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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kenobi65" data-source="post: 2710183" data-attributes="member: 1515">Hi, there,Let me preface this with the obligatory "I am not a lawyer" disclaimer.You may well run into some issues with copyright and intellectual property on this project.  This topic has been discussed extensively on the LF Yahoo Group list, and it does seem that only RPGA would have the legal ability to run an openly-distributed SW campaign.What you're proposing is essentially an independent, fan-run Living style campaign.  The problem that you may be running into is that, in order to do this, you're going to be using non-OGL material, to which you don't have any copyright priviledges.When you run a home campaign, you're (of course) free to write adventures that use the SWRPG material, because you're not distributing it to anyone outside of your group.  My understanding of the law is that this all changes once you give someone else an adventure that you've written, for them to run.  At that point, you're "distributing" the material you've written...and that may put you in violation of the copyright (even though you're not charging people any money).  In this case, you might be violating copyrights from both WotC (who owns the mechanics of the RPG), as well as Lucasfilm (who owns the intellectual property of the SW universe).  (Note: this is also why it's perfectly legal for you to have your friends over to your house to watch a Star Wars DVD, but it's *not* legal for you to show a Star Wars DVD in a public setting, like at a convention.)A couple examples of what I'm talking about:1) Back in the days when the RPGA had the Living City campaign, there was a sub-campaign to Living City called "the Procampur expansion", which was created and written by a group called the Universe Construction Company (UCC).  When Ryan Dancey and Organized Play bought Living City from the RPGA (2002, IIRC), they didn't want Procampur, and the UCC turned Procampur into an independent, non-RPGA campaign called "Legends of the Shining Jewel".  They offered LSJ modules to people to run at conventions, game days, home play, etc....essentially, the same thing that the RPGA does.Eventually, WotC's lawyers took notice.  LSJ was still set in the Forgotten Realms, and nothing about the Forgotten Realms is Open Game Content.  Thus, UCC was "publishing" material that was in violation of WotC's copyright on the Forgotten Realms.  In early 2004, WotC forced UCC to re-tool the LSJ campaign and take out all references to the Realms, as well as any other non-OGC material from the campaign.  It took UCC about 8 months to revise all their materials, into a new campaign world of their own design.2) There is an independent group out there called Game Base 7, which runs a Living-style Star Wars campaign called "Sparks".  (They used to use the West End Games d6 system; I've read conflicting information over whether or not they've switched over to the d20 system).  From what I've read, they get around the issue of "distribution" by only running their games at conventions, and only letting Game Base 7 "members" (all of whom are listed as authors on every one of their modules) act as the Gamemasters.  Apparently, if you're the author of a module, you can run it freely, since just playing in a module doesn't give you access to the entire text of the module, which is what gets you into the "distribution" problem.At any rate, all I'm really trying to do is give you some advice based on what I've seen in the "Living-style" RPG community with regards to copyrighted material.  It may well be that I'm not understanding the law correctly, and what you're proposing is just fine.  However, if you're really serious about wanting to do this, I'd highly recommend getting some real legal advice.</blockquote>

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