Whose "property" are the PCs?

[Falkus]

I have no problems if a DM wants to incorporate my character'S future into his world after the campaign is over, provided he has the common courtesy to hash out the details with me before he does it, so we can both be sure that the legend being created matches the chracter's personality and background as I saw it. If he doesn't work it out with me, then I will hunt him down and extract a terrible vengance.

 

[MonsterMash]

As a DM I don't feel its wrong to update a character for use in the campaign world later on, though I'd try and make sure that they were consistent with the conception and actions of the PC previously.

As a player I don't mind a character being reused as an NPC once the current campaign is over, obviously while I'm actively playing the character I tend to say its mine.

 

[kigmatzomat]

i wish it were true.but it is in fact part of the basis of the OGL.
character creation rules for D&D/d02 are...er... not ... included iirc.
so when you post the stats for say> Meepo... you'd better tell WotC as they own the rights to him.
but when you post your own characters in general on a fan site... you just say they are for fan use.
but if you try and copyright said characters... you'd better make sure you ask permission of WotC/Hasbeen

Check again. OGL says you must include all the relevant copyright notices (S13) with all OGL works and indicate what portions of your work are OGL. Even if you OGL something you own the copyrights and grant a use license.

Many RPGs have released books of copyrighted characters and as long as they don't include the *rules* on how the character was created, they don't violated OGL. Exhibit A that WotC doesn't own the copyrights is the MMII, which included a 3rd party OGL creature (scorpionfolk, IIRC) *AND* the S13 giving notice the copyright belonged to a 3rd party but was used under the OGL.

Ignoring the game mechanics of the character, the name, race, sex, age, weight, height, description, background, and described personality of a character amount to a copyrighted body of work that is, barring some other contract, owned by the creator which is 99% of the time the player.

Now a character can include other copyrights (like Jedi(tm)) that could limit the player's ability to publish the character but the player is the owner of the character and Lucas couldn't take it from them. In other words, Lucas can't sell fan-fics without a contract from the author.

Same goes for DMs. Legally, if you did not create the PCs and hand them to the players, you do NOT own them. If you write a book/module/whatever about your campaign and include a character created by someone else they have a legal leg to stand on if they take issue with it. Especially since many players bring characters from one campaign to the next and can prove a history of ownership.

If it helps, think of the character as a cameo on a tv show or in a book. Just because the Hulk appeared on The Muppetshow doesn't mean Jim Henson "owns" the Hulk.

 

[Elf Witch]

I keep reading that DMs feel that it is their world and their's alone. That is BS. The PCs interact with that world and change it. They have an investment in the world too. It is a shared experience. For example a player makes up an entire monkl order and the DM use it in his world. Can you still claim it is your world and your alone?

AS for DM using PCs I don't see a problem with it as long as they discuss it with the player. That is if the player is still in the game. I would be very annoyed if a retired character of mine was suddenly changed in a way that did not make any sense to me. Now if I no longer play in the game I could care less.

On the same page though I don't see any problem with a DM taking ideas from other DMs worlds they have played in.

I do have a problem if someone would try and publish a novel or short story using my character or world.

I have an old DM who is trying to do that. She has taken all our characters and is using them in her novel. I have several problems with this first the world was a shared world several DMs help create it. I wrote several short stories based on several of the characters I created. Now she is telling me that I have to stop and that she will take legal action if I try and publish. This is just wrong. I developed these characters I made their backgrounds and I developed several religious and bardic orders for them.

When I wrote the short stories with my character and my creations I set them in a different world. I have told her that she needs to change my characters and their backgrounds enough so they are not the same that is the best solution, but she refuses to do it. She says she was the DM she created the world and everyhing in it belongs to her.

On the other hand I am writing a novel based on a game I played in. But I asked permission of the DM and the other players who said yes go ahead.

 

[Henry]

...I have told her that she needs to change my characters and their backgrounds enough so they are not the same that is the best solution, but she refuses to do it. She says she was the DM she created the world and everyhing in it belongs to her.

I'm no lawyer, but somehow I doubt a judge is going to see your ideas in her work as "work for hire", unless you signed some sort of contract beforehand. If you could prove with definitive paper trail and witnesses that part of her stuff is really yours, her case would probably fly like a lead balloon...

Then again, suing for work that is unlikely to turn a profit is not that good an idea, either.

 

[jmucchiello]

Please leave the OGL out of this. Statements made about it above are generally wrong (or refer to the d20 license). It is an entirely different ball of wax.

As for the character's owner, I'd say no one owns it. Because, an idea cannot be copyrighted (yet). Only works in a fixed medium can be copyrighted. If I tell you an idea, I don't own it. No one owns it. If I explain an idea in a book, I own that expression of the idea as written in that book. You can explain it yourself, in your own words, and then put it into a book with its own copyright. Now you have a copyrighted expression of my idea and unless I can prove that you derived your explanation from mine in a courtroom, I have no legal rights to your book.

Now, your character sheet can be copyrighted (and in fact is as soon as you create it). But the character you create isn't. All that is copyright is the number and words that express that character. You might include a few personality traits or back history on your character sheet. But some one can create a similar character without deriving it from your work.

Likewise, the "GM's world" is similarly unowned. His notes may constitute a "work". But the ideas, places and concepts of the world are generally unowned unless fixed in a medium.

