A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

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kerc
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by kerc »

bobcatt wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 8:25 pm Paizo sold 8 months worth of PF2 books in 2 weeks. Outstanding response from the community.
Holy smokes!!
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by Solomoriah »

bobcatt wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 8:25 pm I'll reserve turning cartwheels until WotC's current statements are all down on legal documents. I had commented elsewhere that regardless of what course WotC took, the tabletop gaming landscape would be forever changed. No one will trust them going forward.
The SRD 5.1 released with the CC BY license on it seals the deal. Djinni is outside the bottle.
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by Boggo »

bobcatt wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 8:25 pm Paizo sold 8 months worth of PF2 books in 2 weeks. Outstanding response from the community.

Glad Chaosium is still around after that KS debacle. Their system isn't to everyone's taste but it does the job well. Enjoyed playing Pulp Cthulhu.

I'll reserve turning cartwheels until WotC's current statements are all down on legal documents. I had commented elsewhere that regardless of what course WotC took, the tabletop gaming landscape would be forever changed. No one will trust them going forward.
not QUITE the original Chaosium but they did have Greg Stafford on board before he died and have a quite a few people from the original Chaosium there, so as probably as close as possible to the original
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by knghtbrd »

Having been neglecting the forum for a week, sorry… I'll try to skip to what's still relevant.

Speaking of OGL 1.0(a) revocability:
Boggo wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 7:26 am except they have explicitly put in the latest one that they CAN revoke it (legally they probably can't)
They could "revoke" the OGL 1.0(a) in four ways:
  1. Con you into agreeing you can't use it anymore.
  2. Tell you how you violated the terms of that license, and you refuse to fix it.
  3. Convince a judge that the license can be rescinded (a tough sell given legal precedent)
  4. Convince you that they have power they don't actually have.
That's still relevant because oddly, they still have those powers under CC-BY 4.0! Only, the CC licenses are written to make both #3 and #4 even less likely to succeed than they already were. 🤣

Neigdoig wrote: Fri Jan 20, 2023 12:44 pm Have you considered the Open RPG Creative License by Paizo and other DnD competitors, Solo? Creative Commons (the version you're using) is approved for cultural works, and if I'm not mistaken, that could be the same for ORC.
ORC doesn't exist yet. And maybe BFRPG doesn't need/want it. Consider, folks like me part of the ORC discussion are trying to make sure it's a no-bullshit-possible OGL replacement. The OGL is a license that exists to let you smoosh "share-alike" open source content with proprietary content in one book and explain how the latter stays proprietary. Unless people using some or all of BFRPG as the basis of something they're gonna sell at DTRPG is a concern, it's not needed here.

Without it, people can recreate what's in BFRPG in an ORC-licensed game, but they couldn't use it word-for-word.


On Hasbro putting the 5.1 under CC-BY 4.0:
bobcatt wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 3:42 pm What an about-face. Still looking for the hidden trap in the verbiage.
I needed sleep before parsing it, for the same reason. My opinion: They got 10k responses and said so. Then they got 5000 more and a couple petitions dropped in their lap in 48 hours, investors-plural were mocking them on twitter, and MSM continued talking about it. THEY SHAT THEIR PANTS, and formerly hands-off higher-ups got very hands on, fast. Probably right around Chris Cau's neck, Homer Simpson style.

This won't undo the damage already done, but this time they didn't say they're going to do right later on, they just did it. Excuses are still there, no fault is admitted (lawyers would've forbidden that), and they've even given ground on some rights they used to more carefully exclude from the deal and asked us nicely to avoid their trademarks.

That last one's a big deal because you've gotta be careful how you use someone else's trademark in a commercial product. If you thought Copyright was complex, trademark law is worse. And unlike Copyright, if you do it wrong and Hasbro finds out, they can't ignore it. They have to defend a trademark or risk losing it. So when they ask us to step away from those things they genuinely should be able to own (Strahd, Umber Hulk, Beholder, Mindflayer, and D&D/Dungeons and Dragons) I'm inclined to stay away from those names as requested. I'm not giving them owlbear and magic missile (though arcane arrow does sound cooler.)

