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Post by krusader74 on Jan 24, 2017 18:53:26 GMT -6
This letter is an excellent find. Scott Rosenberg is asking permission to infringe on 3 of TSR's exclusive rights: - To reproduce copyrightable elements (specifically tables) from TSR publications
- To make a derivative work by arranging these tables in a new work
- To distribute this work to his friends
WRT #1, many people in this discussion seem to think its OK to photocopy/scan/print parts of a book for personal use, but this infringes on the copyright owner's exclusive right to reproduce the work, in whole or in part. In many old TSR publications one could find explicit written permission to print an element of the work, such as this Character Sheet from Mentzer Basic D&D: Given that TSR provided permission only on certain elements, like this one, leads me to conclude that they did not approve of copying for personal use in general, and would not have allowed Scott Rosenberg to copy the tables even if he agreed not to distribute them. WRT #3, Scott Rosenberg is not making a profit from distributing his derivative work---he's selling copies at cost. Nevertheless, this use has a high likelihood of causing TSR to lose revenue, because Scott's friends won't have to buy the book if they have cheaper copies of the tables. Regardless of whether the use is commercial or not, distribution of a copyrighted work still violates the law. And noncommercialiaty is only one of many factors that must be weighed together to determine whether there's a fair use limitation on the owner's exclusive rights.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 22, 2017 15:14:49 GMT -6
The Non-Euclidean DungeonThe above quote comes from an article in Dungeon that describes an AD&D adventure for 3-6 characters, levels 6-8. The dungeon is non-euclidean, which makes it difficult to map and take longer to explore. Q: If you were inside a non-euclidean dungeon, how would you know? A: Through an analysis of the angles. Here are two images, excerpted from the above article, with my own commentary explaining how an analysis of the angles is the most important factor in determining the type of geometry with which you're dealing: Figure 2: The walls and corridors look straight. But the space is warped. Standing inside room 1, 2 or 3, the angle between the two doors leading to the corridors connecting to the other two rooms appears to be 90 degrees. So the sum of the angles in this triangle of rooms is 270 degrees. Since that's greater than 180 degrees, we're dealing with spherical geometry--you could realize this dungeon physically by inscribing it on the surface of a sphere. Remark: In Euclidean geometry the sum of the interior angles in a triangle is exactly 180 degrees; and in hyperbolic geometry, it's less than 180. Figure 4: The contour lines are straight lines. So the corridors are straight too. The distance between the intersection of contour lines is 10'. From inside room 1, the two corridors appear to be parallel, but from inside room 2, they appear to be perpendicular! Curious AnglesHP Lovecraft understood well the importance of peculiar angles in non-euclidean geometry. These odd angles are features in TCoC and DWH. Up to this point, I've been emphasizing the 4D geometry of DWH. But DWH doesn't simply deal with 4D geometry, it deals with non-euclidean 4D geometry. Here are all 11 references to the strange angles that inhabit DWH: Brown Jenkin Lives!The last quote is the most interesting to me, because it implies that Brown Jenkin was really a 4 (or higher!) dimensional being---Brown Jenkin was to us 3D-ers what the sphere was to A. Square in Flatland. So the skeletal remains discovered in the fire-damaged witch house was no more Brown Jenkin's whole skeleton than one circular cross section was the sphere's whole skeleton in Flatland. This sets up the possibility that Brown Jenkin is not really dead and may come back in a sequel, a possibility that later writers have exploited if you look through the references I gave in the OP.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 21, 2017 15:49:20 GMT -6
After seeking further clarification, DTRPG just sent me this email:
So, in other words, if you try to get your PDF printed at FedEx/Kinkos or Lulu.com, and they ask for written permission, then you can email DTRPG customer service and get a Permission to Print letter from them. Their email address is
custserv@onebookshelf.com
and you should include your order number(s) and product title(s) for the PDFs you want to print.
(Still not sure why WotC's customer service script differs from DriveThru's. No updates on that front yet.)
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 21, 2017 15:41:23 GMT -6
Just to be clear, this customer service representative is from DNDClassics.com, now called dmsguild.com, which is not WotC---it's actually part of OneBookShelf.com, a "family of premiere online marketplaces including RPGNow, DriveThruRPG, DriveThruCards, DnDClassics, DriveThruComics, DriveThruFiction, and Wargame Vault," and so this info is 100% consistent with the information I've gotten from DTRPG, but still conflicts with the last email I got from WotC.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 20, 2017 17:54:55 GMT -6
Perhaps you're saying, "space shifting" was already a right in 1992 as soon as George Bush signed the AHRA into law, because the Sony Betamax (1984) precedent somehow cryptically recognized that right, even though the technology to express those rights wouldn't even exist for 14 years after the Betamax case was decided… Yes, space shifting was already a right. The Betamax case was about taking media from one format one media (television broadcast from film) and shifting it to a different format (video tape). There’s nothing cryptic about it. It is space shifting with a time shift added (which is why it’s usually called time shifting—but it involves all of the requirements to make it space shifting). Again, this runs to the point you actually acknowledged, which is that copyright involves very specific restrictions on what people can do with what they purchase; anything outside those specific restrictions are still open to purchasers. One of them is watching that movie a few days after it aired by copying the broadcast to video tape; another is listening to music you purchased as an MP3 via your desktop workstation or as a CD in a music store, by copying it to your portable music device. The Sony Betamax (1984) decision was specifically about "time shifting," not "space shifting" or printing a PDF onto paper. SCOTUS decisions are very narrowly focused, and you're reading too much into them. In fact, the RIAA v Diamond (1999) "space shifting" case was decided by a district court, one of 11 (or 12 if you include DC), and any or all of these other district courts could still decide "space shifting" is not a "fair use," in which case SCOTUS would need to resolve the conflict and decide what's the law of the land. And another is reading that PDF as a book by copying it onto paper. Don't tell me, tell Wizards of the Coast---they seem to have a completely different view than you, according to the email I got from them, quoted above. Their view agrees with what I've been saying. Get them to see the light and change their minds.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 20, 2017 17:40:30 GMT -6
Another way to go would be not to stir the pot unnecessarily, which might become a bummer for lots of folks and instead go with the more lenient of the two until they work it out themselves if ever they discover that they need to do so. Why look for trouble. If you need it, it will find you. It is quite possible that when Wizards of the Coast says the PDF "must contain permission to print a personal copy" that this permission is equivalent to DTRPG not print disabling the PDF. In other words, the permission is not somewhere to be found in the text itself, but rather in the lack of DRM in the PDF. Then there is no conflict to resolve, and no one here has anything to worry about! But I'm not sure what's the harm in asking for clarification? I suppose the worst that can happen: (a) Wizards yanks all their PDFs from sale again, like they did in 2008, or (b) they DRM all their PDFs. That would be a major bummer, just like you say. But the circumstances that led to yanking the PDFs before was (supposedly) blatant piracy on Scribd (but probably also a dispute with Paizo over the contract to publish Dungeon and Dragon and competition for 3E arising from Pathfinder...). And adding DRM is bound to lower demand, prices and profits---after all, Wizards must compete against a lot of other publishers with similar products who do not and will never DRM their products. I don't think Wizards desires either of these worst case scenarios. It's fascinating to me that nearly all parties involved (the publisher, the retailer, and many customers except maybe Fearghus and me) prefer to leave this question hazy and ambiguous, arguing over it in the abstract, rather than getting a clear, concrete answer.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 20, 2017 16:25:18 GMT -6
I am looking to get Chainmail soon, and already purchased the three LBB's and supplements (all in PDF). May those be legally printed through a commercial org (lulu, Staples or Office Depot)? May they be legally printed from my home printer? My initial thought was yes since it is a printable document format and I bought a copy, but I didn't want to start uploading files to lulu or Staples if I am in the wrong. OK, here is the authoritative answer that I got via email from Wizards of the Coast customer service: So, in sum, they're saying: Some of the PDFs they sell online already contain permission to print a personal copy. But if the PDF doesn't contain explicit permission, then you must request permission, using a form. Clicking on the link in the email got me to a page titled Wizards: Use of Wizards' Intellectual Property. The relevant part is at the bottom of the screen, quoted below. It describes the form to use when making a request for permission, how to submit the form, and how long to expect to wait for a reply: OK, here is my main peeve with this reply: It conflicts with DTRPG's policy that says it's OK to print a PDF for personal use, unless the print function is disabled. These guys really need to get on the same page. WotC should ask DTRPG to disable the print function in any PDF they don't want printed! So here are the steps I plan to take next: - Re-open my customer service issues with both DTRPG and WotC, and explain that their policies appear to conflict with each other.
