{Eden Studios} Fields of Blood Second printing coming soon

[Wulf Ratbane]

Well unfortuanelty you will still be waiting - we stopped selling to Amazon.com since they owe us A LOT of money for books we sold them in 2002-3.

I would recommend getting it from your FLGS or our website.

Hey George! Actually, the book came yesterday. 1st edition printing though.

I have a question about the OGL--

Chapters 3 and 5 are NOT Open?

That seems at odds with the opening paragraph that says you want other publishers to use the Realm and Battle sections.

What's the scoop?


Wulf

 

[alex_jurkat]

Book of War revised

Hey all,

The revised Book of War is not hard cover but it does have corrected material on about 20 pages. Some were just typos but several were rules clarifications. We did not change the hex default from 12 miles. That makes the default distance between settlements an easy day's travel by mule or donkey.

As for the OGC, we do encourage folks to use our unit construction and realm creation rules. We do not allow them to reprint our rules systems (the realm management and battle sections) in their entirety thus undermining sales of the book. We wanted to make it easy to supplement and build upon our systems, but hard to do without them.

That's the balance we tried to strike.

Alex Jurkat
Eden Studios
www.edenstudios.net

 

[trancejeremy]

Well, I just got mine today, and I have to say, at first glance, it really looks fantastic.

 

[Geoff Watson]

Hey all,

As for the OGC, we do encourage folks to use our unit construction and realm creation rules. We do not allow them to reprint our rules systems (the realm management and battle sections) in their entirety thus undermining sales of the book. We wanted to make it easy to supplement and build upon our systems, but hard to do without them.

It does mean that they can't refer to them at all; they have to pretend that those chapters don't exist, when attempting to write rules based on FoB.

Geoff.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

As for the OGC, we do encourage folks to use our unit construction and realm creation rules. We do not allow them to reprint our rules systems (the realm management and battle sections) in their entirety thus undermining sales of the book. We wanted to make it easy to supplement and build upon our systems, but hard to do without them.

There's only two options here, neither of them great.

1) Option 1, the publisher respects your OGC declaration, which means that he cannot use any portion of those two key chapters.

2) Option 2, the publisher theorizes that those rules are Open, despite your declaration, because they are clearly and rather heavily derivative of Open Content (the SRD), which makes them Open by default.

So really, the OGC is somewhat polluted, which means the only option is really Option 3: Don't touch it with a 10-foot pole.

Which unfortunately means your rules, however excellent, are more likely to wither and die than to be adopted by other publishers.


Wulf

 

[alex_jurkat]

Ogc

Geoff and all,

I think that's far too restrictive a view of non-OGC content. Chapters Three and Five are exceptions to the OGC declaration. They are not PI and they are not off limits to all. They are covered by normal copyright law which means you can't copy them verbatim or translate them without opening yourself to a copyright infringement claim.

While it is also true that a claim for copyright infringement could be maintained against someone who publishes "derivative works" from Chapter Three and Five of BoW, that concern should be severely mitigated by two factors. The OGC declaration paragraph opens all terms from the book allowing reference to them in any follow-up product. Also, all terms derived from the System Reference Document -- the core of D&D -- remain open and usable. I think it's clear that you don't have to treat Chapters Three and Five as nonexistent if creating or adapting follow-up product.

You cannot use the Fields of Blood trademark in your product without Eden's permission -- that's Product Identity. Let me state for the record, however, if you want to publish a product that depends on or expands on BoW mechanics, just let us know. We do want to see BoW become the standard for mass combat rules in D&D. We will be liberal when deciding whether to grant permission to use our trademarks.

Again, Eden's OGC purpose is to keep folks from reprinting BoW partially or entirely and thus profiting from our work without any compensation flowing to Eden. We don't want to see an alternative BoW showing up with our mechanics that replaces purchases of BoW. Our purpose is definitely not to make BoW a solitary product that no one can follow-up on. We would be delighted if d20 publishers were to adapt their settings and worlds to the BoW scheme, and we would be delighted if d20 publishers were to build on or enhance our work.

Thanks,
Alex Jurkat
Eden Studios
www.edenstudios.net

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I think that's far too restrictive a view of non-OGC content. Chapters Three and Five are exceptions to the OGC declaration. They are not PI and they are not off limits to all. They are covered by normal copyright law which means you can't copy them verbatim or translate them without opening yourself to a copyright infringement claim.

The OGL supercedes normal copyright law-- which, by the way, does not apply to "processes" (such as the rules of a game-- though this point is under much debate). The purpose of the OGL is to supplant normal copyright law to protect game rules. You relinquish certain protections of normal copyrights when you use the OGL.

While it is also true that a claim for copyright infringement could be maintained against someone who publishes "derivative works" from Chapter Three and Five of BoW, that concern should be severely mitigated by two factors.

You must understand that 3rd party publishers are both unwilling to risk even a hint of trouble, and respectful of your Open Content declarations.

We do want to see BoW become the standard for mass combat rules in D&D. We will be liberal when deciding whether to grant permission to use our trademarks.

It's not really a trademark issue. It is a mechanics issue. If the mechanics of FoB are Open, other publishers can use them. If those mechanics are not Open, we cannot.