If your goal was to ensure 5E isn't screwed with or to make them back off shenanigans with the OGL 1.0(a). Good work. If you're using an older SRD or the OGL license for something and concerned about the future, we beat the BBEG but are still inside the dungeon. And what this means for 6E and their video game D&D? No idea. I don't trust Hasbro, but I don't trust any corporate entity since they're incapable of moral reasoning by nature.

My suggestion is that those of us who've been big into this take a long rest—or several if you're old(school), but don't forget to search for traps often.

bobcatt wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 4:01 pm 3.0 or 3.5 SRD? That was before my return to the tabletop. I can only find the 3.5 version.
I will be assembling a collection of 3.0, 3.5, 5.0 (if I can find it, for the lolz), and 5.1 SRDs under the OGL 1.0(a) and also the 5.1 SRD under CC-BY 4.0 and put them somewhere. Seems archive.org would be a good target. And I'll do that even if 20 others of you already have. Jason Scott has opined many times that this is the best protection against any efforts to do anything scummy with his employer. "We demand you remove all of our property from your website." "Which content is that?" "You know damned well what our properties are!" "Yes, but I'm not required to do your homework for you. Bring me a specific list of items you own that you want removed, and I'll remove them. Otherwise…"

BTW, Jason Scott is an international treasure defending culture and history, and archive.org knows exactly who they hired to do just that. 😉

Jim1804 wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 7:54 pm 100% But can we keep owlbears? Even as one option on the revolving "bird-animal hybrid" monster chart?
People who've talked to lawyers say say the names they accidentally left in the SRD under CC … you could probably use those names but not the stat blocks and abilities that accompany them. As before, you'd have to create your own.

My advice on this would be that an animal hybrid like an owlbear they couldn't really have protected anyway. I'd be for pushing that one. Most of the others? Deceivers, Witherbeasts, Eyesores, insect ogres, and Count … pick something aristocratic … suit me just fine.
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by Solomoriah »

My opinion, which is not a legal opinion but it's where I am now, is that if they put a name in the 5.1 SRD we can use it. If they are giving it away for free, and the name is the only thing of theirs we've actually copied, how can they effectively stop us in a way that doesn't tank their stock price again?

And I have a suspicion that the 5.1 SRD CC BY version got released without much oversight from the higher-ups, who are as much D&D experts as my cat (maybe less). I think they told whoever was left in the creative department to "release the SRD under CC BY, and get it done yesterday!" and didn't even review it to see if there was anything they should think twice about.
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by RHampton »

I'm not your attorney and this is not legal advice, but look at CC-BY-4 section 2(b)(2) Patent and trademark rights are not licensed under this Public License.

If WOTC still has a trademark (even a lapsed one), it's poison. Steer clear.
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by Solomoriah »

I do not think they have ever marketed the names we are talking about as trademarks in basically any sense.
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by Boggo »

Solomoriah wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 7:11 pm I do not think they have ever marketed the names we are talking about as trademarks in basically any sense.
They've won a lawsuit about the name Beholder (against the production company of one of the old really bad D&D movies), so Beholder is almost certainly a trademark, I would imagine a lot of the other original to them names are as well
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by Dimirag »

Beholder is not a part of 5.1, its named, but not given as a monster, they are keeping it to themselves.
But BFRPG weren't using it, so no loss there.
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Re: A Manifesto of Sorts, which is a Plan as well

Post by Boggo »

Dimirag wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 7:50 pm Beholder is not a part of 5.1, its named, but not given as a monster, they are keeping it to themselves.
But BFRPG weren't using it, so no loss there.
Beholder was an example because as far as I know it's the only one they've actually launched a lawsuit over, my point being I'm pretty sure they would have trademarked other names as well, considering it would be easier for them to do it in bulk (I think there may have been a cease and desist over Hook Horrors as well at one point, but couldn't find anything to confirm that)
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