- Check CM and the 3LBBs for permission to print personal copies.
- And assuming there is no explicit permission in these PDFs: Request permission to print CM and 3LBBs using Wizard's IP request form (above), wait, and see if I receive a response within 6 weeks.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 20, 2017 16:24:38 GMT -6
So Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus isn't relevant to what I was saying in the above quote, nor is it relevant to the OP. It is relevant to whether copyright means that things purchased are mere licenses, however. The reason that the first-sale doctrine doesn't apply to ebooks is not that ebook copyrights are licenses, but that the only way to resell an ebook (or any other digital-only work) is to make a copy and then distribute that copy, sans original. As far as I know, the controlling case is still Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi Inc. This is relevant to the OP because it goes to the heart of whether they have purchased something (in which case they have all rights that have not been restricted) or they have licensed something (that is, they have only the rights that were licensed). A purchase of an ebook is still a purchase, and the purchaser has the right to use it as they would any other purchase, sans the specific copyright restrictions. It remains perfectly legal, for example, without any permission, to backup your ebooks and other digital-only purchases, and to transfer them to whichever display device you prefer regardless of which you purchased them on. 17 U.S. Code § 106 gives a copyright holder 6 exclusive rights to a copyrighted work: - To reproduce it
- To distribute it
- To make derivative works from it
- To perform it
- To display it
- To perform it via digital transmission
"To license" something just means to obtain someone's permission to do something that he has an exclusive right to do. Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus (1908) merely says that the right of exclusive sale is not one of these 6 rights for a physical book. But if I want to do any of the 6 things above with the book, e.g. publicly read it or write a sequel to it, then I must obtain the copyright holder's permission, i.e., I must license it from him! In Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi Inc. (2013), the SDNY Court decided that the First Sale Doctrine established by Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus (1908) does not apply to digital music sold on Apple iTunes. The court ruled that - ReDigi violated Capitol Records exclusive right to reproduce its music
- ReDigi violated Capitol Records exclusive right to distribute its music
- ReDigi did NOT violate Capitol Records exclusive right to publicly perform or display its music
WRT violating the exclusive right to distribute, ReDigi attempted 2 defenses: - First Sale Doctrine, i.e., Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus (1908). The court ruled this didn't apply, because: "technological change has rendered its literal terms ambiguous,..."
- Fair Use: Weighing the fair use factors, which I've talked about before, the court ruled that fair use did not apply in this case, because:
- ReDigi's use of the work was not transformative.
- The work was entitled to strong protection.
- The whole work was used.
- It was used for commercial purposes that were likely to damage sales.
Before they opened for business, ReDigi should have sought permission from the big music publishers and licensed their work to avoid this outcome! In the US, you are allowed to rip a CD to your computer and then copy it to your iPhone, because there is a law and a court ruling that gives you the specific right to do so... The law is the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992. The court ruling is RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. (1999). That decision said "spaceshifting" is a fair use of music you legally purchased. You’re switching the time frame here. That space shifting is a legal right came earlier than the AHRA. The Supreme Court addressed it in the Betamax case in the eighties. The AHRA was passed later to require copy restriction mechanisms (mostly on digital recording mechanisms), desired by video and audio recording companies. It was mainly in response to the growing ability to make perfect digital copies. The time frame I gave is correct. The AHRA (1992) came first, the RIAA v Diamond (1999) ruling came second: The RIAA v Diamond ruling adds "space shifting" as a fair use exception to the Serial Copy Management System that the AHRA requires manufacturers to put in their equipment. Perhaps you're saying, "space shifting" was already a right in 1992 as soon as George Bush signed the AHRA into law, because the Sony Betamax (1984) precedent somehow cryptically recognized that right, even though the technology to express those rights wouldn't even exist for 14 years after the Betamax case was decided, when Diamond made the first Rio in 1998. That's a very Platonic way to think about the law---Think of all the eternal rights that I have now that I don't know about yet because they simply haven't been "recognized" yet by the courts, and all the rights that I think I have that I don't really have because they will be overturned by some future decision... Unfortunately, the police and juries are going to hold me accountable to the laws and court cases that are on the books right now.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 17, 2017 19:13:21 GMT -6
There is a lot of interest in this question, so I went ahead and contacted DTRPG and WotC. I will post back if I get a reply. DTRPG responded almost immediately. They basically said the same exact thing I said in my first post on page 1---It is OK to print for personal use unless printing is disabled, which it is not in either CM or the 3LBBs. Here is their exact reply, so you can show your friendly local print shop employee when you go to get it printed and bound: Thanks to DTRPG for such a fast reply!!! No reply yet from WotC. But I will post back again as soon as I hear something. Hope this helps!
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 17, 2017 18:11:13 GMT -6
Fearghus -- Has DTRPG responded to your customer service inquiry yet? Have you tried getting CM printed at Lulu.com or Staples? Please post back with any updates! Hello, I did not inquire from DTRPG via email/mail/phone. On their site, the particular items (3LBB and CM) did not state that printing was disabled. In the meantime, I have refrained from printing any of the items. A few notes as needed are logged into my gaming journal, and I left it at that. I apologize if I discouraged you from contacting customer support. There is a lot of interest in this question, so I went ahead and contacted DTRPG and WotC. I will post back if I get a reply. Here is a copy of the email I sent to DTRPG: ALPINE 2.20 COMPOSE MESSAGE <Mail> sent-mail 3 Msgs
To : custserv@onebookshelf.com Cc : Attchmnt: Subject : Printing ebooks ----- Message Text ----- On your website, you used to have an FAQ that said it was OK to print ebooks and copy selections to the clipboard. That FAQ has gone missing.
