For Christmas this year, I was given the GI Joe RPG and am flipping through.  At first glance I see it uses the Essence20 system.  The core mechanic is roll d20 plus one other die to compare to the result. Weird, but okay.

Imagine my surprise when I get to the Role section to see the Rogue, Fighter, and Barbarian hiding with new names.  Complete with Sneak Attack, extra feats, and Rage.

This is just D&D?

But I don't see any mention of WotC's IP here.  No OGL, not even a mention in the credits.

Anyone know the backstory?

I'm pretty sure you can just google all of this but...

It's produced by Renegade Games Studios that before their Hasbro RPGs I knew them for Kids on Bikes RPG.  To my knowledge, they are independent and not owned by Hasbro.  They have licensed out other IPs before, most notably Vampire: The Masquerade for a card game they made and now they are doing the entire line.  They also made Altered Carbon that I panned hard in my review.  Here's their website:  https://renegadegamestudios.com/

The first public information about the GI Joe RPG I remember is mid 2021.  They licensed four Hasbro IPs to make games; Gi Joe, Transformers, Power Rangers, and My Little Pony.  I'm directly aware of the first three being RPGs using their Essence 20 system.

I was puzzled (as well as many others) when I heard about Hasbro letting an outside studio do their IPs as games since they have so many in house options.  I'm not sure who first approached who but given that Renegade has a history of renting IPs, it's likely they may have initiated the deal.  I am not an insider, just a guy who remembers things sometimes.  Take all of this with a grain of salt.

Gi Joe, Transformers, and Power Rangers are all compatible systems intentionally.  There's actually a book for the GM to run a game that combines PCs from all three games. https://renegadegamestudios.com/essence-20-roleplaying-system-field-guide-to-action-and-adventure-crossover-sourcebook/

As to the Essence 20 System, it has quite a bit in common with 5e but it isn't compatible and has some of their own quirky rules.  I don't hate it and it's more functional that the shitty system they saddled Altered Carbon with.

I don't own any of the Essence 20 books and I never will (unless gifted to me like you) because they shafted me with Altered Carbon.  I paid full cover price for it and I'm still pissed they stole from me with a broken system.  Also, they do a game called Overlight that just give me the creeps.  Read for yourself and see:  https://renegadegamestudios.com/overlight-rpg-core-rulebook/

Thank you, and I did grok all that, but, how is this not plagiarism?

There are word for word lifts of D&D rules.  A GI Joe IP license wouldn't confer that.

There's got to be some other agreement in play, right?

Quote from: mcbobbo on December 25, 2023, 01:48:31 PM
Thank you, and I did grok all that, but, how is this not plagiarism?

There are word for word lifts of D&D rules.  A GI Joe IP license wouldn't confer that.

There's got to be some other agreement in play, right?

See if there's a small line somewhere referencing the 5e SRD CC-by-4.0. Since it was placed under creative commons you don't need the full page OGL license anymore.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 25, 2023, 04:04:31 PM
See if there's a small line somewhere referencing the 5e SRD CC-by-4.0. Since it was placed under creative commons you don't need the full page OGL license anymore.

This ^^

The SRD has been open content for a while.  First it was open under the OGL and now under Creative Commons. 

No mention of any license in the front or the back of the book, including Creative Commons.

A couple of other thoughts.

1. We don't know what the agreement between Renegade and Hasbro has in it.  A written agreement could trump any need for posting an OGL or CC license.

2. Game mechanics and common terms are not covered under copyright laws.  To protect the D&D 5e system, they would need to patent a bunch of mechanics and some were already open publicly.  This would have resulted in hundreds of patents needed at $400k each.

In the end, IDK.  I could get my wife to read both books very carefully and render a legal opinion but I don't think she wants to.

I'm no expert either, however this seems dangerously similar to not have some kind of permission:

QuoteRage
In battle, you fight with primal ferocity. On your turn, you can enter a rage as a bonus action.

While raging, you gain the following benefits if you aren't wearing heavy armor:

You have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws.
When you make a melee weapon attack using Strength, you gain a bonus to the damage roll that increases as you gain levels as a barbarian, as shown in the Rage Damage column of the Barbarian table.
You have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.
If you are able to cast spells, you can't cast them or concentrate on them while raging.

Your rage lasts for 1 minute. It ends early if you are knocked unconscious or if your turn ends and you haven't attacked a hostile creature since your last turn or taken damage since then. You can also end your rage on your turn as a bonus action.

Once you have raged the number of times shown for your barbarian level in the Rages column of the Barbarian table, you must finish a long rest before you can rage again.

Compared to...

Quote
Reckless Abandon
The signature style of Renegades is an aggressive and brash approach used to catch enemies off guard, and allows you to fight through the pain until the battle's over.  You can start fighting with Reckless Abandon as a Free action.

While acting with Reckless Abandon, you gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing light armor or no armor:

You gain ↑2 on all Strength Skill tests.
You gain Bonus Health as shown on the Role chart.  This goes away when you end your Reckless Abandon.

You cannot use kits while fighting with Reckless Abandon.

