Exactly 10 years from now the works of Tolkien will enter the public domain. What are you doing to prepare?
I'm reviewing trademark law and not just copyright law. Being able to reprint the text of the books is nice, but considering how the characters, locations, and so on will remain as protected elements of product identity by the Tolkien estate, it won't be the sudden and explosive Tolkien revolution you seem to be expecting.
>>94702946>the characters, locations, and so on will remain as protected elements of product identity by the Tolkien estatewotWhen does THAT expire?How could that possibly last longer than the copyright of the text? The text contains those elements, you can't copy it without using them.
Who cares? It’s outdated.
>>94703137Once the copyright expires, the novels and their contents are public domain. That's not the clear cut free-for-all that you think it is.If you use nothing but the intellectual property in the books exactly as written, you can argue you're doing everything fine. But if you use elements of, say, the portrayals in the movies? That gets problematic. And if their lawyers can argue that you're infringing on the private works subsequent to the original novels that are public domain, they've got grounds to sue you. And they've got more money than you. So you won't win.
>>94703236Novels don't get "outdated," anon. They're not scientific literature that gets refined and disproved. They aren't arguments. They're fiction. The Epic of Gilgamesh is still in print after more than four thousand years. No: novels from the first half of the 20th century aren't "outdated," you fucking slob.
>>94703237Okay, but they can't argue against me calling a fantasy race hobbit, right?
>>94702915Killing as many 40k and 5e players as possible. They have to die so that historical wargaming and OSR ttrpgs can win.
>>94703253Public libraries in my country literally started destroying every book written before 2008 because they were "problematic".
>>94703273fake news
>>94703275https://nypost.com/2023/09/15/canadian-school-purges-books-published-before-2008-in-inclusivity-push/https://www.ncregister.com/blog/ontario-schools-destroy-pre-2008-bookshttps://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/peel-school-board-library-book-weeding-1.6964332https://thebridgehead.ca/2023/09/14/ontario-school-board-eliminates-all-library-books-published-before-2008-thats-just-a-start/
>>94703256Absolutely. On the other hand, their lawyers can sue you. Our legal system does not protect people. It protects money. You think GW wins the cases on the merits, every time it sues anyone who types "Space Marine?" Fuck no. They'd lose every single god damn case if it ever went to trial. So if you've got two million dollars that you can spend to get the case to trial, you'll absolutely win it in 14 years when their appeals finally run out. But until then you'll have nothing but a bottomless pit that you throw money into as an injunction bars you from publishing during the appeals process.
>>94703275you got debunked so hard retard
>>94703314You are a buffoon.One school board for middle schoolers in Ontario is not "your country." It's a fucking PTA meeting.School libraries are not public libraries. They are school libraries.Books being removed from a school library does not result in the books being destroyed.The policy, as stated in those links, requires the review of those books before adding them back in--it does not permanently remove them.
>>94703137Trademarks expire when the body that owns them stops using them. It's why Disney has used Steamboat Willie as part of their intro for a few years, because while it lost copyright protection, it still has trademark protection. Disney uses that little animation and audio as a mark of a source of goods/services used in trade. A Trademark, if you will.The oldest trademarks still in use today are from the mid 1800s, and will still likely continue to be used. Coors or Budweiser, so long as they continue to sell beer under those names, will continue to have a monopoly on labeling their cans/bottles/kegs with their trademark name/logo. Remember kids, Trademark =/= Copyright =/= Patent. All 3 are easy to conflate, but all have very distinct legal meanings and underlying rules.
>>94703346>Coors or Budweiser, so long as they continue to sell beer under those names, will continue to have a monopoly on labeling their cans/bottles/kegs with their trademark name/logo. Remember kids, Trademark =/= Copyright =/= Patent. All 3 are easy to conflate, but all have very distinct legal meanings and underlying rules.Sure but what you can trademark is a lot more restricted than what a copyright covers. The whole of the Lord of the Rings is not and cannot be trademarked. Disney's trademark around Mickey that makes it such a pain in the ass is around the 3 circles head so if your product looks like it can infringe on that, they can sue. But the Tolkien Estate cannot trademark the characters themselves--only specific depictions of them. So other people can publish Lord of the Rings shit, once the copyright expires. The thing is that the Estate can then sue if your depiction aligns to closely with their trademarked depiction. Generally they'd lose a lot of those cases. But only if you could beat them in legal fees. And you cannot.
>>94703282>one school board, influenced by retarded parents, purges a school library (which most kids are too retarded to even use nowadays, literacy rates are in the toilet because of bad ipad parenting) of all books before 2008>"DURR HURR MY ENTIRE COUNTRY PURGED PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF ALL PRE-2008 BOOKS!"All this proves is that you don't go to public libraries, because if you did you'd know you're wrong. You illiterate asswipe
>>94703237Until the people suing for infringement lost a lawsuit.Nobody ever even considers this.
