If something is copyright protected, changing the name doesn't actually help, legally. It's still a derivative work.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 08, 2023, 05:52:07 PM

Right, it's inevitable that our own biases filter on our work, more people can be a deterrent against this since others might keep us on check (unless we coincide too much).

As for the races I was thinking... Can we make them more general? Sopmething not tied to any one genre:

Human
Lithe (Elves or whatever)
Strong (Dwarfs or whatever)
Small (Gnomes, Halflings or whatever)

This removes ALL the fluff and makes it easier to convert to whatever setting your game uses.

That would be super generic though it doesn't describe things like magical ability or night vision.

Maybe a short list of racial trait options, of the pick two variety, rather than having specific races at all.

Characteristic Increase
Night Vision
Magical pick one spell
Sterotypical pick one skill
Amphibious
Aquatic

Man it's like I'm redesigning my own games...

Quote from: S'mon on January 08, 2023, 06:24:54 PM
If something is copyright protected, changing the name doesn't actually help, legally. It's still a derivative work.

Correct, you need to change MORE than just the name.

Quote from: David Johansen on January 08, 2023, 06:32:46 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 08, 2023, 05:52:07 PM

Right, it's inevitable that our own biases filter on our work, more people can be a deterrent against this since others might keep us on check (unless we coincide too much).

As for the races I was thinking... Can we make them more general? Sopmething not tied to any one genre:

Human
Lithe (Elves or whatever)
Strong (Dwarfs or whatever)
Small (Gnomes, Halflings or whatever)

This removes ALL the fluff and makes it easier to convert to whatever setting your game uses.

That would be super generic though it doesn't describe things like magical ability or night vision.

Maybe a short list of racial trait options, of the pick two variety, rather than having specific races at all.

Characteristic Increase
Night Vision
Magical pick one spell
Sterotypical pick one skill
Amphibious
Aquatic

Man it's like I'm redesigning my own games...

Yes, there's that, but it makes it more of a system and less of a game, maybe include the racial trait options for a few genres like Fantasy, Sci-Fi?

Or just use the Lithe WITH the racial options for Elves without calling it anything for a particular genre? And so on and so forth.

Anyhow, have some stuff to do IRL will be back latter today I hope.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 08, 2023, 06:34:59 PM

Quote from: S'mon on January 08, 2023, 06:24:54 PM
If something is copyright protected, changing the name doesn't actually help, legally. It's still a derivative work.

Correct, you need to change MORE than just the name.

All names and descriptive text need to be rewritten, or reworded.  Nothing should be Copy / Paste from any work of WOTC or TSR.

It's not a Brown Paper Sack.  It's a Lightweight Carry Option, Fashioned from Brown Paper.

Quote from: jeff37923 on January 08, 2023, 05:49:23 PM

Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 08, 2023, 12:54:54 PM
Hell, I don't know if any of them will go away.

It seems to me that this big 1.1 fiasco are going to start making games that have nothing to do with D&D style rules, which are pretty much all of the OSR group of games.

I know you cannot copyright the game rules.  So, from what I can tell all you need to do is release a game with six "Attribute" scores, Might, Agility, Health, IQ, Spirit, and Attractiveness, and you play the game using a 1D20 to try and roll equal or more than the enemy Armor Category (AC).

Stuff like that is what we can expect?

Boy, am I glad I never got into D&D specifically.  I'm still a Palladium guy, and now rules lite stuff that have damn near nothing to do with Hasbro.

Everything that WotC can get away with.

Each and every sale that isn't the current version of DnD is considered a lost sale to the suits at WotC, so they want scorched Earth. If they can scare publishers into not ending their companies by threatening legal action - they will. How's that for fascist?

The best way that I have seen it put is that this is an orbital bombardment of a planet by WotC in order to takeout the rifle wielding sniper of the OSR. This is WotC DnD becoming a Fascist State if the corporate suits at Hasbro have their way.

Don't be surprised if WotC is willing to put One Bookshelf out of business in order to ensure that DnD has no competition.

That is exactly correct. Hasbro will absolutely go scorched earth. They totally will. People keep forgetting that Hasbro receives ESG investment capital from ultra-giant monopolistic asset managers like BlackRock and Vanguard. Do we really need to start talking about the goals of the men who control these firms?

