With the ongoing success of my Fables Diceless game the players were discussing future games.I had pitched Fables as a 4 session game and it looks like that will work out pretty close.
The game after that will be a 4-5 session superhero game using Mutants and masterminds, but for future games we were talking about using a Victorian setting and I suggested Penny Dreadfuls. Anyway it got us talking and I was wondering why the same basic characters recur from flavours of the material
So
LXG uses Quartermain, Mina Harker, Dr Jeckyl, Invisible man, Dorian Grey, and TomSawyer as a gunslinger, and captain Nemo
Penny Dreadful uses - Sir Malcomb Murrray (a Quartermain like hunter/explorer), Mina Harker (but in a small role), Dr Frankenstein (who is a good fit for Jeckyl as he brings a monster with him), Dorian Grey and Vanessa Ives and a gunslinger
The modern granddaddy of the genre Philip José Farmer's in "The Other Log of Phileas Fogg" uses Phileas Fogg, Jules Verne, Sherlock Holmes, Dorian Grey and James Moriarty. oBviosuly Jules Vern is a bit of a cheat :)
so who would you use?
I was thinking for a party of 5
Lord Greystoke (Tarzan) , Alice (slightly older) , John Carter, Auguste Dupin (now an old man), and Kim (Kimball O'Hara).
Now am I cheating because John Carter and Tarzan are both Edwardian not Victorian (out by a dozen years) .
Why do some characters seem so popular for this type of thing and some like Tarzan or Kim who seem so ideally suited get ignored?
Because they are the only Victorian figures people have a chance in hell of knowing about? :D
Also they are public domain.
Also in Penny Dreadful, they are specifically retreading LXG characters because again, people know who they are.
Tarzan, although mostly in the public domain, is still trademarked (as a name) and the estate likes to sue.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120228/18543417906/edgar-rice-burroughs-inc-using-trademark-law-to-prevent-use-public-domain-stories.shtml
And I have no idea who Kim is (unless it's that Kipling story), so that's probably the explanation there.
Quote from: JeremyR;757219Tarzan, although mostly in the public domain, is still trademarked (as a name) and the estate likes to sue.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120228/18543417906/edgar-rice-burroughs-inc-using-trademark-law-to-prevent-use-public-domain-stories.shtml
And I have no idea who Kim is (unless it's that Kipling story), so that's probably the explanation there.
Kim is from that kipling story yes. Super spy and all that :)
Mogli would work too but too similar to tarzan.
I thought all these guys would be public domain tarzan was written in 1912 for goodness sake :) How can they trademark characters that seems a little anti the spirit of the law.
I assume Holmes is public domain as there are so many TV and movie spin offs of late.
Quote from: CRKrueger;757189Because they are the only Victorian figures people have a chance in hell of knowing about? :D
Also they are public domain.
Also in Penny Dreadful, they are specifically retreading LXG characters because again, people know who they are.
Partly Dorian Grey is there but they didn't explicitly use Quartermain and Mina is a lost soul they are searching for rather than the protagonist.
There are a load of popular Victorian/Edwardian heroes out there though from Peter Pan to Lord Jim to all of Kipling, Dickens, Tolstoy, Elliott, the Brontes, Austin etc etc . Even assuming that all such characters need s special "edge" we have Poe, Verne and Burroughs.
Why focus on such as small subset?
Quote from: jibbajibba;757278How can they trademark characters that seems a little anti the spirit of the law.
It would be against the spirit of the law if they were able to use TM law to 'own' the character, rather than to perform the function of a TM which is to denote the origin of goods & services.
Legally you can include Tarzan as a character inside your copyright work. If it says Tarzan on the cover then in theory it could be a trademark infringement, although I expect they would lose if it came to a court decision.
Overall I would say yes, they probably are acting in bad faith in what they're doing.
Edit: Just been settled - looks like ERB got what they wanted - http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2014/05/dynamite-erb-inc-partner-for-john-carter-warlord-of-mars/ - ie Dynamite is behaving much as if ERB have copyrights in their public domain works, which is the best ERB could reasonably hope for.
Quote from: jibbajibba;757278I thought all these guys would be public domain tarzan was written in 1912 for goodness sake :) How can they trademark characters that seems a little anti the spirit of the law.
