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Jason Durall's Game of Thrones Files–Anyone have?


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  • 3 years later...
On 12/26/2017 at 6:02 AM, Rick Meints said:

The files may be less available to the public because of the copyright on Game of Thrones, which is a licensed product. 

You'd have to ask Jason.

Yeah ....   :(

Fan projects are one thing, but once you've "gone pro" (as Jason has) and the distribution point is a published / commercial RPG site (as BRPCentral is, now that it's the Chaosium-official forum site), the risk of a lawsuit is real.  It may not even be up to GRRM any more, depending on how much control/discretion he has over "licensed properties."  And Green Ronin probably paid a pretty penny to be allowed to publish SIFRP.

Imagine if a guy at WOTC -- a notable desgner/author there -- were to write a bunch of Glorantha content for D&D5e, without licensing from Chaosium/Greg/whoever...  Kind of a kick-in-the-nuts to the legit workers, the guys doing 13G as a stand-up licensed product, etc.

 

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6 hours ago, g33k said:

Yeah ....   :(

Fan projects are one thing, but once you've "gone pro" (as Jason has) and the distribution point is a published / commercial RPG site (as BRPCentral is, now that it's the Chaosium-official forum site), the risk of a lawsuit is real.  It may not even be up to GRRM any more, depending on how much control/discretion he has over "licensed properties."  And Green Ronin probably paid a pretty penny to be allowed to publish SIFRP.

Imagine if a guy at WOTC -- a notable desgner/author there -- were to write a bunch of Glorantha content for D&D5e, without licensing from Chaosium/Greg/whoever...  Kind of a kick-in-the-nuts to the legit workers, the guys doing 13G as a stand-up licensed product, etc.

 

Which sort of makes me wonder how much Chaosium or Steve Perrin are cut in to the Wildcards novels. Probably not, since concepts aren't copyrightable.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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19 hours ago, Joerg said:

Which sort of makes me wonder how much Chaosium or Steve Perrin are cut in to the Wildcards novels. Probably not, since concepts aren't copyrightable.

As I understand it, the Wild Cards novels are based more-or-less upon the campaign which was essentially created by GRRM & his group.  Superworld itself is more generic-supers, isn't it?  I wouldn't expect that to call for any licensing or fees...

Or have I misunderstood?  Is the setting for the WC stories based upon published Superworld campaign-materials (beyond being "supers")?

 

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4 hours ago, g33k said:

As I understand it, the Wild Cards novels are based more-or-less upon the campaign which was essentially created by GRRM & his group.  Superworld itself is more generic-supers, isn't it?  I wouldn't expect that to call for any licensing or fees...

Or have I misunderstood?  Is the setting for the WC stories based upon published Superworld campaign-materials (beyond being "supers")?

 

It's been a while since I read either SuperWorld or the Wild Card books but my recollection is there are NO elements of _setting_ common between the two.

Cheers,

Nick

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On 12/29/2017 at 4:37 AM, Joerg said:

Which sort of makes me wonder how much Chaosium or Steve Perrin are cut in to the Wildcards novels. Probably not, since concepts aren't copyrightable.

There are no concepts from Superworld in Wild Cards. Superworld is basically a set of RPG rules for running a superhero game without any sort of specific setting to speak off. It's not liek Superworld invented and introduced the concept of Superheroes. 

The Wild Cards books used setting an characters that were either drawn directly from GRRM's campaign, or inspired by it. Had Steve/Chaosium created the setting and/or characters used in Wild Cards, with Superpowers a byproduct of an alien weapon, etc. then it would be a different story.

 

RE Game of Thrones. With a fan project, even one by a profession RPG designer distributed over a company owned website, the odds are still slim, and depend mostly on how high a profile it draws. A lawsuit is actually pretty unlikely, mostly because it would probably cost the copy-write holder more money to press the suit than they would be able to claim in damages. That said, if the copywrite holder or a "liscee" felt their interest were bring damaged, a "cease and desist" would be sent and they would probably bring pressure to bear to stop the distribution of the of product. Especially one that was being sold.

 

And with a free fan project there is the very real possibility that any sort of legal action could generate bad will with the fanbase that could cost them more than the alleged damages of the project. Just look at what happened with Palladium a few years back.

Edited by Atgxtg

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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On 12/29/2017 at 4:37 AM, Joerg said:

Which sort of makes me wonder how much Chaosium or Steve Perrin are cut in to the Wildcards novels. Probably not, since concepts aren't copyrightable.

Chaosium does not receive any royalties of any sort from Wildcards. I doubt Steve Perrin does either.

Hope that Helps,
Rick Meints - Chaosium, Inc.