Again, Eden's OGC purpose is to keep folks from reprinting BoW partially or entirely and thus profiting from our work without any compensation flowing to Eden. We don't want to see an alternative BoW showing up with our mechanics that replaces purchases of BoW.

That's understandable, but unfortunately it is inconsistent with the Open Gaming License.

After all, even WOTC has had large portions of their own Open Content (the SRD) reprinted, verbatim, repackaged and resold. That is the purpose of Open Content. Simply one of the risks that must be assumed when you enter under the OGL, and use the SRD yourself. If it were not for the SRD and the OGL, there would be no Fields of Blood.

You need to ask yourself a couple of honest questions.

1) Are the rules for Realm Management and Battle derived from Open Content (the SRD)?

2) If so, by what rationale can you declare that they are not Open Content?

Wulf

 

[Ranger REG]

It does mean that they can't refer to them at all; they have to pretend that those chapters don't exist, when attempting to write rules based on FoB.

Well, the best thing you can do is make a stat book of a kingdom or a realm.

It's the same with T20 (Traveller20). They kept the renowned High Guard ship creation rules for that game as closed content (PI?) but allow others to make ship stats as OGC.

 

[alex_jurkat]

Ogc

Wulf,

<<The OGL supercedes normal copyright law-- which, by the way, does not apply to "processes" (such as the rules of a game-- though this point is under much debate). The purpose of the OGL is to supplant normal copyright law to protect game rules. You relinquish certain protections of normal copyrights when you use the OGL.>>

All correct. And all part of the reason we did not declare Chapters Three and Five OGL. Regular copyright rules apply to that material.

<<You must understand that 3rd party publishers are both unwilling to risk even a hint of trouble, and respectful of your Open Content declarations.>>

That's a risk we're willing to bear to protect our work. We encourage other publishers with concerns to contract us and discuss them.

<<It's not really a trademark issue. It is a mechanics issue. If the mechanics of FoB are Open, other publishers can use them. If those mechanics are not Open, we cannot.>>

By opening all but two chapters and by opening the terms we used in all chapters, we believe that others can reference our work, and thereby tweak or expand on it, as long as they don't simply repeat it.

<<That's understandable, but unfortunately it is inconsistent with the Open Gaming License. After all, even WOTC has had large portions of their own Open Content (the SRD) reprinted, verbatim, repackaged and resold. That is the purpose of Open Content. Simply one of the risks that must be assumed when you enter under the OGL, and use the SRD yourself. If it were not for the SRD and the OGL, there would be no Fields of Blood.>>

We believe that the purpose of the d20 license (and by incorporation the SRD) is to sell as many WotC products as possible. We wanted to put the d20 bug on BoW to help its sales. As a result we needed to comply with that license and include OGC materials. We were not required to assume the risk that other publisher would reprint our entire work verbatim so we did not do so.

<<You need to ask yourself a couple of honest questions.

1) Are the rules for Realm Management and Battle derived from Open Content (the SRD)?>>

In our opinion, Chapters Three and Five present parallel mechanics that allow easy convertability from the SRD but are not directly derived from the SRD. As such, we determined that they need not be opened.

In the end, we made our OGC call based on our objectives in protecting our work while allowing as much as possible follow-up, our review of other publishers actions (for example, Green Ronin's decision not to open the unique feature of M&M -- Power Points), our understanding of the d20 license, and a desire to cleanly identify the sections of the book that we were not opening. In my view, we are justified in our approach. If the result does not actually achieve the balance I hoped for, my goal was to err on the side of too much protection. We can always open later what is closed; we can't close what has been opened.

Thanks,
Alex Jurkat
Eden Studios
www.edenstudios.net

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I'm understand your position, which is certainly in line with things other publishers are doing.

I believe that the clear wording of the OGL invalidates this approach, but I do understand you.

4. Grant and Consideration: In consideration for agreeing to use this License, the Contributors grant You a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license with the exact terms of this License to Use, the Open Game Content.

1(e) "Product Identity" means product and product line names, logos and identifying marks including trade dress; artifacts; creatures characters; stories, storylines, plots, thematic elements, dialogue, incidents, language, artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, likenesses, formats, poses, concepts, themes and graphic, photographic and other visual or audio representations; names and descriptions of characters, spells, enchantments, personalities, teams, personas, likenesses and special abilities; places, locations, environments, creatures, equipment, magical or supernatural abilities or effects, logos, symbols, or graphic designs; and any other trademark or registered trademark clearly identified as Product identity by the owner of the Product Identity, and which specifically excludes the Open Game Content;

1(d)"Open Game Content" means the game mechanic and includes the methods, procedures, processes and routines to the extent such content does not embody the Product Identity and is an enhancement over the prior art and any additional content clearly identified as Open Game Content by the Contributor, and means any work covered by this License, including translations and derivative works under copyright law, but specifically excludes Product Identity.

So basically, I don't understand how users of this License feel justified in claiming game mechanics as Product Identity.

I suppose you could claim the explicit expression and text explanation of the game mechanic as Product Identity, but that doesn't really offer you the protection you really seem to want.

Wulf