General 4th BR discussion

[Pabloj]

Wasn´t sure where to publish this, so I made a new thread.

Well, I have been following the excerpts from the upcoming D&D 4th PHB 2. And someting certainly caught my attention.

Core and plain D&D 4th edition is aiming to create a general-broad-scoping-anything fits kind of fantasy setting. But not to force you to use it all. Instead, I feel they are giving us solid rules for fantasy RPG, for the players and DMs to choose what to use and what not.

Take the Devas for example... I can´t imagine fitting them anywhere on Birthright, nor on many other fantasy settings. Same happens with Goliaths, or some of the classes. But a lot of new material is great and will help us push our game and setting forward.

My point is: we should not be afraid of letting core D&D 4th elements out if we feel they have no place in this setting. But on the other hand, we should keep an open mind to this new, fresh elements, that might bring new life to BR. All settings evolve (some too dramatically like Forgotten realms). I see no reason why we could not let a certain race or class if it is good and fun for the game. And arguing "it was not on BR 2nd Edition" is not enough in my opinion, just as forcing old mechanics in the game like the detect evil from the halfling. I hope that whatever we do with the conversion keeps this in mind.

[demonknight68]

has anybody converted it to 3rd or 4th edition?

[Pabloj]

Not yet, but the conversion is on its way judging by the forums.

[AndrewTall]

There are several 3e conversions, BRCS being the obvious example. 4e is the subject of several peoples house rules, though none have been uploaded to the forum / wiki yet.

[Pabloj]

Has anyone read the new WOTC license regarding fansites and their content? I can barely undestand legal speech in my own language, even less in english.

[dundjinnmasta]

has anybody converted it to 3rd or 4th edition?

I believe you are referencing to whether the Sword & Crown had been converted and I do not believe that it has because full conversions of older modules seems to be a big no-no even if the module was like two editions ago and from an out of print setting.

[AndrewTall]

Sorry. Actually I see no reason not to convert old adventures - I made an index for adventures on the wiki in the vain hope that people would do so :( That will teach me to read posts on my blackberry...

[The Swordgaunt]

Just tossing my two coins in here.

From what I've read about 4th Ed, I'll keep my 10' pole safely between me and that system.

Maybe I'm just old and grumpy, though...

[dundjinnmasta]

Just tossing my two coins in here.

From what I've read about 4th Ed, I'll keep my 10' pole safely between me and that system.

Maybe I'm just old and grumpy, though...

Ahh... Okay. Then why are you over here? Thanks being productive to the thread.

And as for coverting old adventures I am pretty sure that is a big no-no to do a complete written conversions of the old text and adventure. I think the only way to get around this is just putting mechanic fluff as in [Insert This Combat in Room 3].

[AndrewTall]

And as for coverting old adventures I am pretty sure that is a big no-no to do a complete written conversions of the old text and adventure. I think the only way to get around this is just putting mechanic fluff as in [Insert This Combat in Room 3].

It shouldn't be. We can't copy and paste onto the site, but we can expand and add stuff without any problem. So you should be quite able to do big written conversions - just not anything that stops people selling the various pdf's.

Quite what the position is now that we are no longer official I'm not sure, but I can't see a problem with fairly chunky re-write or add-ons. I'd expect it to be a 'you still need the product for x, y, and z' sort of expansion, but not a 'insert box 7 for the box on P15).

[irdeggman]

It shouldn't be. We can't copy and paste onto the site, but we can expand and add stuff without any problem. So you should be quite able to do big written conversions - just not anything that stops people selling the various pdf's.

We used to be able to that here but now. . .
there are no longer any "Official fan sites" and thus all the protection and licensing freebees that went along with that are now non-existant.

[irdeggman]

Has anyone read the new WOTC license regarding fansites and their content? I can barely undestand legal speech in my own language, even less in english.

Arjan had actually been in discussion with the people at WotC about this before 4th ed (and the Digitial Initiative) came out.

Ican't find the post with his results on it or I'd supply the link.

But if I recall correctly the gist of it was that there are no longer any Official fan sites (that include our friends at athas.org for Dark Sun).

WotC had wanted everything to be placed on their server (the DI) and thus "control" it from there. Basically everything pucblished on that site is no the property of WotC. The old "official fan site" agreement was that the material's IP was jointly owned by the creator and WotC to prevent "publishing" for profit without the other's agreement. The official fanstie was limited to only posting electronic products - they could never publish hard copies (doesn't mean people couldn't print their own versions only that the official site couldn't hard pulblish anything). They also could not "sell" any of the electronic products.

In exchange the offical fan site had almost unlimited access to use any of the 2nd ed setting products as long as credit to the original authors was given (specifically for any artwork). A lot of this was clarified over the years by Arjan through "discussions" with WotC.

