To the best of my knowledge, Hasbro are farming the rpg versions of their licenses out to Renegade. It's a very close relationship, with Hasbro calling the shots, perhaps with an eye to formally absorbing them as a games branch.

It seems they wanted a system as close as possible to 5e (to attract D&D players) but didn't want WotC actually making it.

I have PDFs of Power Rangers, GI Joe and Transformers, and I think they're shit. I'm reminded of the early 00's, when everyone was making terrible D20 versions of their systems, and produced goofy shit like lvl 13 investigators fighting lvl 15 Deep Ones.

Every setting uses the same rigid class types, which massively limit choice, and simply have no business representing some of the settings.

Want a Power Ranger that's a smart guy but also great at HtH? Tough luck, smart guys get this ability tree that focuses on some other particular thing. Want to play a Transformer that's a stealth bomber, so they combine stealth and firepower? Tough luck, one or the other, bucko.

The games also have the shitty finger of mild woke wiped across them, plenty of Girlbosses. But the most egregious sin is definitely just being clunky, and using thinly disguised D&D classes to represent things they have trouble supporting.

Vanguard Class:
Clad in the heaviest armor and often with the most destructive weapons, the Vanguard is the quintessential heavy of the G.I. Joe ranks. Relying on their specialized gear to protect themselves and shield their allies as well as the fervor to keep morale high, a Vanguard serves the role of protector, coach, and trusted ally equally.

The top featured Vanguard Joe?

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 25, 2023, 10:53:39 PM
It seems they wanted a system as close as possible to 5e (to attract D&D players) but didn't want WotC actually making it.

I have to agree.  But I wonder why it doesn't say so on the cover or in the credits.  It stinks of plagiarism the way they've done it - lazy and wonky and not as good as it might have been were someone to use some actual game design skill on it.

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 25, 2023, 10:53:39 PM
The games also have the shitty finger of mild woke wiped across them, plenty of Girlbosses.

They do speak to this in the 'which Joes did we choose' blob.  They say they deliberately picked every female one because there are so few.  But AFAIK that was part of the appeal to girls of the day.  Their representatives were kicking ass in a man's world, and it wasn't easy to do, nor common.

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?

because game systems are not subject to copyright. There's no legal mechanism preventing people from making D&D clones. Which is actually happening.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 07:59:17 AM
because game systems are not subject to copyright. There's no legal mechanism preventing people from making D&D clones. Which is actually happening.

Procedures aren't subject.  Ideas aren't.  The same words you used in the same order probably are.  It'd be a finding of fact, for a jury to decide, and just getting in front of one of those will likely set a company back $100,000.

And even if you can 'get away with it' in court, copying someone else's work without attribution has been foul play since first grade.

Quote from: mcbobbo on December 26, 2023, 08:16:20 AM
Procedures aren't subject.  Ideas aren't.  The same words you used in the same order probably are.  It'd be a finding of fact, for a jury to decide, and just getting in front of one of those will likely set a company back $100,000.

And even if you can 'get away with it' in court, copying someone else's work without attribution has been foul play since first grade.

Settled case law for decades. TSR tried with D&D. The originators of Monopoly tried with their game system. Neither succeeded,

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 09:15:38 AM
Settled case law for decades. TSR tried with D&D. The originators of Monopoly tried with their game system. Neither succeeded,

A certain SCOTUS ruling overturned another piece of 'settled law for decades'.  The law is fluid.

I'm surprised you missed the discussion around the OGL to the point that you're unaware of the other point of view.

Quote from: mcbobbo on December 26, 2023, 09:31:37 AM

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 09:15:38 AM
Settled case law for decades. TSR tried with D&D. The originators of Monopoly tried with their game system. Neither succeeded,

A certain SCOTUS ruling overturned another piece of 'settled law for decades'.  The law is fluid.

I'm surprised you missed the discussion around the OGL to the point that you're unaware of the other point of view.

The fact that he (correctly) disagrees with you doesn't make him "unaware" of anything.  Rejecting Flat-Earth Theory doesn't mean I'm unaware of the arguments they present.  It means I reject those arguments as incorrect, which they are (in both cases).

And people who just argue to argue are a pet peeve of mine.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on December 26, 2023, 10:03:53 AM
The fact that he (correctly) disagrees with you doesn't make him "unaware" of anything.  Rejecting Flat-Earth Theory doesn't mean I'm unaware of the arguments they present.  It means I reject those arguments as incorrect, which they are (in both cases).

