Will there be a 4.75 a la Pathfinder?

[Tony Vargas]

I'm pretty sure that's not how Copyright works. First you can't copyright game mechanics. Second you don't copyright each individual section, you copyright the work. Third Advantage has a different meaning to in Next - which is a different game to 4E anyway. And as I'm writing the rules text from scratch and taking inspiration from a dozen different games I don't think there's an issue.

That's fine, but it won't make what you're working on a 4.75 like Pathfinder is a 3.75 - Pathfinder can re-print all the classes, races, spells, items & monsters from the OGL, whole-cloth, making the game not only D&D-3.5 compatible, but giving it the same core of character & DM choices as the original game.

You absolutely cannot do that for 4e.

 

[Nagol]

That's fine, but it won't make what you're working on a 4.75 like Pathfinder is a 3.75 - Pathfinder can re-print all the classes, races, spells, items & monsters from the OGL, whole-cloth, making the game not only D&D-3.5 compatible, but giving it the same core of character & DM choices as the original game.

You absolutely cannot do that for 4e.

And that's the huge limitation of a cloned 4e. There is so much IP in the powers -- every name, the descriptions. Ick. Even if it is built, how are the prospective players going to reference their previously constructed characters?

 

[MoonSong]

And that's the huge limitation of a cloned 4e. There is so much IP in the powers -- every name, the descriptions. Ick. Even if it is built, how are the prospective players going to reference their previously constructed characters?

I'm of the opinion you don't have to clone everything, just enough to allow cross compatibility. My goal with my current project is to allow that, cross compatibility, enough to allow a PC straight from the character generator to play in a table with other PCs generated with the new rules. With no conversion.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm of the opinion you don't have to clone everything, just enough to allow cross compatibility. My goal with my current project is to allow that, cross compatibility, enough to allow a PC straight from the character generator to play in a table with other PCs generated with the new rules. With no conversion.

That would awesome, if you could pull it off.

Obviously wouldn't be a 4.75 equivalent to what Pathfinder was to 3.5, but that's no reason not to try.

 

[pemerton]

This uses a flawed assumption. That any Pathfinder-style approach for 4E would use the GSL rather than the OGL.

Correct. If you want to clone 4e, the GSL is hopeless - my view is that you would be in direct violation of its terms, and in any event WotC could just terminate.

You can't copyright game mechanics - and 90% of the rules you need are already under the OGL (4E is very much a d20 game). Which means that all you actually need is a 4Eish game that doesn't do anything to copy trade dress and is written under and using the OGL.

That's harder than it sounds, since key things like the AEDU progression, stat blocks, and power blocks arguably fall under 'trade dress.'

A lot of posters seem to get very excited about "trade dress", but as was argued on one of these threads (maybe this one?) between me and a couple of others, I don't really see it.

Trademark and trade dress are about distinguishing products in the coures of commerce, and are also related to business goodwill. If a 3PP includes the terms "at-will" in a power description, but not in such a way as to be likely to produce confusion as to who the publisher is (eg the book is sold in shrink wrap, and/or covered in disclaimers, etc) then I don't see that there can be an infringement of WotC's trademarks. (In any event, I doubt that "at-will" is a WotC trademark, and I've seen no evience that they claim otherwise.)

The real issue in my view is copyright. I posted my analysis of the issues here. Bottom line: I don't think it's anywhere as clear-cut as [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] asserts, as far as the law is concerned.

(I don't pretend to have any special insight as to what litigation tactics WotC/Hasbro might pursue, however. They have reasons not to sue as well as reasons to sue - eg it may not serve their interests to have the limitaitons of their rights spelled out if in fact it turns out their rights are fewer and more narrow than they had hoped.)