D100-system charter

[peterb]

Most members of this board probably understands what is meant with the term “d100-system”, a system of rules designed to facilitate role-playing, which is class less, level less, has no arbitrary limits on what a character can do and which resolves in-game tasks by rolling a d100 under a threshold value.

I'm contemplating a few conversion projects in which material written for use with the d20-system are converted so that they may be used with the d100-system. This means that I'll have to use the open gaming license (OGL). That license forbids any kind of compatibility statements with existing products, product lines or trademarks, unless you have a separate license to do so. It then becomes quite interesting to sort out if d100 is a trademark, and if it is – who owns it?

Having searched the trademark databases of both the EU and the US I'm fairly certain that “d100” is not a registered trademark (for games in any case...). I have a very vague recollection of having seen a d100 logo on one of Chaosium's products but now I cannot verify that. Chaosium does not these days, as far as I can see, market BRP as anything else than “Chaosiums d100 system” or possibly “The Chaosium system”, which makes sense. There are quite a number of companies that also have or still does publish game systems that are similar to Chaosium's and it would therefore be very difficult to claim such a trademark and in the EU, due to our trademark laws, it's quite impossible. In the EU the mark “d100” (and d20 as a matter of fact) would be seen as generic descriptors of a certain type of game mechanics and also as the name of a specific type of dice. In both cases, using a dice designation as a trademark, would be “devoid of any distinctive character” because it “consist exclusively of signs or indications which have become customary in the current language or in the bona fide and established practices of the trade.” (First Council Directive of 21 December 1988 to Approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks (89/104/EEC), art 3.1 b and d) It would therefore seem safe to use a “Compatible with the d100-system” and even using a d100 logo on any OGL publication. Which, from my perspective, is a good thing.

The community could in fact benefit from “marketing” a d100 logo of it's own. It's in our own interest, as consumers, that only products that really fit our, by practice, established definition of what a d100 game is, are allowed to label themselves as “d100 compatible”. The community cannot own such a trademark (since we are not one entity and we do not act in a business context) but we could establish a mark that would have a similar effect to a trademark. In the EU we have something called collective, guarantee and certification marks. These marks are used by groups of traders or by authorities to indicate to consumers (and other traders) a guarantee that a product has certain qualities, comes from a specific geographic area or is certified by the correct authorities. A consumer group, such ours could not register such a mark (we are not traders) but we could establish a standard and create a symbol for that standard and with time that symbol would acquire some of the characteristics of a trademark. A company who markets products as d100 compatible, when they are not, could then be reported to the authorities (protection of consumer authorities) and accused of misleading advertisement, which is a quite effective weapon. This could be done already at this point in time but if there's an established standard which the community follows and companies that markets the community follows then we have established a market practice.

I therefore propose that we create:

a) a d100 charter, a document that spells out the minimal characteristics that a role-playing game, labelling it self as “a d100-system” or “Compatible with the d100-system” must have.

a d100-system logo.

c) a d100-system logo license (we assume that the logo is copyright protected).

The purpose would be to establish a market standard and assign a symbol to that standard and allow, anyone, who is willing to follow the standard the right to use the logo free of charge.

Comments are most welcome...

/Peter Brink

[rust]

I appreciate and support your intentions, but I have serious doubts that your

idea really would work.

For example, we could hardly prevent the use (or misuse) of "our" logo by any

publishers, unless we would in some way become a legal entity, and would be

willing to file lawsuits against anyone using "our" logo without our permission.

Since there are (as far as I know) still no rules for European (= EU-wide) non-

profit organizations, we probably would have to establish legal entities in all

of the EU member states to be able to "protect" our logo in any meaningful

way.

And without protection the logo would not really be useful for customers, I

think.

In my opinion it would be easier to use something more personal, perhaps a

short line written by the forum administrator or thelike, instead of a logo.

To copy and use a logo is rather easy, to copy and use a personal opinion

under a certain person's name is illegal in any case and any legal system.

[peterb]

I appreciate and support your intentions, but I have serious doubts that your idea really would work.

For example, we could hardly prevent the use (or misuse) of "our" logo by any

publishers, unless we would in some way become a legal entity, and would be willing to file lawsuits against anyone using "our" logo without our permission.

Since there are (as far as I know) still no rules for European (= EU-wide) non-profit organizations, we probably would have to establish legal entities in all of the EU member states to be able to "protect" our logo in any meaningful way.

And without protection the logo would not really be useful for customers, I think.

In my opinion it would be easier to use something more personal, perhaps a short line written by the forum administrator or thelike, instead of a logo. To copy and use a logo is rather easy, to copy and use a personal opinion under a certain person's name is illegal in any case and any legal system.