>>94703236Cheap, weak bait.Try harder, faggot.
>>94703404>Until the people suing for infringement lost a lawsuit.True. if you could muster up the millions of dollars in legal fees to win, then spend the next two decades spending more millions to win all the appeals, you could get one thing published, one time.There's a reason this shit doesn't happen. Our legal system works like this: you both put money on the table until one of you runs out. The person who runs out first loses. That's all there is to it. The merits don't mean shit.
>>94703346Trademark means someone can't make branding that can't be confused with yours. It doesn't say anything about the contents of a story or rpg.Such a case would be thrown out before you have to spend a single dime.
>>94703401So it's okay, only a few books were burned then? Just a little bit of book burning liberal insanity, in moderation of course.>hurr durr you're illiterateYou're literally burning books you fucking retard.
>>94703341Anon, the books were literally destroyed.
>>94702915I didn't know this, and now that I do know, I don't plan on doing anything with that knowledge.
>>94703442So, all it takes is Tencent or Amazon or some other giant making a LotR inspired property that Prints Money after Tolkien's stuff goes public.
>>94702915The worm ouroboros, and "wake in the night lands" are already public domain
>>94703609Hard, to say, it didn't happen to Conan
>>94703622Conan is a much different scenario. It was always a collaborative, shared universe that other authors were encouraged to participate in.>>94703609Think it through, anon.Instead of licensing the rights, one of the most powerful corporations on Earth spends decades feuding with the estate of a dead author. Sure: Amazon could win that suit. And then what? The ill-will towards Rings of Power was bad enough without every person on the planet thinking that they're the evil empire. If they did it AFTER suing someone's estate into oblivion? Talk about a phyrric fucking victory.
>>94702915I don't see how this will have any effect on the games I play. Could you posit a possibility?
>>94703542>>94703390Go look at the Games Workshop webstore, particularly the Middle Earth section. Go look at the name for every single product. Notice what is present in most of them. It makes them look ridiculous with all of the TMs in the various names. It doesn't matter if you are right, what matters is "Do you have the time and money to fight GW and the Tolkien Estate in court regarding the legitimacy of their trademark claim?"
>>94703749Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game is the 4th most-popular miniature war game on the market.D&D specifically has halflings because the Tolkien Estate threatened them over using hobits.Lord of the Rings has had shitloads of ttrpg adaptations and is source material that plenty of publishers would love to get their hands on.Modern fantasy is based on human/dwarf/elf/orc spawned directly by Tolkien.Take your pick, really.
>>94703756>"Do you have the time and money to fight GW and the Tolkien Estate in court regarding the legitimacy of their trademark claim?"Correct. That's what I been sayin', my dude. Our laws protect money.
>>94703793>Why the fuck would you think I'm a liberal, faggot?It's blatantly obvious by the fact you're in full damage control.>actually just some public libraries burnt books not all>actually the parents wanted it not the government>actually it's just in the capital province, not nationwide>actually they are going to bring the books back one day maybeEventually we're going to cycle around to>okay we're doing it and it's a good thing, here's why...>That would explain your subhuman reading levels.At least I am not burning books like you, genderless troglodyte.
>>94703809Jesus christ, anon. Get a grip.
>>94703829You're the spastic who tried to claim the book burnings were fake news then spazzed out and started strawmanning, name-calling and frantically initiating damage control when proven wrong.
>>94703835NTA, little buddy. Calm your tits. Also you posted a link about a school board for pre-teens reviewing some books in a school library and claimed that your country is "burning books published before 2008 in public libraries."You've gone off the deepend, schizo-boy. Take your fucking meds.
>>947038091) you are a tranny2) your original statement was wrong3) modern parenting is the bane of public education in the west and the cause of this4) you got your opinions from a YouTuber
>>94703273Public libraries in my country don't do that, and libraries in your country don't decide what's outdated and what's not. >>94703561It's not okay, but it has no significance or implications beyond people in charge of that one school library being dumb assholes.
>getting this easily distracted by a trollC'mon now.
>>94702915There's nothing to prepare for. Tolkien's legacy died with Christopher, the only thing public domain means is that some of the smaller vultures will get to join in on fighting over the scraps.
>>94703765>Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game is the 4th most-popular miniature war game on the market.Okay, and how is this affected by the works of Tolkien becoming public domain? Do you think its popularity will be changed? How does its popularity affect how it's played?>D&D specifically has halflings because the Tolkien Estate threatened them over using [Hobbits]So does this mean D&D will rename them to Hobbits as originally intended, or will they just keep the name Halfling as a holdover from previous editions?A name change likely won't have any effect on their attributes and features, anyway. That aside, official content shouldn't have much effect on peoples' personal games, given the idea that DMs and players are expected to change what they don't like anyway.>Lord of the Rings has had shitloads of [TTRPG] adaptations and is source material that plenty of publishers would love to get their hands on.So you believe these supposedly aplenty publishers will change these adaptations in accordance with becoming public domain? How does this affect a hobby in which its participants are expected to change official content to their own purposes?>Modern fantasy is based on human/dwarf/elf/orc spawned directly by Tolkien.Not all of it; in fact, it's not an understatement to say less than half of fantasy is based off Tolkien's works. And once again, I still don't see how this has an effect on systems and games that people are expected to repurpose after buying.