My questions are:
1. Am I permitted to print a PDF I purchased from your store on my home printer for personal use only?
2. Am I permitted to print and bind a PDF I purchased from your store at FedEx/Kinkos or Lulu.com, if it's for personal use only?
3. Why did you remove this FAQ from your website?
Thanks for your help! ^G Get Help ^X Send ^R Read File ^Y Prev Pg ^K Cut Text ^O Postpone ^C Cancel ^J Justify ^W Where is ^V Next Pg ^U UnCut Text^T To Spell
(And yes, I still use Pine as my primary email program---no ads, no malware, no worries. I'm still livin' like it's 1990.) And here is the inquiry I made to WotC:
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 17, 2017 17:31:11 GMT -6
Not only that, but a strict interpretation of copyright law as desired by publishers would require libraries not to exist... Fearghus specifically asked about ebooks. Ebooks are treated differently under the law than physical books. Ebooks are licensed, not sold. "The Big Six" publishers do in fact license their ebooks to libraries. This 2-page PDF describes their licensing terms and pricing for libraries. The American Library Association has more details on how and why they license ebooks here. Libraries predate copyright law by thousands of years. They have coped very well with all the recent technology changes and updated IP laws. I expect they'll survive and may even outlast copyright laws!
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 17, 2017 17:03:36 GMT -6
Just because you have purchased a book does not mean that you own the copyrights to the content (text, graphics) in the book -- you merely license the content from the copyright owner. This is completely untrue. If purchasing, say, a book, were in actuality a license, book publishers would be able to forbid you from reselling the book if they wanted to, as a condition of the license. They do want to, and have often tried. But the courts say that purchasing a book is not a license, but in fact a purchase, and you can resell it if you wish. This has been a consistent interpretation of United States copyright law up to the Supreme Court since at least Bobbs-Merrill in 1908, and continues to be the interpretation today. Copyright is specifically a restriction on the things you could otherwise legally do with what you purchase; it does not turn a purchase into a license. Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus merely decided that copyright owners do not have, among their 6 exclusive rights, "the right of exclusive sale." And this decision only applies to physical books. Fearghus is asking about ebooks. And the law and the courts have said that the First Sale Doctrine does not apply to digital goods like ebooks. Furthermore, Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus reasserted the copyright owners "sole liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing, completing, copying, executing, finishing, and vending." And Fearghus is asking specifically about printing or reprinting, not about reselling his CM PDF! So Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus isn't relevant to what I was saying in the above quote, nor is it relevant to the OP. In the United States, in general, it is legal to make copies of things that you own. Copyright covers the right to distribute new copies. When you copy a CD to your computer so that you can listen to it in your jukebox software, you are not breaking the law; the same is true when you copy that copy from your jukebox software to your phone or portable music device. When MP3.com got into trouble, it was because they were making one copy of a CD, and then distributing that one copy to everyone who showed that they owned a different copy that CD. According to the courts, if MP3.com had been copying each user’s CD, and then letting that user listen to that particular copy made from their own CD, they would have been fine. (At the time, this would have been prohibitively expensive due to the massive hard disk space it would have required.) ... This means that it is legal to print from a PDF copy that you own, and for third-party services to print from your PDF copy on your behalf, as long as you aren't bypassing any restriction mechanisms (laws other than copyright make some attempts to circumvent such restrictions illegal). In the US, you are allowed to rip a CD to your computer and then copy it to your iPhone, because there is a law and a court ruling that gives you the specific right to do so... The law is the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992. The court ruling is RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. (1999). That decision said "spaceshifting" is a fair use of music you legally purchased. Arguing from these cases about CDs to Fearghus 's question about ebooks involves a false analogy and a hasty generalization.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 17, 2017 5:46:01 GMT -6
Please, folks, since this seems something of great interest to many in our community, let's try and keep the discussion focused on the actual case Fearghus described For the record, I'm not capable of giving Fearghus definitive answers to his specific questions. The only ones who can provide these answers are For peace of mind, I urge getting definitive answers from these sources! Since WotC owns the rights to these books, they're your main concern. If you contact them for clarification, and you follow their guidance, then you're not infringing their rights. Lulu.com's terms of service make you affirm that you own the content or have the owner's permission and can provide evidence of such: They may (or may not) print the content. But you ought to have an email or something giving you permission from WotC or DTRPG in accordance with (iii) above! We're not talking about supposed rights of reproduction Printing a copy of a book is reproduction. Sorry to disagree with @rafael and tetramorph over this. But I am disagreeable in nature. I like to argue (no...) I love to argue. I particularly like to take the unpopular side in an argument. I envy you. I truly do. The US has 5% of the world's population, but it has 70% of the world's lawyers. That helps explain why outside the US, there's lax enforcement of copyright laws. Nevertheless, 94 out of 196 countries in the world all share the same exact copyright law: The WIPO Copyright Treaty. That includes Germany, the UK, and the US. let's please also not potentially scare or scandalize people Sorry if I scare or scandalize anyone! I live in the US. My experiences here may be different from yours. I have actually been refused service in a Kinkos for suspicion of copyright/trademark violation. This was not a personal matter either---I had been given sales flyers and posters by my corporate overlords at a huge retail book chain to copy in order to promote the release of a new book, and Kinkos insisted on seeing a permission letter from the book publisher, something we couldn't get on short notice; Kinkos did not care that I worked for a retailer trying to promote and sell the book. So I had to seek out a small shady copy shop with loose morals in order to print the copies and keep the job. That was eons ago. The US has gotten much scarier since then; and it'll get much scarier the end of this week. Lastly, if it's any consolation, just because I've argued for the strictest possible interpretation for the law doesn't mean that's my personal view. IMHO, existing copyright laws are made by publishers and lawyers to get rich, with little or no work. The laws and the legal profession both need reform. I don't agree with them. They're not fair!!! This clip from the 1941 serial, The Riders of Death Valley Chapter 2 summarizes the tension between my personal view and what I've argued above:
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 16, 2017 21:58:44 GMT -6
Fearghus -- Has DTRPG responded to your customer service inquiry yet? Have you tried getting CM printed at Lulu.com or Staples? Please post back with any updates! It is not illegal to make copies of something you have paid to use. Not so. Just because you have purchased a book does not mean that you own the copyrights to the content (text, graphics) in the book -- you merely license the content from the copyright owner. Copyright owners have six exclusive rights when it comes to using their content. For book copyright owners, the relevant exclusive rights are - The right to reproduce the copyrighted content in copies in any form -- hardcopies, sound recordings, scanned copies to your hard disk, whatever.
- The right to distribute copies of the content to the public by sale, transfer of ownership, rental, lease, or lending.
- The right to make derivative works.
Unless you have written permission from the copyright owner, you may not do any of these things without infringing his rights! Fair use is a defense against copyright infringement, but you better be able to tick most of the boxes in the checklist of 7 factors I presented above. Digital books have even more restrictive licensing terms than physical books. For example, the terms and conditions for comic books sold at Comixology.com clearly state that I have no right to resell the content---something I may do with physical goods. I have no right to print it out---I merely have the right to access it online via their app. Not only would making hardcopies violate the licensing terms, since it is DRM'd, making hardcopies would also violate the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA, for which there is no fair use defense, and which carry even harsher penalties than copying non-DRM'd materials. For these reasons, I prefer physical comics to digital ones, and I prefer non-DRM'd digital comics to DRM'd ones, unless either - Physical copies are inaccessible to me (out-of-distribution or cost prohibitive); or
- Digital goods are sold at a deep discount (50% off or more).