Ah, but the idea is that we needn't do the dirtywork - we could leave that to the authorities. One of the tasks of the consumer protection agencies is to act against misleading commercial practices. A misleading actions is an action that deceives or is likely to deceive the average consumer about, for example, the main characteristics of the product (see the EU directive concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices, art. 6.1 for more details).

What we would do would be to complain to the authorities that a publisher uses the logo in a misleading way, deceiving the consumers about the nature of his product, and then let the consumer protection agency do the work for us.

The purpose of the charter and the logo is to establish a proof of what is it that the consumer expects from a d100 compatible product.

Does this make sense?

/Peter

[rust]

In principle, it does of course make sense.

However, at least here in Germany the authorities would only react if a

German publisher would misuse the logo, and even then they would hard-

ly do more than send the publisher a letter to ask him to stop it. He could

safely ignore the letter for a year or two.

And the idea to complain as a German citizen to, for example, the Italian

authorities about something an Italian publisher has done ...

Unless you put a lawyer behind it, complaints of that kind usually do not

go very far.

[peterb]

In principle, it does of course make sense.

However, at least here in Germany the authorities would only react if a

German publisher would misuse the logo, and even then they would hard-

ly do more than send the publisher a letter to ask him to stop it. He could

safely ignore the letter for a year or two.

And the idea to complain as a German citizen to, for example, the Italian

authorities about something an Italian publisher has done ...

Unless you put a lawyer behind it, complaints of that kind usually do not

go very far.

Sad, but you are most probably right... :ohwell:

Anyway, I just made two prototypes for logos that we could at least recommend the community to use... and it appears as I see them side by side that they didn't turn out at the same size... Well, anyway, you get the idea.

[Jason D]

I should point out that Chaosium is actively seeking licensees for BRP at this time and (in my opinion) an official "BRP-compatible" sort of logo might be preferable to one solely focusing on d100 (as many games use d%, and not all in the same way).

I could imagine some confusion if someone bought a product saying "d100 compatible" with the intent of using it for a Rolemaster or Warhammer game.

[frogspawner]

... or MRQ.

[AikiGhost]

Ive had a system called d100 up on my personal website for at least 6 years, so I hereby claim ownership

d100 System

[peterb]

Ive had a system called d100 up on my personal website for at least 6 years, so I hereby claim ownership

No offence intended but... Having written (and published) a publication called "d100" does not by itself create a trademark. It really doesn't. Sorry.

/Peter

[AikiGhost]

No offence intended but... Having written (and published) a publication called "d100" does not by itself create a trademark. It really doesn't. Sorry.

/Peter

Doesn't your browser render smileys?

[peterb]

Doesn't your browser render smileys?

Oh. Sorry, I misinterpreted your smiley...

[DirkD]

I don't think that the world is waiting for a license from a bunch of forum-users. Why would anyone buy or make a product that is approved by some unknown people?

The d20-logo is a success, because 3rd-party-producers can benefit from the marketing-machine and market-share of a big company. I seriously doubt that anyone would use it, if a couple of kids from ilovednd.com would have made it.

It would be a good thing, if chaosium creates something similar, though. It would give the logo some meaning.

[Dredj]

I may have skimmed through the initial post too fast, but I'm not seeing what the point of this is. Is this just to ensure that games that say that they are compatible with BRP truly are? Or is this to just put a legal stranglehold on a game system convention? If it's the latter, then good luck, because I have a number of D% games and none would work 100% with each other. They don't even pretend they are compatible. Though they aren't exactly all that different, either.

My next favorite game system to BRP is Blood!. And that's entirely D100 system.

RPGNow.com - Postmortem Studios - Blood!

The company that made that game also made a conversion for Runequest called Bloodquest RPGNow.com - Postmortem Studios - BloodQuest

The two systems aren't very compatible. Bloodquest is mainly to import rules from Blood! into Runequest and CoC, to turn them into slasher horror style games.

[Trifletraxor]

Most members of this board probably understands what is meant with the term “d100-system”, a system of rules designed to facilitate role-playing, which is class less, level less, has no arbitrary limits on what a character can do and which resolves in-game tasks by rolling a d100 under a threshold value.

...

I therefore propose that we create:

a) a d100 charter, a document that spells out the minimal characteristics that a role-playing game, labelling it self as “a d100-system” or “Compatible with the d100-system” must have.

a d100-system logo.

c) a d100-system logo license (we assume that the logo is copyright protected).

The purpose would be to establish a market standard and assign a symbol to that standard and allow, anyone, who is willing to follow the standard the right to use the logo free of charge.

Comments are most welcome...

/Peter Brink

I like both the idea and the logo suggestion you have. Defining what qualifies for a rpg to be labeled a d100 system would be hard though.

(by the way, would we need a license? Would it need to be protected? I don't think anyone not aiming their product at the d100-market would want to use it)

I should point out that Chaosium is actively seeking licensees for BRP at this time and (in my opinion) an official "BRP-compatible" sort of logo might be preferable to one solely focusing on d100 (as many games use d%, and not all in the same way).

