peterb

My take at a quick MRQ conversion of the HM magic rules: HarnMaster magic is skill based. It uses Fatigue instead of Magic Points (a good conversion is 5 FP per 1 MP). All spells belong to one of six convocations. There is also a seventh "grey" convocation called Neutral magic. The 2nd ed. of the magic rules uses "convocational skill" instead of individual spell skills. A mage has one prime convocation and his skillbases are calculated based on the relationships between his prime convocation and the other convocations. In MRQII terms the primary convocation would have a base of INT + POW + POW. Neutral would be opened at INT + POW and all other convocations could (in game) be opened at either INT + POW (if the experience roll needed to "attune" to a new convocation is a Critical) or just POW.

A huge list of HM spells are available from lythia.com. Note the links to more documents in the box to the right. I'd recommend using these spells, since they are designed to fit the setting.

There are some similarities between the two, but overall Harn has a more comprehensive list. The two price schemes are not quite the same though. I'd suggest checking them over carefully before implementing. You might be better off just using Harn Prices for everything rather than mixing the two, or else you will have some minor problems with the differences in swords, armor and other stuff.

The Harn price list is in fact a very good simulation of middle age prices. The price of an item is (obviously) based on factors such as general availability of the base materials, labor cost (ie. the time it takes to produce it) and if goods has been imported or if its has been produced locally. The effect is e.g. that mail armor is less expensive than high class clothing, which is not the case in for example RQ III.

Indeed. I was lucky to get the German editions of Harnmaster and Harnworld, which were sold

at normal prices, but everything published in English is truly expensive.

The Harn market is probably largely made up of die-hard fans, and as fans they collect Harn stuff. The printed product is printed on high quality three-hole punched paper which somewhat explains the steep price tag (of the printed stuff...). Obviously the PDFs could be sold for much less...

It's quite good, but as lots of stuff for Harn it's a fairly complex simulation. Here's a link to the PDF at RPG Now.

You might want to check out HarnManor. It contains rules for running fiefs (and the price list from HarnMaster works like a charm with it...).

The concept of a given fantasy race is always fair game. A specific description is not. Some fantasy races might have aquired a trademark status (or even been registred) , Hobbits have been mentioned as an example in this thread. That being said, if your objective is to create a commercial product you would be wise to use only your own original concepts, generic races or races from folklore and such sources.

I should also probably point out that there are only two VTT (AFAIK) that has a working BRP like module. Fantasy Grounds and RP Tools both has CoC modules. There is a Kloogwerks module for CoC but it's not maintained and I can't get it running, since it throws lots of errors.

There are quite a few Virtual Table Top (VTT) software offerings available, some are free, some are not. Check out some basic info at: http://www.rpgvirtualtabletop.com/vts.html

For even more hit location types you could check out the "1990's handbook" for CoC. It has hit location rules for use with CoC and a lot of CoC creature hit locs. Those charts have no missile hit locations but many creatures that have alot of locations have the same die ranges for melee and missile hit locations (and quite a few of the CoC critters have a lot of locations...).

Thanks for the help with this. As I am trying to do an official core-rules conversion, under licence from Chaosium, I think I'll have to just stick with the Humanoid missile hit locations from the BRP rulebook.

There is another useful publication called Basic Creatures, which is the creatures section of RQIII minus any Gloranthan creatures, that might prove helpful.

A few years ago I created a Creature Generator using Excel and VBA. It's available from my webpage (here). One of the is named HitLocs and contains data for a lot of hit location types. The data is available under OGL. I converted the data to Lua tables when I was working on my own hit location solution for FG (that work stopped when I heard about your project). PM me if you want a copy.

Depending on jurisdiction you are operating in you MAY be able to indicate "usability with" - in some countries laws, it is permissible to reference the name of a product or service that your own product or service can be used with, without claiming any direct compatibility or endorsement. In the US you can't use the trademarks themselves (hence the absence of references to D&D on kenzer&Co's 4e Kingdoms of Kalamar setting book).

[Edit: error correction!]

It really depends on whether the mark has been declared as Product Identity or not (see my post upthread) and/or whether or not the mark qualifies as a trademark. If the mark does not qualify for trademark protection and it's not declared as PI you may of course indicate compatibility as you see fit. Otherwise section 7 of the OGL prevents compatibility statements.