In any case, this means that they are completely willing to destroy 95% of both the TTRPG hobby and TTRPG industry, if it means they control 100% of it. They will ruthlessly fuck all of you without a second thought.

This move by Hasbro is NOT about making money. It never was. This is about power and control. The men who control Blackrock and Vanguard already have access to a nearly unlimited amount of fiat currency, and they now control Hasbro. If you think they're unwilling or unable to bribe a judge, think again. If you think they won't use weaponized lawfare to bankrupt you (even if you're legally and morally in the right), think again. If you think they won't find a way to deplatform game designers from Kickstarter or DriveThruRpg, or even YouTube and Facebook....think again. And frankly, there are a number of other things they can do to fuck game designers and ttrpg content creators, but I don't want to give them ideas.

Part of my point, is that people need to stop believing that giant mega-corporations receiving ESG investment capital from giant investment firms care primarily about making $money$. They don't. That is an extremely naive belief. Ask yourselves what the religious beliefs are of the men who control the giant investment firms, and then you'll start to have a slight understanding of what's really happening.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb on January 08, 2023, 07:18:48 PM
Ask yourselves what the religious beliefs are of the men who control the giant investment firms, and then you'll start to have a slight understanding of what's really happening.

What? Jewish? Or do you mean quasi-religious like Woke/SJW?

If you mean the former, claiming they want to destroy Open Gaming because they're Jewish seems a bit of a stretch. AFAICT Jewish opinion runs the full gamut as much as non-Jewish. Some slant towards Openness; I don't see how that equates to Microsoft style desire to shut down a 3rd Party ecology.

Quote from: S'mon on January 08, 2023, 07:52:29 PM

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb on January 08, 2023, 07:18:48 PM
Ask yourselves what the religious beliefs are of the men who control the giant investment firms, and then you'll start to have a slight understanding of what's really happening.

What? Jewish? Or do you mean quasi-religious like Woke/SJW?

If you mean the former, claiming they want to destroy Open Gaming because they're Jewish seems a bit of a stretch. AFAICT Jewish opinion runs the full gamut as much as non-Jewish. Some slant towards Openness; I don't see how that equates to Microsoft style desire to shut down a 3rd Party ecology.

The people near the top of the pyramid, have their own agenda.  It is very dark, in nature.

Quote from: S'mon on January 08, 2023, 07:52:29 PM

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb on January 08, 2023, 07:18:48 PM
Ask yourselves what the religious beliefs are of the men who control the giant investment firms, and then you'll start to have a slight understanding of what's really happening.

What? Jewish? Or do you mean quasi-religious like Woke/SJW?

If you mean the former, claiming they want to destroy Open Gaming because they're Jewish seems a bit of a stretch. AFAICT Jewish opinion runs the full gamut as much as non-Jewish. Some slant towards Openness; I don't see how that equates to Microsoft style desire to shut down a 3rd Party ecology.

That topic is a bit more complicated (and less reductive) than either of the things you just said, and if we discuss that....then we will not be discussing TTRPGs any more. And frankly, I have no desire to delve deeper into such things on this site.

My point is that Hasbro is NOT controlled by gaming nerds, nor is it controlled by people who wish to make $money$. When gamers fully accept that the men who control Hasbro are willing to destroy at least most of (if not all of) the TTRPG hobby and industry in order to fully control it, then gamers can make a proper decision on how to move forward.

It does seem like getting away from D&D style rules is the way forward.

New OSR games probably will be few and far between if this new WotC comes along and starts getting crazy about copycat games.

My guess is that existing games will be OK, as they were already made.  But no new revisions.  You want to make a 3rd edition of your OSR?  Well, just start over with all new rules so it doesn't look like a D&D clone.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb on January 08, 2023, 07:18:48 PM

That is exactly correct. Hasbro will absolutely go scorched earth. They totally will. People keep forgetting that Hasbro receives ESG investment capital from ultra-giant monopolistic asset managers like BlackRock and Vanguard. Do we really need to start talking about the goals of the men who control these firms?

In any case, this means that they are completely willing to destroy 95% of both the TTRPG hobby and TTRPG industry, if it means they control 100% of it. They will ruthlessly fuck all of you without a second thought.

