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Post by Vile Traveller on Mar 27, 2020 4:50:21 GMT -6
www.chaosium.com/brp-system-reference-document/Interesting. I wonder why it's happening now, after years of people asking for it and Chaosium saying they won't do it. I don't know whether they'll update this or whether this is the final document. I had a quick look, and there are several things that jump out immediately. This is a combination OGL/ SRD/ logo licence in one document. WotC originally released their OGL (1 page of legalese), plus their SRD (everything you could ever want from the D&D universe, including classes, spells, monsters, and magic items), plus a logo licence. The logo licence didn't last long, but no-one cared because everyone knows D&D. Mongoose released SRDs plus logo licences for their MRQ1 and MGT1 games, which went when those editions went. A lot of 3rd party publishers of MGT1 and MRQ1 moved to Cepheus Engine and Legend. Some went with their own rules (e.g. Alephtar). Content-wise, the Mongoose SRDs were not much use as they didn't have any of the "good stuff" in them. MGT stripped out the OTU, which left nothing but generic rules - but the sheer size and complexity of it made it worth using rather than re-writing from scratch. The MRQ SRDs (there were many!) had some names of monsters and runes, so there was some slight worth there. I haven't bothered with the OGL part other than noting it tries to nip in the bud a lot of potential clones. This BRP SRD seems worthless. less than 20 pages of fairly wordy generic rules on what roleplaying games and games masters are, characteristics, percentile skills, and combat - and these are almost as basic as the old 16-page BRP booklet from 1982. As everyone presumably knows by now, rules cannot be copyrighted, so an afternoon with a keyboard could produce something equivalent with no restrictive covenants. Chaosium has a history with licencees. Anyone using this is simply hobbling themselves with a lot of restrictions for no gain at all, and potentially a total loss. well, you do get to put the BRP logo on your book. What's the BRP logo, I hear you ask? Yeah, me too.
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Post by jeffb on Mar 27, 2020 8:07:30 GMT -6
It's a direct support of their IP, albeit a strict one.
Also fans have been asking them to open up the system so they can create for older games the New Chaosium has no plans supporting anymore. Worlds of Wonder (Magick World, Super World etc) and some of the lesser known properties.
In the end, it's good for Chaosium, and really that is what these licenses are for. WOTC got a little too loose for their own corporate good back in Y2K (good for us though)
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Post by Vile Traveller on Mar 27, 2020 17:05:53 GMT -6
The licence expressly forbids mentioning Magic World, Worlds of Wonder, etc. Anyone could just made up their own functionally identical version of the rules without any of those restrictive clauses (admittedly without that new logo).
The worst offenders are the "substantially similar" restrictions. Those are determined in court, and the whole point of an OGL is to let 3PPs publish stuff without having to deal with the owners or fear of lawsuits.
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Post by jeffb on Mar 28, 2020 8:54:02 GMT -6
The licence expressly forbids mentioning Magic World, Worlds of Wonder, etc. Anyone could just made up their own functionally identical version of the rules without any of those restrictive clauses (admittedly without that new logo). The worst offenders are the "substantially similar" restrictions. Those are determined in court, and the whole point of an OGL is to let 3PPs publish stuff without having to deal with the owners or fear of lawsuits. Ok. I haven't read the license, only going by the hub-bub on the BRP forums, MeWe and elsewhere in times past. Do you think they didn't really want to open up BRP but have to do so in order to open up RQ/CoC? So then they made the generic BRP license super restrictive trying to nix all the D100 variants- Openquest, GORE, etc. |
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Post by Vile Traveller on Mar 28, 2020 18:05:21 GMT -6