>>94703843>>94703844>>94703862Holy shit this tranny's gone ballistic. Don't burn down your house retard.
>>94703862Sorry, saw I was getting spammed with comments and unfairly lumped you in with the other guy.
>>94703749He can't, because it doesn't actually affect games. He just wants to talk about literature on the board for tabletop games.
>>94704918Well excuse me if I assumed people on this board might do something creative and want to publish their own tabletop content.I guess it won't matter to you if the only difference is whether you're consuming from this publisher or that.
Public Domain is where IPs go to die.
>>94705068Well, yes, when something is in public domain it's not longer intellectual property, that's kind of the definition.
>>94703923The only retard losing his shit here is you faglord. The rest of us can read and understand stuff,
>>94705006>publishingMaking TTRPGs into a business is a grift, considering its hobbyists are expected to change whatever they don't like about their products.I make my own games, so I don't need to worry about it anyway, but I was just curious if the topic had any effect on actually playing some damn games.Seems I can't get a straight answer in that regard, huh?
>>94705629Man, being able to change what you don't like is a strength RPGs have, not a weakness.
>>94705629>I'm in charge of what's relevant!It's already been pointed out to you that the topic is relevant to multiple ttrpgs and wargames. No one cares why you think people shouldn't discuss it. But feel free to keep bumping.
>>94703680You are not thinking with portals.The important part is not someone being able to use the stuff without giving the Estate the gibesmedat It's about establishing precedent.Batman, Superman etc all enter public domain soon.More importantly, this precedent doesn't need to be set with a giant IP like LotRThere are other golden age characters beside the JSA and the big two that will enter public domain soon.You can establish the precedent there and then the doors are open.
>>94702915For awful schlock horror and gay fanfiction
>>94703341Reminds me of that subreddit about banned books, but they only share books banned by like 1 county or state school board. Meanwhile if you post about the scary banned books you get banned
>>94703609Well wouldn't Amazon already have some pull in the legal case since it produced a show?
>>94705068Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, King Arthur, Brothers Grimm, Son Wukong.
>>94705701>Man, being able to change what you don't like is a strength RPGs have, not a weakness.Mmhmm.It's almost as if you don't need to spend any money on them, isn't it?
>>94702915>horror movie titled FRODO: BLOOD OF THE RINGS>three-foot-tall serial killer with a magic ring that lets him turn invisible and a bulletproof chain mail vest>he tracks down and murders a bunch of college students in the woods so he can cook them into second breakfastIf it can work for Pooh: Blood and Honey or those Steamboat Willie horror movies, why not Lord of the Rings?
>>94705758>It's already been pointed out to you that the topic is relevant to multiple ttrpgs and wargames.No, it hasn't.The only post that attempted to point that out (>>94703765) left numerous questions concerning its relevance unanswered, as detailed in (>>94703909).>No one cares why you think people shouldn't discuss it.Good thing I never said people shouldn't discuss it, huh? Good thing I'm actually encouraging its discussion by challenging its relevance through discussion, huh?Deflect again, insipid fuckhole.
>>94708456Legit can't wait.
>>94702915>Traditional games
>>94708456>>94708556That's under fair use/parody. As long as its sufficiently transformative, you could go ahead and make that movie right now.
>>94703341>a school is not "your country.Yes it is. The fact that this is being done to varying degrees with enough acceptance to have defenders such as yourself running interference for it is noteworthy, and a clear sign of societal decay. The fact that it's not happening everywhere all at once is completely irrelevant. It is, in fact, happening in his country.>School librarkes are not public libraries.Yes they are, frequently. And even those school libraries that are not categorized administrationally as "public libraries" are in fact frequently used by the public, i.e. the students and pupils. Using colloquial or generalized terms in a myopic and overdefined administrative or legalese way is deeply dishonest, and a classic way for Marxists to dismiss and ignore valid criticism. "Hon hon hon, you did not use le word in this exact way which I recognize as correct as defined by this document in section 5c paragraph fourteen, you buffoon", no, fuck you.>Books being removed from a school library does not result in the books being destroyed.Not only is this a dishonest statement (whether they are technically destroyed or merely removed from shelves and and delisted from databases and records and hidden where no-one can find them until they inevitably crumble and are thrown away or thrown on the trashheap or beamed into space is completely irrelevant) but it is an outright lie. Why do you people always lie? Why can you only ever be honest by step 4, when you inevitably acknowledge that it did happen but it was a good thing because uh reasons completely unrelated to why you were denying it was happening for 20 years prior?>muh review!More dishonesty. If they were removed to begin with, they are unlikely to ever be reviewed, nevermind be reintroduced in their untarnished/unmolested state, nevermind that this shouldn't be happening in the first place.Everyone watch me inevitably eat a 3-day trolling ban for refuting this lying numod's discord-groomer antics.