This move by Hasbro is NOT about making money. It never was. This is about power and control. The men who control Blackrock and Vanguard already have access to a nearly unlimited amount of fiat currency, and they now control Hasbro. If you think they're unwilling or unable to bribe a judge, think again. If you think they won't use weaponized lawfare to bankrupt you (even if you're legally and morally in the right), think again. If you think they won't find a way to deplatform game designers from Kickstarter or DriveThruRpg, or even YouTube and Facebook....think again. And frankly, there are a number of other things they can do to fuck game designers and ttrpg content creators, but I don't want to give them ideas.

Part of my point, is that people need to stop believing that giant mega-corporations receiving ESG investment capital from giant investment firms care primarily about making $money$. They don't. That is an extremely naive belief. Ask yourselves what the religious beliefs are of the men who control the giant investment firms, and then you'll start to have a slight understanding of what's really happening.

But how do you want that represented mechanically?

Quote from: David Johansen on January 08, 2023, 05:36:50 PM
Which is setting specific fluff.

I'm thinking more like

Alfar: lithe and mysterious immortals
Dwarrows: short bearded miners
Gnomes: small pastoral garden decor

"So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth."

Or, as my dad would say, "shit or get off the pot".

Either write fluff to actually explain why they are "dwarrows" and not "dwarves", "alfar" and not "elves", or just call them dwarves and elves. That genie is out of the bottle, trapped the person who released it in in the bottle, became mortal, and died of old age. Years ago. So long ago the cycle has repeated itself, probably. There's a line at which trying to be cute and show off how much you're not putting your finger on WotC's side of the car that you fall out the other side of the car and die.

As well to call humans "Midgardians" or something.

I see why you would feel that way but it just seems best to go all the way than half way.

The fluff is something I feel should be setting specific.  I've even got one in mind but I'm trying to avoid pushing too many of my own ideas into this because we'll just end up with The Arcane Confabulation all over again which would suit me just fine but no-one else.

Again the key thing is the framework of terms, not the mechanics which I expect people will season to taste in many ways the core, important part to my mind is just this:

Mettle Stage (or whatever, I'm not fond of that one, I've tried floors, degrees, steps, worth and I'm not fond of any of them.  Mettle is at least somewhat Gygaxian.

Injury Tollerance die per Mettle Stage
Injury Tollerance (the mechanics as written hand out too much Injury Tolerance but I haven't decided how to handle that, probably Size base + Endurance -10 + x to y per mettle, I've long believed players get robbed of their zero level die that everyone else seems to get)

Character Types (generic and function oriented bear in mind that there are three types of generalists and spell casters due to the three types of magic)
Combatant
Specialist
Generalist
Spell Caster

Characteristics (Frankly I like every point to do something, no dead ratings)
Awareness #
Coordination #
Endurance #
Knowledge #
Physique #
Willpower #

Skills (+ mettle because again I hate dead levels, the list may need some fiddling to avoid matching existing ones)
Spells Known
Spirit, Sacred, and Lore (or something that's not Arcane)

Traits (so, rather than specifiying races I'm leaning towards a set of traits to pick from, people want to play all kinds of random stuff these days, Your Cheese Sandwich Avatar (or whatever, is that too computergamey?) gets Delicious and Nourishing but Harms the Lactose Intollerant)

I really think it should be that tight.  I'll have to think a bit about how to make the Characteristic Equivalencies more explicit.

I could see adding some form of learned techniques but I'd probably treat them like another class of spells.  Also, the more objects defined in the core, the harder it will be to keep it free from actionable duplications.

I think the most realistic way is to go the Kevin Crawford route. Use the terms, but don't use any text

The most painful thing will be rewriting new spell descriptions

So here's a hard question that challenges my assertion that this isn't really a system, just a placeholder in a framework.

Should there be balance control tools for building races and spells.  If it's just a pick two traits thing there might still need to be some kind of a tool for balancing traits and we're off to the races creating a whole new system.  On the other hand the goal is cross compatibility.

Most of my games use some variation of the following

Total to determine Circle:

Trivial Effect 0
Minor Effect 1
Major Effect 2
Legendary Effect 3

Range
Touch 0
Ranged 1
Regional 2

Duration
Instant / Permanent Effect  0 (damage)
One Combat 1
Hours 2
Days 3

Area
Individual 1
Tactical Radius 2
Battle Field 3
Region 4