g33k

Yes: right there in the "using BRP" part. (edit: as I understand it / I Am Not A Lawyer / etc)

Read the link upthread. Here's a quote from Wikipedia: The issue of (c) as applied to "the Mythos" is categorically NOT as simple as you assert.

This forum is run by @Trifletraxor. At his kind discretion, Chaosium is permitted to use some of it as their "official" forum, and some of the Chaosium staff are Mod's. But this is Trif's house. Pay honor to the Beetle Breeder!

As per the link, it's a complicated question; as @Travern says, it's "a can of worms." In the context of "CoC the RPG," it's a moderately (in)famous can of worms! While (at least parts of) the Mythos sit undeniably within the public domain; the devil (and the flamewars) are in the details! There are DECADES of flamewars in those details. I join in the "let's not," suggest you read the link I provided, and Google 'round some more, if you really want to delve into it. What the new Chaosium BOGL license forbids isn't using the Mythos; they forbid using BRP in conjunction with the Mythos... specifically, the new Open BRP doc, logo, etc. And they get to do that! There is also, at this point, a fair bit of "the Mythos" that actually originates within Chaosium's own work, none of which is in the public domain, and which Chaosium requires another (non-OGL) license (such as with Stygian Fox, Golden Goblin, etc) to use. And they get to do that! Then there's the flamed and debated copyrights being asserted over parts of the Mythos, based AFAIK on claims by Arkham House as founded by A.Derleth. See that 10' pole over there? Yeah, not picking it up, not going within pole's reach of any of the rest of the debate!

It's a perennial flamefest; there are ... a LOT of strong opinions. "Just asking (this) question" is like tossing a honey-glazed ham into an enclosure filled with starving Honey-Badgers. (also: "just asking a question" has become trollspeak for "intentionally trying to start flamefests & other drama" ... just sayin') Here's a brief essay; I'm not qualified to judge the merits of this analysis, or whether it's neutral, biased, etc... It was just my 1st hit when I google'd: https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Copyright_status_of_works_by_H._P._Lovecraft

Here's an idea, to cross-over the trad 9-level D&D spell-list with really dire CoC-ish implications for advanced (high-level) spells. Yes, this DOES gimp magic from the trad-D&D POV. It's much more "magic is F'ing dangerous!" in the trad-CoC model. I presume spell lists (the effects) wouldn't look much like D&D spells! Anyhow, the idea I just had: You cast at (Skill / Spell-Level)... Level 1 spells cast at full skill Level 2 spells cast at Skill/2 ... etc... Level 9 spells cast at Skill/9 Add in some stuff about corruption & madness...

Thanks for that! 👍 But of course KAP really IS one of the BRP systems (just hiding behind a d20)... 😉 So they've been there for a while. 😁

Whoa... Sorry, Jeff! I get there may be a few of us who have seemed to be hinting around the idea of retrocloning some of your games, and I totally get you're annoyed at that; if my own example with Corporia seemed to be one of those hinting at it... I humbly apologize! I'm not interested in retrocloning any of Chaosium's games. I've got RQG, or RQ2/RQClassic if I wanna roll it Ol'School, etc. Anything of Chaosium's that I DON'T have, I'm entirely happy to buy if I wanna run it. Not my motivation, at all! But frankly, there's a few phrases -- I think they may be "terms of art" in publishing or in law, that seem simple to you -- that have people confused. For me, the biggest issue is being puzzled at the mechanical bits... why can't we use "Passion" and "Augment" rules to combine/enhance skills, give personality a mechanical weight... stuff like that. How different do those have to be, to be permissible? Etc. I don't want to step on Chaosium's toes; you've given us a gift, and I don't want to abuse it. I want to figure out what I can't do -- q.v. above: not interested in retrocloning! -- and it helps me do that if I understand the why's and the fundaments. That is 100% of my own interest; and (it seems to me) that of most of the people in this thread.

Back when it first came out, CoC's SAN mechanics seemed awesome. These days, I'd do something different anyhow, even if I was running otherwise-RAW CoC.

Anyone active on RPGnet? https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/recommend-me-an-rpg-for-playing-during-the-hundred-years-war.861380/

Oh. Oh... dear. Have you, perchance, spotted our good @M Helsdon's masterful magnum opus in the Jonstown Compendium? https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/296535/The-Armies-and-Enemies-of-Dragon-Pass You may need this. (edit: also, welcome to BRPC; and I apologize for welcoming you with an expense-item)

With such sweeping generalizations, I always presume "it depends." You'll have everything from "pays lip service, doesn't actively rebel/resist" to "believes it's the only way to survive (or sees great advantage) and pursues full religious & social conversion." Individuals may rebel (q.v. "exiles"), but mostly not the main group or the influential leaders (or they wouldn't bea "pro-Lunar" clan, would they?). On the other side, you'll have everything from "Only resists in minor ways, tries mostly to go unnoticed" to "already under arms against the vile Lunars."

It isn't the end of development. Chaosium has a bunch of ways to license, beyond their new OGL initiative. (but I admit, it looks like there are other OGLs whose SRD's are bigger, more complete, doing more of the "grunt-work" of developing mechanics; so I think "a gift to the fans" is maybe the most apt description I've seen).

I think that's right... there's Open Content, and Prohibited Content, and "Everything Else." But David was only pointing out that the BGB is NOT Prohibited Content (except insofar as bits in the BGB may be listed in the BOGL, which... I don't recall? ) .

