Wednesday, Jul 9, 2008
Can Dungeons & Dragons regain gamers' trust? Plus: Attachment parenting by any other name; will Chris Columbus ruin Harry Potter?
Apr 4, 2000 | Opening the dungeon
BY WAGNER JAMES AU
(03/29/00)
As someone still actively concerned with the RPG [role-playing game] market, it was both interesting and informative to read Au's comprehensive treatment of the open-source flap. When Wizards of the Coast first announced this concept to the industry, the talk lists serving the professionals and insiders were inundated with e-mails. The repute of the former management of TSR certainly engendered considerable of skepticism. From what I could make of it, Dancey's extensive and quite patient responses to the many questions and attacks that followed pretty well covered the whole matter. The offer is just what it says it is: an offer by Wizards to make the core rules of the 3E Dungeons & Dragons game open-source material.
The continuing doubt appears a bit cynical from my perspective. There is a small but extremely vocal segment of the hardcore RPG audience, consisting of game designer-publishers and their dedicated fans, that views the game form as being something other than it is. This element believes that "story" and theatrical elements are the true substance of the game form. As the D&D game is action-adventure oriented, and the most popular RPG, it has become the target to attack by this group. It appears that the thinking in this regard is that if the 3E D&D game can be made less dominant in the marketplace, then the door will be opened for their own game products. So the debate continues.
Perhaps there is merit in the novel theory of what the role-playing game is all about, but current successes seem to point toward combat and the heroic as remaining the themes that attract players. The 3E D&D game, and its open-source approach, will stand or fall on its own merits. My bet is that the much-abused "hack and slash" RPG format will continue to dominate the marketplace regardless of what happens, for it doesn't preclude other aspects, merely centers on the heroic fight. Hoary as the underlying concept might be, the attraction of this sort of adventure has been popular since Homer's time.
-- Gary Gygax
While I can respect Dancey's good wishes and desire to resurrect D&D, history shows that companies -- notably TSR -- change hands, one day run by benevolent men of goodwill, the next by a pack of rabid lawyers. Dancey has also brushed over many unpleasant chapters in TSR's publishing history. Today authors are told that if they use the D20 system as part of a work, that work is automatically "derivative" (Dancey's word, not mine). Which means, I believe, that if I write a novel and am so foolish as to put a D20 system character write-up in the back, I've lost all rights to that novel and the characters in it. An extreme case, granted, but I can easily see a situation where I write an adventure module and intersperse it with a short story. TSR, by the contract, gains the right to take that short story and publish it in their own anthology, and likewise with the entire module, and while the D20 contract may specify "proper credit," legally that can be interpreted as being listed in fine print on the copyrights page under the sea of other authors and editors, which will, of course, accrete after a few uses of D20 material.
As the article notes, most D&D players run games set in their own worlds, many of which then become the settings for short stories and novels. Some of these stories and novels are eventually published by the conventional press. However, once an author sticks a character into the tar baby that is the D20 system, all rights to it are lost -- save to self-publish something which TSR or any other publisher can then reprint for free, no payment, no copies and no guarantee of any credit save a tiny mention in a sea of other credits.
TSR may have changed hands, but it looks like they've kept the same old lawyers.
-- Kevin Andrew Murphy
Ryan Dancey's initiative is indeed interesting, but the analogy to software is strained. There is no legal protection afforded to game systems. You can't trademark or copyright a game system, though you can copyright the expression of a game's rules. So this "open source" for gaming is really only acknowledging the legal facts of the matter -- that a game system per se can be used and modified by anyone.
The proposed licensing arrangements for D20 let you use the D20 logo on a product, but only if that product does not include rules for character creation or advancement. Thus Hasbro/WotC hopes to get you to buy the D&D Player's Handbook -- a perfectly reasonable business plan, but you'll note that Ryan Dancey doesn't really mention that anywhere. Using the D&D logo itself would require an actual licensing arrangement with Hasbro/WotC, with strict regulation of content (as it should be, for them to protect their trademark!). These important details point up that this "open-source" license is not exactly throwing open the gates and giving everyone access to D&D.
Disclosure time: I'm part owner of Hero Games, and we have been licensing the Fuzion RPG system to other publishers for several years (in fact, Ryan admits he based his concept partially on what we have done). We've been successful in encouraging widespread development of Fuzion content. We make it easy for anyone to develop Fuzion material; it's free to put up Fuzion-related Web sites. We do insist on a license to market for-profit Fuzion products that include the Fuzion rules, but we let publishers include the full Fuzion rules, customized to suit the needs of their game.
-- Steve Peterson
thefuze.com
It is important to note that while the D20 license is being hailed as a godsend by some in the RPG industry, the individual writers and role players are taking a critical look at it before jumping on the bandwagon. And a closer look reveals that D20, in and of itself, is NOT open source. There are two initiatives being spawned by the purveyors of D&D. D20 is an onerous licensing agreement that says, in effect, the user has the right to utilize the mechanics of the D&D system, a right, most people note, the average gamer already has, since the mechanics are not copyrightable, trademarkable or patentable. In return for that "right," the author gives up the ability to explain character creation or character leveling (gaining experience) in their product and must refer the players of their game to the D&D 3rd Edition handbook slated for release this summer. In other words: Use the license to create whatever you want, but only if it sells more of our books.
That is most decidedly NOT open source, as I'm sure Linus Torvalds will point out. Indeed, Dancey is also pushing a second initiative, the Open Gaming License, which is strongly similar to the licenses used by programmers in open-source code, such as Linux. While this license is certainly more "open," there are already several other games on the market that are free and open by the same definitions, such as FUDGE.
While I applaud the change in attitude within the staff of the former TSR and Wizards of the Coast, I and most of the gamers of my generation I know, those of us who began playing D&D in the late '70s and have been playing it since, would be more impressed by an apology, an acknowledgment of the huge contributions of the fan base over the years in guiding and promoting the "mythos" of D&D and an allowance that fans may make any supplement they want for the game using whatever mechanics they wish without fear of being sued. We of course understand the nature and importance of trademarks and copyrights and the right of a company to defend them, but to attack 15-year-old authors who are only giving away their "cool module" online was no way to make new friends and fans.
Let's hope this is the beginning of a new time for the fans of D&D. I remain cautiously optimistic.
-- Jeff Reynolds
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