Most people are confused about copyrights. Back in 2000, USA Today did a poll, and 60% of the respondents said they thought it was not illegal (or immoral) to download music from Napster. But just because that's the consensus view does not make it the legal view. Making copies of copyrighted material carries a low risk of criminal prosecution. Typically, states in the US don't prosecute copyright cases. Since 1999, the US Federal government has only prosecuted about 30 copyright cases per year. And about 29 out of these 30 are settled via plea bargain with only 1 going to trial. And outside the US there are virtually no criminal prosecutions. Civil suits are another matter. The number of non file-sharing copyright cases averaged about 2,000 per year for the last 4 years. There were about 100,000 mass lawsuits against anonymous file-sharers filed in 2010 alone. These mass lawsuits have waned, but there's still 2,000-4,000 civil cases against file-sharers per year since then. Making a copy on your home printer may be very low risk, possibly zero risk. Of course, the low risk of negative repercussions from the act does not equate with the legality of the act. But making a copy at FedEx/Kinkos is a totally different story. Kinkos is routinely targeted for copyright violations by publishers, and as a result they usually follow a very cautious C.Y.A. approach -- if you don't have written permission from the copyright owner, they're not supposed to make copies for you. Doesn't matter if it's for educational use, personal use, or other fair uses... Like I said, fair use is always weighed on a case-by-case basis, using the factors I illustrated above. What's fair use here may not be there. In Basic Books, Inc. v. Kinko's Graphics Corporation (1991), a professor made copies of some articles for classroom use at Kinkos. He owned the journals he was copying. He was not copying whole journals, just a few articles. The District Court of Southern New York ruled that articles copied for educational use are not necessarily fair use and held Kinkos (not the professor) liable for damages! Lulu.com is in the same boat as Kinkos. I am aware of some recent federal lawsuits filed against them by publishers, for example this one (cached, NSFW). As a result, in the future, I expect to see them increasingly exercise more caution and make sure that users own the copyright or have the copyright owner's written permission.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 12, 2017 2:50:10 GMT -6
While Hendrick's critique of D&D is uncomplimentary, I agree with extildepo , jacar , and derv that it is neither unfair nor malicious. And Hendrick wasn't the only one with the same issues circa 1974-5. Interestingly, in the foreword to Tunnels & Trolls (1E, 1975), Ken St. Andre echoes two of Hendrick's main criticisms of D&D: Regarding the $10 price tag in 1974: That's about $50 today, according to the BLS CPI calculator. At first glance, that seems way cheaper than 5E (about 1/3rd of the price: $50 MSRP per volume times 3 volumes). OTOH, 5E consists of three hardbound books, 320 pages each, while the 3LBBs are only about 150 pages all together, and a new paperback of that size today retails somewhere in the range $10-$20. Regarding rules simplification/clarification: The game as written assumes players are coming from a miniature wargaming background, and nevertheless leaves even experienced wargamers (like Hendrick) with open questions. The fact that many people (outside Gary's and Dave's circles of players) had difficulty understanding the rules as written makes itself manifest in several ways: - The fact that The Strategic Review and later The Dragon published regular Q&A columns.
- The subsequent publication of rules simplifications (Holmes' Basic) and rules expansions (AD&D). Holmes even states in the Preface: "This work is far more detailed and more easily understood than were the original booklets..."
- All the many rules questions and varied interpretations on this very discussion forum!
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 12, 2017 2:01:55 GMT -6
Assuming that you legally purchased CM and the 3LBBs from DriveThruRPG.com, in the past their explicit policy was that you may print a hardcopy of your PDF (and copy selections to the clipboard): I say "in the past," because this FAQ no longer exists on their site! Their current policy seems to be: You may print hardcopies (and copy selections to the clipboard) unless these functions have been disabled in the PDF. This policy is implicit in the verbiage on their support page: Unable to print PDF file. If you are not allowed to print a PDF, it says so in the "Product Information" block on the right hand side of the screen on the product page: Here is a screenshot of Champions Annual #2 that shows you an example of what I'm talking about: Rarely, some PDFs, like Diaspora spell out your right to make a hardcopy: (I wish more publishers would do this!) But in general, it is illegal to make any copies (including hardcopies) of a copyrighted ebook (or any other copyrighted material), unless the copyright owner gives you written permission to make such copies. So unless: - The seller has a policy allowing printing hardcopies like DTRPG or
- The book itself gives you written permission to print hardcopies like Diaspora or
- You have contacted the publisher and gotten their written permission to print hardcopies
then it is illegal for you to make hardcopies!!! Some publishers include a strongly worded copyright notice like this, forbidding any and all copying: However, this "All rights reserved..." stuff is completely unnecessary, since the law gives the copyright owners all the rights anyway. You can argue that it's fair use to print a hardcopy. But this must be decided by the courts on a case-by-case basis. They will weigh 7 factors: - Do you own the copyright to the work? No.
- Do you have the owner's permission? No.
- Is your use for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research? No. It's for recreation.
- Is the purpose and character of the use commercial or noncommercial? Noncommercial.
- What is the nature of the underlying work you are reproducing? Is it highly creative and subject to strong copyright protection, or is it less creative or perhaps even not subject to copyright protection at all? This is a highly creative work that is entitled to strong copyright protection.
- Did you use the whole work or just a few words? The whole thing.
- Will your use of the work cause the owner to lose money? No, because you paid for the ebook and the hardcopy is for personal use only.
Of the 7 fair use factors, you would only win on the two, (4) and (7), in green, so you would not likely be able to invoke the fair use defense successfully. Printing out a copy on your home printer is one thing. Taking it to Kinkos or a University print shop or having it printed, bound, and shipped from Lulu is another matter. Especially if you're making multiple copies. Some printers will not do this without written permission from the copyright holder. No doubt you can print a copy on your home printer, and you can (sometimes) get Kinkos and Lulu to make hardcopies for you. But without permission, it is still illegal. "Can" does not imply "may." I suggest following these steps when you want to print a hardcopy: - Look for permission on the seller's customer service website or FAQ.
- Failing that, look for permission on the copyright page of the book itself.
- Failing that, write to the publisher and obtain written permission.
