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Prime Directive d20 is out? Anyone have it?
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<blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 2500015" data-attributes="member: 14159"><p>Simple, Grandfather Clause.</p><p></p><p>Star Fleet Battles was licensed to use the Star Trek setting by Gene Roddenberry back in the early 70's, in the earliest days of Trek fandom when it was still largely considered a flop except to a dedicated fan base and Roddenberry himself managed licensing issues instead of Paramount. A group of fans wanted to make a wargame based on the TV show, and Roddenberry gave them the license fairly easily. It was a fairly limited license, limited to what had already been produced at the time: The original TV series, the animated TV series, and the Star Fleet Technical Manual by Franz Joseph Schnaubert. Paramount tried to sue them for infringement later on when they took over dealing with licensing, but their license held up in court, and was broadly worded enough that they couldn't revoke it. Simply put, they can't use the name "Star Trek", or anything based on or derived from anything made after the mid 70's, nor can they use the USS Enterprise itself (but Constitution Class ships are A-OK) or the actual named characters from the show. </p><p></p><p>They get around the Larry Niven stuff because the Kzin were actually in one episode of the Animated Series (which is considered non-Canon by Paramount, probably because of this episode and licensing issues with it). Larry Niven himself wrote the episode actually (The episode name was "Slaver Weapon"). Thus, since Star Fleet Battles was licensed at the time to make a derivative wargame based on the Animated Series, the Kzin as an enemy of the Federation and Earth was allowed.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="wingsandsword, post: 2500015, member: 14159"] Simple, Grandfather Clause. Star Fleet Battles was licensed to use the Star Trek setting by Gene Roddenberry back in the early 70's, in the earliest days of Trek fandom when it was still largely considered a flop except to a dedicated fan base and Roddenberry himself managed licensing issues instead of Paramount. A group of fans wanted to make a wargame based on the TV show, and Roddenberry gave them the license fairly easily. It was a fairly limited license, limited to what had already been produced at the time: The original TV series, the animated TV series, and the Star Fleet Technical Manual by Franz Joseph Schnaubert. Paramount tried to sue them for infringement later on when they took over dealing with licensing, but their license held up in court, and was broadly worded enough that they couldn't revoke it. Simply put, they can't use the name "Star Trek", or anything based on or derived from anything made after the mid 70's, nor can they use the USS Enterprise itself (but Constitution Class ships are A-OK) or the actual named characters from the show. They get around the Larry Niven stuff because the Kzin were actually in one episode of the Animated Series (which is considered non-Canon by Paramount, probably because of this episode and licensing issues with it). Larry Niven himself wrote the episode actually (The episode name was "Slaver Weapon"). Thus, since Star Fleet Battles was licensed at the time to make a derivative wargame based on the Animated Series, the Kzin as an enemy of the Federation and Earth was allowed. [/QUOTE]
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Prime Directive d20 is out? Anyone have it?
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