It's a trick to extend the constitutionally limited term of a copyright or a patent.
The Burroughs estate (or whoever claims the trademark here) is not the first party to try this stunt. A company called Marketing Displays Inc. tried this with a patent, went all the way to SCOTUS, and then lost. (TrafFix v. MDI, 532 U.S. 23).
Note that much of the reasoning in that decision wouldn't apply to Tarzan.
Quote from: S'mon;757314Edit: Just been settled - looks like ERB got what they wanted - http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2014/05/dynamite-erb-inc-partner-for-john-carter-warlord-of-mars/ - ie Dynamite is behaving much as if ERB have copyrights in their public domain works, which is the best ERB could reasonably hope for.
This is apparently pretty common. I think it's analogous to selling people the Brooklyn Bridge, but I'm not a circuit court judge, so what do I know?
John Carter is awesome, but only has 'super strength' on Mars.
Quote from: Bill;757709John Carter is awesome, but only has 'super strength' on Mars.
But he is the greatest swordsman on two worlds a master tactician, fighter, explorer and leader so ... meh :)
Quote from: jibbajibba;757278I thought all these guys would be public domain tarzan was written in 1912 for goodness sake :) How can they trademark characters that seems a little anti the spirit of the law.
The "spirit" of the law means squat to estates and rights holders (as, indeed, to most of our culture), who greatly prefer to argue the letter of the law, especially when they have copyright attorneys backing them up.
The date a character was created has nothing to do with current law; it has to do with the lifespan of the creator. That being said, copyright and trademark law is an infamous snakepit, with many conflicting international jurisdictions and codes, and copyright attorneys make mints of money happily arguing both sides of any issue.
Where RPGs are concerned, another factor is the lawsuit-happy outfits out there. I was all set to do a Zorro book for GURPS, except that Disney caught wind and sent a cease-and-desist letter to SJ Games. Now Zorro is public domain, and Disney absolutely doesn't own the character ... but what game company has the clout or the willingness to go toe-to-toe with a multibillion dollar multinational? Quite understandably, I was asked to find a different swashbuckling hero about which to write.
Quote from: Ravenswing;758178The date a character was created has nothing to do with current law; it has to do with the lifespan of the creator.
Publisher-owned works (most commercially important works) have a fixed 95 year term in the US. So the date of creation is relevant.
BTW outside the USA a 'character' is not a copyright work at all. UK copyright like many jurisdictions protects only literary musical & artistic works, not abstract concepts such as fictional characters.
My knowledge of late 1800's literature is scant, and so is the cast of characters one can use for a Victorian game. But I have two possibilities for you:
1. In 1834 Richard Henry Dana Jr. (1815 to 1882) left college and sailed from Boston to California and back again. He published a journal of his voyage in 1840: Two Years Before the Mast. One of the most popular books in mid-19th century America since it described what California was like at the time. He later passed the bar and became a lawyer. A real man who was a traveler, writer and lawyer.
2. Growing up in the '70s I read the Tom Swift Jr. books. Tom Swift Sr. was a great inventor and adventurer in the 1910-1930 period. But what about an earlier Swift who invented and adventured during the Victorian period? A father or grandfather to Tom Sr could fit that bill. He could be a James West/Artemis Gordon type of character. Could work.
Just my 2 cents.
Quote from: S'mon;758183Publisher-owned works (most commercially important works) have a fixed 95 year term in the US. So the date of creation is relevant.
Publisher-owned works, perhaps. That's another ballgame, of course, and doesn't (for instance) include Tarzan. Come to that, what characters mentioned in this thread
are publisher-owned?
Quote from: jibbajibba;758045But he is the greatest swordsman on two worlds a master tactician, fighter, explorer and leader so ... meh :)
That's why I said he was awesome. Just no actual superpower when not abusing frail martians with his earthly muscles.
Quote from: Bill;758518That's why I said he was awesome. Just no actual superpower when not abusing frail martians with his earthly muscles.
when you dig in though most of these characters don't have super powers.
Tarzan for example great mimicry and survival skills, Holmes great deductive skills etc etc
That is why they are more interesting than just Victorian Superheroes I think.