White Wolfs pay to play deal...

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Check out some of the old 1st ed competition module series. While by their nature competition modules are more goal oriented and geared for problem solving it can be a nice change of pace. And in KoDT fashion it can be fun to compete to see who has the 'best' group on the block.

Saw those modules when they first came out. I didn't much care back then and never gave it much thought. But as time has passed I don't think it was EVER a good idea because it is anathema to the game. KoDT is funny because the concept of competitive RPG's is in and of itself funny.

As for charging for LARPs, well the level of work a storyteller has to do to get a moderately sized one off the ground (and in good shape afterward for a 30 to 50 member troupe) is head and shoulders above any prep work I've ever had to do for any tabletop game. Even if you don't have to rent a place to hold the game, the cost in paper, ink, folders, name-tags, and other props make a small fee a reasonable requirement. Add in the hours of the not so fun work of writing up and updating character backgrounds, then figuring out story arcs and plots, setting character goals, clues, and rumors, and the actually running of the game (mass combats are always tricky) and I'd consider the part of the fee past cost I'd a small gratuity.

I don't know from LARPs and again, don't much care. The OP was phrased along the lines of "What if WotC did this for D&D?" and it's from that perspective that I'm answering.

If LARPs have sustained up-front costs that a game of D&D doesn't, such that defraying those costs is much more important for all concerned it still seems to me that that is for the individual participants to work out - the company that makes the game they play hasn't got any moral, ethical, or probably even legal right to interfere with how they handle distributing those costs. Certainly not in any forum other than a COMPANY sponsored gathering. If a Convention wishes to formally organize LARPS using WW material I cannot fathom how WW can expect to coerce compliance to their organizations and policies because the purchase and use of those materials doesn't include any tacit or formal agreement to do so. WW simply doesn't get to tell players how, when, where, or why to run games - and it certainly doesn't get to extort a cut of the money just because money is changing hands.

If WotC were to try some kind of crap like this I would enthusiastically go out of my way to flaunt their policy as publicly as possible and take no prisoners.

 

[wingsandsword]

"What if WotC did this for D&D?"

Well, if it was a legal matter, for trademark or "making money off our work" how would it be any different if it happened in D&D. I know some FLGS have rooms they rent out for gaming purposes, others collect money for pizza (heck, we've seen threads here talking about GM's who charge to run outright), and thus there are people who pay to play D&D . If it was needed for any way shape or form to be a matter of legal neccesity, TSR would have done it with D&D back in the 90's. This looks like just a protection racket of "pay your dues, so nothing bad happens to your larp".

If WotC said something similar with D&D, you'd hear the universal chorus of "It's TSR all over again", everybody would ignore it, people would expect the d20 STL to be revoked any day, and the hobby as a whole would take a big hit as fan enthusiasm for D&D dropped off. Urban legends and misunderstandings thinking that WotC wants every gamer ever playing D&D to pay up will spread.

If WotC were to try some kind of crap like this I would enthusiastically go out of my way to flaunt their policy as publicly as possible and take no prisoners.

You're not the only one. Maybe WW has been listening a little too much to the RIAA and MPAA: "People are paying to play our games after they buy them, and we're not getting a cut, that's stealing!"

 

[PetriWessman]

I can understand why White Wolf is starting the new policy. As you say, it's a legal matter. People are charging other people for using their product. If they don't have a piece of that (as I understand it), their copyright is in danger of being nullified. (Since if you don't zealously protect your copyright, you lose it.)

Sorry, but you are quite wrong on this. The only thing you have to actively protect are trademarks. Copyrights and patents do not need any sort of active defense.

In addition, previous legal precedents have ruled that playing a game is not a "performance" of said product (like reciting a book or playing a CD would be). The previous cases have mostly involved board games (playing Monopoly is not "performing Monopoly"), but they would figure quite strongly if White Wolf tried to argue this on copyright law grounds

(I am not a lawyer, I'm just interested in IP matters in general).

In addition, White Wolf's *own* new MET books encourage gathering money from players in order to cover place rent. They also encourage the same for props, etc. So their own books are encouraging (and therefore giving a license for) doing things that totally contradict their new demands. Embarassing, that.

 

[PetriWessman]

i'm pretty sure theres a difference between "charging" players for a game, and the players chipping in to buy books/ minis/ pizza.

According to White Wolf's FAQ, there isn't. According to them, the moment any money exchanges hands, no matter the purpose, you are suddenly "charging to use their IP" and have to pay them $20 and join their player organization (and abide by rules of said org, which means no playing with anyone under 18, etc).

Stuff like this is why this insanity is being received like leprosy in the general gaming community. If it only and specifically went after people making a *profit* from WW's games, nobody would have a problem. But they are claiming rights to much, much more than that.

 

[PetriWessman]

It's more of a liability issue than a copyright issue, as I understand it.