>>94708448Sure, I don' need to spend money on them. It's obviously not a waste of money of I do, though, because get this: there's nothing forcing me to change anything, changing a few details isn't the same as rewriting the whole game, and while I could make my own games, the time and effort that takes are also real and finite resources I have other uses for, just as money is. Also, I kind of feel like you're confusing ease of changing things with a need to change things here. RPGs differ from novels and movies and such specifically in the ease of changing things, not in there being any greater need to change things. That is to say, when watching a movie, I often find some details and sometimes more major things I wish had been done differently. Sadly, I can change a movie I'm watching as easily as I can an RPG I'm playing. This is a strength RPGs have over movies.
>>94703622tencent technically owns conan now through funcom as he not in the public domain in the US yet
>>94703401>That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's actually a good thing.The only good book burnings set back the banker and tranny agendas by a few decades.
>>94703237Why would anyone use elements from the movies? They're all shit. Once the books enter in public domain is all fair game.
>>94709065It's a waste of money when you buy something you can't use, and when you bring up the game's problems to the community, instead of addressing the points, it's all deflected to "b-but j-just re-rewrite i-it". The ideas that "it's not a waste of money" and "there's nothing forcing me to change anything" relies on the system only having one or two minor issues with it, and ignores cases where the entire rule set (or most of it) needs to be removed or altered."Rewrite what you don't like" means its problems can be ignored, even when the entire book has problems, and there's that expectation to do so from both the producers and the fanbase.What makes TTRPGs as a business a grift is the expectation to spend money on a product the customer will potentially have to change the entirety of, because neither the company nor the playerbase properly acknowledge the product's faults, and the company is given free reign to continue putting out faulty products with zero accountability.The ease of changing TTRPGs is a strength, but it isn't an excuse for putting out low quality TTRPGs; yet it is used as an excuse and defense so wearily often. The need to change a TTRPG comes from a lack of quality control, quality control that "isn't needed" because TTRPGs are easy to rewrite.They expect money for something easy to rewrite, when they can't use that same ease to put out a product that doesn't suck; and yes, it is easier for an entire team of chucklefucks to put out a good product, than it is for one person to edit a badly designed one, especially if most of the product needs edits.If I have a choice between [paying $10 or more for something I won't be able to use out of the box and will have to change] or [making exactly what I want from the getgo for $0], I'd rather not spend the money, which not only allows me to buy something I can't alter so easily (like a movie for instance), but denies the producers just a little bit of unearned profit.
>>94707742I am talking about a hypothetical abstract, it's no use to question specifics of an example like that.
>>94709958>It's a waste of money when you buy something you can't useObviously. Why would I buy something I can't use, though? That is to say, why would I buy a game I'm not going to use at all? Deciding that I'd rather change some thing is obviously a diffeent matter.>and when you bring up the game's problems to the community, instead of addressing the points, it's all deflected to "b-but j-just re-rewrite i-it". The ideas that "it's not a waste of money" and "there's nothing forcing me to change anything" relies on the system only having one or two minor issues with it, and ignores cases where the entire rule set (or most of it) needs to be removed or altered.What game are you talking about, anon? You seem like you have a specific game and specific fandom in mind.>What makes TTRPGs as a business a grift is the expectation to spend money on a product the customer will potentially have to change the entirety of, because neither the company nor the playerbase properly acknowledge the product's faults, and the company is given free reign to continue putting out faulty products with zero accountability.There seems to be some kind of a bizarre leap of logic here, with you generalizing the bad experiences with whatever game and fandom you have in mind to the very concept of RPGs as business.>If I have a choice between [paying $10 or more for something I won't be able to use out of the box and will have to change] or [making exactly what I want from the getgo for $0], I'd rather not spend the money, which not only allows me to buy something I can't alter so easily (like a movie for instance), but denies the producers just a little bit of unearned profit.I'd rather just buy games I'm going to use mostly as-is, with some alterations - alterations that don't necessarily imply flaw in the game but suit my personal preferences - and save my time and energy for something else than making my own game from scratch.
>>94709958>>94710117I'm going to add, though, that I understand your point of view, and if making your own games works for you, that's great. When I come home after a long, stressful day at work, however, putting in the effort to work on a game of my own isn't what I want to spend my evening doing. There's a whole lot of good, useable games out there, and I'd rather make things easier for myself and use one of those games to run my campaigns.
