[RQ-Rules] Re India

[Stephen Posey]

 > > I wish Chaosium would offer up the BRP rules as "open
 > > source" like the d20 core rules, that would open up for
 > > a lot of additional materials for BRP based games and
 > > would likely help Chaosium in the long run, IMO.
 > >
 > > This is more or less what's the case in Europe with the
 > > BaSIC derivative of BRP.
 >
 > Perhaps the biggest tragedy of the last quarter century of
 > RPG history is the fact that Chaosium chose to keep such a
 > tight leash on the BRP system. Whilst keeping core IP (such
 > as Elric/Stormbringer etc and Call of Cthulhu) largely in
 > house (although there is Darcsyde's excellent Corum and over
 > the years various non-Chaosium Cthulhu, PP not the least!)
 > has always made a certain amount of commercial sense, why
 > they have not sorted out some easy licensing mechanism to
 > encourage the use of the BRP system I don't know. In
 > particular, a BRP System trademark license a la the d20 STL,
 > that allowed free access to the BRP rules provided ones book
 > name checked a core Chaosium BRP game (Elric or CoC) and
 > otherwise ddin't use anyone else's IP without permission has
 > been a blindingly obvious move ever since the whole OGL/d20
 > thing started. It would probably serve Chaosium better as a
 > small company - it's easier to police what they do own and
 > (assuming their margins are typically slender) any boost
 > will be significant...
 >
 > I'd love to hear an official Chaosium statement re licensing
 > the BRP systemas used in Stormbringer / CoC actually.

Me too, perhaps we should petition them as some of Chaosium's 
biggest fans to take some kind of stance on this?

 > As for India/ Alternate Earth I love the suggestion but I
 > would suggest a) a Yahoo group (somewhere convenient for
 > file storage etc) b) don't limit it solely to India - there
 > are many cultures and times to examine here b) as an
 > initially fan-based project for our own benefit I doubt we
 > are likely to be pursued for copyright infringement (if we
 > do something damaging to some ones rights or try to make
 > money it's a different matter, but initially I would suspect
 > we'd fall in the "technically illegal but tolerated" zone.

My understanding of how game rules are copyrighted is that you 
can copyright particular expressions of rules, but not the rules 
themselves per se.

So, if we avoid other copyrighted materials (e.g. directly 
Moorcock or HPL derived), and don't directly plaigiarize rules 
text from Chaosium's actual publications, I think we're in the clear.

That said, I would PREFER to retain Chaosium's support and good 
will, and I'm hopeful that they can be persuaded to open things 
up for a d20-like OFFICIAL expansion (explosion?) of BRP related 
materials.

Stephen Posey
slposey at concentric.net