WRT step #3, I recommend the book: Getting Permission: Using & Licensing Copyright-Protected Materials Online & Off by Richard Stim, Attorney.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 10, 2017 8:27:19 GMT -6
Arnold J Hendrick wrote uncomplimentary reviews of Chainmail and D&D. You can read his review of D&D reprinted on DF here (you need to scroll about half way down to find it). Gary Gygax wrote a review of Hendrick's review in Strategic Review #3. There, Gygax invites his followers to write (uncomplimentary) reviews of Hendrick's games (maybe the first ever RPG flame war???)... Both Hendrick's review and Gygax's response are reprinted and analyzed on the Bag of Holding blog. There is a 3-part interview with Arnold J. Hendrick on YouTube. Each part is about 15 minutes: From that, you can find out his educational background is military history. And his professional experience is game design: - (Tabletop) Wargames
- Video games (at MicroProse)
- Wargames for the US military
The primary focus of this interview is his video game, Darklands, a 1992 MS-DOS game. But in Part 2, he talks a little about pencil-and-paper RPGs. He mentions his favorite RPGs are: - (Classic) Traveller
- Runequest
(D&D is obviously absent from the list...) He also mentions his friendship with Lawrence Schick and Sandy Petersen, whom he brought into MicroProse as game designers. Quoting from Wikipedia: Petersen, a fan of HP Lovecraft, wrote the Call of Cthulhu RPG in 1981; he also wrote dozens of video games, most notably DOOM. At MicroProse, he worked on Civilization and Darklands (with Hendrick). There was a review of Hendrick's Darklands in Dragon issue #190 (February 1993), pp 56-57. It got 4/5 stars (not an uncomplimentary review)... Hendrick wrote the manual and the clue book. In the interview, he offers to send you a copy, if you don't have one. In Part 3, Hendrick talks about a severe bug in the Darklands endgame, which eventually caused it to become a financial loss for the company. Darklands is available on GOG for $5.99.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 7, 2017 6:28:58 GMT -6
TesseractsThere were two really great articles published in The Dragon in the early 80s that discussed four-dimensional dungeons. Specifically, both articles concern dungeons embedded in tesseracts, the 4D analogs of 3D cubes. In the previous post, I mentioned that the term tesseract was coined by Charles Howard Hinton in his 1888 book, A New Era of Thought, a public domain book you can read free and legally online (follow the link to Google books). The first Dragon article was "Which Way is Up? Well, It all depends... Tesseracts" by Allen Wells, appearing in The Dragon #38, Vol. IV, No. 12, June 1980, pp. 14--15. The article provides nice graphics for unfolding and projecting a cube... ...and unfolding and projecting a tesseract... This article ends with some further reading suggestions: The second Dragon article was "The Dancing Hut -- An AD&D game adventure for high-level heroes" by Roger Moore, appearing in The Dragon #83, Vol. VIII, No. 9, March 1984, pp. 31--52. Here is the main excerpt that deals with the 4D aspect of the adventure:
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 6, 2017 15:40:17 GMT -6
Ana and KataQ: We use the names "Up" and "Down" for the directions in the third dimension. So what are the names for the directions in the fourth spatial dimension? A: They're called "Ana" and "Kata." They were named by Charles Howard Hinton in his 1888 book, A New Era of Thought, starting on page 169. This book is also where we get the term "tesseract" for the four-dimensional analog of a cube. I'm a little surprised that Lovecraft did not use these terms in DWH, given the importance of these directions throughout the story, and also given that these terms had been around for over 40 years when DWH was penned. You can bet that in my next dungeon, I'm going to have stairwells marked "Ana" and "Kata," the use of which make characters dizzy and disoriented as they witness "unknown colours and rapidly shifting surface angles." Until the players realize they're traveling through the fourth dimension, the maps they make will soon become corrupt and useless, and the characters will likely get lost. One idea to help map such a dungeon consistently would be to use SO(4), the 6-dimensional noncommutative Lie group of all rotations about the origin of four-dimensional Euclidean space R4 under the operation of composition. The 3D analog is SO(3), the Lie group of all rotations about the origin of three-dimensional Euclidean space R3 under the operation of composition. We can represent group elements as matrices. For example, R x(θ) is the rotation that fixes the x-axis: For example, place the origin of an xyz coordinate system in the middle of the dungeon, and let East be the positive x-axis (+x), North be +y and Up be +z. Applying R x(90 °) to the dungeon will position the Up/Down dungeon cross-section in the x-y plane, just like the image below found in in Holes Basic, with Up/Down replacing North/South, and with East/West remaining unchanged. North/South gets rotated out of view. Here is the image: You can check this calculation in WolframAlpha by multiplying R x(90 °) by the Up column vector (0,0,1) and seeing that the result is the North column vector (0,1,0). The dungeon mapping idea would be to model the 4D dungeon using a wxyz coordinate plane, and rotate +w (Ana) into the +y (North) position, like we did with the Holmes Basic image above. By using SO(4) rotations like this, we can map the 4D dungeon consistently. Lie Groups and Lie Algebras play an important role in both Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. In Relativity, the Poincaré group of spacetime isometries (translations, rotations, and boosts) is a 10-dimensional Lie Group. We talked about the commutator bracket in reference to Heisenberg Uncertainty in QM in the previous post. We can use the commutator bracket to turn every associative algebra into a Lie Algebra. We may discuss Lie Groups and Algebras in more detail in a later post.
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Post by krusader74 on Dec 31, 2016 6:00:49 GMT -6
Kent David Kelly, the author of Hawk & Moor, avidly played D&D until his parents banned him from the game after watching Mazes and Monsters in 1982. Mazes and Monsters is the fictionalized account of the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert in 1979. This simply forced Kelly to re-channel his obsession with D&D into CRPGs: Here's a list of the 10 referenced CRPGs:
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Post by krusader74 on Dec 22, 2016 19:17:50 GMT -6
Two more examples of non-existent books from comics: - Batman's Black Casebook, where he records his most difficult cases.
- The Book of the Vishanti from Doctor Strange:
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Post by krusader74 on Dec 20, 2016 19:49:11 GMT -6
Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio (A Star Trek Themed Opera)In this production, the Turks are Klingons. The women are green-skinned Orion slave girls. How does this video only have 5,066 views?! In my posts, I've tried to show that opera works in any genre: Fantasy, Western, Horror or Sci-Fi. Here's some more sci-fi examples: In Star Trek: Voyager, the Doctor (Robert Picardo) sings selections from - Puccini's La Bohème
- Verdi's Rigolleto
- Verdi's Don Carlos
And there was another opera-themed episode of ST:V called Virtuoso guest starring Paul Williams.