I think it goes further (Where's Peter?!) - the OGL explicitly permits "translation" as one of it's categories of "Use". The issue then becomes the status of the translated text: my guess is that the unique translation in many jurisdictions (including the EU, UK and US) would count as a new unique form of expression such that is is covered by it's own separate copyright (albeit probably as a derivative work of the original English text) - so it might require a separate explicit license for use of that copyright in order to comply with the OGL; but since any attempt to "close" OGC is a breach of the terms of the OGL, actually you probably DON'T, and the terms of the OGL require the translation to be declared as OGC as well...

The OGL allows you to create derivative works. A translation is a derivative work. Thus translations are covered by the license. The license is an agreement between you and the party who issued the license (the publisher). The OGL do not create any contractual obligations between you and any third parties, who may have entered into another kind of license relationship with the publisher.

If you translate Traveller to Italian, making use of the offer in the OGL, then a Italian publisher, who has entered into an agreement with Mongoose, cannot sue you for breach of contract (the OGL). You and they have no contractual relationship. Further, they cannot sue you for copyright infringement, because you are acting in compliance with the OGL, the license explicitly allows translations.

Interesting discussion...

On the OGL and referencing trademarks.

The relevant article in the OGL is:

“7. Use of Product Identity: You agree not to Use any Product Identity, including as an indication as to compatibility, except as expressly licensed in another, independent Agreement with the owner of each element of that Product Identity. You agree not to indicate compatibility or co-adaptability with any Trademark or Registered Trademark in conjunction with a work containing Open Game Content except as expressly licensed in another, independent Agreement with the owner of such Trademark or Registered Trademark. The use of any Product Identity in Open Game Content does not constitute a challenge to the ownership of that Product Identity. The owner of any Product Identity used in Open Game Content shall retain all rights, title and interest in and to that Product Identity.”

Product Identity (PI) is defined in 1.e as:

“(e) "Product Identity" means product and product line names, logos and identifying marks including trade dress; artifacts; creatures characters; stories, storylines, plots, thematic elements, dialogue, incidents, language, artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, likenesses, formats, poses, concepts, themes and graphic, photographic and other visual or audio representations; names and descriptions of characters, spells, enchantments, personalities, teams, personas, likenesses and special abilities; places, locations, environments, creatures, equipment, magical or supernatural abilities or effects, logos, symbols, or graphic designs; and any other trademark or registered trademark clearly identified as Product identity by the owner of the Product Identity, and which specifically excludes the Open Game Content;”

So RuneQuest would be PI if it's clearly identified as PI. AFIK there are no PI declarations in any of the RQ SRD. If you compare with the d20 SRD, that document does have a PI declaration. It reads:

“The following items are designated Product Identity, as defined in Section 1(e) of the Open Game License Version 1.0a, and are subject to the conditions set forth in Section 7 of the OGL, and are not Open Content: Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master, Monster Manual, d20 System, Wizards of the Coast, d20 (when used as a trademark), Forgotten Realms, Faerûn, proper names (including those used in the names of spells or items), places, Red Wizard of Thay, the City of Union, Heroic Domains of Ysgard, Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo, Windswept Depths of Pandemonium, Infinite Layers of the Abyss, Tarterian Depths of Carceri, Gray Waste of Hades, Bleak Eternity of Gehenna, Nine Hells of Baator, Infernal Battlefield of Acheron, Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus, Peaceable Kingdoms of Arcadia, Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia, Twin Paradises of Bytopia, Blessed Fields of Elysium, Wilderness of the Beastlands, Olympian Glades of Arborea, Concordant Domain of the Outlands, Sigil, Lady of Pain, Book of Exalted Deeds, Book of Vile Darkness, beholder, gauth, carrion crawler, tanar’ri, baatezu, displacer beast, githyanki, githzerai, mind flayer, illithid, umber hulk, yuan-ti.”

[Edit: Mindflayers ate my brain. I mixed two subjects up really badly.. Here's the correct answer...]

[New section]

So If RuneQuest is a trademark in your jurisdiction then art 7. would still kick in. If not then it would kick in if RuneQuest had been declared PI. If that would not be the case then, from a formal POV art. 7 of the OGL would not kick in if someone indicated compatibility with “RuneQuest”. Would Mongoose complain? Probably... Would they stand a chance in court? Well, that would depend on where in the world you live...

NB! RuneQuest is only a registered trademark in the US... The owner would have serious trouble proving that it has acquired a secondary meaning here in Europe.

[Old section]

So... from a formal POV art. 7 of the OGL would not kick in if someone indicated compatibility with “RuneQuest”. Would Mongoose complain? Probably... Would they stand a chance in court? Well, that would depend on where in the world you live...

If you want to do something for BRP, ask Chaosium. If the BRP brand / specific rules set isn't important, just use the OGL and the OGC it gives you access to.

