Exactly...I think the the Quake analogy provides an even "closer-to-home" example. How can someone publish a game that requires you to create *and distribute* derivitive material in order to play and then try to deny that you have the right to do so? The profit question is another issue, but not much of one; if you can prove you have the right to distribute such material I think the burden of proof falls upon the would-be denier of distribution to explain why someone has the right to publish/distribute, but only if it's for profit.
A RPG is a never-ending license to use a set of rules and a world setting to create games for you and your friends to play. Ask yourself this question: what does ownership of Runequest mean? Do players who play the game with character sheets and dice only with no purchase of materials have a right to do so? Is ownership by at least the GM required? Suppose all your RQ materials were lost in a fire; do you have the right to play the game? Some of you are saying at this point, "what an idiot, of course you do". Let's blur the lines a little: if you lost your RQ materials in a fire, are you allowed to now copy them again for your private use? If your answer to that question is yes, then consider this question: What exactly determines that somebody "owns" or has the right the play Runequest if there is no physical evidence to prove that they bought it? The answer is that buying a RPG gives you an implicit license to play that game, create materials, etc. Not just until your RQ rulebook becomes too tattered or gets destroyed, but *forever*...
> I think Brian's point was that when a game company sells an RPG, which
> by its very nature must be modified and enhanced to play, they are in
> effect selling an interface to a rules system (cf. operating system)
> and a world setting (cf. user interface). I cannot sell or resell
> either the rules or the world legally, but I can (or should be able
> to) sell products that use either the rules or the world or both.
That's my point. RPGs have always encapsulated worlds within them, and my contention is that you can no more strip the game world out of the game than you can tell owners of Candyland that they can't use their game boards anymore because someone bought the rights to it. The fact that in this case the "game board" is an intellectual one and not a physical one is *completely immaterial*...
> The RPG industry has not addressed this issue, I think, because it's
> a much smaller industry than, say, computer software, and no one has
> really tried to produce much stuff outside the established channels.
Exactly. It's a small industry and nobody wants to upset the status-quo, and no RPG publisher wants to face up to how much of their copyrights they give up when they put their world into an expandable game system.
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