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Post by krusader74 on Dec 20, 2016 19:47:14 GMT -6
(Painting of Caroline Mason) Lucia di LammermoorTime: Early 18th century. Place: Scotland Characters: Enrico is the Lord of Lammermoor. He lives in a castle with his sister Lucia. They are feuding with their neighbor, Sir Edgardo of Ravenswood. Plot: The Lammermoors have fallen on hard financial times. To rescue the family, Enrico wants to marry off his sister Lucia to Lord Arturo Bucklaw. However, Lucia has secretly fallen in love with Sir Edgardo of Ravenswood, her family's nemesis. They swear oaths to heaven to marry each other. But before then can wed, Edgardo must go to France for several weeks to take care of some political business. While he's away, Enrico fabricates a story that Edgardo is in France womanizing and has taken another to be his wife. He uses this fake news to persuade Lucia to marry Arturo. Edgardo arrives back in Scotland only moments too late to stop the wedding. On their wedding night, Lucia stabs Arturo to death -- she's gone completely mad. She sings the famous "Mad Scene" and then commits suicide. Edgardo stabs himself with a dagger, hoping to join Lucia in heaven. There was an Italian film version of Lucia in 1971 starring Anna Moffo. It's no Zeffirelli film, but it's not bad. (Anna Moffo) The opera is based on Sir Walter Scott's historical novel, The Bride of Lammermoor (1819), a public domain book that you can read free and legally on Project Gutenberg. One thing that's mentioned in the opera but not explored in depth is the ghost of a girl killed by a jealous Ravenswood ancestor. Lucia sees this ghost in the woods where she secretly meets Edgardo each morning. Her maid tells her that the ghost is a warning that she must give up Edgardo. There's lot's of pop culture references to this opera. One of my favorites is on Cheers S4 E22 "Diane Chambers Day," in which the guys cheer Diane up by doing all her favorite things. Frasier arranges it for them to see her favorite opera, Lucia di Lammermoor. IIRC, they all fall asleep, including Diane. The Night of the Diva(Rosa Montebello performing as Lucia) In the Wild Wild West, season 4, in the episode entitled "The Night of the Diva", President Grant asks Artemus Gordon to escort the famous opera singer Rosa Montebello who is the daughter of the Italian ambassador to her performance of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in New Orleans. Two other opera divas who have performed Lucia have disappeared in New Orleans. Looking into the kidnappings, Jim and Artie discover a secret organization called the "Order of Lucia." Their investigation ultimately leads to the Crenshaw brothers. One is an opera patron. The other is a recluse who wears a Greek theater mask to hide his identity. Both are tied to a fire in the opera house years before which killed the great opera diva, Caroline Mason (a reference to Phantom of the Opera). (Masked Crenshaw) SPOILER: The masked Crenshaw is the real Caroline Mason. The fire did not kill her, but it did destroy her vocal cords, giving her a male voice and ruining her opera career. Ever since, she has been kidnapping opera singers who attempted to perform as Lucia. Mason locks the singers in giant bird cages in her basement, forcing them to perform Lucia until they get it right. This episode demonstrates a clever way to incorporate high brow (or highfalutin) ideas into an otherwise gritty, unrefined Western. It could be translated into a Boot Hill scenario. It could work (with modifications) in other systems and genres.
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Post by krusader74 on Dec 20, 2016 19:36:47 GMT -6
Operas about Vampires- I vampiri (1812) by Silvestro de Palma
- Le vampire (1826) by Martin-Joseph Mengal
- Der Vampyr (1828) by Peter Josef von Lindpaintner
- Der Vampyr (1828) by Heinrich Marschner
The last two operas were both indirectly based on the prose work, The Vampyre (1819), by John William Polidori. It was the first published modern vampire story. This story is in English. It's public domain. You can read it free and legally on Project Gutenberg. Der VampyrI want to focus on Marschner's Der Vampyr, since it might make a suitable D&D scenario. An english translation of the libretto is here. YouTube has some clips and a complete audio recording. Place: Scotland Time: The eighteenth century. On the Wiches' Sabbath. Starting between midnight and 1AM. The most favorable times for these secret meetings/outdoor orgies are the cross-quarter days... Night beginning... | ...Wee hours of |
---|
Jan 31: Imbolc | Feb 1: Saint Brigid's Day | Apr 30: Beltane/Walpurgis Night | May 1: May Day | Sep 30: Lughnasadh | Aug 1: Lammas Day | Oct 31: Samhain/Halloween | Nov 1: All Saints' Day |
Of these 4 times, the opera likely occurs on Walpurgis night. I say this for two reasons-- First, there's other examples of vampire literature explicitly occurring on this day of the year, e.g., Bram Stoker's short story Dracula's Guest. Second, it's relationship to weddings, an important theme running through the opera. Many people rushed to get married in April, because it was inauspicious to get married in May: (1) May is the Roman Feast of the Dead, (2) there were pagan outdoor orgies on Beltane, and (3) it was forbidden to marry during Lent (usually in May). Also, this opera premiered at the end of March. So my guess is that it is supposed to be Beltane/Walpurgis Night, and this opera is reinforcing the traditional view on the inauspiciousness of marriage at this time. Characters: Witches. We may suppose these witches are engaged in the usual Beltane festivities: - riding flying goats
- trampling the cross
- re-baptising themselves in the name of the Devil
- giving their clothes to the Devil
- kissing the Devil's bottom
- dancing back to back in a round
The "Vampire Master" referred to in the opera might actually be the Devil, the Black-Man, Pan or He Goat of the Woods, and not necessarily a vampire. I.e., he controls the vampires, without having to be one of them. The main character is Lord Ruthven, a suave British nobleman. And a vampire. His character has been adapted into many other works of fiction, including Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera Ruddigore. (There's an animated version of Ruddigore on YouTube.) Plot: The vampire master reminds Lord Ruthven that he has a 24-hour time limit, starting at 1AM, to "sacrifice" 3 virgins: - Success - Ruthven lives 1 more year
- Failure - Ruthven dies
Using his high charisma, Ruthven tricks 2 girls to come into the forest and "dance" with him on the night before their weddings. In each case he is caught, but only after killing the girl. In the first case, he is stabbed by her fiancee. In the second, shot. But exposure to Moonlight cures his wounds!Next Ruthven tries to pose as his own brother, Marsden, and marry a third girl, Malwina, at midnight... Sir Aubrey has sworn to keep his secret until the clock strikes 1AM or become a vampire himself. But Aubrey is in love with Malwina. He successfully delays the wedding until 1AM, when he is released from his oath. He tells everyone that Marsden is really Ruthven the vampire. Since Ruthven has failed to sacrifice 3 virgins by 1AM, he is struck by lightning and swallowed into hell! (Note that in "Dracula's Guest" (likely written ~1897), the female vampire is also destroyed by a lightning bolt on Walpurgis Night.) D&D Adaptation: There's at least a couple of options. - Do a literal translation, where the PCs stumble upon the Witches Sabbat in the woods, and overhear the Vampire Master reminding Lord Ruthven that he has 24 hours to sacrifice 3 virgins in order to live another year.
- The PCs are in a town/city. A wandering company of actors and musicians come to town to do a performance of Der Vampyre. Unbeknown to the townsfolk, the actor portraying Lord Ruthven is actually a vampire, and the other performers are his minions and witches. They plan to eat the townfolk shortly after the opera gets underway: First barring the doors of the theater and attacking the spectators trapped inside. Then going house to house, until they're sated. This opera company does this once per year, targeting an unsuspecting town each time -- there may be some record of it happening to a nearby town in the past, providing the PCs with a clue.
In both cases, - There's a 24-hour time limit in which Ruthven must sacrifice 3 virgins or die.
- All of Ruthven's wounds are healed by exposure to moonlight.
- Lightning kills Ruthven.
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Post by krusader74 on Dec 11, 2016 15:48:22 GMT -6
I have sent an email to Wizards of the Coast via their web interface requesting that they sell Chainmail again... Still no reply from OneBookshelf.com customer service. Will keep you posted... Just got this reply from OneBookshelf: Meanwhile, WotC asked me to take a survey to see if I was happy with their reply...
