Ron Hale-Evans

In the world of open source board game systems like piecepack, we usually phrase it something like, "Rules can't be copyrighted, but the way you write your rules can be." But rules can be patented, sometimes. You can't copyright a car, but you can patent some of the mechanisms that make up a car. And trademarks are yet a third form of "intellectual property" that apply to things like the make and model names of a car, or the name of your RPG.

What Azora Law seemed to be saying, as I read it, was not "publish everything under the ORC, even if it was previously under the OGL" but "remove the material that was under the OGL and publish what's left under ORC". That's my paraphrase of "if you published an OGL product, you could strip out any protectable expressions of game mechanics you received under an OGL license, and release that new product under the ORC ". Is someone paraphrasing something different that I haven't seen?

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There's no "statute". What Rosen is referring to is the basic incompatibility of free culture licenses (or open source licenses, etc.) It might be that the ORC, WotC OGL, and Chaosium OGL are all compatible (I haven't checked), but that would be a happy coincidence, because we can be pretty sure they weren't written that way deliberately. I would read the three licenses very carefully, preferably with the help of a lawyer, before publishing any project that attempts to mix and match. I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.

Because crits happen 10% of the time in Mystique, have you considered making them happen on double rolls, like 11, 22, 88, etc.? This is the way OpenQuest does it, and to my taste, it simplifies things a lot.

Looks good, especially for a beta! Keep up the good work! Looking forward to the next version.

Stan Shinn writes, "Hmmm, is this the first commercial 'Powered by BRP' product released under ORC I wonder?" Er, no, because ORC itself has not been released yet, and the BRP text has not been finalized either. I'd say you've jumped the gun. I'm curious what Chaosium will say.

Thanks for the official word, MOB. I guess I should shut up now and see how things shake out. :) I certainly am grateful for Chaosium's liberation of BRP:UGE under the ORC license, anyway. I have been banging the drum on social media.

There's not going to be an SRD, just a copy of the book with trademarks, graphics, and so on removed. The stripped-down BRP or BRPs for specific setting types or what have you: these are all versions of what I was talking about: hacks or mashups of the base BRP text. What I've been saying is that new versions are going to be more work than just copypaste, unless you don't care about the result and merely want rough handouts for your players. And if you want to publish your work, you can't even use the name "Basic Roleplaying" (for starters).

Thanks, Nakana. I think I understand the legal situation pretty well, having worked with a variety of free licenses before, and having worked for both the Free Software Foundation and the Linux Foundation professionally. I'm not asking for raw text with no branding. I expect that's what we're going to get anyway. What I'm trying to do is suss out the practicalities of what comes next.

In open source software, which I think is analogous to our situation, there are things called distros and forks. A distro is a version of an operating system like Linux, distributed or published with a bunch of different optional software, often tweaked quite a bit for specific purposes. A fork is a bit like a distro, but even more radically changed from the original (I know this is not an exact definition -- please don't jump on my head :) If someone were to create a distro or fork of BRP, let's say with a bunch of optional rules like d100-based characteristics instead of 3d6, a lot of internal stuff in the "text-based" "SRD" we are all expecting would change. Even merely adding or deleting a page here or there would change all the pagination and require new page numbers throughout. If you've been following the corrections thread, you can see it's tricky for Chaosium to keep tracking of page numbers properly, let alone a bunch of penny-ante operators like us. :) And that's just one issue. Summary: If anyone intends to do any kind of mashup or remix of the BRP:UGE rules instead of sticking with the plain text dump we're anticipating, they have a lot of work ahead of them. Which takes us back to my first post in this thread. And even if we're going to use the plain old text dump directly, we're going to need a new name, because "Basic Roleplaying" is a trademark of Chaosium. But that's the least of it.

What is GORE?

I've been thinking about the process of publishing a free, open version of BRP, once ORC has been finalized. Clearly, we need to remove all Product Identity elements from the text. This includes trademarks like "Chaosium". It also includes the title of the book, "Basic Roleplaying"! What are we going to call the new book? There are also some significant logistics, such as all the page numbers and cross references. A decent page layout program can help with those. I recommend an open source program for layout, something cross-platform like Scribus. https://www.scribus.net/ It would be especially useful to be able to export to a reflowable format like EPUB as well as PDF. That way, it would be easier to read on ereaders like Kindle and Kobo. Anyone else have some thoughts on this?

From the copyright page of the new BRP: With a very few exceptions (trademarked terms), the text of BASIC ROLEPLAYING: UNIVERSAL GAME ENGINE is available for personal and commercial use under the ORC license. The reproduction of artwork, illustrations, graphic design, and trade dress from this book for the purposes of personal or corporate profit, by photographic, optical, electronic, or other media or methods of storage and retrieval, is prohibited.

@hix That's not the lesson. Without a license, BRP would either be public domain (in which case, Chaosium would have trouble making money) or totally locked down (which we as players don't want). A license lets players use the text of the BRP (or whatever game) relatively freely while letting Chaosium retain some rights they consider important, such as their trademarks.

Apologies if someone has already asked this. Usually, you can buy a Chaosium PDF and apply full price of the PDF to the paper book later. Is this offer good for the new BRP book? If so, can I buy the PDF at DriveThruRPG, or do I have to buy it directly from Chaosium? I hope someone can answer this by the 7th! Thanks.

Looking for an online game/campaign of Superworld or BRP/BGB superheroes. I live on the West Coast of the US.