Well, this is (to some extent at least) true for a commercial project of course. But if all you want to do is to publish your own adventure or setting on your own website (or a site like this) then go ahead. Just don't copy text, art etc.

If you plan to do your own BRP clone, then the OGL route is the fastest approach. Still, you could write your own d100 compatible game. Just use your own words.

The fact that Gore contains such a stupid rule is pretty much proof that the mechanic was lifted from straight from Elric! without any thought. If any thought had been put into it I'd think a different mechanic should have been used.

So what? What's the fuss? There's no damage done to Chaosium in any way.

I know they are not identical. But close. Is the Elric! version even closer? And are there more examples than those I spotted from a 10-minute look-through?

In any case "the Law is an Ass". I doubt it would be right to use GORE.

That's not the point. The point is that game mechanics as such lack copyright protection. Restating game mechanics is OK. It's OK that GORE contains descriptions of game mechanics that is similar to what can be found in Elric! or BRP. There's nothing wrong here.

OK, here's what leads me to think that way.

GORE, Learning Spells, p35:

"If a character locates a spell from someone else's book, he must be able to read the language to understand it. If the character possess fluency in the language equal to or greater than INT x5, he has no problem reading the text. If the skill level is below INT x5, he must succeed in a Language skill roll in order to read it."

This I found suspiciously similar to the system (although not the exact words) used in BRP...

BRP, p126:

"Your character must be able to read the writing to learn from the grimoire. If your character has a skill rating of less than INT x 5% in the language the grimoire is written in, he or she will have to make a successful Language roll each and every time the grimoire is used for a magic purpose."

...But I'm told that mechanism came from Elric! Can anyone please tell how similar the wording is there?

And...

GORE, Dodge or Parry, p.29:

"Each time a Parry or a Dodge is made in a round, there is a cumulative 30% penalty for every subsequent Parry or Dodge. Whichever skill is used first is also used as the starting point from which these calculations are made."

Again, the wording in BRP is not an exact match (because, for one thing, it separates the use of Dodge & Parry) but, to me, the figure of "30%" seems a suspiciously close match. Again, I was told (upthread) that comes from Elric!

BRP, Parry (and similar for Dodge), p.191:

"Each successive parry attempt after the first is at a –30% modifier to the skill rating, cumulative. If the chance to parry an attack falls below 1%, your character cannot attempt to parry."

These were just two examples that caught my eye from a casual look-through, the other day after the subject of GORE came up in this thread. Maybe there are other examples. Maybe there aren't. Maybe the wording isn't close enough to be a problem legally. But GORE's source seems apparent and, to me, "dodgy".

This is all perfectly legal and OK. The GORE text uses the same mechanics as BRP, but that's OK. The game system used in BRP is not covered by any copyright and the texts are not identical. In fact I doubt that texts in your example are copyright protected here in Europe (exl. the U.K.). They are a bit to trivial IMO.

Anyway, it seems GORE is not good from a moral point of view, either.

Why should it be something immoral or wrong about GORE?

It's a restatement of the MRQ SRD. I've always seen GORE as trying to fill the same niche that Classic Fantasy has entered lately.

I am unable to locate the Beholder trademark. Am I missing something?

The problem here is the claim that a word that only appears in a descriptive text is a trademark. Such a claim is groundless.

In order for "Beholder", "Strike Ranks", "Armour Class" and "Magic Points" to be trademarks they must have been used as such. A trademark is a symbol of a commercial connection between a product or service and its source. In order for a mark to operate as a trademark it must be used to symbolize such a connection in market activities, such as for example in adds, in business correspondence, on packages etc.

Very few names, terms etc. from RPG:s have actually been used in as trademarks. Beholder, Broo and Jack-o-Bear are three examples that might qualify as trademarks. Spellnames, skillnames, class names etc. most certainly don't qualify.

Since names, game terms, spell names etc. must qualify as "original" in order to be copyright protected and in most jurisdictions they won't, they are fair game from a copyright perspective as well.

In fact, from a European perspective (NB!), I see no reason why a supplement (an adventure, setting or sourcebook):

* created by a private person;

* published in a non-commercial context;

* in Europe (e.g. on a web server situated in a EC jurisdiction);

* that only refers to and/or quotes from a RPG source book (or any other source for that matter);

would infringe on any copy- or trademark rights.

I don't know about the law in the EU (and I don't really know about the law in the US, not being a lawyer), but at one point you could also apparently get a patent on a game in England. Here's the patent for Cluedo. Whether that's still possible or how common that was in other European countries is not something I can say.