>>94703237The parasitic "estate" will get cucked and be dismantled, and there's nothing you can do about the fact.
Kull the conquerer is public domain
>>94708467>Nuh uh I posted more questions so therefore I'm right!I got bored of humoring you is all, anon.>>94709709Ok but did you portray an elf as handsom and blonde? Boom: grounds for a lawsuit. So either you have more money than they're willing to spend or you lose. That's how our laws work: to protect the rich and harm you. It's not that you're wrong. It's that you're naive if you think being "right" means anything.
>>94702915I'm getting ready to never look at any /tg/ fantasy games again because they'll all be shitty Tolkien clone slop like D&D.
>>94710654That never has been true and never will be, you fucking crybaby.
>>94710323>Ok but did you portray an elf as handsom and blonde? Boom: grounds for a lawsuit.What the fuck are you talking about? Are you really trying to say that there are no blonde elves in fiction, and that if someone tried to portray one they'd be shut down by lawsuits? What planet do you live on?
>>94710117>why would I buy a game I'm not going to use at all?Dishonest advertisement and fan discourse of a product making it out to be better than it actually is.>You seem like you have a specific game and specific fandom in mind.This is irrelevant to the point, because all TTRPGs can be altered, but the defenses and deflections come out in force when you say anything bad about D&D. A lot of them will even tell you "well that's true for all TTRPGs" and pretend their world's greatest TTRPG is on equal footing with the others, despite their previous claims of superiority.It's more the case that if base quality can be ignored since all TTRPGs may be altered, they're all on equal footing, and there is no such thing as a greatest or worst. If base quality isn't ignored, then TTRPGs should be looked at fairly and consistently for what they are. You can't eat your cake and have it too; there's either no such thing as a good or bad TTRPG, or there are structural aspects to TTRPGs that can be consistently judged.>generalizing the bad experiences with whatever game and fandom you have in mind to the very concept of RPGs as businessI'm putting all TTRPGs on equal footing and judging them by the same standard, since they all share the traits of ease and encouragement to edit.Again, if the base quality can be ignored because you can edit it, then there's no need for producers to take responsibility for its base quality. The most effective business model is one that is the fastest to produce, at the lowest cost to the producer, taking the least effort to make that their target demographic will still buy; enough people are buying the product at a lower quality so there's no need to improve. This is as true for D&D as it is for PbtA as it is Mörk Börg and it's derivatives and whatever shit Evil Hat decides to squeeze out for sensitivity award bait.It's fine if you have to support a grift because you personally don't have time, but that doesn't mean it isn't a grift.
>>94702915Dust off my old MERP manual and try again in starting a campaign?
>>94710827>Elves>Dwarves>Halflings (Hobbits)>HumansANy setting where these are the core four races is a tolkein clone.There is no fantasy in fantasy anymore, it's all the same copypasted slop.
>>94709535The only big business that was kinda negatively affected by Hitler's policies were department stores.
>>94702915>What are you doing to prepare?This depends on how this change is going to affect a hobby in which I can do whatever I want.Still waiting for a straight answer on that one.
>>94711587>I have no idea what you posted but lemme explain it to youYour ignorance is a problem with you, not Fantasy.>>94710963>Are you really trying to say that there are no blonde elves in fiction, and that if someone tried to portray one they'd be shut down by lawsuits?Nope. I'm saying that if you relied on a public domain license for Lord of the Rings, and depicted any character in any way that New Line Cinema could possibly misconstrue as infringing on their trademarked depictions of those characters, then New Line Cinema absolutely could and would sue your ass into oblivion not because they're right, but because lawsuits are won by whoever has the most money.
>>94702915Nah, western IP moguls get whatever they want, they won't let it happen.
>>94711587>a tolkein clone.Tolkien derived, calling them clones is dishonest, you're just using hyperbolic language because you're mad. Even if Tolkien did go public domain that wouldn't make tolkeinesque fantasy more popular, you'd just see more people saying "hobbit" and "balrog" in published works (but again that won't happen in the real world because rich cunts won't let it happen).
>>94710827That anon is probably a white wolf player
LotR online was tried and it was dog shit.
>>94703273>in my country>>94703282>CanadaMan nobody gives a shit about Canada.
>>94703561>So it's okay, only a few books were burned then?No, retard, but the difference between "libraries in my country" and "A library in my country" is very important. You people are very dishonest. >You're literally burning bookslol, you retard.
>>94711243>It's fine if you have to support a grift because you personally don't have time, but that doesn't mean it isn't a grift.If I get my money's worth, then obviously it's not a grift.