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Post by krusader74 on Dec 11, 2016 15:40:13 GMT -6
Appendix ∅: Non-existent BooksThis is a list of fictional books mentioned in works of fiction. This list isn't comprehensive (see the sublist of notable omissions below). Rather, it's my go-to list when I need a mysterious book when running a role-playing game. By {} or ∅, I just mean the empty set, the extensionality of this set of books. In Edwin A. Abbott's Flatland: - Through Flatland to Thoughtland by Prof. A. Square
In Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series: - Books attributed to Professor James Moriarty:
- The Dynamics of an Asteroid
- A Treatise on the Binomial Theorem
- Books attributed to Dr. John Watson:
- Books attributed to Sherlock Holmes:
- Chaldean Roots in the Ancient Cornish Language
- Early English Charters
- Malingering
- Of Tattoo Marks
- On Secret Writings
- On the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus
- On the Study of Tobaccos and their Ashes
- On the Surface Anatomy of the Human Ear
- On the Typewriter and Its Relation to Crime
- Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen
- Upon the Dating of Old Documents
- Upon the Influence of a Trade upon the Form of the Hand
- Upon the Tracing of Footsteps
- Upon the Uses of Dogs in the Work of the Detective
- Whole Art of Detection
In Frank L. Baum's Oz books: - Encyclopedia Donkaniara
- Glinda's Great Book of Records
By Eric Blair (aka George Orwell) in Nineteen Eighty-Four: - The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism by Emmanuel Goldstein
By Philip K. Dick: - The Grasshopper Lies Heavy by Hawthorne Abendsen (appears in In The Man in the High Castle)
- How I Rose From the Dead in My Spare Time and So Can You by A. J. Spectowsky (appears in In A Maze of Death)
- Here, Tyrant Death by Bishop Timothy Archer (appears in The Transmigration of Timothy Archer)
In Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy: In Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series: - Encyclopedia Galactica
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Mark II
- and many, many more...
In D&D: - The Book of Vile Darkness
Cthulhu MythosBy Robert W. Chambers in The King in Yellow: - The King in Yellow, a play by Castaigne (either the author or translator), also mentioned in H. P. Lovecraft's "The Whisperer in Darkness" (1930)
Books in the Cthulhu Mythos by H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, Lin Carter, et al.: - Azathoth and Other Horrors by Edward Pickman Derby
- Black Tome of Alsophocus
- Book of Azathoth (in H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dreams in the Witch House")
- Book of Eibon (in Clark Ashton Smith's "Ubbo-Sathla")
- Chronicles of Nath by James Sheffield
- Chronike von Nath by Rudolf Yergler
- Dhol Chants
- The Eltdown Shards (translated by Gordon Whitney)
- Ghorl Nigral (aka The Book of Night)
- Ilarnek Papyri
- Liber Ivonis
- Liber-D*mnatus
- Livre d'Eibon
- Necronomicon by Abdul al-Hazred (translated into Latin by Olaus Wormius)
- Pnakotic Manuscripts (in H. P. Lovecraf's "Polaris" (1918))
- Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan by Hsan the Greater (translated by Etienne-Laurent De Marigny)
- Unaussprechlichen Kulten (Nameless Cults) by Friedrich von Junzt
Lovecraftian books invented by Robert Bloch: - Cabala of Saboth
- Commentaries on Witchcraft by Mycroft
- De Vermis Mysteriis (Mysteries of the Worm) (in Bloch's short story "The Shambler from the Stars" (1935))
- Cultes des Goules by Comte d'Erlette
- Black Rites by Luveh-Keraphf (the author's name pays homage to Lovecraft)
Fake books attributed to Edgar Allan Poe, fabricated by Robert Bloch: - The Crypt
- The Further Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym
- The Worm of Midnight
Fictional newspapers- The Arkham Advertiser (in H. P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness)
- Daily Sentinel (published by Britt Reid in The Green Hornet)
- The Daily Planet (in Action Comics and Superman)
- Picture News (in The Flash)
- The Daily Prophet (from Harry Potter)
- The Daily Bugle (in Marvel Comics, esp Spider-Man)
- The Lone Gunmen (from The X-Files)
From TV and movies...In the Evil Dead movie series, the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis- Discovered by Professor Raymond Knowby
- Written by the Dark Ones
- Bound in human skin
- Inked in human blood
- Has a face on it
- Reading it out loud releases a Kandarian demon, which can possess inanimate and animate objects
From Death Note, the "Death Note" is a notebook that kills anyone whose name is written in it. On the inside of this black notebook are written the instructions ("How To Use"). Here are a few examples of its many rules: - The human whose name is written in this note shall die. This note will not take effect unless the writer has the subject's face in mind when writing his/her name. This is to prevent people who share the same name from being affected.
- If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of the subject's name, it will happen.
- If the cause of death is not specified, the subject will die of a heart attack.
- After writing the cause of death, the details of death should be entered within the next six minutes and 40 seconds.
IIRC, some rules are discovered through experimentation, such as - The conditions of death will not be realized unless they are physically possible for that human or could be reasonably assumed to be carried out by that human.
- You may write the cause and/or details of death prior to filling in the name of the individual. Be sure to insert the name in front of the cause of death. You have about 19 days (according to the human calendar) to fill in a name.
- The Death Note can only operate within a 23-day window (in the human calendar). This is called the 23-Day rule.
- One page taken from the Death Note, or even a fragment of the page, possesses the full power of the note.
And some rules are given verbally by Ryuk, its former owner, a Shinigami (or death god): - The human who uses this note can go neither to Heaven nor to Hell.
See Quora: What are the rules in Death Note?Notable omissionsWorks invented by... - J. R. R. Tolkien
- Jack Vance
- Poul Anderson
- Piers Anthony
- Frank Herbert
- J. K. Rowling
See AlsoSee the List of fictional books on Wikipedia See also this YouTube video from the WatchMojo channel: Top 10 Amazing Books that Don't Actually ExistThey take their top ten fictional books from movies: - Necronomicon Ex-Mortis (from the Evil Dead franchise; see description above)
- Grays Sports Almanac: Complete Sports Statistcs 1950-2000 (from Back To the Future Part II (1989))
- Handbook for the Recently Deceased (from Beetlejuice (1988))
- The Philosophy of Time Travel (from Donnie Darko (2001))
- Misery series by Paul Sheldon, a best-selling series of Victorian era romance novels surrounding the character Misery Chastain (from Misery (1990))
- Mister Babadook (from The Babadook (2014))
- Isle of Naboombu (from Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971))
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- Family of Geniuses by Etheline Tenenbaums (from The Royal Tenenbaums (2001))
- The NeverEnding Story
Honorable Mentions: - The Number 23
- The Tales of Beedle the Bard
- The Book of Dragons (from How to Train Your Dragon (2010))
Have you used non-existent books in your RPG? Please add your favorites below...