I've got to agree with Jeff: that "a year or so" of work (before this SRD & OGL) based upon these rules seems like a LOT of work on something that may be (c)-infringing. OpenBRP hasn't changed anything for you. OTOH, Jeff: it kind of looks like Richard has done something innovative here, being able to "inflict" your Augment as a penalty onto an opponent. Doesn't this move it into a new-mechanic realm, outside the scope of "prohibited content"? (I guess this might be a specific discussion for Richard & Jeff to take off into e-mail?) *** THAT SAID... *** This is a thing I think Chaosium should reconsider, BOGL-wise. It's frankly kind of... weird... to have these few specific mechanical tools called out -- from the entirety of the BRP'ish corpus -- as precious pearls, as "thou shalt not." Would it do any harm to Chaosium (or to their existing IP) to permit folks to add "Augment" rules (even if clearly based upon RQG) to their BRP-driven space opera (or any other OpenBRP-based) game? (So long as they aren't infringing upon Chaosium's settings (or Star Wars, LOTR, Buffy'verse, etc), of course!) It just runs counter to the very core of the OGL concept -- here's this excellen toolbox! (but you cannot have a 3/8" crescent wrench, a ball-peen hammer, a #2 phillips-head driver, or any metric-sized Allen wrenches in this toolbox). buuuh ... waitWHAT Chaosium ???!? Chaosium is obviously allowed to write the license any way they want, and to put into it any terms&conditions they want. Nobody's forcing people to accept the BOGL, nor use OpenBRP . But your insistence that these specific bits of rules are excluded from any OpenBRP game is (I say again) just... weird. The whole point of OGL games is to have the entire (mechanical) toolbox available. So I reiterate the plea I opened with: please reconsider allowing all the mechanics... at least the ones not strongly linked to their settings: I can see wanting to keep the Rune-Magic rules out of play, or the KAP paired Traits (so key to the "Arthuriana" vibe). But the whole IDEA of those pairs (Trait-pairs in KAP, paired Runes in RQG)...? Nope: I don't understand why you've restricted OpenBRP licensees from using these mechanics. TYVM for considering this.

EXACTLY. And that's their intention. Open BRP is not supposed to enable you to clone -- or make a thinly-veiled "totally not a clone" -- for any of Chaosium's games. And frankly, that's entirely reasonable. Other Dark-Ages settings are fair game with BRP. Arthuriana can be done in Fudge, or OGL-d20, or with any of the many other SRD's that are out there.

Will products moving to a POD model be eligible for the "usual" Chaosium policy, where buying the PDF (from Chaosium) gets the buyer a credit (at Chaosium) on the hardcopy? I'm kinda guessing no -- because the POD-fulfillment is different from your existing fulfillment-center model -- but I'm not sure... so, I thought it worth asking!

The new HQ initiative is, I presume, a deliberate homage to the old RQ/QW line. I've no idea if it's a coincidence, but... QW was (IIRC) the only stretch-goal that failed to fund, in the RQClassic KS project.

Hmmm... An issue that may need some dancing-around in the legalese at the beginning of multi-OGL'ed games. I add emphasis to show the choreographic challenge: A mean-souled reading of the bolded bit might suggest you cannot combine Open Content covered by more than one OGL, as other OGLs are "other terms or conditions." But I think you simply need to assert that your game is derived from multiple OGL's, that the terms of each OGL only covers the material derived from the respective SRD or other Open Content, and that you do not assert either OGL covers the entirety of your game, or the SRDs / Open Content of other OGL(s) you have included. I think that covers the legal bases? But IANAL... Question for the Peanut Gallery -- does anyone know of any such multi-OGL projects(s)? Fate+SavageWorlds, or ... whatever?

Sorry, I hadn't recalled just how different that was. You're right -- that license really isn't very OGLish. Thank you for pointing it out!

<points to the legal problems with the "Open Cthulhu" initiative> They attempted to use various Mythos bits in a non-Chaosium d100 engine... which Chaosium apparently DMCA'd down, and C&D'ed, and (I think?) has been in off-and-on communication with the creators. I think they are still working on it, and I think they get closer to disentangling from the problematic IP's with each iteration... but I'm not of the involved parties, so I don't know. The truth is, U.S. Copyright Law is a royal mess where the Mythos is concerned! There's this 95-year rule, with a 1924 expiry, right in the middle of the era HPL was writing. There's other authors (such as Derleth). There's Arkham House. There may have been legal shenanigans with control over the estate, after HPL's death. etc etc etc. Honestly, I'm fine with not trying to retroclone RQ, Coc, KAP, and other Chaosium products... does that really seem too onerous, too restrictive?

Well, each of the d100-based SRD's is it's own separate base from which to build; yes you CAN tweak any of them to be more like the others, but each DOES give you a somewhat different starting point. Mythras, FrEx, builds a bit crunchier & tactical than most of the others; you CAN strip out the Special Effects, the Action Points, etc... in other words, the things that set it apart. And if you tweaked each one toward a common point... it would be a matter of... I dunno... whichever logo you thought was prettiest, I guess? And, of course, there's the different terms in each OGL (and the fact that Mythras Imperative evidently ISN'T an OGL?). (hey... is anyone else amused at the obvious acronym "BOGL" ? )

If I understand this correctly -- and @Jeff your comments are eagerly desired -- you COULD include content from other OGL's. You would simply have to include each of the relevant OGL notices in the book, as specified by each OGL itself. Each OGL licensor has given you permission to use each of their bits of content. The point of them being "Open" is that such content ISN'T "protected" content. None of them want you to use any protected content in an OGL product... but you aren't.

I can sell you mine for just ONE Wheel! And don't worry if Bill lowers his asking price... No matter how low he goes, I can go lower! I can go much, much lower.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH ! (I will be pursuing this VERY directly.)