5e announced!

[ewancummins]

About what?
Mind flayers are lovecraftian, they're not Lovecraft's creations. And since he was fan of people using his work for inspiration, he would love them actually.

About what? Paizo doesn't have mind flayers in PF, does it? I was talking about Azathoth. He's definitely an HPL original.

As for Mind Flayers being 'Lovecraftian', I suppose they sort of are- but not in any particular way. They have tentacles and are creepy.

Mind Flayers are Wizards/Hasbro IP. You can't publish them in your own commerical stuff, Alhoon. That's assuming you mean to publish something commerical in nature.

The Neh-Thalggu is open content, though.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/nehThalggu.htm

[alhoon]

Well, I have no idea which deities PF uses. Cool they have Azathoth though, although IMO he should have been an elder evil.

And nope, I didn't plan to publish any mind flayers. Nor anything actually. I was just thinking that if someone wanted to make a movie, book or adventure in any system and use in it tentacled brain eaters that can throw a powerful "mind" attack that dazes their enemies for a time leaving them vulnerable, and those things are different in appearance than mind flayers, I believe said person would escape a lawsuit.
Truth be told, monsters that can control minds, read thoughts and eat brains were around for some time.

[Jester of the FoS]

It should be noted that Chaosium let Paizo use some of their content for the Carrion Crown adventure path.

[Jester of the FoS]

The OGL for 3rd ed. removes much of the doubt about what is protected and what is public domain. So you can publish a book showing how to create variant elves for use with the d20 system, but you may not do the same for mind flayer variants (because the "mind flayer" concept is claimed by Wizards as a character design they created, and they have not relinquished those rights).

Lovecraft is dead for long though. I think we're past his copyright protection so I can use 3rd edition to make certain lovecraftian, brain eating psionic using aberrations with tentacles.

Nope, Lovecraft's stuff is not public domain. It's owned by August Derleth's estate and exclusively licensed to Chaosium games.

Apparently this is disputed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft#Copyright

[HuManBing]

Pertinent points, as far as Lovecraft and Ravenloft goes:

1. He was very free with his own characters and encouraged others to make use of them freely in their own stories. Copyright was not enforced during his lifetime, so the doctrine of estoppel very likely prevents it from being enforced after his death. ("Estoppel" basically means "you can't allow somebody to do something freely and then suddenly revoke that permission and punish them for doing that".)

2. Lovecraft died in 1937. Assuming his copyrights were renewed properly, they would have lasted 70 years after his death, or 2007. They would be in the public domain now anyway.

3. They have only been in the public domain for 5 years! Lovecraft did indeed die "a long time ago", but his copyright term would have lasted until March 2007. To give some idea, this a few months before DnD 4th edition was announced. In layman's terms, for pretty much any author who died within living memory, you'll need to sit down and calculate whether it's been 70 years since they've gone.

4. For corporations, it's 95 years since publication. Assuming the copyrights were correctly passed down from TSR to WotC, Ravenloft as a campaign setting will become public domain in 2085.

[Bluebomber4evr]

Pertinent points, as far as Lovecraft and Ravenloft goes:

1. He was very free with his own characters and encouraged others to make use of them freely in their own stories. Copyright was not enforced during his lifetime, so the doctrine of estoppel very likely prevents it from being enforced after his death. ("Estoppel" basically means "you can't allow somebody to do something freely and then suddenly revoke that permission and punish them for doing that".)

2. Lovecraft died in 1937. Assuming his copyrights were renewed properly, they would have lasted 70 years after his death, or 2007. They would be in the public domain now anyway.

3. They have only been in the public domain for 5 years! Lovecraft did indeed die "a long time ago", but his copyright term would have lasted until March 2007. To give some idea, this a few months before DnD 4th edition was announced. In layman's terms, for pretty much any author who died within living memory, you'll need to sit down and calculate whether it's been 70 years since they've gone.

Ah, so it has been long enough, then. My mistake.

4. For corporations, it's 95 years since publication. Assuming the copyrights were correctly passed down from TSR to WotC, Ravenloft as a campaign setting will become public domain in 2085.

That's assuming Hollywood (especially Disney) doesn't lobby hard for copyright laws to be extended again, which I believe they already are. I think they're gunning for 150 ( ) years after publication now.

[alhoon]

So, I can go out and reprint and sell Lovecraft work, or make movies out of his books without giving a penny to his family?

And in order to make a new movie of say Harry Potter or Star Wars without paying the original creator you have to wait 95 years till their creation? Ouch.

[HuManBing]

So, I can go out and reprint and sell Lovecraft work, or make movies out of his books without giving a penny to his family?

Specifically the stuff that H. P. Lovecraft did himself, yes. Anything that derives from later authors, you'll need to look at their death dates.

