Hallo all BRP-enthusiasts,
and especially those who have been working with providing games or other materials out of "Legend".
First off, a short presentation of myself:
I am an old OSR-person who has been, and still is, a dye-in-the wool player of Runequest and BRP games, including derivatives. Pendragon was a huge favorite of mine, but that game uses D20 instead of D100 as you know. I would like to design my own game, and given the many possibilities with OGL connected to D20 systems, so popular now, acquiring a D20 OGL doesn´t seem that difficult. But I like D100 systems very much, and above all Runequest. By coincidence I found this game "Legend", and sure enough; in its core rulebook it is written without further ado in the two last pages:
a. "Legend & Open Content". Those of you who possess "Legend Core Rulebook" can see for yourselves about the generous Open Content declaration.
b. "Open Game License Version 1.0a" (from WotC).
My understanding of reading these two pages is that I could start using Legend or parts of it for my own game design at once. It is an excellent game, beautifully and pedagogically written; really
a great achievement by Lawrence Whitaker and Pete Nash.
I haven´t really been able to track down the different derivatives of Runequest, of who that had which copyright at which times (RQ2, MRQ2, Mythras, Runequest Glorantha, etc.).
From my vantage point, the background story(-ies) of this growing pedigree is completely unimportant to me. I just want to design a game. But the dilemma is that I can´t really understand how I could use such an excellent game that Legend is, without asking the authors (Whitaker and Nash) for permission. But they don´t work with Mongoose anymore, but with their own company, The Design Mechanism. Yes, I know, you can´t copyright game mechanics, I am aware of that. Basically, the statement a. and b. should be sufficient, am I right?
That said: My greatest respect to Mongoose, The Design Mechanism, Moon Design, and last but not least: Chaosium! You are the ambassadors of a great engine.... .