Campaign Copyright
Simon Oliver
provoke discussion about a matter that has been touched upon
repeatedly, here and elsewhere.
I am starting a new campaign and was concerned during the
preparation to see the posessiveness of some organisations
regarding "Campaign" plot or gameworld copyright. I have
made my own position clear with the copyright statement in
the rulebook. They boil down to three statements:
1. I wrote the rules, so I have intellectual copyright on
them.
2. I am producing material to support the campaign,
including detailed histories and maps and so on, and I have
copyright on them.
3. The PLAYERS will create the roleplaying and shape the
events within this framework, and they, therefore,
collectively hold copyright to the gameworld.
I have proposed a simple method by which point 3 might be
administered, but hope that common sense, compromise and the
common good will resolve most disagreements. I may be naive
in this belief considering the earth-shatteringly stupid
things that have been perpetrated by campaign organisers on
both sides of the Atlantic, but if no-one says there is a
better way, no-one will hear that there is a better way.
IMO (H deleted for the sake of honesty), anyone who claims
to promote player-led plot must, logically, accept the fact
that the players own the campaign. They therefore cannot
maintain the double standard of demanding plot control
authority over events they do not organise set within the
same campaign. Sanctioning and franchising agreements must
recognise that the campaign belongs to the players, and may
not be taken from them.
I welcome all responses, but prefer considered ones
Simon Oliver
Mindlib Live Role-playing
http://home.clara.net/mindlib
enqu...@mindlib.clara.net
Whatismyname?
> I post this not (just) to blow my own trumpet, but to
> provoke discussion about a matter that has been touched upon
> repeatedly, here and elsewhere.
> I am starting a new campaign and was concerned during the
> preparation to see the posessiveness of some organisations
> regarding "Campaign" plot or gameworld copyright. I have
> made my own position clear with the copyright statement in
> the rulebook. They boil down to three statements:
> 1. I wrote the rules, so I have intellectual copyright on
> them.
Absolutely. And anything that anybody else does based on them is
a derivative work, and as such cannot exert copyright over
yours. In other words, your copyright extends to anything that
is based on your work.
> 2. I am producing material to support the campaign,
> including detailed histories and maps and so on, and I have
> copyright on them.
Ditto from number 1 above.
> 3. The PLAYERS will create the roleplaying and shape the
> events within this framework, and they, therefore,
> collectively hold copyright to the gameworld.
Erm... I'm not 100% sure how it works in the UK. But you should
be very careful what you say, because you may in fact dilute any
right to claim copyright in 1 and 2 above if you say this in 3
above.
As you have copyright over 1 and 2 above, anything from 3 above
is derived from that work. Failure to exert copyright over 3
might jeopardize your legal rights to 1 and 2.
None-the-less, as you allude to, there is nothing without the
players. I think most players won't give a rat's <expletive
deleted> whether they have copyright. They will care if you
don't respect them. Ditto if you produce poor events.
> I have proposed a simple method by which point 3 might be
> administered, but hope that common sense, compromise and the
> common good will resolve most disagreements. I may be naive
> in this belief considering the earth-shatteringly stupid
> things that have been perpetrated by campaign organisers on
> both sides of the Atlantic, but if no-one says there is a
> better way, no-one will hear that there is a better way.
> IMO (H deleted for the sake of honesty), anyone who claims
> to promote player-led plot must, logically, accept the fact
> that the players own the campaign. They therefore cannot
> maintain the double standard of demanding plot control
> authority over events they do not organise set within the
> same campaign. Sanctioning and franchising agreements must
> recognise that the campaign belongs to the players, and may
> not be taken from them.
I believe that you have to have a consensus between the various
levels of administration in order to make for a smooth flow for
the players. If there is a plot committee, I see their main
function as ensuring that the laws of reality are not violated
by any plots being considered.
For example, if the game world has no horses, a plot outlined
for a future event that uses horses would be a problem.
I also see the plot committee as functioning to oversee the
various plots to make sure they don't conflict with each other.
For example, if one group has a plot consideration that sees
their faction leader to overlordship of all factions, no other
group should be allowed to have any plot that considers the same
thing for their faction leader. That, or the committee must have
plans in place that will allow for the resolution of the
conflict between the two plots. (A showdown, as it were, between
the two factions, the results of which, in the immortal words of
Highlander, "There can be only one!")
