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 Would a 4e Retro Clone be possible?

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Evan Waters
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Evan Waters
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Join date : 2013-10-28

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PostSubject: Re: Would a 4e Retro Clone be possible?   Would a 4e Retro Clone be possible? - Page 2 EmptyThu Nov 14, 2013 1:45 am

Fardiz wrote:
Given how liberal Hasbro-driven WotC have been with Cease and Desist orders (e.g. the cbloader etc), I wouldn't attempt to make any kind of money on such a clone. Even doing it pro gratis, they may well attempt to prevent you using it on websites etc (they obviously can't prevent you doing anything in your own home).
U.S. law has actually ruled pretty firmly that you can't copyright game rules, only the expression thereof. Thus it's a question of describing them differently- or really reverse-engineering them and rebuilding it from the ground up.

They haven't sued the makers of 13th Age, which has at-will and "per battle" abilities (which are not called powers), and similar effect-based monster math, etc. And similarly WotC haven't gone after the people making retroclones which take after Basic D&D, first edition, etc. The OGL actually sets some good limits on what you can and can't do.
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PostSubject: Re: Would a 4e Retro Clone be possible?   Would a 4e Retro Clone be possible? - Page 2 EmptyMon Dec 02, 2013 7:29 pm

I've never cared much about legalities, heck I don't even have a clear idea what the OGL or GSL are, but recently I've been thinking about what I'd need to do to make Points of Light supportable by other fans who'd like to sell adventures and whatnot. Can anyone point me toward an explanation, in layman's terms, of what exactly one has to avoid to avoid WotC's ninja lawyers?
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Garthanos
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PostSubject: Re: Would a 4e Retro Clone be possible?   Would a 4e Retro Clone be possible? - Page 2 EmptyTue Dec 03, 2013 8:11 am

Technically you cant stop either ninjas or lawyers... but not infringing so their bullets arent so real wouldnt hurt.

Quite honestly from what I can tell the law is pretty sensible and reasonable on that although copyright isnt really very much protection for game designers (which arguably might not be that reasonable), because things can be "the same" and expressed differently and that avoids infringing copyright because you didnt literally copy it. (Patents which cover methodology independent of how you express it are really what game designers would LIKE to have... and dont.)
https://www.cu.edu/irm/stds/copyright/quicksum.html

Trademark is mostly just there to stop you from pretending your product is or mis-presenting your product as though it was their product keeping that in mind when laying things out and dont use the terms marked (tm)s and especially not the (r)s in the books and that ought to cover trademark and trade-dress. The following is arguably more useful than the previous link -
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/metaschool/fisher/domain/tm.htm
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JohnLynch
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PostSubject: Re: Would a 4e Retro Clone be possible?   Would a 4e Retro Clone be possible? - Page 2 EmptyTue Dec 03, 2013 8:57 am

It'd be a good idea to look at OSRIC and 13th Age to see how they've done their games. 13th Age has copied several mechanics over from 4th ed, none of which are covered by the OGL, whereas OSRIC outright aimed to replicate 1st edition. OSRIC (along with all the other retro-clones, but I use OSRIC specifically as it's the oldest, most well known and has withstood the test of time in regards to potential lawsuits, which there haven't been) when compared to AD&D 1st edition should be quite telling in what was, and wasn't, copied over and how it was copied over.
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PostSubject: Re: Would a 4e Retro Clone be possible?   Would a 4e Retro Clone be possible? - Page 2 EmptyTue Dec 03, 2013 5:46 pm

Thanks!
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» Throwing my hat into the 4E retro-clone ring.
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