Quote from: Girl;340393You seem to be forgetting that all this stuff, all the rules and stuff, are Wizards of the Coasts property. If can take it away if they want to.

Greyhawk may be in a "gray" area.

 Heard a rumor the other day that Gygax had just enough clout or legal claim before he died such that there can never be a 4th edition version of Greyhawk.  Something about him not liking the direction that D&D was going. I always wondered why Greyhawk was pushed any more than it was during the D&D 3.X era.


- Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar;340400Greyhawk may be in a "gray" area.

 Heard a rumor the other day that Gygax had just enough clout or legal claim before he died such that there can never be a 4th edition version of Greyhawk.  Something about him not liking the direction that D&D was going. I always wonered why Greyhawk was pushed any more than it was during the D&D 3.X era.


- Ed C.

That's the first I hear of this.

RPGpundit

Quote from: Koltar;340400Greyhawk may be in a "gray" area.

 Heard a rumor the other day that Gygax had just enough clout or legal claim before he died such that there can never be a 4th edition version of Greyhawk.  Something about him not liking the direction that D&D was going. I always wonered why Greyhawk was pushed any more than it was during the D&D 3.X era.


- Ed C.

Where did you hear this rumor?

Quote from: Hairfoot;340316I'll repost from the ENworld

Your point is well-made. Whatever has triggered the way WotC has been handling D&D4e - whether it was leaned on by its parent, Hasbro, or something that came about internally - the result is off-putting. As I said at Circvs Maximvs, the way 4e has been marketed is dismal. The game deserves better.

Yeah, I'm not seeing a nefarious plot here so much as WotC's usual horrendous marketing.  Maybe when they do their periodic employee purges, they should fire the PR department instead of game developers.

If they really want to try and put the genie back in the bottle, they should look closer at what FFG is doing with Warhammer.

The "gang that couldn't shoot straight" running marketing and PR.  

Quote from: jgants;340597If they really want to try and put the genie back in the bottle, they should look closer at what FFG is doing with Warhammer.

Isn't that at least part of the purpose of 4e?  Put the genie back in the bottle?  Change the rules more than enough so it isn't easy for someone to revise 3.5/OGL to match, add in a slew of unique new names for "powers" so anyone trying to sell add-ons would have to use those names and therefore agree to the GSL.  Then once the GSL is agreed upon, WotC can control what 3rd party products are out there so they can market the most lucrative products.

Sure, there are some interesting and new game mechanics in 4e and it is a good game in many people's opinions, but part of the goals for 4e had to be to allow WotC to limit competition that occurred in 3.0/3.5 from the OGL.

Made up example: Vampires are cool this year.  OK, we're going to make sure no one else can use the "Dungeons and Dragons" (4e) rules to market a Twilight RPG or even any kind of 4e Vampires sourcebook so our own won't have competition.

Second example: What if a website allows people to save their PDF character sheets (w/o any character generation built-in because that's a no-no under the GSL and probably something they'd go after under normal copyright law.)  Of course in 4e you're going to have to list your powers.  Is listing those names copyright infringement, since so many are unique?  Could be.  And if the character sheet allows you to enter the short description of the power to remind you what it does?  Even more likely.  If this website that serves as a character sheet DB (I can't count the number of times my players have lost a sheet) becomes popular, would it get a cease & desist from WotC? Probably.

I'm not faulting WotC for going this route... since they control the name "Dungeons and Dragons" they want to exploit any advantage they have to sell more products.  But for the rest of us, especially people who want to self-publish or small-press publish or even just throw your own house rules on a website, it means you have to be more careful about copyright and potentially the GSL to use 4e.  It is probably easier to stick with 3.5/OGL, or other OGL games or other companies that have a more collaborative relationship with the fan community.

Quote from: Girl;340393You seem to be forgetting that all this stuff, all the rules and stuff, are Wizards of the Coasts property. If can take it away if they want to.

Sure, if by "rules" you mean "the text and NOT the rules" and by stuff you mean "trademark in use," and by property you mean "intellectual rights," and "by take it away if they want to," you mean, "can attempt to control how their intellectual property is copied, distributed, and used to create derivative works, but probably don't have as much as control as they might like," then sure.

Quote from: pawsplay;341622Sure, if by "rules" you mean "the text and NOT the rules" and by stuff you mean "trademark in use," and by property you mean "intellectual rights," and "by take it away if they want to," you mean, "can attempt to control how their intellectual property is copied, distributed, and used to create derivative works, but probably don't have as much as control as they might like," then sure.