If you filmed your gaming session, the video of the performance would be copyrighted and owned by the "producer" of the film, not by the performers (unless they are also the producers). Still the character itself does not have an owner outside the film or character sheet. If you don't film the session, it is not copyrighted because it does not exist in a fixed medium. And thus the events of that session are not owned either.

A storyhour is a fixed medium. The author of the storyhour (the person stringing the words together) owns the copyright to that work. Just because he/she writes it based on the uncopyrighted performance of the players and GM doesn't mean the work is derived from a copyrighted event. (Oh, and if you record the session for use to create the storyhour, you are the producer of the recording and thus still the only copyright holder.)

That is the basic legal view. (Though of course IANAL.)

As a social being, the GM should obey the golden rule and ask players for permission to mess with their ideas in future campaigns.

 

[fusangite]

A character is a thing that comes into being when a set of inert numbers and quantitative measures interact with a setting/world. Characters, fundamentally, are parts of the setting in which they are situated; they change the setting by interacting with it but they have no existence outside of the setting. Furthermore, they cannot be taken out of the setting after they have come into being; they can die; they can retire but they are always part of the setting because they participated in the events that made it what it is, whether or a larger scale or a small one.

If, for some reason, a character becomes an NPC, decisions should be made about him or her in the same way other decisions are made about the setting. In settings I run, some parts are bi- or multi-laterally negotiated amongst me and my players and some things are dictated by me as GM. In my view, a good GM should consult a player about what his former character should do not because the character somehow "owns" their NPC but because the former player will know better than anyone how the character should behave.

Finally, for those of you who interpreted what I've said so far as me saying the GM owns the player, that's not my position at all. I've created two settings that I have passed on to other GMs. I don't control how they run anymore; those GMs who inherited my settings and their players collectively have become the owners of the things in them, including the NPCs. I no longer have any say about how those settings are, though I'm gratified that the GMs choose to consult me from time to time.

 

[Falkus]

Now, your character sheet can be copyrighted (and in fact is as soon as you create it). But the character you create isn't. All that is copyright is the number and words that express that character. You might include a few personality traits or back history on your character sheet. But some one can create a similar character without deriving it from your work.

What does creating a similar character have to do with using my character?

 

[billd91]

The way I see it, the player controls the PC as long as that PC is being actively played in the campaign. Once that PC is abandoned because the campaign ends or any other reason that would prevent the player from playing that PC again, the DM can do as he or she sees fit.

With respect to using a character in more than one campaign, I have no problem with that. The PC stays in my campaign as well, their paths just diverge. No matter how much you play, there are always other angles on the same character that can be pursued in any number of other campaigns. I would just hope that the player not always play the exact same character, it would indicate being stuck in a rut.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I keep reading that DMs feel that it is their world and their's alone. That is BS.

For practical purposes it is indeed BS. The DM's world is shaped by the player characters just as the PC's are shaped by the DM's world. The precise degree is pretty irrelevant. It matters only that neither is immune to influence by the other. However, around the gaming table it is the DM who holds virtually all the control of the game - what race and class the PC's can be, what opponents the PC's will face, how they will interact with the entire game world. In practical terms the players have an almost insignificant amount of control of the game and for that reason alone it's very very easy to assign "ownership" of the world to the DM who runs it - including the player characters that inhabit it at any point.

It is a shared experience. For example a player makes up an entire monkl order and the DM use it in his world. Can you still claim it is your world and your alone?

I could, though it would not be in anyones best interests to do so because around the gaming table it wouldn't gain me a bloody thing. Yet I'd certainly have a far stronger claim that would a player who reciprocally tries to claim that they own and control that part of my world that is/was their character and can tell me what I may or may not do with it.

- Again, this is in terms of a simple, kitchen table game of D&D. If you want to talk publication rights, IP law and so forth consult an attorney.

AS for DM using PCs I don't see a problem with it as long as they discuss it with the player. That is if the player is still in the game. I would be very annoyed if a retired character of mine was suddenly changed in a way that did not make any sense to me. Now if I no longer play in the game I could care less.

It's a simple matter of being polite to take the trouble to ask - but it is in no way necessary nor binding upon the DM.

I do have a problem if someone would try and publish a novel or short story using my character or world.

I have an old DM who is trying to do that. She has taken all our characters and is using them in her novel. I have several problems with this first the world was a shared world several DMs help create it. I wrote several short stories based on several of the characters I created. Now she is telling me that I have to stop and that she will take legal action if I try and publish. This is just wrong. I developed these characters I made their backgrounds and I developed several religious and bardic orders for them.

Then it seems to me - a non-lawyer - that she hasn't a leg to stand on and you have nothing to worry about.

There is a difference between running a game of D&D in private and the creation and control of characters as concerns Intellectual Property law. The latter is FAR less a matter for simple discussion on a web board like this than it is for taking to a lawyer for APPROPRIATE advice and handling.

At the gaming table OWNERSHIP of characters is irrelevant. Moot. Meaningless. Ownership is about as applicable to anything as my Moms recipe for meatloaf is to calculations for planetary orbits. But when you start talking about publication and profit you're no longer dealing with issues relevant to my gaming table. You're talking about BUSINESS and LAW in the real world and that is a horse of a different color. Obviously it is best dealt with not as a matter of gaming table ettiquette and a DM's game-control authority, but as a paid author seeking SOLID legal advice from a qualified lawyer regarding somewhat unusual and COMPLICATED matters of intellectual property.