White Wolf knows a lot about being litigious, so they also know that they're only one LARP-resulting-in death-or-injury-or-underage-drinking away from getting sued by angry parents insisting that "White Wolf's books told them to do it." Now they'll be able to reply, "Well, they were unsanctioned."

I don't buy this.

As has been noted on various threads, this actually opens White Wolf to *more* litigation. Previously, if something tragic had happened at a larp, WW would have said "they used our books, but our books have huge disclaimers in them on how to play with them. The organizers themselves are responsible". Now they are becoming co-organizers (via the Camarilla which they own), and are potentially opening themselves up for legal action for actively creating an environment where tragic thing X happened.

 

[wingsandsword]

In addition, previous legal precedents have ruled that playing a game is not a "performance" of said product (like reciting a book or playing a CD would be). The previous cases have mostly involved board games (playing Monopoly is not "performing Monopoly"), but they would figure quite strongly if White Wolf tried to argue this on copyright law grounds

I was really wondering about this, since "performances" was about the only legal toehold WW really had in terms of IP. I know you're not a lawyer, but I'd really like to know the precedent on this. I can imagine WW trying to argue that a LARP isn't a game, since they like to say it's "improvisational theater" or the like, how they try and refer to gaming groups as "troupes" like you would a group of actors and such. Even if it's "improvisational theater", they aren't exactly performing a script or predetermined plot, they aren't "performing" anything WW has written.

In addition, White Wolf's *own* new MET books encourage gathering money from players in order to cover place rent. They also encourage the same for props, etc. So their own books are encouraging (and therefore giving a license for) doing things that totally contradict their new demands. Embarassing, that.

And I'm quite sure if WW takes any LARP to court, those passages will be trotted out immediately, and if their "pay up, or else" policy isn't even mentioned in their new MET stuff it will look even worse. Even their old MET stuff suggests this in places (the Laws of Ascension Companion has a big section on places to game, including a discussion of how expensive places can be the need to pass this cost along to your players).

 

[PetriWessman]

I was really wondering about this, since "performances" was about the only legal toehold WW really had in terms of IP. I know you're not a lawyer, but I'd really like to know the precedent on this. I can imagine WW trying to argue that a LARP isn't a game, since they like to say it's "improvisational theater" or the like, how they try and refer to gaming groups as "troupes" like you would a group of actors and such. Even if it's "improvisational theater", they aren't exactly performing a script or predetermined plot, they aren't "performing" anything WW has written.

I don't have a direct reference to the legal precedents, but they involved (at least) the game of Monopoly. As for the copyright law, here's a cut+paste from the U.S. Copyright office FAQ (see http://www.copyright.gov/faq.html for more details):

WHAT IS NOT PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT?

Several categories of material are generally not eligible for federal copyright protection. These include among others:

* Works that have not been fixed in a tangible form of expression (for example, choreographic works that have not been notated or recorded, or improvisational speeches or performances that have not been written or recorded)

*Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation, or illustration

The first one is a pretty close fit to playing LARPs, and the second one covers rules. According to both, saying that copyright law covers the case of larps run based on WW's books is pretty slim.

Here's a quote from "simontmn" on the White Wolf forums:

FWIW - I am a UK Professor of Law (Senior Lecturer in Law) who teaches copyright law. I know a reasonable amount about US copyright law.

I am quite certain that playing an RPG is not a performance of a copyright work embodied in the text of a rulebook. There is US legal precedent that playing a game is not 'performance' of that game in law. To perform it, you would have to read aloud a substantial proportion of the book itself.

Nor is playing the game creating a derivative work based on the game; to create a work it has to be in fixed form, which an RPG LARP or tabletop session is not.

I've looked at the legal issues, I am certain that WW has no legal basis for enforcing this demand. They have also created a lot of bad publicity for themselves - my wife astutely commented that White Wolf are "like the pigs walking on their hind legs" at the end of Animal Farm. They have become T$R.

I very much hope they will reconsider their policy, which is alienating a large proportion of their fan base and the general RPG community, and threatens to send them to TSR's fate. Certainly I would not have bought the £50 or so of WW materials on my shelf had I known this was coming, and I don't even play Vampire.

Hope that helps.

 

[S'mon]

SimonTMN is me BTW.

 

[Master of the Game]

Something to keep in mind here, since people are focusing on LARPS, is that it applies to their table-top and d20 games as well. Arthaus and Sword and Sorcery are specifically meantioned, and Malhavoc is published by them as well (though I'm not sure how that licensing works).

So if you play Ravenloft of Scarred Lands, and you take a collection to buy new game stuff, you should join the Cam.

 

[jasper]

as lawyer said to me as we were signing waivers at a Sca event. "You can never fully sign away your right to sue. This just give the other side another piece of paper against you."