>>94713334>if I fall for a scam it isn't a scam
>>94713566Holy fuck I just read back through the conversation you two are having. You've gotta be autistic. RPGs are a scam because you're expected to make changes to them?You sound like someone who has never played one. Any ttrpg you play, whether you bought it or wrote it, will require changes and immagination to run. Any of them. That's how ttrpgs work. That's why they're not video games. Because players and GMs can do anything the fuck they want, and no one ever has nor ever will write a ttrpg that covers all possible bases so that the person who picks it up never has to make up or change anything.If you'd ever played a single RPG, every single one of your comments would seem butt-fucking-stupid.
>>94713628>Holy fuck I just read back through the conversation you two are having.Clearly you didn't read it.
>>94713566It's not a scam, anon. You've provided literally no argument for why it'd be a scam. That you make your own games doesn't make it a scam - claiming otherwise would be like saying that restaurants are a scam because you can just cook for yourself. That you can change things in RPGs of you want to doesn't make them a scam, either - we've already established that that's a strength RPGs have, and there are plenty of games that work just fine as is. Changing things is an option, not a requirement. It feels like you don't quite understand what the words grift and scam mean. You're not the measure of everything, anon, and a product that's useful to other people doesn't magically become a scam if you, personally, don't have a use for it-
>>94715521>like saying that restaurants are a scam because you can just cook for yourselfRestaurants are accountable for the quality of their product & held to numerous mandatory standards.There's also a higher bar to learning how to make certain dishes, in terms of ingredients & technique.Read my posts again to see how this accountability & barrier for entry differs from TTRPGs.>there are plenty of games that work just fine as isThere are plenty of cases where you don't know how they work until you've bought them or "left a tip" to download them.Reviews can't be trusted, because people will espouse a greatness of a system that isn't actually present in it.There's also the rising trend of "games" where they intentionally leave their structure threadbare, being content to base it on whim, which doesn't "work fine", because it's literally just paying to be told "do what you want" & there's nothing to these products you couldn't get somewhere else for less, or do yourself for free.Jumping on a bandwagon for the sake of making money off it without any personal stake in the enjoyment of the hobby totally isn't a grift, though. I don't know what words mean.>Changing things is an option, not a requirementIt is a requirement when you're left with something that doesn't work or has no content.Imagine paying for something faulty/incomplete, after being told how great it is. Imagine trying to explain to numerous people that the product that's supposedly so great, that the author(s) expect money for, is faulty/incomplete with clear examples, only to be told you can just rewrite it. Imagine having to rewrite something you paid for, because it's supposedly so good, when you could have written something for free.Totally not a scam, though. I have no idea what I'm talking about.>You're not the measure of everything, anonThen it's a good thing the metric is about comparing TTRPGs to each other on equal footing.But you'd know this if you read any of my posts.
>>94715898You're an autistic narcissist, anon. Nothing you've said is about anything but you.
>>94715898Anon, I've only ever bought RPGs after careful consideration, taking into account what I know about the developer, what people I know and trust have said about the game and so on, and I've never bought a game I couldn't use. How have I fallen for a scam, here? Where's the grift?
>>94715993>I've never bought a game I couldn't use.Before or after your own personal edits?>How have I fallen for a scam, here?By buying a product that claims to offer something it doesn't deliver and expects you to deliver for it.>Where's the grift?The author['s/s'] intent to make an easy profit without any passion or care for the product.
>>94716044Seriously man. You think RPG writers are in it for the money?How deluded and self-absorbed are you? Ah yes, all those careless adventure and RPG supplement writers sitting on their massive piles of gold. What rat bastards!Bro you can make more as a manager at fucking McDonalds.
>>94716044>Before or after your own personal edits?Both. I've never played a game that actually requires homebrewing and houserules to work, but I've adjusted things to suit my personal preferences and a specific campaign' needs. Just as a reminder, as we've already established the ability to make those adjustments is one of the strengths of RPGs.>>How have I fallen for a scam, here?>By buying a product that claims to offer something it doesn't deliver and expects you to deliver for it.I don't buy such products, though.>>Where's the grift?>The author['s/s'] intent to make an easy profit without any passion or care for the product.You're getting at least two things seriously wrong in this single sentence. First one is that an author could work with nothing but money on his mind, but as long as he puts in the effort to make a product actually worth that money, it's not a grift. The second, and maybe the more important thing is that most people writing RPGs don't make their living doing so, and if money was their priority, they could make more of it by focusing on advancement in their actual day job or by getting a real second job.
>>94716063>You think RPG writers are in it for the money?>Bro you can make more as a manager at fucking McDonalds.Then they shouldn't charge money or have a "name your price" for their work.
>>94716371Bro you're a bufoon. You just stated in the other thread you've never read or played a single module. So why are you so obsessively opining on something you already admitted you're 100% ignorant of?
