D&D 4E Is there any 4e Retro Clones out there?

[Morrus]

IANAL for sure, but I've been around a lot of similar issues. I can almost assure you no investor with any common sense would come within 2 miles of that project, not unless the potential return was really startlingly high. Its just NEVER going to happen, realistically. 4e is dead and any cloning remains at least decades into the future.

Again, that's what I said.

 

[delericho]

You couldn't use any class name, power name, feat name, item name, etc that wasn't part of the OGL licensed material.

Sure you can. WotC don't own 'Warlord' and they sure don't own 'Come and Get It'.

Then there's the question of the 'overall similarity', which CAN be an issue, is the work 'derivative', and that could be a question of just how precisely the mechanics of your clone recapitulate those of the actual game

Game mechanics aren't the issue because those can't be covered by copyright (only the specific expression of them). Trade dress may well be an issue, though.

I can almost assure you no investor with any common sense would come within 2 miles of that project, not unless the potential return was really startlingly high.

The existing retroclones are all labours of love - they didn't rely on investors. (Excluding Pathfinder, since it's not a strict clone. But YMMV on that one.)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Sure you can. WotC don't own 'Warlord' and they sure don't own 'Come and Get It'.

As a level 5 Daily Fighter power in a game where the mechanics are almost exactly the same as 4e? hahaha. If you do use those terms you SURELY lose even the fig leaf of the GSL. The OGL might cover 'Fighter' as a class concept well enough to apply generally to a 4e-clone fighter, but you'd never get away with releasing powers with the existing names.

Game mechanics aren't the issue because those can't be covered by copyright (only the specific expression of them). Trade dress may well be an issue, though.

Well, copyright is only ONE issue. However, the question is whether or not you can express 'Come and Get It' in a way that is different enough from WotC's version to avoid their 'expression' of the rules, and still have the same game in any meaningful way. Beyond that you have Design Patents, Actual Patent Patents, and Trademarks on Design (what you call 'trade dress'). Its a minefield, and 4e makes it especially tricky. If you clone 1e or 2e, mostly those books are tables in functional forms, and blocks of text that can be rewritten, rearranged, and reorganized without much impact, so 'classic' D&D is pretty easy, and 3.x is simple because its unambiguously OGL.

The existing retroclones are all labours of love - they didn't rely on investors. (Excluding Pathfinder, since it's not a strict clone. But YMMV on that one.)

Some of them are certainly business ventures. They still rely on the good graces of WotC to exist in any case, as any legal challenge of any sort to any of them would almost certainly be beyond its publishers to defend. Obviously someone out there might do it, anything can happen.

 

[Rechan]

I do think Strike is pretty 4e-y, right down to how powers are presented. The only change is using symbols to express things, and say, a power is a 3x3 instead of a burst 1.

 

[Miladoon]

I wouldn't mind looking at another exceptions-based game but I don't know of any attempted 4E clones. I certainly won't spend any money on it. I would have to be smitten by its design, plus I would need to be able to find players.

 

[Raith5]

One other option is create a raft of houserules for 5e/ or lobby WOTC to produce a module that pushes further into 4e territory in 5e. For the reasons noted up thread, it may be the most realistic option.

As much as I like 5e, there is a lot of 4e bathwater around that may have value to some.

 

[ccs]

As much as I like 5e, there is a lot of 4e bathwater around that may have value to some.

Eew, who'd want recycled 4e bathwater??
(most of us didn't even want it when it was fresh....)

 

[Raith5]

Yeah not a great metaphor! But I like both games. I liked 4e when it was fresh and still reckon some of its elements are of value. There are some 4e elements hidden and buried in 5e. If one was to try recycling 4e elements I would think starting here would be a good option.

 

[delericho]

As a level 5 Daily Fighter power in a game where the mechanics are almost exactly the same as 4e? hahaha.

You said you couldn't use power names.

But in any case, "level 5" and "Fighter" are both covered by the OGL, which likewise has plenty of examples of things usable "once per day". And as we have discussed mechanics can't be covered by copyright.

There are a lot of things WotC do own, and there's even more that someone would need to be very careful with. But it's equally a mistake to ascribe them ownership of everything.

Beyond that you have Design Patents, Actual Patent Patents

This has been discussed in the past. I'm not aware of anyone turning up any patents on tabletop RPG design.

Some of them are certainly business ventures. They still rely on the good graces of WotC to exist in any case, as any legal challenge of any sort to any of them would almost certainly be beyond its publishers to defend. Obviously someone out there might do it, anything can happen.

When OSRIC was first published this very issue was raised. It turned out that the designers had indeed taken extensive legal advice before they published because of this very concern. They were very certain they were in the clear, and that opened the floodgates for everyone else.

Now, of course, that hasn't been challenged by Hasbro in court, which means it can't be certain. But if you're argument rests on "you can't afford to fight" then we're not actually talking about the legality of a retroclone, but rather Hasbro's willingness to bully.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You said you couldn't use power names.

But in any case, "level 5" and "Fighter" are both covered by the OGL, which likewise has plenty of examples of things usable "once per day". And as we have discussed mechanics can't be covered by copyright.

There are a lot of things WotC do own, and there's even more that someone would need to be very careful with. But it's equally a mistake to ascribe them ownership of everything.



This has been discussed in the past. I'm not aware of anyone turning up any patents on tabletop RPG design.



When OSRIC was first published this very issue was raised. It turned out that the designers had indeed taken extensive legal advice before they published because of this very concern. They were very certain they were in the clear, and that opened the floodgates for everyone else.

Now, of course, that hasn't been challenged by Hasbro in court, which means it can't be certain. But if you're argument rests on "you can't afford to fight" then we're not actually talking about the legality of a retroclone, but rather Hasbro's willingness to bully.

Well, I sure haven't done a patent search, but you'd have to in order to know. DESIGN patents are also a quite different thing from 'invention patents'. They cover things like the utility of certain design choices (for instance this is the sort of class of IP that Apple has used to protect various elements of iPhone design such as button positions and behavior). Things like stat block format and content could easily fall into this area, and its always a gray area where the line is when you produce something very similar that is used in basically the same way (as Samsung has discovered).

And its not really a matter of 'bullying', the law is ALWAYS (civil law at least) about interpretations of meaning, willingness to take up an action, ability to do so, etc. There's never such a thing as an opinion that means anything more than "you might prevail in some hypothetical action, if you could sustain it." Now, Hasbro has generally proven to be relatively tolerant and seems to have genuinely embraced the D&D community, at least within certain limits. They never gave OSRIC any trouble. At the same time they have issued C&D letters to various 4e projects, like Master Plan and the hacks to the old CB. Given their deep pockets nobody is going to gainsay them, if they issued a C&D on OSRIC tomorrow it would be gone. Nobody is going to take anything like that to court, the costs would mount to millions without a shadow of a doubt. Its MUCH more likely they would C&D a 4e clone, IMHO, and its much less well covered by the OGL fig leaf than 1e is.