Quote from: Loz;879163We've been talking with the Mindjammer Press guys and think we do have the basis of a great agreement that will make this more than a holding pattern.

Yay! I was looking forward to Chronicles coming out in an expanded form... I really hope you guys can make it happen!

Quote from: Loz;879163We've been talking with the Mindjammer Press guys and think we do have the basis of a great agreement that will make this more than a holding pattern.

Well, until you're not 'thinking' but KNOW that you have an agreement, it IS in a holding pattern.

Please don't give false hope, if you're not entirely sure.

Quote from: rmeints;879096Your summary of what happened is completely false. We owned the HeroQuest trademark (for the United States) before we were asked about licensing it. We were in the early planning stages as to what to do with the IP and Trademarks so we hadn't announced it in public. They did NOT ask us if we owned the trademark. They knew we owned the US trademark.  They asked us for a license to use it for their boardgame. We said no to licensing our HQ trademark.

You've seen the same following information and charges in threads on BGG, one you started yourself, but elected there not to clarify further.  If this is incorrect, then I apologize.

• Gamezone asked you for permission to use the Trademark on 7/31/2013.
• You acquired all trademarks and all other IP from Greg Stafford on 8/12/2013.
• You denied the request on 8/26/2013.
• The last week of 11/2013 you petition Kickstarter to cease the Gamezone Kickstarter using the rationale that the "market would confuse"...

1. A reprint of a Milton Bradley dungeoncrawling boardgame having nothing to with Glorantha or Chaosium named Heroquest.
2. A narrative roleplaying game having nothing to do with MB or dungeoncrawling called Heroquest.
3. A boardgame named Glorantha:The God's War, having nothing to do with MB or dungeoncrawling and not named Heroquest.

Now some people claim you simply didn't want to get crushed if somehow Hasbro got stirred to action in all this, and that would be a smart move.  However, you didn't come anywhere near to saying anything remotely like "If Hasbro glances this way we all die, so no." You went with "brand-dilution", "market confusion" ie. the language that 1/100 times defends someone's actual rights and 99/100 times is used for IP trolling from the people who want to get paid for something they aren't working on.

You know, it's quite ok to say something like the following:
"Personally, we at Moon Design would love to see a reprint of the classic Milton Bradley boardgame HeroQuest, but we don't write IP laws even though we are affected by the consequences.  As Hasbro is the direct IP holder in this case, owning the entire game, and we just a minor IP holder of the name, Hasbro would have to agree before we would make a decision.  In addition, due to peculiarities of various countries' IP laws, even if we would like Gamezone to use the name Heroquest for free, as it obviously has nothing at all to do with Glorantha or our related roleplaying game, if we did do that, we would be effectively surrendering our rights in some countries, so we must charge Gamezone otherwise we could lose the IP entirely."

It would also have been ok to say something like the following:
"While Chaosium and The Design Mechanism have come to an agreement that RQnew will be based on RQ2 instead of RQ6 and as such, Loz and Pete are no longer part of the project, they will be able to publish the system formerly known as Runequest 6 under a new name to be decided.  In recognition of their long-standing friendship to both Chaosium, Moon Design, and the people involved, our agreement allows them to publish the current sourcebook they were working on, Adventures in Glorantha, under the new system, giving Glorantha fans the ability to experience Glorantha in Runequest, Heroquest, 13th Age, and The Design Mechanism house system.  A great day for all Runequest players, and all Glorantha players alike."

Corporations as entities have to mainly be ruthless beancounting rules lawyers.  We get it.  The people who run them however, are still human.  YOU have choices, and for god's sake, you certainly have the ability to use human language instead of legalese, especially in a public forum.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;879201Well, until you're not 'thinking' but KNOW that you have an agreement, it IS in a holding pattern.

Please don't give false hope, if you're not entirely sure.

He didn't say it's not in a holding pattern, he said he thinks they're closer to an agreement.

He's not giving false hope.  Any project has three possible momentums at any given time.
1. Forward
2. Stalled
3. Backward
He's saying it's currently moving forward, ie. communicating without official legalese babblespeak.  You know - what more small game design companies should be doing instead of pretending they're Jeff Bezos.

I can only imagine putting that work in, only to have to redo it to actually have it see the light of day.

Quote from: Pete Nash;879054Ethics aside, you will understand that I lack the heart to rewrite it all.

Obviously some of the spells, even rewritten, would be pretty specifically Glorantha, like Gorgorma's Vagina Dentata spell.

But, you guys could always Kickstarter the thing, that would tell you right there if it would be worth it.  352 (minus some) Theist Spells plus alternate forms of Mysticism and Sorcery...

Quote from: Akrasia;879121Yet we now know that RQ6 was not going to be the basis for the new RQ well before December 3rd.  

Is it any wonder that RQ6 fans are upset with how Chaosium handled this, independent of the decision not to use RQ6 in the future?

Hmm December 3rd, that's a little bit before the Dec 21st end of the RQClassic Kickstarter, right? :hmm:

Oops.  There's that whole "dates not lining up with official version" thing again.

Quote from: CRKrueger;879226Hmm December 3rd, that's a little bit before the Dec 21st end of the RQClassic Kickstarter, right? :hmm:

Oops.  There's that whole "dates not lining up with official version" thing again.

Speaking of dates "not lining up", MOB posted this over at RPGnet:

QuoteWe actually formed the design team last year directly after Gen Con and we first met in person (including Ken, Sandy, Jason and Chris) in late September. It's only Steve who is a recent addition, and we're delighted to have him on board!