Watching you post about intellectual property law based on shit you've read on the web is painful.

I don't pretend I know enough about plumbing to spout off on the topic as if I were a trained, licensed, and experienced plumber.  But for some reason, some schmucks on internet websites always seem to think they can just bone up on the topic using wikipedia and some websites that rise to the top in Google and suddenly they are an expert telling others what's what.  It's fucking hilarious!

This is one of those complex fields where a little knowledge is far worse than no knowledge at all.  As if reading the massive body of caselaw on the topic, and practicing in the field to see how that caselaw actually applies, is not relevant.  But, I am sure that won't stop you.  Just, be sure to call an actual intellectual property attorney if the topic ever comes up in your real life and might actually impact something important to you.

Quote from: Mistwell;341652Watching you post about intellectual property law based on shit you've read on the web is painful.

I don't pretend I know enough about plumbing to spout off on the topic as if I were a trained, licensed, and experienced plumber.  But for some reason, some schmucks on internet websites always seem to think they can just bone up on the topic using wikipedia and some websites that rise to the top in Google and suddenly they are an expert telling others they don't know what they are talking about.  It's fucking hilarious!

This is one of those complex fields where a little knowledge is far worse than no knowledge at all.  But, I am sure that won't stop you.  Just, be sure to call an actual intellectual property attorney if the topic ever comes up in your real life and might actually impact something important to you.

Armchair quarterbacking on the internet is a very popular pastime for some people.  

Quote from: Mistwell;341652Watching you post about intellectual property law based on shit you've read on the web is painful.

So, you are an IP lawyer with years of experience?

Quote from: StormBringer;341657So, you are an IP lawyer with years of experience?

Does it really matter to you? Something tells me regardless of my answer to that question, you will spin it as a negative.

Quote from: pawsplay;341622Sure, if by "rules" you mean

Wizards of the coast cant stop people from putting up stuff that doesnt belong to wizards. If they are stopping someone then that person did something with property that belongs to wizards, not them.

The actual IP law, as explained by the Federal Agencies responsible for registration, make it pretty clear. (Actually explicitly clear.) The Copyright law itself is pretty darned clear as well, and matches what the Copyright Office says.


So, I could make a game that exactly replicates the play of Risk. But I can't use their wording in explaining it. Further, I can't use "Risk" to describe it. And my board must look different, as must the pieces, since the look and feel is trademarked.

Now, a game, as a process, can be patented... as can particular game actions. CF: Wizards patent on "tapping" cards (rotating them to indicate they've been used).

Different countries, however, have different copyright, trademark, and patent rules.

Quote from: Mistwell;341686Does it really matter to you? Something tells me regardless of my answer to that question, you will spin it as a negative.

Huh.  One might expect a lawyer to be prepared for that kind of thing and have some kind of rebuttal.

At any rate, your opinion is really no better than any other internet lawyer's.  Otherwise, feel free to cite relevant bits of whatever law you are referring to that shows you are 100% right about whatever the hell it is you are babbling about.

It might be tricky, though.  We are actually talking about semi-open licenses here, not written contracts with signatures and witnesses and all that fun stuff.  Whatever you concoct, there are about three dozen other ways to interpret, all with case law to back them up.

So, unless you are Chief Justice Roberts in disguise, thereby getting to have the last word ever on a particular case, shut the fuck up with the hinting around your shitty little law degree.  Out of all the people that don't get to be completely right about stuff, you are one of them.  

Being a lawyer means two things on the internet:  Fuck All, and Nothing.  You have no fucking clue how a case would go down in any particular state but your own, and certainly not outside of the US with any degree of reliability.  You might be talking to some guy from France, Britain, Chile, or New Zealand who is laughing like a maniac at your stupid ass because you think your reading of the license applies to every fucking location in the world.

Reading your increasingly desperate attempt to claw your way out of the hole you have dug for yourself is painful.  Next time you want to spout off like you have every law library from around the world downloaded into your head, don't.  Use your head for half a second and realize that you are speaking to an international crowd here, and not whatever high school kids think you are cool because you own a car.

So, unless you are a lawyer in Utah, your opinion of WotC's fan site policy is vaguely interesting, but you have not the smallest idea of how that would play out here.  So fuck off with the smug douchebag internet lawyer schtick.