Quote from: JeffB;1126924Old company, yes, but New management. I'm guessing that being the "saviors" of Chaosium went to their heads, and now that the initial dust has settled where they fixed some old chaosium issues,  they are moving forward with their core business plans and  probably are a little taken aback by the criticisms.

I can understand being taken aback if they were being asked questions that could easily be answered by a properly written and worded OGL. Instead it's the opposite and acting surprised is more of an excuse and trying to evade responsibility imo. It's like giving someone 50% of the instruction to setup a piece of furniture than getting annoyed they keep asking for the other 50%.

Quote from: sureshot;1126923Pretty much and making other question his lawyer credentials.

My experience is that the law is a tool to express one's intent. If not express clearly yes it can be just a person writing unclearly even when they know how to put thing in the correct legal form. This become clear when you talk to them and they go "Oh yeah this is what I was thinking" And you go "Oh OK I understand now."

However if the plain explanation also remain unclear then that paints a different picture.

When it came to the Judges Guild license a decade ago, I consulted with a lawyer. My approach was to go down the list of what I and Bob Bledsaw II wanted out of the deal and ask several questions. Is the agreement in the correct legal form that expressed those intent. Along with are they any implication to the terms Bob II chose to use when writing it up. Happily after going through it the lawyer said yes it did.

However I did have to explain why I wanted the things I did and why I was willing to agree to certain condition. Part of that was explaining the Open Game License and why I was using it. The lawyer's natural instinct was for me to retain as many rights as possible. However I explain how my marketed work which is just as much about the reputation of the author as it is about the quality of the material. How it is a benefit in terms of people getting to use my material to target a widely used system. That irregardless of one's opinion on how culture is to be shared, from a business standpoint that open content is a form of advertising.

I think the lawyer learned as much from me as I did from him. However the meeting was very much about me making sure that the agreement express what I wanted out of it given my negotiations with Bob Bledsaw II. Not about what I could get if I ask for more.

Similarly with Chaosium, it obvious that they don't want anybody copying their IP heavy RPGs like Pendragon, Call of the Cthulu etc. However there is more going on thus why they can't seemly answer simple questions or implement clearer language for their license. My personal guess is that they rather not share anything at all except under very controlled conditions like the OBS Community Content programs. However the reality of the open content of the Legend RPG coupled with King Arthur being public domain and an increasing amount of Lovecraft works means things are going to happen.

My recommendation is for them to get over their paranoia and just make an SRD out of the BRP mechanics. Most hobbyists are going to look to the IP Holder first than a third party. You have to be exceptional like the crew behind Design Mechanism to even to make a dent.  Most prospective authors including myself are not as good as them and a handful of others.

Even if one does crop up like Design Mechanism they rarely supplant the original IP holder unless the original IP holder does something totally boneheaded like jettison all compatibility with previous works and mock fans for liking the older editions.

I'd argue "D100 Bronze Age Fantasy" sold RuneQuest a lot more than "Glorantha as the setting."

Can CoC be dethroned? I'd bet on something akin to CHILL with a polished system or SILENT LEGIONS with a better cover, but CoC (like D&D) has tremendous brand loyalty. Anyone entering that niche would need marketing dollars.

NuChaosium killed my desire to run their games ever again. I can do CoC with Silent Legions easily, and use anything I liked from Old Chaosium.

BTW, Goblinoid Games did a retroclone of CHILL called CRYPTWORLD .

Quote from: Spinachcat;1127103I'd argue "D100 Bronze Age Fantasy" sold RuneQuest a lot more than "Glorantha as the setting."

Can CoC be dethroned? I'd bet on something akin to CHILL with a polished system or SILENT LEGIONS with a better cover, but CoC (like D&D) has tremendous brand loyalty. Anyone entering that niche would need marketing dollars.

NuChaosium killed my desire to run their games ever again. I can do CoC with Silent Legions easily, and use anything I liked from Old Chaosium.

BTW, Goblinoid Games did a retroclone of CHILL called CRYPTWORLD .

I think that a horror rpg aimed at a more mature audience (but without the demon dicks of Kult Divinity Lost) with a retro feel to it akin to 70's and 80's horror movies plus a focus on slick layout and art could be a serious threat to CoC these days. CoC gets pulpier and more Scooby-Doo by each product. I like many CoC products but most of them are not Nu-Chaosium ones. Most of them were penned by Keith Herber. And they have no sense of art direction. It's always about slapping on some silly tentacles and Ghostbusters colour schemes. Sure, stealing that French artist will improve the art, but his talents will be wasted since the intent, the drive and the creative vision behind their new products is so PG-13 it makes me sick. I wager that many of them aren't that much into hardcore horror anyway. They are like the producers/directors who go for the safe PG-13 edits of a horror movie thinking of the box office numbers, instead of saying "fuck it" to soulless, watered down compromise and go all out. For the sake of staying true to the genre. Horror fans do care about respecting the genre. A game that caters to this audience could actually become successful. Kids will find a way to play it anyway and that's just fine.

