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Black Company Magic System != OGC?
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<blockquote data-quote="HeapThaumaturgist" data-source="post: 2125201" data-attributes="member: 12332"><p>Unless I'm mistaken, it's impossible to successfully copyright game RULES. Isn't that the secret magic mojo of OGC, that it was OGC anyway? Only the wording can be copyrighted, that only fiddlingly so. You could make a system that was exactly the same but used "Cast Magic Skill" in place of "Magic Use Skill" and "Apprentice, Journeyman, Mage, and Archmage" in place of "Student of Wizardry, 1st Magnitude, 2nd Magnitude, and 3rd Magnitude" and be fine to flow.</p><p></p><p>In fact, I'd go so far as to argue a great deal of that content CANNOT be copyrighted because the spell effects are copy-paste edit-jobs out of the SRD! I don't have my book with me, but we had the SRD and the BCCS book open side by side and things like "Water Talent"'s mist is copy-paste right outta Obscuring Mist from the SRD. </p><p></p><p>I'm not a lawyer, but that's my current working understanding of how it goes. I was having a discussion with one of my players who thought I should publish our current campaign setting but wondered how I could since we use Grim Tales, BCCS, Corsair, and some purely new home-brew rules and I explained that, since everything we use (beyond the BCCS magic system) is OGC I could put the whole thing together and make a product because only the Intellectual Property elements (I.E. my fiction, my names, my descriptions) could be copyrighted. In fact, if I did so, my new Craft Magic rules, my Air Ship rules, and my spellcasting changes would all become OGC because they're derivative in places (skill descriptions) and rules can't be copyrighted. I could be mean and make people re-write every description, but I'd officially OGC the whole of the rules anyway because I'm cool like that.</p><p></p><p>Not that people would be beating a path to my door for any of it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> While the best game I've ever played, I dunno if anybody else would get their jollies by exploring the finer points of print-culture emergence, early Dutch-style mercantilism, racial politics, and living in fear of being eaten by giant marsupials.</p><p></p><p>--fje</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="HeapThaumaturgist, post: 2125201, member: 12332"] Unless I'm mistaken, it's impossible to successfully copyright game RULES. Isn't that the secret magic mojo of OGC, that it was OGC anyway? Only the wording can be copyrighted, that only fiddlingly so. You could make a system that was exactly the same but used "Cast Magic Skill" in place of "Magic Use Skill" and "Apprentice, Journeyman, Mage, and Archmage" in place of "Student of Wizardry, 1st Magnitude, 2nd Magnitude, and 3rd Magnitude" and be fine to flow. In fact, I'd go so far as to argue a great deal of that content CANNOT be copyrighted because the spell effects are copy-paste edit-jobs out of the SRD! I don't have my book with me, but we had the SRD and the BCCS book open side by side and things like "Water Talent"'s mist is copy-paste right outta Obscuring Mist from the SRD. I'm not a lawyer, but that's my current working understanding of how it goes. I was having a discussion with one of my players who thought I should publish our current campaign setting but wondered how I could since we use Grim Tales, BCCS, Corsair, and some purely new home-brew rules and I explained that, since everything we use (beyond the BCCS magic system) is OGC I could put the whole thing together and make a product because only the Intellectual Property elements (I.E. my fiction, my names, my descriptions) could be copyrighted. In fact, if I did so, my new Craft Magic rules, my Air Ship rules, and my spellcasting changes would all become OGC because they're derivative in places (skill descriptions) and rules can't be copyrighted. I could be mean and make people re-write every description, but I'd officially OGC the whole of the rules anyway because I'm cool like that. Not that people would be beating a path to my door for any of it. :) While the best game I've ever played, I dunno if anybody else would get their jollies by exploring the finer points of print-culture emergence, early Dutch-style mercantilism, racial politics, and living in fear of being eaten by giant marsupials. --fje [/QUOTE]
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