[Rey]

Basically everything pucblished on that site is no the property of WotC.
No as in now?

The old "official fan site" agreement was that the material's IP was jointly owned by the creator and WotC to prevent "publishing" for profit without the other's agreement. The official fanstie was limited to only posting electronic products - they could never publish hard copies (doesn't mean people couldn't print their own versions only that the official site couldn't hard pulblish anything). They also could not "sell" any of the electronic products.

In exchange the offical fan site had almost unlimited access to use any of the 2nd ed setting products as long as credit to the original authors was given (specifically for any artwork). A lot of this was clarified over the years by Arjan through "discussions" with WotC.
Hm, I think this site could very well embark on a solo journey into the world of fantasy gaming. There is a potential for making our own gaming system, and there are also a numerous fan contributions to the site already. Birthright never really had any solid ground, it was hastened and had a myriad of flaws, so the contributors to the birthright wiki had a handful of rewriting. Creating a new world, and copy/pasting the work that has been done should give us a totally new fantasy game and all this nagging about the copyright should cease.
Of course, some of the general ideas would have to stay, and we should ask for permission and rights to use those. If that is not too much of a legal problem. Or am I taking this too far? :D
As it turns out, everything you write now, they own. That would mean if they ever decide to re-publish the birthright system, they'd have all the rights to do so, and if your name even gets mentioned, that's about it. I seriously doubt that you'd get any more from it.

[teloft]

... I think this site could very well embark on a solo journey into the world of fantasy gaming. There is a potential for making our own gaming system, and there are also a numerous fan contributions to the site already. ...

I love it, we can do it.

[kgauck]

There is no need to invent a new game system (though no reason not to either, just don't expect widespread adoption).

While the fansite is no longer official, for our purposes that mostly means we are no longer exclusive. Though we may very we be exclusive in fact, if not by protection. The OGL still applies and will always apply. It just applies to 3/3.5 material. The loss of official site status is only meaningful if Wizards were to withdraw its acceptance of our use of setting material.

However I do not imagine this would be the case, for we generate a market for the setting.

The 3rd edition open gaming license is perpetual. One of the reasons to move to a significantly different 4th edition was because 3rd edition and 3.5 are open gaming content and non-recoverable. As long as this site publishes 3/3.5 material it does so under the OGL and the rules that apply there.

So not only could we not appropriate any 4e material here, but we could generate new 4e material here.

[Birthright-L]

WotC could, technically, step in and tell folks who come up with BR
4e (or any derivative BR material, really) to stop printing such
material. But, realistically, the only way they`d do that kind of
thing would be if they were going to rerelease the setting under 4e
rules and they didn`t want people to compete with that. So if the
hammer drops we should probably look at as a positive thing for we
fans of the setting. I say go nuts. (My own nutty contribution will
be coming soon....)

Gary

[irdeggman]

No as in now?


Yup - key board input error ; )


"Now" is the word.

[The Swordgaunt]

[...]we generate a market for the setting.

Õ.o

Explain this, please. Are WotC puplishing any Birthright-products atm?

I've been under the assumtion that the copyright-holders didn't have any plans to profit from the material, and therefore we were allowed to run wild with it.

[kgauck]

I've been under the assumtion that the copyright-holders didn't have any plans to profit from the material, and therefore we were allowed to run wild with it.

True, but people who really get into the setting are bound to buy some pdf's for as little as they go for, and given the low cost to Wizards for this material, we represent a steady stream of advertisement and encouragement for little two dollar downloads. That's how we generate a market for the setting. It may be small, but it is large enough that Wizards will not simply abandon its copyright.

[Rey]

Well, look what I've found in my mail last night:

Dear M.,

Wizards of the Coast has notified us that we may no longer sell or distribute their PDF products. Accordingly, after April 6 at 11:59 PM Pacific time, Wizards of the Coast PDFs will no longer be available for purchase on paizo.com; after noon on April 7, you will no longer be able to download Wizards of the Coast PDFs that you have already purchased, so please make sure you have downloaded all purchased PDFs by that time.

We thank you for your patronage of paizo.com. Please check out our other downloads at paizo.com/store/downloads.

Sincerely yours,
The Paizo Customer Service Team

Expected? Comments?
It kind of got to my mail a bit late.

[kgauck]

Pazio used to be a preferred vendor, especially as producers of Dragon and Dungeon, but with the loss of the magazines, Pazio decided to start competing with Wizards in its offerings. So, Wizards has decided to withdraw its product line of pdfs.

This could be exacerbated by relations between persons in both companies, by the production of the 3.6 product, or Pazio's commitment to other product lines.

[bbeau22]

I don't know much behind the story but it seems the fall out between the two companies was pretty harsh. I am really surprised. The Paizo adventure paths really helped our D&D group get back into fantasy D&D again after a long break.