>>94716123>Just as a reminder, as we've already established the ability to make those adjustments is one of the strengths of RPGs.And we've already established that's a convenient shield commonly used to defend a lack of effort in making a complete and quality product.>I don't buy such products, though.And I don't believe you, given the rising trend of "games" where authors intentionally leave their structure threadbare, being content to base it on whim; which doesn't "work fine", because it's literally just paying to be told "do what you want" & there's nothing to these products you couldn't get somewhere else for less, or do yourself for free.>First one is that an author could work with nothing but money on his mind, but as long as he puts in the effort to make a product actually worth that money, it's not a grift.I'm interested in knowing how saying "making an easy profit" implies there's effort involved.Tell me.>most people writing RPGs don't make their living doing soThey still expect money for something that can easily be done for free, and they expect their customers to do themselves.>if money was their priorityThey still expect money for something that can easily be done for free, and they expect their customers to do themselves.>they could make more of it by focusing on advancement in their actual day job or by getting a real second jobThey still expect money for something that can easily be done for free, and they expect their customers to do themselves.
>>94716381>modules are TTRPGsNope.I've seen plenty of products where the authors will gladly defer to whims, see upthread where I mention D&D, PbtA, Mörk Börg, and Evil Hat shit.Consider learning how to read before you attack.
>>94716422>And we've already established that's a convenient shield commonly used to defend a lack of effort in making a complete and quality product.And it's fine to call out specific instances of that happening, and to criticize devs who consistently use that excuse. It's silly fuck to generalize that to for-sale RPGs as a whole, however.>And I don't believe youIf you'd rather just make shit up than listen to anyone else's experiences, how do you ever expect to figure out how the world actually works?>and they expect their customers to do themselvesThis part's not true, anon. It might be true of some specific companies, but it's not true in general.
>>94717884Something you could do is name one of these miracle games that deliver on what they advertise, don't require any houseruling, and whose decisions aren't left to the whims of the master/players.
>>94718168You don't even need a particularly good game for that, anon. Like, a bunch of my friends like Pathfinder 2E, so we play it a lot. It's not my game of choice, but it works without needing houserules and offers pretty much exactly the kind of gaming experience it advertises. I don't think I used any houserules when running Pendragon, I've played FFG's WH40K games without houserules, and WHFRP 2E. What games do you think absolutely require houserules, anon?
>>94708697>says destroyed>gets proven wrong>whinges impotentlyyou deserve a ban tbqh
>>94718168>and whose decisions aren't left to the whims of the master/playersSo at last you show your true face. You're one of those hyper contrarian grog larpers that try so hard to be the opposite of those people who play gay tieflings on Twitter that you've become their bitter opposite to a comical degree.
>>94710323this post is coded with bitter anger and disappointment, not helpful knowledge.
>>94703341>Books being removed from a school library does not result in the books being destroyed.you don't know anything about libraries
>>94703442>>94703404>>94703237not sure why anyone hasn't mentioned the chapterhouse lawsuit ITC, if you actually read the decision it explains a lot.
>>94719420>no example of any miracle system providedYour concession is accepted.The works of Tolkien becoming public domain in 10 years has no relevance to actual games, beyond the interests of grifters and people who mindlessly support them.Case mother fucking closed, bitch.
>>94719820>Small studio gets token victory>Represented pro bono>Still enough wins for big studio that small studio goes out of business>Big studio remains the most-profitable war games miniature producer on the planet>Big studio tightens their IPI didn't mention it because I'd never heard of it. Sounds right, though. Laws are about protecting the people with money from the people without it.
>>94719651Then you don't understand what was stated, anon. Nope: it's not bitter nor disappointed. It's informed. Can't say I've ever been a party to any cease and desist threats for infringement. But I do understand how they work. And it's like this: if big company can misconstrue your product as infringing on its trademark in any way? It is capable of outspending you to bury you beneath legal fees so that, right or wrong, you lose.That isn't just how trademark law functions. That's how it is SUPPOSED to function. It's a feature--not a bug. It is explicitly set up so that the person with the most money wins.
>>94719820I was interested so I read it (anyone else can here: https://casetext.com/case/games-workshop-ltd-v-chapterhouse-studios-1)Wow I wish I was shocked at how massively this is misrepresented on Reddit. Here's what actually happened:GW dropped 28 copyright claims. The court awarded summary judgement in favor of Chapterhouse on 36 claims, including those 28 (meaning Chapterhouse won summary judgement on the 28 GW gave up plus 8 more). GW won summary judgement on the copyright claims for 59 other products. Chapterhouse won on some of the things that GW claimed they had copyrights on and didn't produce, as well as some of the things that they claimed they owned copyrights on but that they didn't (because of how independent contractor law works in the UK regarding who holds a copyright). Neither GW nor Chapterhouse were awarded summary judgement on the 115 trademark infringement claims and, as far as I can tell, reached a private settlement after the fact that saw Chapterhouse... ...Go out of business.GW lost on a quarter of the copyright claims because it turned out they didn't own the copyrights. They lost on less than 10% of the other claims because they'd never actually produced a product that could be copywritten. They lost on none of the trademark infringement, won on 2/3rds of the copyright claims, and put the competitor out of business.
