RosenMcStern

You can see our schedule at Alephtar Games . Tian Xià is not included because we have no ETA for it yet.

Vile has linked this thread to the MRQ SRD discussion on the mongoose forums (I wonder if it was a wise idea, as that discussion is more official and this thread if full of IANAL and brainstorming), and asked for a release of MRQ2 as OGL. I suggest all interested parties to debate the point with Matt Sprange there rather than brainstorm it here.

It is possibly a shame, but Alephtar Games is no longer among the interested parties.

Maybe I'll do a WWII RPG and name it RhineQuest?

Nah, already copyrighted. We have done it in Bacharach for the last 13 years

Rather than say 'BRP can't be more pupular because it's not cinematic', shouldn't we say 'Maybe BRP would catch some new players if there was a cinematic setting published'.

What bare mechanics are required to make a game 'cinematic'? I always thought cinematic' was just a catchphrase that means 'the players can do unrealistic (but cool) stuff without the gm or the rules getting in the way'.

Hah! you are only saying this because we have not published sneak peeks of Dragon Lines (yet).

Why would you use GORE, an unsupported system, over OpenQuest, which is supported?

Does Chaosium have control of, or own, the Cthulhu mythos?

They own the rights to making games.

Are the works of Lovecraft in the public domain?

Yes, but the works of Derleth and other are not.

Why are there many other Cthulhu-based RPG game systems?

RPGNow.com - Cthulhu Search

Some are licensed by Chaosium. Others use other systems, like Robin Laws's GUMSHOE for Trail of Cthulhu.

How does GORE compare once these points are considered?

I think the only relevant point is that GORE is no longer supported by the publisher. R.I.P.

(Although in strange eons, even GORE might....)

So, each product consigned to 'Monograph' status instead of fully supported, is one more doomed to "orders of magnitude" fewer sales... (And one more opportunity to support retailers, and get that "ten-fold payoff", that Chaosium loses).

If you read the whole history of the RPG hobby, you will learn that the occurence of overprinted supplements accumulating dust in warehouses outnumbered the happy event of a product selling out fast. And we are talking about the times when RPGs sold thousands of copies, not hundreds. So the fact that Chaosium probes the market with monographss is understandable.

What is relevant is that they sound like being more prone to going into fulll edition after just one month of good sales. Classic Fantasy's "larval" state will last very little, like Trollslayer did.

More importantly, with the system FINALLY gathered in one singe published reference, but with many of the fan favourite options from the previous specific incarnations included and thus easily accessible, why isn't this an exciting time for BRP?

:thumb: You nailed it :thumb:

I wouldn't want to see that. It would be bad for BRP. It means BRP supplements will end up in direct competition to MRQ products. Since Mongoose puts out products at a faster rate, BRP would loose sales.

I think Simon meant something different, more on the line of "Write something good, then adapt it to the BRP variant that best suits it." Of course, with MGP RuneQuest out of the way, this could mean more trouble because you cannot publish it for a particular variant.

The problem of direct competition between MRQ and BRP could certainly arise in the future. However, the two systems only overlap for the Fantasy and Ancient Historical genres. There is a vast area ranging from Horror to pulp to sci-fi where BRP is the only existing d100 game, so there will always be room for BRP products. One of the real advantages of the new BRP book is that it is not the usual "this is a generic RPG but in fact it only does medieval/fantasy well, for the rest buy the supplements" product, like GURPS 3e was. You can play Sci-fi with the basic rules if your wish: Jason has explicitly stated that some of the weapons described in the equipment chapter are BRP-ized versions of the X-Com weapons, and there is a Jedi Knight among the examples.

It would be a bad business move on their part to prosecute someone for translating the SRD, anyway. Ultimately it increases their marketshare.

I never said that Mongoose would prosecute anyone.

Oh, and it sounds like the news about Classic Fantasy are Great News!

The problem here is that translations would be covered by the laws of countries at which they are targeted. Also, there is no point in making a work Creative Commons or OGL if you do not own the right to use it freely in the first place. And as BRP is not free, and the RQ SRD is not free to translate, there is ground for legal action against any d100 derivatives in other languages.

Of course I really doubt that anyone would actually sue a free, amateur publication. But one can never know. Especially if someone actually pays for a translation license and then sees someone else giving away the same thing for free.

The answer to that question is no legal issues whatsoever.

I do not expect Chaosium to object in any way. However, anyone trying to use D100rules in other languages than English could have some bad surprise. Unlikely, but possible.

Perhaps we could find ways and people who would like to translate OpenQuest or GORE. This is the easy option for some of us, as it is OGL.

Caveat: the OGL does not extend to other languages. Mongoose did not persecute translations of the RuneQuest SRD, but strictly speaking they are not legal. Which means that translations of SRD derivatives may or may not be legal, depending on the country where you want to distribute them.

This is the main reason why I am not interested in porting my RQ stuff to OpenQuest. I would not be able to translate the system to my own language, should I wish to do so, without Mongoose permission.

Does Chaosium have any interest in translating BRP to other languages?

I think that Charlie and Pegasus Spiele talked about German BRP briefly in Bacharach, but the idea was that they were more than happy with just Cthulhu. Well, "just" is not the right word given the quality of their supplements

BRP was translated into Italian 13 years ago. This might happen again, but not in 2010 if I am involved. I have already probed the ground on Italian forums, and there are lots of fans. There are many in France, too.