Note that Chaosium owns a trademark in the phrase "Call of Cthulhu" as used in games. Some game companies have gotten around this by naming their games something else, like "Arkham Horror", and then referring to "Cthulhu" (not "Call of Cthulhu") in small print.

And in order to make a new movie of say Harry Potter or Star Wars without paying the original creator you have to wait 95 years till their creation? Ouch.

Movies may be held by a corporation or by a human author. I think Star Wars and Harry Potter may be held be Lucas and Rowling respectively rather than a company. In any case, the Harry Potter movies are merely derivative works from the novels, and so it's likely they'll be included under the original novel's copyright, which would be 70 years after Rowling dies.

Note also that Rowling has been very supportive of fan fiction made using her Harry Potter characters. It's possible that she'd be okay with somebody making derivative works (such as a fan-made movie) of them. George Lucas, on the other hand, has been famously opposed to fan-made content featuring the Star Wars plots and characters. He has even threatened a lawsuit against a parody film (which would normally be protected under First Amendment laws) - the case never went to court because the parody maker decided to comply instead of face a lawsuit.


Anyhow, this is probably way off topic for this thread. I like to help people understand intellectual property law. Feel free to start a separate thread if you have any further questions!

[alhoon]

Speaking of 5th edition, some people even loyal fans are kinda dispaired.
Personally what I think is "you don't have to buy books every 3 months, if you like 4E, consider it finished and realize that you'll just have to start using the 20+ books you gathered instead of fishing for new ones every couple of months."

However, it also seems to me that the 5E is a "last ditch" effort of WotC with D&D. 4E propably didn't go as well as they wanted and they move to 5E. If 5E goes worse than 4E failing to capture most of the 4E fans and bring back some of the 3.5 edition fans... IMO the D&D franchise will be cancelled after 40+ years or at the very least they will sell portion of it to another company.
What will happen with D&D authors like Salvatore etc, I have no idea.

[HuManBing]

I agree. The feeling of despair from 4th to 5th is very similar to my own irritation at 3rd to 4th. I had invested a large amount of time and capital into mastering the 3rd edition ruleset, and then to be told a) it's obsoleted, and b) I was "playing the game wrong" was very insulting.

The positive benefit was that I started asking myself what I really wanted in a ruleset, and the answers took me about a month to really define. When I knew what I wanted, I finally realized I actually hadn't even liked 3rd ed all that much. I had just kept buying new expansions gamely hoping that the next book would be That One Final Fix That Makes Everything Finally Work The Way I Want It To.

That never happened. 3rd ed and 4th ed were both prescriptive - they both said "we're going to make a load of assumptions about what sort of game you're playing, how realistic or cinematic the combat will be, how powerful the magic will be" and so forth. This approach is actually fine for introductory games - because new players definitely appreciate having solid rules and guidelines to follow. But by 4th ed, most of the DnD players were already quite experienced and "house rules" were very common phenomena around gaming tables. I decided to go with a system that really helps support house rules rather than grudgingly admits them. When yet another set of prescriptive rules came out, a significant number of people jumped ship.

For a start, the Steve Jackson Games forums have many people (myself included) who post their first post with something like "So, I'm here because I don't feel like staying with DnD into 4th ed..."

For 5th, it looks like they're finally cottoning on to the fact that experienced players appreciate in-built customizability and ease of adaptation. For example, if somebody wants gritty combat, they don't have to redefine the entire Hit Dice or weapon damage system. I welcome this move strongly and I really hope they do well. Personally, I think they'll be moving the entire industry forward, by taking their huge market share of gamers, and showing them "Hey, here's how you can tweak and customize to fit your own tastes - we're making it easier for you to take control of your rules, and that's a good and valid thing to do".

Hopefully this will also reduce the number of extremely tiresome and obnoxious posters on their forums who immediately attack anything and everything that's not "Rules As Written".

[Le Noir Faineant]

Completely unrelated: Just bought a Complete Lovecraft for 23 € via amazon. Awesomeness.

If you don't hear from me again, assume the tentacles on the inside cover suddenly became real...

[alhoon]

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx ... l/20120305

Wizards is asking again. Take the above poll please to give your opinion on save or die rolls for 5th edition!
PS. Vancian system didn't get enough votes in the prev poll. And my favorite (the spell points) scored even worse.


Something that should be posted here, WotC 5th edition people are asking the fans to vote on certain things once a while. In February they polled on several issues, I include some below.


http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/bl ... _of_skills
http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/bl ... le_attacks
http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/bl ... er_a-go-go

Personally I voted for a +3/+5/+8 scaling modifier on skill efficiency, that warriors should get multiple attacks and that a fighter should accomodate all fighting styles.

[Catman Jim]

Monte Cook has left Wizards, blog post here:

http://montecook.livejournal.com/251404.html

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Well that's... not encouraging.

[steveflam]

That is not good news at all. Me likey Monte Cooke!