1. From other previous contacts with WOTC they do not seem to be willing to let the rights for DQ go, at the same time there is no clear financial incentive for them to produce more DQ material. With the rise of this "open source" movement within WOTC surrounding the D20 core rules, there is at least a glimmer of hope that other WOTC owned products will find their way into open source. http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/
2. Basically as it stands copyright is copyright if we are merely trying to reproduce the existing rules set then we are in fact breaking copyright. Now there is a difference between breaking the law and getting really mauled for doing so and breaking the law and getting a cease and desist order waved in your face. We are currently working under the old TSR/WOTC usage agreement. http://www.wizards.com/contactinfo/TSR_Online_Policy.asp
WotC's Ryan Dancey provides a summary of why Open Gaming is such a big part of WotC's future [as far as D&D is concerned any way](from rec.games.frp.dnd):
WotC's current on-line usage policies are a far cry from the old, bad TSR policies (you couldn't post anything; if you wanted your material on the internet, you had to sign it over to them and put it on their exclusive low-bandwidth ftp server). However, they still have two major problems. One, ownership of the copyright in the new work you've created is in dispute, and two, nothing in the current policy requires you to extend the same courtesy to other people to re-use your content that you got from us in the first place.
We want people to create and post cool stuff for D&D on the web. We want to encourage people with an interest to fiddle with the rules, and to make interesting new content for the worlds.
The Open Gaming License fixes the issues I described above. In return for agreeing to a simple set of rules, we (and every other contributor using the same license) give you permission to make authorized derivative works. You own the copyright to that authorized derivative work. The rules you agree to follow are these: You give everyone the right to copy, modify and distribute your work, and you require anyone who distributes your work to agree to the same set of rules that you did.
As a first step, we're going to convert the core rules of D&D to an Open Game using the Open Gaming License. Over the next few years, we're going to Open the various campaign settings as well. At some point in the future, we'll be able to remove the current on-line usage policy and replace it with a set of Open Gaming Licenses.
3. Actually I was referring to the PnP version of the Character Generation System. I am currently planning on two versions: a suggested additions/revisions version and one as an example of rules coring (a concept of mine). John Carcutt I believe has produced an NPC generator in _javascript_ and there is an excel version of a character sheet that has some calculating functionality on Snafaru's page. As a Web Developer/Programmer I have thought of putting together a "Webbed" version of Character Generation/DQ. I am currently into scripting languages (PERL, ASP, PHP, TK/TCL) just because of their ease of use and flexibility.
JohnR
-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Rhinehart [mailto:crhinehart@uswest.net]
Sent: May 11, 2000 8:13 PM
To: dq-rules@egroups.com
Subject: Re: [dq-rules] Re: Information please
Some more questions :
1. Does anyone know what WotC plans to do with DQ? I know the bitter truth is it may languish forever in limbo.
2. Second question : does anyone know the copyright restrictions, and the possibility to reproduce as much as possible as an "Open Source" RPG without getting in trouble?
John : what language do you plan to use to write the character generator in? As a programmer / web-developer I am interested (also, I'm a Linux user who wants to be able to use it - or re-produce it for other such Linux geeks to use).
Charles
John Rauchert wrote:
From there I plan to start on the work on the Character Generation System.