>>94720615yeah I agree with you, but man you sure did bring down the room with the previous posts. I am already depressed my dude.
>>94711587You just failed at getting spoon fed you raging retard.
>>94712893>Nope. I'm saying that if you relied on a public domain license for Lord of the Rings, and depicted any character in any way that New Line Cinema could possibly misconstrue as infringing on their trademarked depictions of those characters, then New Line Cinema absolutely could and would sue your ass into oblivion The films have been out and New Line have owned the rights for over twenty years, and people have been making media based on sections of the license that aren't owned by New Line as well as a whole fuckton that's straight-up inspired by the Jackson films. Please give me an example of someone being sued because they presented a blond-haired handsome elf, as was suggested in the post to which I replied. >If base quality isn't ignored, then TTRPGs should be looked at fairly and consistently for what they are. A TTRPG is a system which facilitates people playing a game of pretend together, taking on the roles of imaginary people to a lesser or grester extent. That leaves a wide range of features to be better or worse than other TTRPGs, but popularity and ubiquity seems to be inportant for a lot of people. It makes sense for what is basically a social communication tool.Compare it to cars: some people own Cybertrucks. It doesn't matter how many technical issues get pointed out or how many people laugh at them for "falling for a grift"; the Cybertruck owner likely purchased the car to make some kind of statement and because something resonated with them as a person, and that's more important to them than saving money or driving a safer car. Same with DnD; some people want the legacy or the brand or just the thing they know that'll get them games most easily.
>>94720447I like how you didnt respond to the anon that actually answered your question, your disingenuous little bitch.
>>94722225>Please give me an example of someone being sued because they presented a blond-haired handsome elf, as was suggested in the post to which I replied.Anon, right now, everything LotR-based is produced under license w/ the Tolkien Estate. The lawsuits will be regarding trademarked properties once the product is under public domain. Do you comprehend the difference?
>>94722953My understanding is that the trademark doesn't magically spring into being once the copyright is lost; it's been trademarked for some time now, and trademarks need to be defended. There's been a lot of handsome blonde elves since 2001 in non New Line LotR and non-LotR properties, and New Line hasn't been kicking up shit with either the Tolkien Estate or independent compainies producing blonde handsome elves in other media. Good luck defending that trademark after two decades of just letting it fly.
>>94723122Right now they're handled under contracts with the license holders, anon. This is EXACTLY what's currently happening w/ Mickey Mouse, who recently went public domain. That's why we know it will happen. Can you use a public domain depiction freely? Sure. In theory. But if Disney can demonstrate that your use of the property has the potential to devalue their trademarked depictions, by presenting a suit that argues consumers might be confused about whether Disney produced the work because it's substantively similar to one of their trademark depictions, they therefore have grounds to sue you into oblivion and shall. Just like if your LotR based work had a blond handsome Legolas, if anyone from whoever holds the Trademark for Orlando Bloom's depiction wanted to, they could sue you into oblivion for portraying Legolas as a blond handsome elf. Because that's how these laws are intended to work and are used.
>>94723122>>94723148Hold on, wait a second... are you fundamentally confused about the topic, anon?When I said that New Line Cinema could sue for a blond elf, in the context in which I said it, I was clearly referring to the fact that, once LotR goes public domain, any depiction of Legolas (as an example) that substantively overlapped w/ New Line Cinema's could produce a lawsuit that anyone smaller than that trademark holder would lose because that's how these lawsuits work.It just dawned on me that you seem to be typing as if you misunderstood, and thought my comment meant "lol any depiction of blond elves anywhere is therefore grounds for a lawsuit." I took it for granted that, in a thread about LotR going public domain, in my comment about how public domain use of LotR properties could still produce lawsuits, it would be understood that my example would be of a LotR property.Did you somehow misconstrue that into the belief that I was claiming "lol therefore any depiction of blond elves anywhere can produce lawsuits?"
>>94723148The difference is that Disney's been actively protecting the trademark. New Line hasn't. Other people have been releasing blonde Legolases, and it doesn't matter if they were licensed to by the Tolkein Estate or not; that was the moment for New Line to step in and say "book Elves were dark haired, you only have the license to publish material from the books, we feel that that guy looks too similar to Orlando Bloom, make your elf brown haired or we sue". They haven't been, so they can't defend that part of the trademark. To use your example, Disney cannot just get anyone who makes a cartoon involving a mouse; there have been many cartoon mice that they haven't defended their trademark against. They'd have to demonstrate how this particular cartoon mouse is more specifically a Mickey Mouse ripoff than Jerry, Basil the Great Mouse Detective and any other cartoon mouse that they haven't sued over over the decades.
>>94723370Bro: you just posted a licensed depiction. Yes: it substantively overlaps. It's intended to. It's licensed.