MOB
VP - Chaosium

So as late as December 3rd we have official, public statements from Chaosium that RQ6 is continuing, despite a new design team having been formed in August/September.
:hmm:

Quote from: Akrasia;879233So as late as December 3rd we have official, public statements from Chaosium that RQ6 is continuing, despite a new design team having been formed in August/September.
:hmm:

Lucy...you got some 'splainin' to do...

Quote from: Arminius;879149Thennla (Korantia/Taskan Empire)..or Chronicles of Future Earth, anyone?

My relatively recent exposure to Pendragon led me to Glorantha, which led me to RQ6. I had plans to run a RQ6 game in Glorantha. With the recent events, I'm now excited about a future game to be situated in Thennla instead.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;879201Well, until you're not 'thinking' but KNOW that you have an agreement, it IS in a holding pattern.

Please don't give false hope, if you're not entirely sure.

Quote from: CRKrueger;879210He didn't say it's not in a holding pattern, he said he thinks they're closer to an agreement.

He's not giving false hope.  Any project has three possible momentums at any given time.
1. Forward
2. Stalled
3. Backward
He's saying it's currently moving forward, ie. communicating without official legalese babblespeak.  You know - what more small game design companies should be doing instead of pretending they're Jeff Bezos.

Not to dogpile Brady, but I agree. I'm interested to know that talk are underway. It would only be false hope if Loz was saying it was a sure thing, or giving some coy answer like "It may not be as dead as you think."

Knowing there talks going is just a plan, cold hard fact.

Quote from: CRKrueger;879213I can only imagine putting that work in, only to have to redo it to actually have it see the light of day.


Obviously some of the spells, even rewritten, would be pretty specifically Glorantha, like Gorgorma's Vagina Dentata spell.

But, you guys could always Kickstarter the thing, that would tell you right there if it would be worth it.  352 (minus some) Theist Spells plus alternate forms of Mysticism and Sorcery...

Honestly, I would be happier for Pete to just get on doing a TDMRPG supplement that he feels inspired by. I'm sure a kickstarter would be successful, but re-compiling a mechanical spellbook doesn't seem the best use of the talents of the guy that wrote Monster Island.

I'd rather have him just move onto something fresh now.

Quote from: Sable Wyvern;879238My relatively recent exposure to Pendragon led me to Glorantha, which led me to RQ6. I had plans to run a RQ6 game in Glorantha. With the recent events, I'm now excited about a future game to be situated in Thennla instead.

Thennla has a lot of my attention at the moment too. It's a setting that really takes advantage of all the things that RQ does well. It's also has a nice balance of providing a detailed central area with lots of places the GM can make his own.

I just got done speed-reading a couple threads over at the BRP forums:

http://basicroleplaying.org/topic/4176-what-is-the-status-of-rq6-glorantha/
http://basicroleplaying.org/topic/4335-new-rq-designer-notes-part-one/?page=1

(Not sure if anyone has already linked them.)

At this point it sounds like, regardless of the rules base it's being written from, RQ7 will be very much like RQ6 except:

• The magic will only have whatever's needed for Glorantha
• Combat special effects are gone
• RQ2-style impale/crit are back
• Strike ranks may be back instead of the RQ6 "actions"
• They've got the new rune-passion thingy from Pendragon

(A lot of this is cribbed from Baulderstone's posts over there, except he wrote from perspective of what's being added to RQ2.)


One might also speculate that skill improvement rolls will also go back to the "checkbox" approach but I'd say that's a 50/50 chance.


Also they might make an effort to reduce the word count especially in the rules section.


I'll also bet there won't be any typographic ligatures. (Possibly that was the irresolvable creative difference! We'll probably never know.)

Quote from: CRKrueger;879210He's saying it's currently moving forward, ie. communicating without official legalese babblespeak.  You know - what more small game design companies should be doing instead of pretending they're Jeff Bezos.

That's incorrect.  He states that HE BELIEVES that it's moving forward.  That is not a definite motion in any direction.  It is in a 'holding pattern' until they get confirmation that the talks are going forward, meaning that any work on the product is NOT moving.

Until they know FOR SURE that the talks are going forward, he is giving false hope.  He shouldn't open his mouth on the likely very off chance that his belief is incorrect.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;879282That's incorrect.  He states that HE BELIEVES that it's moving forward.  That is not a definite motion in any direction.  It is in a 'holding pattern' until they get confirmation that the talks are going forward, meaning that any work on the product is NOT moving.

Until they know FOR SURE that the talks are going forward, he is giving false hope.  He shouldn't open his mouth on the likely very off chance that his belief is incorrect.

You're hair-splitting for I-neither-know-nor-care what reasons:). Seriously, the "believe" part in "I believe we have progress" probably simply means "we have some progress, I'm not sure it would be successful but I'm seeing that as definite progress".

I'm saying that as someone who isn't at the moment interested in Mindjammer, but TDM have lots of other stuff to offer, too;).

Quote from: AsenRG;879291I'm saying that as someone who isn't at the moment interested in Mindjammer, but TDM have lots of other stuff to offer, too;).

Just to be clear... Mindjammer isn't the game they're discussing, Mindjammer Press is the writer's, Sarah Newton, company.
Chronicles of Future Earth is a 'Dying Earth' type setting. A bit like Tekumel, Penumbra, Viriconium, etc.

Quote from: Simlasa;879343Just to be clear... Mindjammer isn't the game they're discussing, Mindjammer Press is the writer's, Sarah Newton, company.
Chronicles of Future Earth is a 'Dying Earth' type setting. A bit like Tekumel, Penumbra, Viriconium, etc.

Well, thanks for the info. I used to know nothing of Chronicles of Future Earth, but if it comes out for The Game That Was RQ6 I'd check it and might buy it:).
According to that link I found, there were plans for that, and I hope they would transfer to the new edition;).