Do you think they didn't really want to open up BRP but have to do so in order to open up RQ/CoC? So then they made the generic BRP license super restrictive trying to nix all the D100 variants- Openquest, GORE, etc. The new Chaosium have a tendency towards very poor customer communication to the point of being adversarial, so that may well be the case. There have been several successful games based on the MRQ1 SRD - Legend, OpenQuest, Delta Green that I know of, and doubtlessly many obscure ones like Goblinoid Games' GORE and my own RETROQUEST II™, so after years of vague posts about the MRQ1 SRD being invalid (and being ignored) maybe they feel they need to take control of the narrative. If that's the case, they are doomed to fail unless they get some significantly better PR and stop implying that all 3rd party publers want to do is rip them off. To interpret this charitably, it seems this is not so much an SRD as a logo licence to allow people to develop their own BRP games and publish them with the BRP logo on the front. That is a dangerous strategy for Chaosium, because by adding the logo to the OGL itself instead of making it a separate licence they can never recall it once published. They can alter the OGL subsequently, but anyone publishing a book under this version can continue to do so in perpetuity until they change more than 30% of the content in a new edition. From a publisher's viewpoint, frankly I see little value in the BRP logo. It's such a vague concept covering so many substantially different games, the logo is something they just made up (without recourse to a graphic designer, it appears), and publishers would basically be writing their book from scratch. Well, I guess they can cut-and-paste the lengthy introduction to roleplaying and save themselves the bother of writing that.  I'm not in the market for a BRP SRD any more (though I suspect Jeff thinks I can't wait to put out RETROQUEST IV™), but I have a long history with this game so it's sad to see yet another missed opportunity. If only they's stripped downt the BGB, or Magic World, or (even better!) Worlds of Wonder and turned this into a real SRD using the real OGL instead of their own poorly-worded attempt, everyone would now be jubilant and new Chaosium's public image would have received a much-needed boost. |
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Post by jeffb on Mar 29, 2020 7:34:50 GMT -6
Do you think they didn't really want to open up BRP but have to do so in order to open up RQ/CoC? So then they made the generic BRP license super restrictive trying to nix all the D100 variants- Openquest, GORE, etc. The new Chaosium have a tendency towards very poor customer communication to the point of being adversarial, so that may well be the case. There have been several successful games based on the MRQ1 SRD - Legend, OpenQuest, Delta Green that I know of, and doubtlessly many obscure ones like Goblinoid Games' GORE and my own RETROQUEST II™, so after years of vague posts about the MRQ1 SRD being invalid (and being ignored) maybe they feel they need to take control of the narrative. If that's the case, they are doomed to fail unless they get some significantly better PR and stop implying that all 3rd party publers want to do is rip them off. To interpret this charitably, it seems this is not so much an SRD as a logo licence to allow people to develop their own BRP games and publish them with the BRP logo on the front. That is a dangerous strategy for Chaosium, because by adding the logo to the OGL itself instead of making it a separate licence they can never recall it once published. They can alter the OGL subsequently, but anyone publishing a book under this version can continue to do so in perpetuity until they change more than 30% of the content in a new edition. From a publisher's viewpoint, frankly I see little value in the BRP logo. It's such a vague concept covering so many substantially different games, the logo is something they just made up (without recourse to a graphic designer, it appears), and publishers would basically be writing their book from scratch. Well, I guess they can cut-and-paste the lengthy introduction to roleplaying and save themselves the bother of writing that. I'm not in the market for a BRP SRD any more (though I suspect Jeff thinks I can't wait to put out RETROQUEST IV™), but I have a long history with this game so it's sad to see yet another missed opportunity. If only they's stripped downt the BGB, or Magic World, or (even better!) Worlds of Wonder and turned this into a real SRD using the real OGL instead of their own poorly-worded attempt, everyone would now be jubilant and new Chaosium's public image would have received a much-needed boost. I was very much a vocal fan at first of the new Chaosium-they seemed to be on the right track righting the wrongs of the CoC KS, etc. Through the RQ2 KS they pretty much lost me as a customer with their lack of progress in fulfillment while producing lots of other slick new product. Then after seeing them, I have had zero desire purchasing RQIV/CoC7. Lots of pretty, and the substance suffers. So yeah, I'm just not jiving with them at all. For me, as a consumer, the license would not hold nearly the weight it would have, even 10 years ago. I Don't think I'm fam with RetroQuest-I'll have to take a look see. I also see there's a pretty good discussion over at RPGsite where you and others have weighed in. |
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Post by jeffb on Mar 29, 2020 7:39:08 GMT -6
I suspect this little bit is more important than it seems..