Your Reckless Abandon lasts for a minute, until there are no enemies you can see, or until you are defeated. You can also end your Reckless Abandon as a Free action.

You have a number of uses of Reckless Abandon per day as shown on the Renegade Role Chart.

Quote from: mcbobbo on December 25, 2023, 04:50:01 PM
I'm no expert either, however this seems dangerously similar to not have some kind of permission:

QuoteRage
In battle, you fight with primal ferocity. On your turn, you can enter a rage as a bonus action.

While raging, you gain the following benefits if you aren't wearing heavy armor:

You have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws.
When you make a melee weapon attack using Strength, you gain a bonus to the damage roll that increases as you gain levels as a barbarian, as shown in the Rage Damage column of the Barbarian table.
You have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.
If you are able to cast spells, you can't cast them or concentrate on them while raging.

Your rage lasts for 1 minute. It ends early if you are knocked unconscious or if your turn ends and you haven't attacked a hostile creature since your last turn or taken damage since then. You can also end your rage on your turn as a bonus action.

Once you have raged the number of times shown for your barbarian level in the Rages column of the Barbarian table, you must finish a long rest before you can rage again.

Compared to...

Quote
Reckless Abandon
The signature style of Renegades is an aggressive and brash approach used to catch enemies off guard, and allows you to fight through the pain until the battle's over.  You can start fighting with Reckless Abandon as a Free action.

While acting with Reckless Abandon, you gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing light armor or no armor:

You gain ↑2 on all Strength Skill tests.
You gain Bonus Health as shown on the Role chart.  This goes away when you end your Reckless Abandon.

You cannot use kits while fighting with Reckless Abandon.

Your Reckless Abandon lasts for a minute, until there are no enemies you can see, or until you are defeated. You can also end your Reckless Abandon as a Free action.

You have a number of uses of Reckless Abandon per day as shown on the Renegade Role Chart.

Just from this example, there is no violation.  Period.  It may be the same mechanically but there's no sentence or phrase that is identical so no copyrights were violated.

"Identical" is not the standard.  "Transformative" could be, though.

Quote from: mcbobbo on December 25, 2023, 06:57:34 PM
"Identical" is not the standard.  "Transformative" could be, though.

Just because it's mechanically identical, there's no protected IP in that regard.  In the way it's presented, it's done in such a way as to give the reader a different impression on the mechanics so that completely negates the whole copyrights thing.  If copyright was a little bit flexible, entire libraries would get completely wiped out.

It isn't the OGL that holds the OSR together, it's the fact that the various people repackaging the rules found new ways to express the concepts.  In the end, copyright isn't about protecting ideas, only how they are expressed.  Even subtle changes are enough to avoid entanglements. 

Mechanics themselves can be protected by patent but it would be very restricted to a very specific mechanic and would have to be proven to be substantially unique in some manner.  An RPG would most likely have 100s of patents to cover the full system.  Trademarks can protect elements of a given work, even if they aren't registered.  Unregistered trademarks in written works must be a proper noun and must be identifiable as unique but can be a name for just about anything.  For instance, The Force could be protected as an unregistered trademark as it's a proper noun for a concept and it's uniquely identifiable to it's creator and his works.

Edit: This is the opinion of my wife.  She has a doctorate in law and works as a legal researcher.  This opinion covers this passage only and is academic in nature and should not be construed as legal advice.

Words are reused and the entries are substantially similar.

Quote from: mcbobbo on December 25, 2023, 07:22:19 PM
Words are reused and the entries are substantially similar.

There's a whole litany of things to be considered and if I'm not careful my wife is going to email me an entire doctoral thesis on the matter.  What it boils down to is that similar doesn't mean the same.

Is it close enough to get litigious over?  Depends on the judge.  Could Hasbro win the case?  Very unlikely unless Renegade really screws the pooch or their lawyers fail to do their job.

There has to be an agreement, or at least a desire to copy the text out of D&D, and I have to assume Hasbro endorsed it.

Otherwise, why not make your mechanics?  Why steal these?

Quote from: mcbobbo on December 25, 2023, 07:42:28 PM
There has to be an agreement, or at least a desire to copy the text out of D&D, and I have to assume Hasbro endorsed it.

Otherwise, why not make your mechanics?  Why steal these?

Because Altered Carbon was a failure.  That system destroyed a game attached to a well known IP and ended any real revenue stream they could have had.  It was so bad that I refused to look at Overlight or Essence 20 games. 

Borrowing from a functional system with well recognized mechanics makes it easy to port over the audience.

It's worth noting, the system that Altered Carbon used was a bastardized version of Savage Worlds.  It would be easy enough to fix it and run it as a Savage Worlds game if a GM was so inclined but as RAW it's broken to the core.

I believe that it's likely that Hasbro and Renegade have an agreement that covers a lot more than we see and allows a lot of flexibility to use Hasbro IP in a lot of ways as long as it doesn't directly compete with any of their in house lines.  I think Renegade will steer clear of any fantasy RPGs that take after more traditional tropes and settings.  Hasbro has licensed with a multitude of other companies to make toys and branded items using their IPs.  Baulders Gate 3 is a good example. Transformers clothes and shoes are another.