Actually the leased Glorantha, but that was in addition to the RQ license-not part of it. I believe Greg/Issaries own RQ and Glorantha.

Exactly. Issaries own the Copyright/Trademark/whatever on Glorantha. When Greg left Chaosium he took it with him. It owns the RQ trademark, too. But not so tightly as it owns Glorantha. Mongoose is a licensee.

NB: not so tightly means that not all words used for a RQ product over the years belong to Issaries. Some words are Copyright of Chaosium. All of Glorantha belongs to Issaries, instead.

Mongoose licensed the trademark from Issaries, who owns it. It's not just a name, it is a brand.

I should have phrased it as "third party" supplements. Trif, would you change the thread title?

Anyway, what good are licenses? Can't people publish what they like, so long as they don't infringe decency, copyright or trademarks? So long as you don't use Chaosium or Mongoose logos you're fine. Right?

I am not so sure. "Fair use" applies to US laws only. WotC allowed retro-clones of D&D, but it could have sued.

Basically, if you wish to do a fanzine-like thing, you can do it. But if you want something more professinally made, that sells, you better have a license of some sort.

Presumably, self-publishers usually think their baby is good. Many are trash. It's the buying/downloading public that decides, in the end...

Anyway, what good are licenses? Can't people publish what they like, so long as they don't infringe decency, copyright or trademarks? So long as you don't use Chaosium or Mongoose logos you're fine. Right?

I'll reply in the other thread.

So, now that the MRQ logo license is dead as an "open" alternative and only exists as a negotiated, commercial license, what are the alternatives for small press who want to make something with a BRP-like system?

I can see several ones:

a) GORE (the least likely, I think)

D100Rules (but I can see some legal issues here)

c) OpenQuest (see Newt's comments here)

d) Make your own using the MRQ OGL - it is still open

e) BRP - the license terms are affordable in the end

Yep, you are right. MRQ is still available as a "commercial" third party license. I am not considering it, but this does not mean someone else could not go that route.

I think we are derailing this thread a bit. I will now open a new one, so that we can continue discussing "How to make BRP more popular here." This has been one of the most interesting (and civil) threads in a RPG forum I have ever seen, it would be a pity to flood it with unrelated legal comments.

We could do with an OGL clone of BRP then. "BasicQuest"? OpenQuest is still too MRQ-ish for my taste. (Sorry Newt)

I do not feel that there is a real need for it. Basically, it would become a "garbage bin" for all ideas that cannot use a full BRP license. If I interpreted correctly what Newt said, he does not like the idea of OpenQuest becoming that bin.

If it's bad, don't publish it. If it's good, it can be turned into a full product.

Don’t use OpenQuest if you want to write a BRP alike supplement or game, its not BRP (even though it is influenced by that game) and you will be dissappointed at every turn, dissappointment that will shine through in your final product and (if you are that way motivated) sales. Have a chat with Charlie and co at Chaosium and I’m sure you’ll be able to sort something out

Although I totally agree with Newt about asking Chaosium first - it is always an option - the point is that OpenQuest is open, as any OGL product should be, and so people are perfectly allowed to use it as a BRP surrogate. I do not recommend it, either - if you like BRP try the real thing - but this is an option, and I think someone will do this regardless of newt's (or my own) advice. It's the Open License, baby.

Don't forget about GORE! It's still in print and viable.

We currently support the following product lines:

Labyrinth Lord

Mutant Future

In print but just because it is PDF or POD. They give it away for free and will not build anything on it. Using it is the equivalent of making your own homebrew. The only MRQ derivative that is currently supported is OpenQuest.

I think nothing is really certain right now when it comes to the MRQ license.

It is. One of us has discussed this with Matt Sprange. D100-based indie publications have now two options only: BRP and OpenQuest. Unless you want to make your homebrew from the OGL or wait for D100Rules.

Perhaps the artists among the BRP fans should consider "donating" some of their works for the free (or at least inexpensive) use in monographs and similar amateur products, and begin to collect such works in the forum's gallery ?

Big Caveat. I strongly discourage art donations in public.

I do not know how many of you read that thread on rpg.net or on trollbridge/trollhalla, but it has been recently discovered that a ruthless guy has been stealing artwork over the net to illustrate his Tunnels & Trolls books. Our good friend and HQ cover artist Jon Hodgson has been victimized, too. This despicable individual has liberally dragged Ken St.André's name in the mud for years before anyone realized, and appears to be selling illicit products despite several "cease & desist" warnings.

Several "small press" publishers have expressed their disapproval in the appropriate places, but there is a generalized feeling that this situation will make the artists more wary of what small RPG companies coulde be doing. Sad but true.

Creating a "donation area" could be interpreted by someone as an incentive to stealing someone else's work, indirectly implicating the BRP community in this sordid affair. Do not forget that Ken St.Andrè is a BRP author, too, and his name has been soiled by this situation, despite the fact that Ken had nothing to do with the art theft.

My position - better, Alephtar Games's position - is that artwork should be licensed and paid. Maybe paid little, maybe paid on royalties, but it should always be formally licensed. Or else BRP could eventually become involved in the next IP theft scandal.

Without wanting to sound too harsh, then don't.

I never said that others should not choose that way. For a series of reasons, some of which stem from coincidence, while others stem from the hard work you did, OQ has become a very viable and palatable option for indie publications. I suspect that a non-trivial number of projects designed originally for MRQ will go the OQ way - and not only those designed for MRQ. Just not mine.