More info about this OSRIC thing?

[Mythmere1]

Wow, this is really one of the coolest ideas in a long time. Given the purpose though, I wonder if it might be beneficial at some point to actually make a ruleset that's designed to be used by DMs and players based off of OSRIC. It's been very clear that the current document is meant to be for publishers, but for the large number of people that don't have a copy of 1e handy (and I'm sure that there are far too many of them), it might be nice. Not sure how reasonable that would be though.

It could probably be used that way as it stands, but you'd have some areas where you weren't playing exactly by the 1e book. We didn't push the envelope all the way, and as (someone - sorry, I forget the name, but the guy who saw it as a bait-and-switch) said, it's not actually a copy of 1e. Played as a game it would be darn close - possibly an acceptable temporary substitute or as a teaching tool - but it's designed to be compatible, not to be a copy. If it can bring new players to the game, I'm hoping that they go straight from OSRIC to buy the "real" books on Paizo or wherever. OSRIC is no substitute for the real thing; I really wanted to start it with the quote from Tenacious D: "This is not the greatest song in the world, this is just a tribute."

I do think it could be used for a teaching tool - it sets the rules out in an entirely different manner, which I think is actually much more accessible to a new player. If that gets WotC some extra royalties from the contract with Paizo to sell the core rulebooks as pdfs, that means we've succeeded.

 

[Gutboy Barrelhouse]

Look at what happened to Gary's Mythus RPG which was way more different from D&D than OSRIC. Didn't he lose that settlement? Didn't that pretty much sink TSR too?

If I recall correctly, TSR sued over Mythus but settled out of court. TSR bought Mythus for a hefty amount of money - much more than the cost of developing a game system.

 

[Wasgo]

It could probably be used that way as it stands, but you'd have some areas where you weren't playing exactly by the 1e book. We didn't push the envelope all the way, and as (someone - sorry, I forget the name, but the guy who saw it as a bait-and-switch) said, it's not actually a copy of 1e. Played as a game it would be darn close - possibly an acceptable temporary substitute or as a teaching tool - but it's designed to be compatible, not to be a copy. If it can bring new players to the game, I'm hoping that they go straight from OSRIC to buy the "real" books on Paizo or wherever. OSRIC is no substitute for the real thing; I really wanted to start it with the quote from Tenacious D: "This is not the greatest song in the world, this is just a tribute."

Yes, but that's expecting a lot from people. When they see a module labeled OSRIC, they're going to go look online, and see a pdf for download. They aren't going to think, now I have to go buy a 1e set of books from Paizo. Judging by the fact that this thread exists, not everyone will know what OSRIC is 'meant' to be. So, they'll download the OSRIC pdf expecting a full gaming system. Now, it may be good to teach, but if it's not going to be a substitute, clearly some method of communicating to players what they need to do to use OSRIC books needs to to be developed.

 

[Particle_Man]

Well, it has rules for people, who can be good guys or bad guys. It has some monsters (enough to run a game with). So what is lacking is magic items (only three are listed). It has rules for character creation, combat, spellcasting, etc.

I think you could do it as a *very* low magic-item game, as it stands.

Aside from magic items, and despite the intentions of the creators of OSRIC, why *couldn't* one run/play OSRIC as it stands?

 

[Wasgo]

Well, it has rules for people, who can be good guys or bad guys. It has some monsters (enough to run a game with). So what is lacking is magic items (only three are listed). It has rules for character creation, combat, spellcasting, etc.

I think you could do it as a *very* low magic-item game, as it stands.

Aside from magic items, and despite the intentions of the creators of OSRIC, why *couldn't* one run/play OSRIC as it stands?

It has 12 monsters, it has no guide to playing and is generally more of a reference document than a player's guide. I suppose one could use it as stands if they really wanted to, but my basic point is that if they want to be able to use it for commercial purposes allowing manufacturers to produce compatible documents, it should be seen as a complete system by users. It would suck for companies to produce compatible supplements, have people look up the system and get turned off because it doesn't seem complete.

