Will there be a 4.75 a la Pathfinder?

[fanboy2000]

I'm not sure if it can be a trademark when it is not visible to the consumer during the course of trade (eg because it is a table in the middle of a book). WotC, in the GSL, claims very 4e-related trademarks (in clause 5.2) but the 4e layouts are not among them.

My sense is that the 4e layouts are the subject of copyright (as pictorial or graphic works).

Well, you can flip through a book before you buy it. If there is a likelihood of confusion that the layout would make a consumer think the book is a WotC book and not a 3PP, then there's at least an argument for trademark.

Any given page from a 4e book is covered by copyright, taken together. When you separate the content from the layout, things get a bit tricky. The content, the words and pictures, are certainly protected by copyright. Even if you lay it out differently, you're still infringing (at least if you don't have a exception).

But what about just the layout? What if I write all new content and just make it look like WotC product? I haven't taken a good look at them, but I suspect that the EU's strong unfair competition laws would call that palming off, a big no no.

In the U.S.? My sense is that the layout of a book would considered trade dress. Particularly if you are, in fact, using it to distinguish your products (RPG books) from others. Which is how they were using them. I can spot a WotC 4e D&D book from 50 paces. They're designed that way for a reason, so people know which books are official and which ones aren't. Maybe the GSL doesn't claim them, but I strongly suspect they haven't waived their rights to it.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Are many people actually playing 13th Age though? I heard they were having trouble with various things but not sure how accurate that will be. Delayed MM or something like that.

There were a few delays but that was all design-related and not matters of bad faith. The backers of the Bestiary and 13 True Ways have their PDFs of both and the hard copy bestiaries apparently started arriving in the past week.

Pelgrane has said that it's the most played of their games and its organised play arm seems to be rather popular. If you want to get a feel for how 13th Age is doing, I would suggest joining their Google+ group which is full of lots of good material and the fans are genuinely decent people.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Somewhere there was an interview with 4e designer Rob Heinsoo where he stated that Powers in 4e were originally going to be fewer and scale with level, but that they were basically forced for marketing purposes to design new powers for every level so they could sell splat books and power cards.

I feel like Step 1 in building 4.75 would be to go back to that original idea where each class has just a handful of powers that scale with level. Obvious exceptions would be classes with spell lists.

That's one of the reasons I think there is a fantastic character-building system to be found within the monster-building guidelines.

 

[pemerton]

I can spot a WotC 4e D&D book from 50 paces. They're designed that way for a reason, so people know which books are official and which ones aren't. Maybe the GSL doesn't claim them, but I strongly suspect they haven't waived their rights to it.

Are you referring to the visual appearance of the book as an item? I am referring to the tables/colours that are used to set out powers, magic items, monsters etc. These are part of the 4e SRD, and WotC certainly believes that it has intellectual property rights in respect of them. But they don't seem to me to be part of the trade marks whereby 4e is sold. There relevance is to play rather than sales.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Oh man, wish I could read that article!

I did originally toy with this idea, but quickly ran into a problem: Scaling all powers either creates dead levels, or a kind of power creep at each consecutive new power level. I.e., scaling all powers would require a major rejiggering of character advancement, or different powers scaling differently. Not to say it couldn't be done, but I'm not sure the end result would be a big enough improvement to be worth the time.

You'd just scale the power at the new level where it's expected to be re-trained.

So, for instance, your 1st-level encounter power would scale at 13th (gain an extra damage die or whatever). Also at 13th, you'd have the option of trading it out for a genuinely-different 13th level power. There'd be fewer powers to choose at 13th, because not re-training would a more viable/legitimate option due to scaling.

At least, that'd be my guess at how you'd implement 'scaling' in the AEDU framework. Kinda like what happens with at-wills at Epic.

 

[Abstruse]

Are you referring to the visual appearance of the book as an item? I am referring to the tables/colours that are used to set out powers, magic items, monsters etc. These are part of the 4e SRD, and WotC certainly believes that it has intellectual property rights in respect of them. But they don't seem to me to be part of the trade marks whereby 4e is sold. There relevance is to play rather than sales.

It's called "trade dress" and it's the basis with WotC/Hasbro's current lawsuit with Cryptozoic over their online trading card game resembling M:TG and M:TGO too much.

 

[GrumpyGamer]

There were a few delays but that was all design-related and not matters of bad faith. The backers of the Bestiary and 13 True Ways have their PDFs of both and the hard copy bestiaries apparently started arriving in the past week.

Pelgrane has said that it's the most played of their games and its organised play arm seems to be rather popular. If you want to get a feel for how 13th Age is doing, I would suggest joining their Google+ group which is full of lots of good material and the fans are genuinely decent people.

Is it possible that pelgrane "suffers" from having too many good systems?

Seriously, their gumshoe games are awesome!

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Is it possible that pelgrane "suffers" from having too many good systems?

Seriously, their gumshoe games are awesome!

It's funny you mention that because my first attempt at a reply made reference to the fact that, IMO, Pelgrane has the best portfolio of RPGs of any company involved in this hobby. And you're right: the Gumshoe games are awesome with more to come.

 

[C4]

You'd just scale the power at the new level where it's expected to be re-trained.

So, for instance, your 1st-level encounter power would scale at 13th (gain an extra damage die or whatever). Also at 13th, you'd have the option of trading it out for a genuinely-different 13th level power. There'd be fewer powers to choose at 13th, because not re-training would a more viable/legitimate option due to scaling.

At least, that'd be my guess at how you'd implement 'scaling' in the AEDU framework. Kinda like what happens with at-wills at Epic.

Oh sure, these were my initial thoughts as well. To demonstrate the problem I ran into, let's talk about all-damage encounter powers:

Let's say that a 1st level all-damage encounter power deals 2dX + mod, and scales up by one die at 13th and 23rd level. Everything works just peachy at 13th level, because the player hasn't started replacing his encounter powers yet -- even if the 13th level power he chooses does exactly the same thing as his scaled-up 1st level power (3dX + mod), it's an additional power he can use every encounter!

But at 23rd level, he's now looking to replace his 1st level power. And since the high-damage 23rd level power and his 1st level power both deal 4dX + mod, there's no reason to trade out -- 23rd level has become a dead level.

Now there are at least a couple of ways to resolve this problem; one could argue that no two powers should be simple linear variations of each, but I find that idea distasteful. (I want to keep homebrew power-creation simple, and I like the idea that a PC can choose all high-damage powers if he so chooses.) One could argue that 1st level powers shouldn't scale quickly enough to be on par with higher-level powers, but at that point we've simply made the game's damage numbers bigger -- PCs will still have outright weaker low-level powers, even if overall their powers deal more damage. One could argue for removing the 4-powers cap, so that PCs are never forced to replace powers. I find this last idea to be the least objectionable, but it would still require a redo of a lot of mathery that I've already done.

If you have thoughts on the matter though, I'd like to hear them.

 

[Chaltab]

I am not familiar with the Gumshoe products, so I'm curious: would it be possible or even beneficial to integrate some of its mechanics into an ongoing 4E campaign if the players like to investigate stuff?