The Create-a-Setting Thread: Dinopirates of Ninja Island!

[dreaded_beast]

New PrC

DinoBot

Some Warforged understand the beauty and power of the dinos. In order to emulate this power, some Warforged undergo the special Transformation process and are able to assume the shape and abilities of a particular dino. As the progression in this class increases, the DinoBot gains special abilities and powers beyond that of the base dino being emulated.

 

[barsoomcore]

Wormwood: at this stage, EVERYTHING is up for grabs, legally speaking. My one and only real concern is making sure the JPL gets first shot at HIS idea -- the name "Dinopirates of Ninja Island". Really, if you're not using that name, then you've got nothing to worry about.

I think the name's got lots of potential and I think the ideas people are throwing around have potential and I'd love to see something come of this -- but these sorts of projects are difficult to maintain unless SOMEBODY is the owner and has enough passion and determination to maintain a vision and see it through.

 

[Nifft]

NO! Seriousness has no place in the Dinopirates of Ninja Island! It should be the ultimate B-movie RPG, IMNSHO.

You are so wrong. The setting needs a firm basis in plausibility, so that the deeply amusing aspects are not merely jarring novelty.

You want one player to say to another player, "Of course every sensible merchant ship has an emergency cache of Javelins of Lightning, because of rising pteradactyl dino-pirate raids. Duh!"

You want them to know which region's broto-steaks are best, and which ninja clan has the best legendary ninja secret steak sause.


barsoomcore: I wish there were a GPL for ideas. This would be a great collaborative setting, but I really don't want someone else charging for what I've given away free. On the other hand, I feel no need to allow anyone else "first dibs" -- if I've got time & motivation, and since I'd be giving it all away for free, what's the big deal? (Not that I necessarily do have time & motivation... especially that last one... )


dreaded_beast: A high postcount is nice, but... could you possably merge some future ideas into a single post? thanks.

-- N

 

[Dark Jezter]

Nifft speaks true. If this is going to turn into an actual setting, then it needs to be logical and somewhat believable. It can have humor in it, but there needs to be more to the world than just novelty.

 

[Erratic K]

You want them to know which region's broto-steaks are best, and which ninja clan has the best legendary ninja secret steak sause.


barsoomcore: I wish there were a GPL for ideas. This would be a great collaborative setting, but I really don't want someone else charging for what I've given away free. On the other hand, I feel no need to allow anyone else "first dibs" -- if I've got time & motivation, and since I'd be giving it all away for free, what's the big deal? (Not that I necessarily do have time & motivation... especially that last one... )

-- N

Some snip... hope that worked:

1) The Wagyu/Kobe Bronto steaks are the best, after all their brontosaur's are raised only on beer and finest grass. The wagyu bronto is known for it's tender qualities.

2) There is a GPL for this type of thing:

http://creativecommons.org/

-E

 

[dreaded_beast]

dreaded_beast: A high postcount is nice, but... could you possably merge some future ideas into a single post? thanks.

Sorry

 

[barsoomcore]

This would be a great collaborative setting, but I really don't want someone else charging for what I've given away free. On the other hand, I feel no need to allow anyone else "first dibs" -- if I've got time & motivation, and since I'd be giving it all away for free, what's the big deal?

What I don't want is for some people to give away for free what another person has the right to charge for. Especially if the another person isn't me.

"Dinopirates of Ninja Island" isn't my idea. I'd LOVE to create a website and encourage collaboration and have a ball creating cool stuff for it -- but not if the person whose idea it was in the first place has decided to take their idea and pursue their own opportunities with it. Which they have every right to do and I will not interfere in that.

I don't consider this concept to be a public one. It belongs to JPL and if JPL says, "Go to it, I waive any and all rights to control or ownership over this baby", then full steam ahead, let 'er rip, darn the torpedoes and all that. If on the other hand JPL says, "You know, Green Ronin just offered me a contract to develop this as a setting for them to publish," then us creating a public setting with the exact same name isn't so cool. It might in fact be illegal and it would certainly reduce the value of JPL's work.

Which I would not want to do. As far as I know, JPL has posted a setting idea and encouraged people on this thread to post their own ideas. Which is very generous of JPL, but it's a far cry from saying, "Anyone who wants to can publish material using this concept."

 

[Snoweel]

I think there are dodgy moral issues related to the deification of intellectual property.

I mean, just because somebody is the first to patent an idea, everybody else who ever comes up with said idea independently, owes fealty (for want of a better term) to the patent-holder.

And anyway, since Tolkien's world-building imitators (namely Greenwood, Gygax and the rest of us) are free to use elves, dwarves, halflings and orcs (and I'm aware that JRRT himself 'borrowed' these races from mythology, but he did codify them as the fantasy-geek-community knows them), I can't imagine a law in any land that would allow somebody to monopolise an intellectual mish-mash of pirates, robots, dinosaurs and ninja.

Proper nouns, sure, but at the end of the day, people pay for products, not ideas and therefore the founder of the 'genre' has no right to prosper over the more creative and hard-working guy who puts out more attractive and useful accessories/modules supporting the 'generic' ninjapunk/dinoriding pirate-noir setting.

 

[barsoomcore]

Snoweel:

I think it's polite if somebody comes up with a cool idea, to ASK them if they mind if I start doing something public with that idea. If you want to go ahead and create a "Dinopirates" adventure without checking with JPL, I'm not going to stop you. How would I?

But it's POSSIBLE there could be legal ramifications for doing that. If somebody goes out and writes a "Dinopirates" adventure and maybe is less scrupulous than you or I, they might trademark the name and suddenly not only are you and I no longer able to write Dinopirates stuff, neither is JPL. And if said unscrupulous person found out about the idea because of a website I'd put up, I would feel terrible.

It's also possible that if JPL decides to try and trademark the name "Dinopirates", the fact that other people have been publishing materials using that name will make it impossible. Which would also make me feel terrible, if I were one of those people.

So, in the interest of avoiding having to feel terrible, I'm waiting to hear from JPL that publishing material using the name "Dinopirates of Ninja Island" is okay. If you aren't worried about that, then pay no attention to me. My sole concern is to not feel terrible, NOT to tell anyone else what to do. You do as you see fit.

I'll say it again since I feel like I've been misunderstood: I don't want to get involved in anything more formal than what this thread has already become without hearing from JPL that it's okay. I can't email or private message JPL since they don't have their membership configured for said communications, so I'm posting here, hoping that JPL will see and give a "Yay" or "Nay" to the idea.

That's it. That's all. Sorry if I offended or came across all lecture-y. Not my intent.

 

[ConnorSB]

Oh, and there needs to be guns that shoot ninjas. Or ninjas that throw little dinosaurs.