[Rey]

Really a shame then. Got some BR stuff from them.

Maybe to lighten things up: Colin McComb Q&A (http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=1638). Ask Colin about Birthright (or some other settings, too) and he will answer.

[Vicente]

Pazio used to be a preferred vendor, especially as producers of Dragon and Dungeon, but with the loss of the magazines, Pazio decided to start competing with Wizards in its offerings. So, Wizards has decided to withdraw its product line of pdfs.

This could be exacerbated by relations between persons in both companies, by the production of the 3.6 product, or Pazio's commitment to other product lines.

Wizards have stated very clearly that retiring their PDFs from Paizo, RPGNow,... is because of piracy reasons.

[Rey]

Seems like a bad business decision, anyway. Reminds me of IBM. They don't really care or develop any new products, they just buy someone else's and ruin it completely. Move on to the next one. Repeat.

[kgauck]

I have seen pdfs for all kinds of publications pirated, even at the local game store (by regular customers, not the store itself), so I am not surprised.

[dundjinnmasta]

And a bunch of people are making fun of them for their freakish reaction and there was much rejoicing throughout the land. White Wolf was/is giving away Exalted 2nd Edition free on drivethrurpg.com to show their continued support to pdfs for a limited time. Paizo was/is offering a 35% discount on pdf products for a limited time.

[kgauck]

If we want to abandon books and go entirely pdf, that's fine, but if there is a market for books, giving away pdfs of the same material obviously undercuts the market for books.

[Thelandrin]

Well, if all the old WotC/TSR books are out of print, keeping the PDFs up for sale only generates extra profit - especially the BR PDFs. Withdrawing all PDFs everywhere is a knee-jerk reaction and just hurts, their pockets, old name recognition and fan goodwill.

[dundjinnmasta]

It is to bad that Wizards no longer selling pdfs of the old setting doesn't mean it has been abandoned and is fair-game for re-publication. Then we could take our Birthright pdfs and completely update them to our choosen games...

[vota dc]

Wasn´t sure where to publish this, so I made a new thread.

Well, I have been following the excerpts from the upcoming D&D 4th PHB 2. And someting certainly caught my attention.

Core and plain D&D 4th edition is aiming to create a general-broad-scoping-anything fits kind of fantasy setting. But not to force you to use it all. Instead, I feel they are giving us solid rules for fantasy RPG, for the players and DMs to choose what to use and what not.

Take the Devas for example... I can´t imagine fitting them anywhere on Birthright, nor on many other fantasy settings. Same happens with Goliaths, or some of the classes. But a lot of new material is great and will help us push our game and setting forward.

My point is: we should not be afraid of letting core D&D 4th elements out if we feel they have no place in this setting. But on the other hand, we should keep an open mind to this new, fresh elements, that might bring new life to BR. All settings evolve (some too dramatically like Forgotten realms). I see no reason why we could not let a certain race or class if it is good and fun for the game. And arguing "it was not on BR 2nd Edition" is not enough in my opinion, just as forcing old mechanics in the game like the detect evil from the halfling. I hope that whatever we do with the conversion keeps this in mind.

I haven't seen D&D 4 manuals,but a friend of mine said "10% of the manuals is about description (enviroment,society etc) and 90% is about combat".Since Birthright is about diplomacy,politics,strategy AND combat I would ignore D&D 4 if what my friend said because that will take a lot of effort for learn to fight...and then who will have the time to learn (or simply to use since more complicate combat means longer combat) the other aspects of Birthright?

[dundjinnmasta]

(rant on)

Quickly becoming my biggest pet-peeve is people that come to a 4E board with no knowledge of 4E just to tell the people that have knowledge of 4E and are trying to be productive members of the forums that "You shouldn't bother with 4E because 4E is bad" though maybe in longer and more pretty wordings.

(rant off)

To make up for my rant, I will post something productive later.

[Rey]

Nice to know I got into your head, now you'll be hyper-productive. ;)

[dundjinnmasta]

Nice to know I got into your head, now you'll be hyper-productive. ;)

Except that it wasn't you at all unless you have been moonlighting as someone else.

[Rey]

No, I tend to sleep during the night, and hopefully all my alter egos.
Bah, and I thought that I was being useful...

[Mirviriam]

As it turns out, everything you write now, they own. That would mean if they ever decide to re-publish the birthright system, they'd have all the rights to do so, and if your name even gets mentioned, that's about it. I seriously doubt that you'd get any more from it.

I like this idea very much - a quick easy to use generic system which WoTC will publish because it's so slick. We can provide variant and tournament rules inline with the basic domain system model or as supplementry books.

Not that we'll suplant their golden child eberon or w/e...