D&D 5E Mearls on other settings

[mflayermonk]

While I get that there are always going to be fans of settings that existed before this point in time, I always have to be concerned (especially after 4th Edition and the "spell plague") whether revisiting previously crafted settings might inevitably led to the devaluation and destruction of those settings.

Would it not possibly be better to leave the old settings be and leave it to the fan community to update them to the newest edition of D&D and instead focus on creating absolutely new and unique settings of their own? Why should the limit on new setting creation have expired in 1984 and no one is allowed to evolve beyond that?

WotC has created new settings, in Magic the Gathering, and ported them over to D&D 5e.
Example: Plane Shift: Zendikar.

 

[Hussar]

Part of it is if they don’t do something with it then they lose trademark, and hence money and control. Plus the desire for officiality.

Sent from my SM-G900P using EN World mobile app

I'd point out that since virtually every single WotC setting has been mentioned by name in the PHB/DMG, Trademark loss isn't really an issue. All they have to do is keep using examples from various settings in the splat books and they keep trademark. They don't have to actually produce a setting in order to keep it.

 

[robus]

WotC has created new settings, in Magic the Gathering, and ported them over to D&D 5e.
Example: Plane Shift: Zendikar.

Well a port might be going a bit far... More like a photoshop mockup

 

[mflayermonk]

Well a port might be going a bit far... More like a photoshop mockup

This is true.

 

[MoonSong]

I'd point out that since virtually every single WotC setting has been mentioned by name in the PHB/DMG, Trademark loss isn't really an issue. All they have to do is keep using examples from various settings in the splat books and they keep trademark. They don't have to actually produce a setting in order to keep it.

Not so sure if these are enough, do they count if they aren't identifying the product? And the logos themselves could be lost [MENTION=19675]Dannyalcatraz[/MENTION] can you help?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Logos are covered by trademark law. Here's a decent summary from LegalZoom:

Duration
Federal trademark registration remains valid for 10 years after filing, with optional 10-year renewal periods. To maintain active registration, the owner must file a “Declaration of Use” between the fifth and sixth year following the initial registration. If the declaration is not filed the registration is cancelled and cannot be reinstated. Owners wishing to renew registration must file for renewal within the last year of each term. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) provides a six-month grace period for renewal, provided an additional fee is paid. If an owner fails to renew her registration, she must file a new registration application.

Loss of Trademark Rights
A trademark owner may lose trademark rights despite valid registration and renewal. If an owner stops using a mark in commerce, the trademark is considered abandoned. The law only protects marks as long as they are in continual use. Rights may also be lost if the owner improperly licenses his mark. Finally, a valid trademark may become generic over time, resulting in loss of rights. For example, the word “aspirin,” initially a trademark of the Bayer company, has become generic over time and is no longer subject to trademark protection, in the United States, but remains under trademark protection in Canada and in many European countries.

On "use", the Trademark Act says:

The term “use in commerce” means the bona fide use of a mark in the ordinary course of trade . . . . For purposes of this Act, a mark shall be deemed to be in use in commerce —

(1) on goods when —

(A) it is placed in any manner on the goods or their containers or the displays associated therewith or on the tags or labels affixed thereto, or if the nature of the goods makes such placement impracticable, then on documents associated with the goods or their sale, and

(B) the goods are sold or transported in commerce, and

(2) on services when it is used or displayed in the sale or advertising of services and the services are rendered in commerce, or the services are rendered in more than one State or in the United States and a foreign country and the person rendering the services is engaged in commerce in connection with the services.

So using trademarked material in ads or packaging will clearly count. Referencing trademarked products in your other trademarked products may or may not. Given the nature of RPG products and how those products would likely be mentioned, I'd guess it would.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I do it this way. I talk with my players beforehand. But e.g. I want to dm darksun and one of my players says "I want to play a halforc" (not likely) and I say to him (very likely that I would do it like that for DS 5e conversion): "hm very difficult to shoehorn since genocided, but here you got the mul, play him as chaotic as you like he is mechanically absolutely identic to a PHB halforc its just different fluff", would that be fair game? I mean knowing my players they all would agree to that I think, but do you got players who would say:" ah no I want to name it halforc and I am not interested in playing this campaign because there are no orcs" ? I guess the answer is no, but what do you say?

For me and my players, 99.99% of the time that would be perfectly alright. I actually did something very similar with my "mystborn" which cover a wide swath of mechanical races in my game.

I wouldn't say it would work 100% of the time because I dislike making predictions like that, but the vast majority of the time my players like the mechanics and are willing to work with the aesthetics and backstory separately. After all, they are also perfectly fine with being an oddity that doesn't exist naturally in the world instead of being a race of beings with a culture and ect

Isn't it something like 75 years for copyright?

Used to be, then Disney and a whole lot of things started mucking around with the copyright system and now it is a bit of a royal mess.

From what I've heard

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Isn't it something like 75 years for copyright?

https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf

Works Created on or after January 1, 1978
The law automatically protects a work that is created and fixed in a tangible medium of expression on or after January 1, 1978, from the moment of its creation and gives it a term lasting for the author’s life plus an additional 70 years. For a “joint work prepared by two or more authors who did not work for hire,” the term lasts for 70 years after the last surviving author’s death. For works made for hire and anonymous and pseudonymous works, the dura- tion of copyright is 95 years from first publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter (unless the author’s identity is later revealed in Copyright Office records, in which case the term becomes the author’s life plus 70 years).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I’ve asked you before not to argue with the mods. Comparing us to Putin and inserting political comments, too? This is not acceptable behaviour. You’re a guest and you’ll act like one. If you don’t like it here, there are plenty of other places you can post.

Next time, you’ll be asked to leave. I don’t ask much of my guests, but I do ask that they don’t crap on the furniture or insult me or my other guests. Just basic social skills.

Man...yikes.

Just popping in to say, I'm genuinely sorry for how argumentative I sometimes am with you and the mods.

I don't even buy the idea of viewing a forum as a home the posters are guests in, rather than a public facing storefront or something, but regardless, you guys aren't anything close to a murderous autocratic psychopath. Like...obviously.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The line I brought up and Hussar was responding to is the restriction of things like Monks from Darksun “because they overcome many of the traditional challenges”. Not that they don’t fit in the setting, but that they are actually too good in the setting to be allowed.

And then we get to the difference between hard banning and soft banning. Personally, I’d place a soft ban on Druids in Darksun. Sure, they make sense as there are sections of the world where nature still fights back, but they should be incredibly rare. I’d encourage players to pick something else if they wouldn’t mind, because the feel of a desolate wasteland is much different when you have a person capable of drawing on a massive well of natural power.

If I sat at a table and someone said “No warforged in my Darksun game” I’d be perfectly fine with it, it makes sense as a restriction to generally have no warforged because they require a lot of support in world for them to be a major “race”. But, if I had a player who desperately wanted to play a warforged… I can find a way to get a sentient golem to fit into the setting without it causing everything to fall apart or to require them to come from another plane of existence (I HATE that explanation for why a character is in the world)


I guess, to summarize a lot of thoughts, there is a difference between omitting an option and banning an option. I have never had a cleric played in any of my games, no player ever wants to play a cleric in my world, I’ve also never had a dwarven player in my game.

I'd love to have a Druid in a DS campaign. I'd love to have a character who I can describe the desiccated nature of the world to, the endless blackness they feel when near a defiler, etc.

I agree on the rest tho