Goodman Games Releasing 4e Adventures Prior to October 1st

[Filcher]

http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10769&whichpage=5

Halfway down the page Brian Jacobs (author of Wizard's Grand History of the Realms) states that Goodman has licensed w. Wizards. Think it carries any weight, or is he just speculating, too?

 

[Scribble]

Yes, I know.

The GSL seems designed to provoke one of these two outcomes:

1) Goodman Games (and others) write adventures which reference "goblins" or "kobolds" and does not include stats-- in which case, why use the GSL at all?

2) Goodman Games (and others) write adventures using the GSL, which do include stats, and we end up with literally hundreds of kobold and goblin variants scattered across dozens of published works.

Neither of these is what I would exactly call optimal.

For a company like Googman, it's not optimal.

the GSL's thing lies on selling the strength of the look and feel of 4e, as well as the oficial brand logo on the cover.

DCC pretty much seems to go for the oposite crowd... Thos who don't want the look and feel of the current system.

So the GSL wouldn't be a huge draw to GG... In my opinion at least.

Since the GSL seems pretty clear that WoTC seems to want to preserve the idea of D&D as one thing... (the brand) I'm wondering if Goodman will show us how far WoTC is willing to take that... My guess is they won't do anything drastic.

 

[jmucchiello]

I think pemerton is saying that going copyright only, including stats at all is questionable because a large amount of WotC IP is required to make sense of them.

What IP are you referring to? The letters AC? The word Will? About the only thing GG truly can't use is sword in a circle to indicate basic melee attack. Instead they will probably write: basic melee attack. I'm sure their at-will abilities will not have bright green headers.

Yes, they will have to change the layout of the stat block. It will probably resemble the 3e one with all the text run together. Or they will create a unique layout.

 

[pemerton]

Which, oddly enough, is what the GSL requires you to do anyway.

<snip>


Leaving, as the sole purpose of the GSL, the ability to use the D&D logo on the (back?) cover of your product.

As Hexgrid noted, this is a bit of an exaggeration.

Also, under the GSL, the module can have a tactics section in which it says which powers the monster(s) will use in what sequence. Writing an unlicensed adventure also makes it more complicated to work out how far you can go in this direction without infringing WoTC's rights.

What IP are you referring to? The letters AC? The word Will? About the only thing GG truly can't use is sword in a circle to indicate basic melee attack. Instead they will probably write: basic melee attack. I'm sure their at-will abilities will not have bright green headers.

If you're forming this view on the basis of your own legal expertise, or professional legal advice, then I'm happy to defer to it - I'm not an IP expert. But my lawyer's intuition is that what you're saying is too simplistic, underestimating the relationship between the text that GG might be publishing and the text in which WoTC holds copyright, which (i) GG's product is intended to be read in conjunction with, and which (ii) GG drew upon to write it's adventure.

 

[Treebore]

There is actually very little WOTC can claim as copyright, trademark is much more obvious as to what you can't use. But hit points, to hit, damage, saves, abilities, ability modifier, feats, skills, etc... are not copyrighted and cannot be. Even Wizards, thief, warrior, fighter, barbarian, etc... cannot be copyrighted.

Publishing 4E compatible stuff via the OGL opens things up a bit more as well.

Staying away from specific formats, names unique to D&D, such as Mordenkainen, Bigby, etc..., since those are copyrightable, and I believe still are, are a good start to avoiding copyright infringement.
Not using other phraseology identifiable to 4E would be wise too, like you wouldn't want to refer to the "roles" the character plays, you don't want to be using their monster stat blocks, or refer to their books.

You can say the monster to fight is a "spherically shaped creature, with many eyes on the end of sticks", and the reader will have to figure out what creature you mean and look it up in their MM, or call it the "Many Eyed Fiend" and write up your own interpretation of it, but don't use the same format WOTC does.

So going the copyright route is very doable. Possibly even more so if you use the 3E OGL in a manner similar to how OSRIC was done.

 

[Knightfall]

http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10769&whichpage=5

Halfway down the page Brian Jacobs (author of Wizard's Grand History of the Realms) states that Goodman has licensed w. Wizards. Think it carries any weight, or is he just speculating, too?

Hmm, while that's interesting, I'd consider it just speculation without a real press release. After all, if Goodman Games has a special licence with Wizards, then don't you think they'd want the 4e fans to know about it?

 

[Shroomy]

Hmm, while that's interesting, I'd consider it just speculation without a real press release. After all, if Goodman Games has a special licence with Wizards, then don't you think they'd want the 4e fans to know about it?

Perhaps not if you were negotiating or staring to negotiate special licenses with other companies.

 

[Filcher]

Given how weird everything else has been with Wizards' release of 4E, I wouldn't be surprised if the specifics of the license were still in negotiation. It would be in the interest of Goodman to announce the releases ASAP, while Wizards can kick back and take their time. Meanwhile neither party says anything specific regarding licensing until the ink dries.

 

[Alzrius]

http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10769&whichpage=5

Halfway down the page Brian Jacobs (author of Wizard's Grand History of the Realms) states that Goodman has licensed w. Wizards. Think it carries any weight, or is he just speculating, too?

I really don't think Brian R. James knows what he's talking about. I looked up his profile at LinkedIn and he's not only never worked for Goodman Games (scroll down for a photo and listing of some of their employees), he's only a freelancer for WotC, and that's of August, 2006. There's no way he'd have any sort of special information regarding a license between Goodman and WotC.

EDIT: As an interesting note, BRJ has worked/is working on a WotC book for 2009 called Open Grave: Secrets of the Undead.

 

[pemerton]

There is actually very little WOTC can claim as copyright, trademark is much more obvious as to what you can't use. But hit points, to hit, damage, saves, abilities, ability modifier, feats, skills, etc... are not copyrighted and cannot be. Even Wizards, thief, warrior, fighter, barbarian, etc... cannot be copyrighted.

But the combination and arrangement of those common words into a unique text can be copyrighted.

Suppose you replaced every proper name in the Lord of the Rings with a name of your own invention, but otherwise republished the story wholesale. I suspect that that might be a copyright infringement. Now, suppose you rephrase the odd sentence that is active into passive and vice versa. I'd still have my doubts that you're not infringing - that work belongs to Tolkein and his successors in title, and you have substantially reproduced it.

Now, how small can we make the work and how significant the changes and still have something potentially infringing? That's a tricky question which I'm not qualified to answer. But I don't think it would help an argument in favour of non-infringement that your intention in writing your text about Many-Eyed-Fiends doing battle with Shadow Elves was that it was to be understood as having the same content as WoTC's text about Beholders doing battle with Drow.

Note that I'm not accusing anyone of copyright infringement. I'm just making the (slighly abstract) point that the question of infringement is not a trivial one, and can't be decided just by focusing on individual words that do or don't occur in WoTC's copyrighted text.