Making a D&D website?

[theoremtank]

I'm planning on making a website focusing on all mathematical elements of D&D 3rd edition. There will be statistical analysis and explanations relating to the balance in the 3rd edition rules mechanics. Also given will be functions that generate the values in most of the tables as well as discussions on why these tables might have been designed the way they were. Essentially, anything that is somewhat mathematically interesting dealing with D&D will be posted or discussed.

Now my concern....

I am not a lawyer but neither am I asking for everyone to do my research for me. I am concerned about legal issues related to the intellectual property of Wizards of the Coast. What do I need to watch out for so as to keep the content of my site legal?

Remember the point of my site will be to give a mathematical analysis of the rules not to display the actual rules freely. Example, if I state that the experience progression table can be generated by the following function L = 500*n*(n-1), are there legal issues in doing so?

Any resources people might point me to would be greatly welcome so as I don't put a lot of work into nothing.

 

[Angcuru]

just make sure to put a disclaimer at the bottom: D&D 3rd Edition is a registered trademark of WotC...bla bla bla and you'll be fine.

 

[Gargoyle]

Here's a helpful link:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=contactinfo/legal

 

[theoremtank]

Here's a helpful link:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=contactinfo/legal

Thanks for the link.

 

[Drawmack]

Also here http://www.wizards.com/d20

I would only analyze the tables that are in the SRD. Another consideration is are you also going to analyze d20 modern. I love doing mathematical analysis of the rules it often explains things that do not seem clear in the text. If you need some help with this let me know, I'm not much on stats but I'm pretty good with discrete math.

 

[theoremtank]

I appreciate the offer. Depending on my time in the next couple weeks, this project may take off relatively fast or slow. After all, its just my latest hobby. I'll keep you in mind for help.

I'm currently researching the best ways of displaying mathematics notation on the web. Which I've learned is not yet a widely accepted standard. mathml was my first choice but it is not natively supported by any of the browsers. I believe the best way to go currently is a tex to html converter for displaying the notation. Anyway, I'm rambling...

Also here http://www.wizards.com/d20

I would only analyze the tables that are in the SRD. Another consideration is are you also going to analyze d20 modern. I love doing mathematical analysis of the rules it often explains things that do not seem clear in the text. If you need some help with this let me know, I'm not much on stats but I'm pretty good with discrete math.

 

[Drawmack]

PHP can generate images on the fly. This means that we could come up with our own math meta language and then store database entries using that language. Then PHP would read the database and generate the image of the equation.