D&D 5E Looking for a partner for DMs Guild

I would love to share stuff in the DMs Guild but there are some conflicts between the terms of the license and my local Copyright laws. In essence if I were to give the kind of unlimited exclusive perpetual license that is required for DMs Guild to work it would become invalid instantly. And there is no way around it without inviting lawyers to the table. However there is another possibility thanks to the idea/expression divide. It doesn't matter if it is my ideas, if a citizen of a other country used those ideas to write the actual text, that person would completely own the final product and they would be able to fully license it under the DMs Guild terms.

So, in short I'm looking for somebody to take my ideas, naked mechanics, give feedback and write the actual text from scratch then post them in DMs Guild under their own name. I can aid with typesetting, layout and even graphics. In exchange I can also aid you with illustrations and typesetting for your own projects, and you get to keep any money the product makes in the Guild if any.

For example. This idea for a sorcerer subclass

Classic feel sorcerer
1st level. All simple weapons, spell access to wizard spells. Know Find familiar for free.
6th two attacks
14th The equivalent to 3.5s arcane fusion cast two spells at once but only concentrate on one
18th Expand the duration of a single concentration spell to unlimited but disadvantage on concentration.

Then that person converts the nechanics to actual game text and puts the final product on DMsG, hopefully under pay what you want, and that is it.

So would somebody want to make a society of this kind?

MoonSong said:

I would love to share stuff in the DMs Guild but there are some conflicts between the terms of the license and my local Copyright laws. In essence if I were to give the kind of unlimited exclusive perpetual license that is required for DMs Guild to work it would become invalid instantly. And there is no way around it without inviting lawyers to the table.

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What are copyright laws like on The Moon, anyway? And, I hope this isn't a touchy subject, bur are you a Lunarian? Lunian? Moonling? Selenite? What's the correct term?

However there is another possibility thanks to the idea/expression divide. It doesn't matter if it is my ideas, if a citizen of a other country used those ideas to write the actual text, that person would completely own the final product and they would be able to fully license it under the DMs Guild terms.

So, in short I'm looking for somebody to take my ideas, naked mechanics, give feedback and write the actual text from scratch then post them in DMs Guild under their own name. I can aid with typesetting, layout and even graphics. In exchange I can also aid you with illustrations and typesetting for your own projects, and you get to keep any money the product makes in the Guild if any.

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So, a ghostwriter, then?

Tony Vargas said:

What are copyright laws like on The Moon, anyway? And, I hope this isn't a touchy subject, bur are you a Lunarian? Lunian? Moonling? Selenite? What's the correct term?

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Well my country's name literally means "at the bellybutton/center of the moon" But I translate it to heart of the moon because it is more poetic. In fact it is also the name of the ancient settlers, the language they spoke-but only as an endonym most people call it in other ways- the city they founded and two states in my country.
Anyway copyright laws regulate right transmissions in ways other countries don't. They may well be the most strict in the world. These laws are also taxative so I cannot rennounce to them since I'm both citizen and resident.

So, a ghostwriter, then?

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More like a reverse ghost. He or she would get all the credit and all the money.

MoonSong said:

Anyway copyright laws regulate right transmissions in ways other countries don't. They may well be the most strict in the world. These laws are also taxative so I cannot rennounce to them since I'm both citizen and resident.

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So it's like the bit about foreigners not being able to own property, just a 99 year lease?

Laws are funny, that way.

I'm having second thoughts about making this thread private. I thought it wouldn't be visible to everybody, I didn't want to importunate everybody, but now it turns out it was the worst of two worlds.

If you are not seeking any royalty or fame from having your ideas flushed out and published, why not do it yourself/ If you think that others can take them and make them their own, you seem to be doing that already- so why care the other way.

I wouldn't work with someone I didn't implicitly trust. I struggled for many years with sharing any work that I wanted to publish because I was ripped off several times by several people. I recently decided to trust someone to review my work and, lo and behold, they stole my work and have profited from it. And since they've got a positive reputation in the industry and I don't, and since I have no legal recourse to pursue a claim (I have abundant evidence to prove my ownership and the timelines involved, plus releasing the work for review to this person, but the legal costs to pursue make it not worthwhile or even viable for me), I'm now back to not trusting anyone with my work which really cripples me creatively.

So advertising online that you want to work with someone is like inviting them into your home and asking them to take your TV. Even those with a name for themselves aren't above stealing people's work. You're better off finding another way, like maybe going through a reputable 3PP and submitting work to publish through them. Even then, be careful who you trust.

PM me--I'd be interested in this.

Maybe you should just submit more articles to EN5ider? You get paid, you retain ownership, someone else handles all the art, editing,and layout for you, what's the downside?

I'll still submit stuff to En5ider, I just want to give some ideas that aren't appropriate for it or too "skinny" for the format a home, and DMs Guild looks like a nice visible place. The problem being legal technicalities. (And well I'm looking forward to do more Layout and artwork too)