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On 12/30/2017 at 7:47 AM, Atgxtg said:

RE Game of Thrones. With a fan project, even one by a profession RPG designer distributed over a company owned website, the odds are still slim, and depend mostly on how high a profile it draws. A lawsuit is actually pretty unlikely, mostly because it would probably cost the copy-write holder more money to press the suit than they would be able to claim in damages. That said, if the copywrite holder or a "liscee" felt their interest were bring damaged, a "cease and desist" would be sent and they would probably bring pressure to bear to stop the distribution of the of product. Especially one that was being sold.

With (I think) only a few exceptions, most of the "professional" RPG designers and writers, and the companies who publish them, share relations that range from "professionally cordial and amicable" to outright "friendly."  There's kind of a an industry boom these days, so there seem to be more "strangers" (to one another) in the field than just a few years ago.

But still:  Green Ronin & Chaosium are hardly strangers to each other!  And (afaik) rather more on the friendlier side than not.  I expect any issues would be informally resolved with a quick phone call or e-mail, not a lawsuit or even a "cease&desist."  And GRRM evidently has nothing but fondness for Superworld & CoC (and thus, presumably, Chaosium).  :wub:

But Hastur only knows what outre licensing exists (and IP-claims might be levelled) given that GoT is such a huge property; any ONE of those novels probably out-sells the entire RPG industry (including D&D + PF) the year it releases, and the TV show is (I have seen it alleged) the most-watched show in the entire world.  All it would take is one idiot with a "V.P." in front of his name and a big company behind him to cause a LOT of pain in our corner of the gaming industry.  :angry:

I have no horse in this race (other than as a fan & customer), but I'd hate to see any of these folks get burnt... or even be forced to waste their time and energy avoiding flames lit by an idiot.  :rolleyes:    And the USA seems to be pathologically litigious sometimes.

 

On 12/30/2017 at 7:47 AM, Atgxtg said:

... they would probably bring pressure to bear to stop the distribution of the of product. Especially one that was being sold.

And with a free fan project there is the very real possibility that any sort of legal action could generate bad will with the fanbase that could cost them more than the alleged damages of the project. Just look at what happened with Palladium a few years back.

Ummm.  How much $$$ does the Palladium IP generate, again?  Money can make people stupid.    Just sayin'.

I expect the "logic" would be that a commercial RPG benefits from a free "fan" supplement, and harms the licensed/commercial RPG on the topic of that supplement; that if the "fan" is actually a pro dev for the game not holding the license, and the "fan" distribution-channel is an official venue for said publisher... it may appear (to an outsider (such as a judge)) that an attempt is being made to illegally produce salable content for the IP (because the "free" supplement makes the commercial RPG a competitor).   Honestly, I doubt it would amount to even a score of core-rulebook sales either to/from BRP or SIFRP; but the argument is there to be made, lawyers are paid to argue, and idiots are sometimes given VP offices...  :(

 

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3 hours ago, g33k said:

Ummm.  How much $$$ does the Palladium IP generate, again?  Money can make people stupid.    Just sayin'.

Yup, and that can result in their doing things that cost them money. Back when the whole Palladium thing went down, there were quite a few people who were ticked off with Kevin Siembieda over his actions and stopped buying Palladium products. So by going after some people who were playing his games without buying a given supplment or two, he ended up with fewer people playing and buying his games overall. He probably would have been better off to leave things alone. Besides, one of the reasons why people were sending each other game stats was that the stats were ususally the only thing you needed from a supplement. 

 

3 hours ago, g33k said:

I expect the "logic" would be that a commercial RPG benefits from a free "fan" supplement, and harms the licensed/commercial RPG on the topic of that supplement; that if the "fan" is actually a pro dev for the game not holding the license, and the "fan" distribution-channel is an official venue for said publisher... it may appear (to an outsider (such as a judge)) that an attempt is being made to illegally produce salable content for the IP (because the "free" supplement makes the commercial RPG a competitor).   Honestly, I doubt it would amount to even a score of core-rulebook sales either to/from BRP or SIFRP; but the argument is there to be made, lawyers are paid to argue, and idiots are sometimes given VP offices...  :(

 

Yup. I once got a bit of a slap on the wrist thing from a company because of such lawyers and idiots. I downloaded a fan-made alternate DVD jacket cover for a Doctor Who DVD (from a link on the BBC Doctor Who website) and some lawyer from some movie company contacted my ISP claiming that that downloaded some movie called "The Jacket". I had never heard of the movie, but my defense to my ISP was that if I had figured out a way to compress a feature film down to a 3MB file, I'd be so fantastically rich that could buy the movie studio and fire the idiots who sent me and my ISP the email. That gave the guy from my ISP a good laugh.

The end result of the whole thing was that I ended up boycotting that stuido's DVDs for about 5 years. Cost them money, made me feel better. 

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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