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Post by Vile Traveller on Mar 29, 2020 18:36:22 GMT -6
I Don't think I'm fam with RetroQuest-I'll have to take a look see. It's still up on my site: dreamscapedesign.net/products/ It's not really a rulebook, it's a (proper) SRD. I first wrote it almost 10 years ago when Chaosium was moribund and RQ2 effectively dead. Moon Design had their "Gloranthan Classics" up on DTRPG, so a bunch of us thought it'd be neat if there was a free online rules reference so you could actually play with those. Heh, it was actually written in support of Moon Design, in other words, though I don't think they see it that way now. More problems with the licence have surfaced, it effectively forces you to use the licence in perpetuity even if you later decide you want to remove the OGL content and go your own way. In effect, you'd have to walk away from that product line if they changed the licence so that it no longer worked for you, or you decided you didn't want to use the licence any more. IANAL, but even I can see people would be reckless to publish under this. If you want to go OGL, stick with one of the many open D100 systems out there or better yet, just write your own. If you really want the BRP brand, go to Chaosium and negotiate a real contract (though given their past treatment of licencees ...). |
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Post by Vile Traveller on Mar 29, 2020 18:48:16 GMT -6
I suspect this little bit is more important than it seems.. Lots of questions have been asked on various forums, but mostly this is the only answer they give. So, yeah, it's pretty clear now that it's just a (late) (over) reaction to Open Cthulhu. |
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Post by jeffb on Mar 29, 2020 19:54:51 GMT -6
I Don't think I'm fam with RetroQuest-I'll have to take a look see. It's still up on my site: dreamscapedesign.net/products/ It's not really a rulebook, it's a (proper) SRD. I first wrote it almost 10 years ago when Chaosium was moribund and RQ2 effectively dead. Moon Design had their "Gloranthan Classics" up on DTRPG, so a bunch of us thought it'd be neat if there was a free online rules reference so you could actually play with those. Heh, it was actually written in support of Moon Design, in other words, though I don't think they see it that way now. More problems with the licence have surfaced, it effectively forces you to use the licence in perpetuity even if you later decide you want to remove the OGL content and go your own way. In effect, you'd have to walk away from that product line if they changed the licence so that it no longer worked for you, or you decided you didn't want to use the licence any more. IANAL, but even I can see people would be reckless to publish under this. If you want to go OGL, stick with one of the many open D100 systems out there or better yet, just write your own. If you really want the BRP brand, go to Chaosium and negotiate a real contract (though given their past treatment of licencees ...). So it seems the BRPSRD is more akin to the 4E GSL license from WOTC aka "poison pill" which almost nobody used..Goodman Games completely ignored it and utilized the 3.5 version to produce their fairly large 4e lineup of products. I will check out your Retroquest! Thanks for the link  |
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Post by jeffb on Apr 7, 2020 6:36:09 GMT -6
I Don't think I'm fam with RetroQuest-I'll have to take a look see. It's still up on my site: dreamscapedesign.net/products/ It's not really a rulebook, it's a (proper) SRD.. I'm not able to find it (?) I see some discussion at the bottom of the page in the comments section, but I am not seeing a link? I'm also not the brightest bulb in the box, so take that into account, please  |
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Post by Vile Traveller on Apr 7, 2020 21:17:32 GMT -6
Oh, yeah, my mistake - I removed it, PM me and I'll pass you a copy. I first wrote it 10 years ago to support (!) people who wanted to play with Moon Design's "Gloranthan Classics" books when no RQ2 rules were available outside eBay. Since then 1) RQ2 came back into print, and 2) Moon Design/ nuChaosium started offending everyone in general and me in particular with their FUD about the MRQ1 SRDs, so I see no need to publicise their game on my site any more.
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