QUOTE (Adam @ Feb 13 2009, 04:51 PM)
And, of course, when creating a gaming aid, you still can't reproduce text/art that WizKids owns the copyright on [which is, to say, all Shadowrun text/art]
Thanks for the input. What you have written above raises two interesting questions:
* if interpreted strictly, one couldn't create, for example, alternate character sheets, as those contain quite a lot of SR "official text" (i.e. list Characteristics, Skills, and so on). That is even worse when it comes to automated character generators, which likely include comprehensive lists of skills, advantages, disadvantages and such. And such lists are certainly copyrighted. Were do you draw the line? To be honest, I don't think that you can do it legally (creating a character sheet
is violating game designers' copyright).
* the gaming aid I am designing is intended to facilitate item management. My rationale behind creating it is that even experienced players can get lost in multitude of gadgets their runners can carry around. Not only they may not realize something exists, but even if they hear about it, they may not use it often enough to memorize the rules. As such, most of the gamers I know will not bother with "less important" items, and a significant proportion of the rest will have messy notes. Addition of customization options to armor or weapon makes it even worse. My goal was to make it easy even for n00bies on their first SR con game to use, for example, a heavily customized full body armor suit, and customized weapons (how many even die-hard SR gamers who read this forum can tell me without digging their copy of Arsenal but only with the aid of their character sheet and notes how does a "super machine gun" work, or how they can use their micro flare launcher in combat, or how do their gecko tape gloves exactly differ from their rappeling gloves? Or the difference between myomeric rope and stealth rope? Or how many people actually bother keeping track of ammo used (or of armor damage, with the optional rules in Arsenal)? Or how do you call the shots in SR? Almost nobody takes detailed notes about less known items (or actions), and thus what happens is that while designers put their creativity into designing them, most players and GM will simply end up buying a set of items for their characters and then never, ever mention them in the game again (and similarly, not using major parts of the books and rules as they are seen as "too complex" or "not worth the effort"). Almost nobody I know tracks ammo used (or armor damage), because there is no room on 99% of character sheets for such details. For similar reason, while a few advanced gamers may play with the cool rules for weapon and armor modifications, most - including those at con - won't. They are simply too cumbersome to easily implement (not by design but due to the fact that they are difficult to memorize and write down on character sheet). That said, for those of you who do use those rules - my respect, and note that my handouts are designed to 1) allow new players to use complex rules / rare items easy and 2) make using them easier for advanced players and GMs.
Ufff
Now we get to the hard part. What I described above may sound innocent, but in rule-heavy gaming system such as SR the only realistic way to do it is to cannibalize much of copyrighted text and rewritte it into a printer-friendly handout. Now, note that I am not talking about "printing the rulebook". Far from it. The item handouts which I am working on don't tell you how to run the game (in the end, they are just a glorified item handouts). But by summarizing some rules and flavor text they certainly reproduce some copyrighted portions of the game. Let me give you an illustration:
this is one of my weapon item hand-outs (I've made such handouts for about 80% of SR weapons). You can give it to a first time newbie at a con and they will know all they need to know about this weapon. Experienced players should find it useful as well (as it lists all you ever would want to know about that particular weapon, with a singular exception of listing different ammo types available (I've another handout for that...
). Gamemasters can now easily equip NPCs with different weapons, and players can actually accumulate an easy-to-refer personal arsenal from loot (or stores). Of course, ammo track record included.
I think that such handouts are useful. But are they crossing the line in terms of copyright-allowable gaming aid design? I'd hope not, but I want to make sure.
PS. For the record, at that point I am writing those words I have mostly finished work on weapons and armor handouts (including most of their mods), and I will be moving into remaining items. I would also be happy to declare anywhere that full copyright remains with the original copyright holders (because nothing would make me happier than Catalyst using my rewrites in some official fashion
. But, legal stuff being what it is, I will also understand if you tell me that my gaming aid has gone too far and cannot be publicly shared by me (which is why I started this thread anyway, to get a feeling of how far one can go with a gaming aid in SR verse).
