Re: Legality and WotC help with 3rdEd SJ

In <URL:news:local.spelljam> on Wed 10 May, Olander wrote:
> Lets see if I can't put together a good example that makes sense. Licensing
> can be fun.
> 
> The goal of the conversion process is to allow new people to play older
> modules using 3rd edition rules without WotC having to do any of the work.
> With that in mind, they want you to convert rules but to have to own the
> original works to use those conversions.
> 
> As such, you're looking at 2nd edition adventure that reads:
> [flavor text flavor text flavor text]stat block for Dragon[flavor text
> flavor text flavor text]stats for magic sword[flavor text flavor text flavor
> text]
> 
> What the ESD guide would want you to do it write out:
> Legal Header Info
> Page 5: D20 Stats for Dragon
> Page 15: D20 Stats for Magic Sword
> Legal Footer Info
> Open Gaming License
> 
> That's easier to do.. and rather boring to read and makes next to no sense
> out of context.
> 
> Now with a big book of rules, you can fudge things. Is the fact that
> Spelljammer uses binary gravity a description of the setting or is it an
> actual rule? Honestly, its both.. but seeing as how the SRD's planar rules
> actually have a section on gravity, it isn't too hard to call them rules.
> I'm more comfortable having that SRD backup. There is a fine line between
> writing out the stats for elves and discussing the culture of the elvin
> imperial navy.

There seems to be more than one version of the SJ rules, at least
my CoAS downloaded PDF has text not in my CoAS dead trees
version.  How are you supposed to handle this, where page numbers
might vary?


> Now as for Mind Flayers.. yes, they do appear in the 3rd edition Monster
> Manual. Where they don't appear however is in the SRD which is what you are
> supposed to be using for doing your conversions. When creating the finalized
> version of the SRD, WotC made the strategic descision to keep out every
> monster that was distinct to D&D. Mind Flayers, Beholders, Displacer Beasts,
> Yaun-Ti.. basically anything that doesn't have have an antecedent outside of
> Dungeons and Dragons. They are Intellectual Property and they are gold.
> Personally, I don't blame them.
> 
> Malhavok's 'If Thoughts Could Kill' adventure originally had mind-flayers as
> the badguys of the adventure. They were forced to remove them and ended up
> creating a different monster to fill that role as part of the update. This
> is Malhavok as in Monte "I created 3rd edition" Cook.

So, if I understand you and Static, we can't effectively do a
conversion of SJ, because we would have to leave out most of the
text that makes sense of the 3rdEd rules that we are converting.

For SJ the SRD is of very limited use, as it is so heavily tied
to major monsters not in the SRD.  We might not even be able to
mention the ship hulls and helm types that belong to these
monsters!


The SRD approach would only seem to make sense if there was some
way we could provide (hypertext?) links to the existing 2ndEd SJ
rules, that would allow people that have these to patch our 3rdEd
changes in.

There is no way that we could do this that I am familiar with,
unless there is some clever PDF trick.

Someone want to approach Adobe? [grin]


> On 5/10/06, Dreamer <dreamer@??????.?????.??.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > For rules books like the Spelljammer core books, there would seem to be
> > > a bit more liberty in how you transfer the rules over but you have to
> > > watch out for Flavor text.
> >
> > Would you care to expand on why this might be an issue?
> >
> >
> > > Doing the conversion through this document gives a little extra leway in
> > > terms of using Trademarks that you wouldn't normally have access to..
> > > such as putting 'Spelljammer' and other trademarks (I'd tread carefully
> > > when using MindFlayers however) onto your document.
> >
> > Why are there issues about Mind Flayers?
> >
> > They appear in the 3rdEd MM, which also says they are
> > alternatively called illithids.
> >
> > Did the estate of H.P. Lovecraft get upset, or something?  Or
> > Chaosium?

-- 
Dreamer
dreamer@??????.?????.??.uk
http://www.romsys.demon.co.uk/