Quote from: Groom of the Stool;1127112I think that a horror rpg aimed at a more mature audience (but without the demon dicks of Kult Divinity Lost) with a retro feel to it akin to 70's and 80's horror movies plus a focus on slick layout and art could be a serious threat to CoC these days.

What do you consider elements of 70s/80s horror movies that would make a good RPG?

Feel free to start another thread if you'd like.

I don't really get this. I mean, there's BRP variations that are open source, aren't there? There's tons of games done with brp-based systems that were not licensed by Chaosium...

Quote from: RPGPundit;1127338I don't really get this. I mean, there's BRP variations that are open source, aren't there? There's tons of games done with brp-based systems that were not licensed by Chaosium...

You are correct. This is a huge gaslighting campaign by the new folks at Chaosium trying to confuse those not in the know. It's a dick move and I hope the blowback teaches them a tough lesson.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1127338I don't really get this. I mean, there's BRP variations that are open source, aren't there? There's tons of games done with brp-based systems that were not licensed by Chaosium...

Very much like Castles & Crusades had no need of the OGL or SRD to make a D&D clone.

Quote from: DocJones;1127363Very much like Castles & Crusades had no need of the OGL or SRD to make a D&D clone.

I feel like I'm missing something, but I'm not sure what you're getting at. Just like the "open source" d100 system variants that RPGPundit mentions, C&C made use of the OGL and open content from the SRD. (Or are you saying yeah C&C did that, but it didn't need to? If so, I'd say that's debatable, as it might be possible to "clone" the game mechanics, but without the OGL you'd need to be very cautious about terminology and such in order to avoid potential copyright issues. Using the OGL and open content terminology makes many of those issues moot.)

It's always fascinating that Sine Nomine doesn't use the OGL.

Philotomy Jurament is correct the OGL offers certain legal protection, but the existence of Palladium Books for 40 years also makes an interesting counterargument, along with many, many other RPGs which "modified" AD&D into their own product long before the OGL.

But if the OGL offers what you want and you're okay with the relatively minimal strictures, its a fine license.

OGL lets you use the D&D IP - game mechanics/formulae aren't protectable, but there is a ton of copyright protected content in the 3e & 5e SRDs. You can use that content with completely different game mechanics if you like, eg you could use a d100 BRP type system with the monsters, spells, magic items et al from the 3e or 5e D&D SRD.

Quote from: S'mon;1127398OGL lets you use the D&D IP - game mechanics/formulae aren't protectable, but there is a ton of copyright protected content in the 3e & 5e SRDs.

That's the single biggest draw of the WotC SRDs - you could probably write your own close-enough D&D clone but it would be a craptonne of work, not to mention the risk of a C&D from WotC that you couldn't afford to fight.

The Mongoose RQ and Traveller SDRs were less valuable in that they had very little IP in them - almost none in the case of Traveller - but they were still useful because they had a lot of mechanical text which meant 3PPs wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel.

An SRD with no IP and almost no rules text makes no sense at all, because you're doing all the work of writing and creating original background in exchange for a whole raft of prohibitions and controls. Giving you access to a trademark might be worth all that - if it was a valuable trademark rather than one that the parent company had already abandoned years ago and just now made up a logo for.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1127338I don't really get this. I mean, there's BRP variations that are open source, aren't there? There's tons of games done with brp-based systems that were not licensed by Chaosium...

It is about teasing people with being able to  put the BRP logo on the product and maybe getting your product in the Choasium section of Drivethru.  Games like Openquest and Raiders of R'lyeh are under the Mongoose OGL/SRD and Chaosium has an issue with it's legitimacy .  If you are suggesting just use the Mongoose SRD  rules a lot of people don't like the changes the Mongoose did. Like the Elfquest skills bonuses and the D&D style resistances instead of attribute rolls.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1127394It's always fascinating that Sine Nomine doesn't use the OGL.

Kevin Crawford doesn't make clones. Instead he makes RPGs with mechanics related to classic D&D. And these RPGs tend to be more focused on a situation/genre/setting then a clone is. But even then there always something different woven in.

Quote from: Gagarth;1127409If you are suggesting just use the Mongoose SRD  rules a lot of people don't like the changes the Mongoose did. Like the Elfquest skills bonuses and the D&D style resistances instead of attribute rolls.

I don't see that as a problem. The entire text of Mongoose's Legend RPG is designated as Open Content under the WotC OGL 1.0a. So if you don't like the Legend skill bonuses, or whatever, you can "Use" them under the terms of the license, which means you can "...Distribute, copy, edit, format, modify, translate and otherwise create Derivative Material of Open Game Content." That means you don't have to use "skill bonuses" (or whatever) as written in Legend, you can change them.  And if your change happens to be the same (mechanically) as some other game's approach...well, that's not a problem as long as you provide the game system rule in an original presentation.

This is what allows clone games to use the (3e) D&D SRD and its open content to clone the rules of earlier editions of D&D. The same approach can be used with the open content from Legend.