that can't be released commercially any other ways like Third Imperium material or Forgotten Realms material. If you have a original setting or a product that could be released outside of the company's IP then you are better off doing it as an independent.
With D&D 5e that is isn't an issue as people with original content has the 5e SRD under the OGL to turn too. However since Mongoose wants all MongTrav 2e 3PP release under this program it becomes problematic. However Matt at Mongoose is aware of the issue and says the draconian terms were not his intent when it came to original settings. So we will see what he does for a fix.