Wednesday, August 26, 2009

A Note About Compatibility

"Compatible with Advanced, Original, Basic, and Expert fantasy RPGs published between 1974 – 1983 as well as modern “Clone” games including Labyrinth Lord™, OSRIC™, and Swords & Wizardry™"

Here is the thinking behind this.

This pretty much covers OD&D, Holmes, AD&D, B/X, and BECM. (I do believe I am within my legal right to claim compatibility with old D&D, but I don't in my ads because someone's always going to bring it up and say that I'm doing a bad thing, and having to stick in the disclaimer that I am indeed not affiliated with Wizards of the Coast and I am an independent publisher using the trademark without permission... the legalese is extensive enough.)

I'm not using any Unearthed Arcana or Survival Guide stuff, so that's the 1983 cutoff.

Technically the Rules Cyclopedia is out of the cutoff, but we all know that's just the Mentzer edition reorganized.

2e... of course it will work with core (PHB + DMG) rules, but I'm certainly not going to use anything from the brown books, and definitely not Skills and Powers, so I thought it easier to just leave it out instead of saying "Yes, but..."

The lack of declared compatibility for Basic Fantasy Role-Playing is explained here. But those rules are still what I use for my Sunday games.

I was wanting list Spellcraft & Swordplay for compatibility, but I haven't sat down and played it, and I can't vouch for whether the magic system, combat, or the way monster attacks are dealt with are equivalent enough to truthfully say you could play S&S with my stuff with no undue conversion.

Since my first projects are low-level, there isn't a lot of the "proprietary" D&D magic and all that goes with it. I've had people mention they're using my stuff with Warhammer, Pathfinder, and I think someone mentioned Call of Cthulhu. I guess the current releases are pretty light on stats, but when I release stuff that looks more like "standard D&D" (and Insect Shrine will have a lot more of this sort of thing), I have a feeling that stuff will require more and more work to be compatible with anything other than what I am declaring.

Have I missed anything?

9 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Technically the Rules Cyclopedia is out of the cutoff, but we all know that's just the Mentzer edition reorganized.

    Very badly reorganized, filled with errors, missing some of the BECMI stuff and adding a lot of new stuff someone thought it would be cool.

    This by Mentzer's own admission.

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  3. @Rob

    I think James knows that; he doesn't currently use the OGL at all AFAIK.

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  4. @Dan thanks I didn't know that. I still recommend talking to a lawyer with this route.

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  5. There must be something I don't quite understand in all of this. What could be the problem in announcing compatibility with games under a trademark?
    According to this article, you'd be safe announcing compatibility with any game (if it is compatible):
    http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2006/02/gillette-defences-decision-what.html

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  6. I don't believe there is a problem, but others don't see it that way.

    Certain game companies, including TSR some years back, liked sending out legal threats to even fan sites doing original free downloads. Then when the OGL came around, it not only said "Look what you can do with our permission!" but it seems to have an implied "...and don't you try anything without it!" atmosphere.

    I don't want to deal with the perception problems. Even OSRIC had a problem (and still does if you listen to some people) where people were calling it illegal.

    I don't want to deal with those arguments because there is no way to look good. If someone asks, "Yes, D&D!" but in ads and stuff? I figure I make it clear enough without saying trademarked terms.

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  7. I was wanting list Spellcraft & Swordplay for compatibility, but I haven't sat down and played it
    Have you considering asking Jason if he would read through the PDF and let you know? I've found him quite responsive.

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  8. Hmmm... maybe: "Compatible with most OGL Derived Old School rule systems." Then you can make a logo for ODOS, trademark it and make others license it from you ;)

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  9. Good discussion - most informative. I think we're going to continue to wrangle with this stuff in the OSR for awhile.

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