Do you know if they have any plans of making the license terms public?

SGL.

[Jason D]

Do you know if they have any plans of making the license terms public?

Send Dustin an email at dustin@chaosium.com and he'll fire you a copy of the contract. It's not a big secret what the terms are.

I'm just not a Chaosium employee, and don't want to be in a situation where people are asking me to negotiate or explain their licensing terms.

I can say that the terms are (in my opinion) extraordinarily generous.

[Trifletraxor]

Send Dustin an email at dustin@chaosium.com and he'll fire you a copy of the contract. It's not a big secret what the terms are.

Done.

SGL.

[RosenMcStern]

Me too. Let's see what happens.

Now the big question is: as there is a lot of independent stuff already out for MRQ, will publishers be allowed to make their products multi-compatible?

[soltakss]

I can't see the major D100 companies backing a logo that includes their competitors' products.

So, why should Mongoose and Chaosium put the D100 logo on their products when doing so would help market each other's supplements?

But, having said that, it would be great for fanzines, websites and smaller companies. So, for instance, Seraphim Guard could include the D100 logo on their RQM and BRP products to indicate that they are broadly compatible with all D100 systems without actually referring to the competitor system. I doubt whether Mongoose or Chaosium could complain about that as the D100 Logo is not tied to a particular company or system.

I am all in favour of having a wider D100 family of games and systems that are broadly compatible, so I would definitely support the D100 Logo. I'm just not sure that Chaosium or Mongoose would. I doubt if they would oppose it, though.

[soltakss]

I therefore propose that we create:

a) a d100 charter, a document that spells out the minimal characteristics that a role-playing game, labelling it self as “a d100-system” or “Compatible with the d100-system” must have.

a d100-system logo.

c) a d100-system logo license (we assume that the logo is copyright protected).

The purpose would be to establish a market standard and assign a symbol to that standard and allow, anyone, who is willing to follow the standard the right to use the logo free of charge.

The minimal characteristics would have to include both Mongoose RQ and BRP. They would probablty have to include systems such as Blood, GORE and SimpleQuest. Clearly the charter couldn't refer to those games explicitly, but the wording would have to be so that those games are not excluded.

So, you would have to have, at the very minimum:

• D100 being the prime die when resolving situations
  
• Characteristics being based on a Dice Roll but not solely random
  
• Human characteristics typically in the 3-18 range
  
• Hit Points being derived from Characteristics
  
• Damage being weapon + personal - armour
  
• Previous Experience being Background/Profession based rather than Class Based
  
• No Character/Race Classes
  
• No Experience Levels
  
• Percentage based skills
  
• Incremental experience
  
• Skills resolved by rolling below a skill target on a D100

[frogspawner]

• Skills resolved by rolling lowest on a D100

Oh, not including Mongoose after all, then?

[soltakss]

Oh, not including Mongoose after all, then?

OK cleverclogs, I've changed it now.

[peterb]

The minimal characteristics would have to include both Mongoose RQ and BRP. They would probably have to include systems such as Blood, GORE and SimpleQuest. Clearly the charter couldn't refer to those games explicitly, but the wording would have to be so that those games are not excluded.

So, you would have to have, at the very minimum:

• D100 being the prime die when resolving situations
  
• Characteristics being based on a Dice Roll but not solely random
  
• Human characteristics typically in the 3-18 range
  
• Hit Points being derived from Characteristics
  
• Damage being weapon + personal - armour
  
• Previous Experience being Background/Profession based rather than Class Based
  
• No Character/Race Classes
  
• No Experience Levels
  
• Percentage based skills
  
• Incremental experience
  
• Skills resolved by rolling below a skill target on a D100

Sounds good. The "d100-Compatible" definition should, just as Simon says, be kept to a minimum IMO. The reason being that it's better to be somewhat to inclusive than to exclude. And as Simon wrote in another post, and as several others have pointed out, I agree that the "big" companies would probably not be particularity interested in such a logo. But that's not the main purpose. My idea was to create a community standard and a logo that the community, fanzines and hobby-publishers can use to indicate what type of game they are supporting.

[soltakss]

My idea was to create a community standard and a logo that the community, fanzines and hobby-publishers can use to indicate what type of game they are supporting.

So, can I use it? Can I? Please?

[peterb]

Of course you can use it. The logo is not of the very best quality, I do have a logo in higher resolution (also in PNG format) that you may have if wish. As I think of it, maybe I should release the logo under a CC license (or even public domain) just so that people understand they may use it freely. To be frank, IMO, the logo lacks originality and is therefore public domain. I see what I can do about a PD-declaration...

[soltakss]

The logo is not of the very best quality

That's OK, neither is my site