Yes, before the 1977 patent act you could. But now you don't. Off Topic of course, but for the interested: since 1973 it is possible to register a EC wide patent and the European Patents Convention from 1973 includes a ban on patents of:

Art. 52.

... © schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing games or doing business, and programs for computers; ...

[see: European Patent Organisation (EPO): Patents, Convention, 05/10/1973 (10/12/1998) for a HTML version of the entire text.]

Which is why you, today, wouldn't have any success trying to patent the rules of a game in Europe.

Btw, I do realize this is particular discussion might seem a bit boring and nit-picking (besides being off-topic). But, unfortunately, there's quite a bit of misunderstandings and myths regarding the IPR 's of games circulating on the net, and I just wanted to debunk one of them. Sorry if I came across as over-bearing.

Actually, you can patent game rules. They're considered an invention. Check out US patent number 6,017,034 which is a patent relating to collectible card games. Fortunately, most rpg publishers have not pursued patents for their games, meaning all you have to deal with is copyright (and you can't copyright game rules, just their artistic expression). Apparently, there's so much in-breeding of ideas in RPGs that it would be fairly hard to patent most conventional RPG "technology" now.

And I am not a lawyer, so take all that accordingly.

The only place (AFAIK) that one can patent the rules of games is the U.S. In Europe patent legislation explicitly disallows patents on algorithms, rules for games and business methods, etc.

Open Quest was suposed to be released in late june this year, however the site seems to be down (at least I cannot reach it). Are there any news?

Ventrilo seems to be able to do this, see the following thread on their forum: streaming music woth Vista 64 and Vent - Ventrilo Tech Support

The problem with the RPG business is that it's not a very profitable business, very few of the RPG companies generates large profits. The most profitable RPG company (as the rumour goes), Games Workshop, decided to drop it's RPG line when the profits fell.

I think that we, the BRP community, will have to bear the lion part of the burden of making BRP a viable game. Like the Glorantha community did with the Glorantha setting and like the Harn World community is still doing. The key is to produce good quality add-ons and supplements that are available for free over the net. Having a vibrant community that produces game-aids etc is an excellent added-value to any RPG.

So the question then becomes - how could we and Chaosium best cooperate to give BRP a high profile?

A good starting point is to have a look at the Harn community site, www.lythia.com. For example check out the quality (and quantity) of the downloads. What we need are tools that makes it easy to use BRP, easy to switch from other games, we need scenarios, maps and the like and of course one or two good settings.

It's certainly true that the Glorantha and Harn communities have a huge benefit from each having an excellent setting to build upon. We, the community, could however build one (or two) of our own.

Shaira mentioned a Swashbuckler setting. Building on the wealth of information that exists about 16th and 17th century Japan is another example. Expanding the Cthulhu Dark Ages setting, toning down the horror part and retooling it a bit and move it to the 15th century is another option. A steampunk setting would also be cool. In short - create options for using Earth as a setting in different eras and with different mixes of fantasy, horror and science-fiction.

From the currently (and indeed no longer published) Chaosium works, what if any games and supplements could serve to expand either the magic and/or sorcery rules?

Not really answering your question, but IMHO GURPS magic is a very good alternative magic system for BRP. It can be integrated with BRP with very little work and can coexist with RQ II and III spirit- and divine magic. It can be bought in PDF format from SJG:s site.

Another alternative is Sandy Peterson's Sorcery Rules. Google for it.

Hi guys!

I just bought a book which essentially is a collection of illustrations from the middle ages of armor, weapons, etc.

Now, all these images should be in the public domain, but the publisher claim copyright.

...so my question to you who know anything about this, is it legal? Can you publish a book public domain images and claim copyright of those images?

As a general rule a mere mechanical reproduction of a work in the PD does not give the reproducer a copyright. The question then becomes: what is a mere reproduction? A photostatic copy or a unmodified scanned image are both just mechanical reproductions and no copyright can arise from them.

If the copy has been altered it might have become an adaptation or a derivative work. The amount of alteration needed would vary btw common law jurisdictions and civil law jurisdictions. In Europe (excluding Ireland and the UK) you would need to adapt the image in such a way that the result becomes at least somewhat unique. You need to create an adaptation. Making a few simple choices is not enough. Applying filters or other features common to image editing software is not enough. Being a little bit creative is not enough, you must be creative in a individual, personal and original way.

In the UK it would probably be enough to just apply some editing, the same goes for the US.

So the answer depends on where the book is published, how the images was produced and also on where and how the images would be used by you.

As has already been pointed out, ask the publisher, that might solve the problem.