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Post by krusader74 on Dec 11, 2016 15:30:12 GMT -6
Cinema and Sorcery: The Comprehensive Guide to Fantasy FilmThis book looks interesting. I haven't read it yet. But I may put it on my Christmas list: Cinema and Sorcery: The Comprehensive Guide to Fantasy Film by Arnold T. Blumberg and Scott Alan Woodard. Green Ronin Publishing. March 30, 2016. 384 pages. Kurt Wiegel recently did a video review of this book on YouTube, Game Geeks #270 Cinema and Sorcery: The Comprehensive Guide to Fantasy Film, 8 minutes, 30 seconds: This book covers 50 films. For each film, the authors provide info about its - Alternate titles
- Taglines
- Map locations(s)
- Plot
- Alternate versions, e.g., director's cuts
- Magic
- Meaning
- Actors
- Connections to other films
- The making of the movie
- Music
- Sequels, remakes, games, and other merchandise
- Roleplaying-game treatment of a selected hero, villain, monster, or artifact from the film
- Review
- Events in the history of gaming that took place in the year of the film's release
The 50 films covered are - The Thief of Bagdad (1940)
- The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
- The Magic Sword
- Jason and the Argonauts
- The Golden Voyage of Sinbad
- Monty Python and The Holy Grail
- Wizards
- Star Wars
- Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger
- Hawk the Slayer
- Excalibur
- Clash of the Titans
- Dragonslayer
- The Sword and the Sorcerer
- Conan the Barbarian
- The Beastmaster
- The Last Unicorn
- The Dark Crystal
- Ator, the Fighting Eagle
- Krull
- Hercules
- Conquest
- The Neverending Story
- The Warrior and the Sorceress
- Red Sonja
- The Black Cauldron
- Wizards of the Lost Kingdom
- Highlander
- Legend
- Labyrinth
- Big Trouble in Little China
- The Barbarians
- The Princess Bride
- Deathstalker II
- Willow
- Barbarian Queen II: The Empress Strikes Back
- Army of Darkness
- Dragonheart
- Dungeons & Dragons
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
- Versus
- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
- The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
- Solomon Kane
- How To Train Your Dragon
- Your Highness
- Brave
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
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Post by krusader74 on Dec 11, 2016 15:26:01 GMT -6
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Post by krusader74 on Dec 10, 2016 15:52:09 GMT -6
Appendix M: Mathematics in FictionThis list is by no means comprehensive. Just stuff I've enjoyed (or plan to). At the bottom of the list in the "meta" section there's a list of lists with links to more math in fiction. Please feel free to comment and add your own favorite math-themed novels, short stories, comics, movies, TV shows, songs, poetry and sacred texts... Mathematics in NovelsFlatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884) by Edwin A. Abbott. Public Domain. Sphereland: A Fantasy About Curved Spaces and an Expanding Universe (1965) by Dionys Burger. A sequel to Flatland. Surreal Numbers: How two ex-students turned on to pure mathematics and found total happiness (1974) by Donald E. Knuth, 119 pages. Recent YouTube Video in which Knuth describes writing the book (14 minutes). The Alice books by Lewis CarrollMathematics in Short StoriesThe Dreams in the Witch House (1933) by H. P. Lovecraft. "A story of mathematics, witchcraft and Walpurgis Night, in which the horror creeps and grows..." See the OD&D Discussion thread. Professor James Moriarty is the archenemy of Sherlock Holmes in some of the stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He is a math professor (and academic chair) at a smaller university and the author of the book, The Dynamics of an Asteroid. Possibly modeled after Gauss and Ramanujan. Stories: "Gödel's Doom" (1985) by George Zebrowski. Collected in Swift Thoughts"The Nine Billion Names of God" (1953) by Arthur C. Clarke Mathematics in ComicsFantastic Four (2001-2006) by Mark Waid and Mark Wieringo Book One features a story arc about a living equation. Numbercruncher by Simon Spurrier - "Dying young, a brilliant Mathematician discovers a way to cheat the terrifying Divine Calculator..." Detective Comics (1937-2011) #683 and #684 by Chuck Dixon - pits Batman against the "Actuary." Mathematics in MoviesFlatland: The Movie - Official Trailer. Starring: Martin Sheen, Kristen Bell, Tony Hale, Joe Estevez and Michael York Flatland2: Sphereland Official Trailer Starring: Kristen Bell, Danny Pudi, Michael York, Danica McKellar, Tony Hale, and Kate Mulgrew Pi (1998) by Darren Aronofsky Mathematics on TVNUMB3RS (2005 - 2010) on CBS The Big Bang Theory (2007 - Present) on CBS. Here's a Google search for math references and jokes in the show to get you started. Star Trek (1966 - 1969) on NBC. See The Maths of Star Trek: The Original Series (3 part series) by James Grime Wild Wild West (1965 - 1969) on CBS season 4 episode "Night of the Avaricious Actuary" -- no real math, but at least actuaries get a shout-out in the title Mathematics in SongMajor-General's Song from Gilbert and Sullivan's 1879 comic opera The Pirates of Penzance: There are many versions of this song on YouTube. My favorite clip is Simon Butteriss singing on BBC's Andrew Marr Show, 31 July 2011 (HQ video; 2 minutes 4 seconds). Pi by Kate Bush A Fugue On Pie by Greg Ristow (49 seconds) Tom Lehrer's many math songs: Mathematics in PoetryPi-Ku -- haiku based on Pi Math-themed haikuIntersections -- Poetry with Mathematics, a blog by JoAnne Growney. Poetry Inspired by Mathematics (2010) by Sarah Glaz (PDF: 8 pages) Mathematics in Sacred TextsSome Examples of Mathematical Analysis Applied to Talmud Study by Jonathan Rosenberg Sangaku or Japanese Temple Problems. These are wooden tablets dating back to the 17th century, placed in Shinto and Buddhist temples, containing mathematics puzzles, often geometric. Mathematics of the Vedas by Krishna Maheshwari In Jain scripture, the Karan-anuyoga (Ganit-anuyog) or "Description of the Universe" consists of texts on geography, mathematics, astronomy, and astrology. Pythagoreanism - An ancient religion based on numbers. This article from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a large bibliography. Best times to read and write about math...March 24 is Pi Day -- a good day to write your own Pi-Ku April is Math Awareness Month -- a good time to read math inspired fiction. June 24 is Tau DayMeta ListMathematical Fiction - A database of 1219 works of mathematical fiction by Alex Kasman Mathematics in Movies - A list by Oliver Knill at Harvard List of films about mathematicians at Wikipedia The Mathematics of Fiction - A lecture by Manil Suri that looks at some mathematical techniques that have analogs in writing fiction (Video: 48 minutes 26 seconds). Fictional actuaries at Wikipedia Why Writers Should Learn Math by Alexander Nazaryan. New Yorker. November 2, 2012.
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Post by krusader74 on Dec 10, 2016 15:41:51 GMT -6
I have sent an email to Wizards of the Coast via their web interface requesting that they sell Chainmail again. I encourage others who are interested to contact them. If they get flooded with requests, they may take it more seriously... I will post back if I get any replies! The response I got back from WotC was boilerplate text: I hope I'm wrong, but I doubt a real human being even read my request. Forwarding it "to the appropriate teams for review" is probably a euphemism for sending it to the trash folder. Still no reply from OneBookshelf.com customer service. Will keep you posted...
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