 

[Nyaricus]

As a D&D player and DM who started in '99 with the last year of AD&D, I have to say that OSRIC intrigues me to no end. I'm pretty much a 3e baby, per se, so this is somethign new entirely. Thanks for giving me a sense of nostalgia for something I've never read - I don't beleive I've ever had that happen before

Good job guys, OSRIC is a great accomplisment, and I hope it only gets better

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

It really that easy? Can you pick any RPG on the market right now and use their rules in your game and all you have to do is switch some names around? Wow, how does an RPG company protect their "game"?

No, it isn't.

At first glance, it might be. The precedents in this mostly come from computer RPGs, but the law's clear: Game rules cannot be copyrighted. (This is repeated on WOTC's published guidance, by the way. WOTC actually say that outright.)

The problem is that what can't be copyrighted is the underlying mechanisms. Take, for example, a boardgame -- you can't copyright the rule that says you roll 2d6 and move that many spaces on the board, so even if you've produced a game that does that, I can do the same thing in my game. But what I can't do is produce a game where you land on Mayfair (or whatever the American equivalent property is in Monopoly) and if it's got a hotel on it, you have to pay me £2,000.

However, WOTC have also (separately) licensed the terms and concepts that go with their game via the OGL. So because of the OGL, I can have a mechanic that's called "Armor Class" and divide characters into alignment categories; I'm doing that under a separate license.

Note that I still can't re-use any trademarks.

Actually, that view's still a massive oversimplification, but if you want complete details of how it all works, you really need to retain a lawyer to advise you. I'm not a lawyer, although I've talked to a lot of them about OSRIC; where it gets complicated, I've relied on their suggestions rather than trying to understand everything myself.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

The model needs to be the sort of blurb you see on the back of products. Instead, it reads to me more like a technical paper. While there's a subculture that creates the standards of technical papers and appreciates them, the papers aren't appropriate for mass consumption and this is a product you want people to at least be aware of on a massive scale.

Actually, I don't -- not at this stage. The rulebook needs a little more polishing yet, and there's only one supporting product at the time of writing; it isn't ready for anything on a "massive scale." It's ready for a few thousand fans to begin looking over.

What I want to achieve right now is for a few publishers to be aware of it. Hopefully some of them will see the advantages, realise they don't need to pay me any fees or royalties, decide to follow in ExpRet's footsteps, and begin drawing up supporting products.

Personally, I'm just a bloke that does a bit of writing in his spare time. I don't have the marketing resources of a publisher, and I certainly don't want to reinvent the wheel by trying to do what is, effectively, a publisher's job.

The publisher can host OSRIC, if they choose (with or without my consent), or direct people to the OSRIC site, if they prefer. Since they aren't under the same legal constraints I'm under, and since they write ad copy for a living, they can market it a lot better than I can.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Well, it has rules for people, who can be good guys or bad guys. It has some monsters (enough to run a game with). So what is lacking is magic items (only three are listed). It has rules for character creation, combat, spellcasting, etc.

I think you could do it as a *very* low magic-item game, as it stands.

Aside from magic items, and despite the intentions of the creators of OSRIC, why *couldn't* one run/play OSRIC as it stands?

No reason at all, actually. If you're bound and determined to play OSRIC, it'd work, as a system.

What I don't understand is why anyone would want to do that. And I can't give them a reason; the world already has enough RPG rulesets! Another one (even free) is never going to amount to a hill of beans.

But OSRIC is intended to facilitate a market based on the non-copyrightable algorithms of the 1e ruleset. That's something that hasn't been done before, and recent marketing experiments (such as Rob Kuntz' work, Goodman Games' publication of a 1e module at GenCon, and indeed Pod Caverns of the Sinister Shroom) have shown that there's a surprisingly large demand for something that does what OSRIC does.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

It has 12 monsters, it has no guide to playing and is generally more of a reference document than a player's guide.

Yup. I've no intention of going for the "new players" market myself; if a publisher wants to do that, they'll know how to go about it.

The main appeal of OSRIC is to people who already know the algorithms and how it all basically works, so I didn't want to add bulk to the document which is already 132 pages long by re-inventing the wheel.

It should be seen as a complete system by users. It would suck for companies to produce compatible supplements, have people look up the system and get turned off because it doesn't seem complete.

The great opportunity with OSRIC is that anyone can add to it. If you (for example) wanted to write a Book of Magic Items, you could do that, and either distribute it free, or sell it at whatever price you like. But if you've already got monsters and lists of magic items and so forth from another system, then you don't need to worry.