So the entire OGL controversy is Flat Earth?  Everyone but you is wrong and the license was never required?  This is a reasonable position to hold?

Quote from: mcbobbo on December 26, 2023, 01:23:34 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on December 26, 2023, 10:03:53 AM
The fact that he (correctly) disagrees with you doesn't make him "unaware" of anything.  Rejecting Flat-Earth Theory doesn't mean I'm unaware of the arguments they present.  It means I reject those arguments as incorrect, which they are (in both cases).

So the entire OGL controversy is Flat Earth?  Everyone but you is wrong and the license was never required?  This is a reasonable position to hold?

Yes.

Not everyone was wrong but a lot of people have been mislead by corporate double speak and law suites settling out of court because hearings are expensive.

Yes.

Quote from: mcbobbo on December 26, 2023, 01:23:34 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on December 26, 2023, 10:03:53 AM
The fact that he (correctly) disagrees with you doesn't make him "unaware" of anything.  Rejecting Flat-Earth Theory doesn't mean I'm unaware of the arguments they present.  It means I reject those arguments as incorrect, which they are (in both cases).

So the entire OGL controversy is Flat Earth?  Everyone but you is wrong and the license was never required?  This is a reasonable position to hold?

Strawman much?  Exactly what position are you stating, because I'm simply following case law as it stands...?

Quote from: Eirikrautha on December 26, 2023, 01:30:09 PM
Strawman much?

Note how BadApple owned this take.  But to you it's a strawman.  Neat, isn't it?

Quote from: Eirikrautha on December 26, 2023, 01:30:09 PM
Exactly what position are you stating, because I'm simply following case law as it stands...?

My position:  Renegade is copying D&D under some kind of agreement because the risk of lawsuit is non-zero.

You could hold that Renegade believes as you do, but you might need evidence of that belief to be convincing, because not everyone holds it.

I don't understand why this is confusing.

First, you can't copyright game mechanics.  So you could go clone all the 5e stuff yourself.  Just because your favorite creator is busy renaming armor class and magic missile doesn't mean anyone actually needs to do so.  Would I recommend that everyone do so?  I mean, I'd say, "unless you want to be the test case if Hasbro mismanages their brand, gets into the death throes, and begins hurling lawsuits at random, then yes, make all those legally unnecessary name changes".  But if someone just doesn't give a fuck, well, the law is on their side.

Second, these guys are busy making stuff for brands that Hasbro owns.  While it's preposterous that they licensed this out to another company instead of their in house RPG company, well, they sure did.  This means that Hasbro owns all the rights to their books anyway, and they have some license that both sides are ok with.  We don't see that license, but why would you be surprised if a book has, say, the fighter class (which I guess you think is owned by Hasbro) next to all the pictures of Transformers and GI Joes (which are actually and really undeniably owned by Hasbro)? 

Whatever the license is, I'm sure it grants a right to use everything in the book, and I'm equally sure that they don't need to make that agreement public, because it doesn't involve anyone but those two parties.

Edit:  Also don't all the essence 20 character sheets have a "pronouns" section, even the ones for the fucking robot cars?

Quote from: Venka on December 26, 2023, 06:43:30 PM

Edit:  Also don't all the essence 20 character sheets have a "pronouns" section, even the ones for the fucking robot cars?

I can confirm.

They're following the trend of IDW* Comics' Transformers lines for the past 8+ years. That is to say lots of Girlboss robots, and a Trans-Transformer (you read that right.)

*Corrected brain-fart.

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 26, 2023, 08:04:55 PM
I can confirm.

They're following the trend of Image Comics' Transformers lines for the past 8+ years. That is to say lots of Girlboss robots, and a Trans-Transformer (you read that right.)

IDW, not Image. Image only relatively recently got the license.

IDW really let some idiot writers into their company over the last decade,

Also, for the Transformers RPG. I found that the fact that they made all the Roles lack diversity or really represent the actual conditions Cybertronians faced to be a huge disappointment. It was only in the IDW books where Autobots all seemed to come from a privileged class. Which was definitely not how things started in the Generation One source material.

The Decepticon Directive is even worse. All of the various roles are some kind of criminal origin. It lacks even the thin diversity of the Cobra Codex. Making creating interesting diverse characters to be an almost futile exercise.