(Sorry, had to work that in some how!)
:-)
I'm sure there are other functions that a plot committee could
perform. But those two I would see as the main point.
The main thing to take from what I'm saying here is that
somebody has to be minding the store. You need a plot committee
to ensure that conflicts in proposed plots don't crop up with
the laws of reality, and also between different groups putting
on events.
> I welcome all responses, but prefer considered ones
I hope I gave you some food for thought.
Chris Van Gorder
(E-mail address suppressed.)
I'm not breaking the rules. I'm just testing their elasticity!
John Scott
whatismayname?@which.way.did.he.go?.org wrote:
> Simon Oliver wrote:
> > 1. I wrote the rules, so I have intellectual copyright on
> > them.
>
> Absolutely. And anything that anybody else does based on them is
> a derivative work, and as such cannot exert copyright over
> yours. In other words, your copyright extends to anything that
> is based on your work.
>
That's debatable, depending on the definition of 'derivative' you can
persuade a court to use.
TSR made this claim when they had a crack down on internet sites about
AD+D some 6 years ago, and at the time, it was pointed out online that
derivative could (according to, IIRC, the US copyright law wording) apply
to things like translations of your work, not necessarily things based on
your work.
It is also interesting to note that Marion Zimmer Bradley used to
encourage her fans to write fan fiction about Darkover, a world she
created for a series of books she has written. This case is interesting
because I think it truely mimics the situation that a world creator and
player in an RPG system are in.
One of her fans wrote fan-fiction about a particular timeperiod in
Darkover history that Ms. Zimmer Bradley had not covered. When Mz. Zimmer
Bradley later wanted to write about events in that time period, a legal
scuffle ensued (I have no idea who started it) and, one court battle
later, Ms Zimmer Bradley finds herself legally unable to write about that
period of the world she created without permission of the fan in question.
Caveats: I am not a lawyer, even if I have played one IC.
If this is really a concern, I would suggest that game organisers splash
out for an hours consultancy with an Intellectual Properties Lawyer and
find out what the situation is in _their_ country.
John
--
Welcome to Usenet, where having the last word is more important than
being right. Have a nice day.
**The University and I agree on a lot, but not necessarily this**
j.f....@brighton.ac.uk Karl...@postmaster.co.uk
NeroHQ
wanted to add a comment about the copyright.
I think it is important that you, or your organization, hold the copyright on
anything produced by your players for the simple reason that you do not want
your players to try to control your plot.
You don't want to have some player contribute some great new idea, you run with
it for a while, and then have that player leave and tell you that you can never
use any plots derived from that idea again because he owns the copyright.
You also don't want a player creating something for you and then you build on
it and then have your player say "I don't like what you are doing with my plot
so you can no longer use it" or worse "No, it's my plot so I hereby declare
that I am the only one who can say how it evolves, and coincidentially, all the
benefits of this plot go to me and my friends."
In our game, we say that any plot submitted to us that we use becomes our
property -- not to be cruel and possessive and greedy, but to prevent other
players from using the plot only to have it pulled out from under them or
changed at the whim of the player who created it.
(I do not know the laws in England so maybe what I am suggesting would not
apply there.)
I hope that is what you were looking for in terms of comments....
Mike Ventrella
Visit the NERO homepage at http://NeroHQ.com
pathfi...@hotmail.com
whatismayname?@which.way.did.he.go?.org wrote:
> Simon Oliver wrote:
> > 1. I wrote the rules, so I have intellectual copyright on
> > them.
>
> Absolutely. And anything that anybody else does based on them is
> a derivative work, and as such cannot exert copyright over
> yours. In other words, your copyright extends to anything that
> is based on your work.
>
> > including detailed histories and maps and so on, and I have
> > copyright on them.
>
> Ditto from number 1 above.
As Chris said, I'm not sure how legalities and copyright work in the UK, but
in the US, if any product is changed by 40%, it is no longer considered the
same product and therefore isn't under copyright protection. So someone
could take your rules and storyline, change some names and other things until
it is "40% different" from the original and then claim it as their own.
Realize of course that a 40% change basically is a whole new thing anyways
with just your original stuff inspiring them but just want you to be aware
that there is always a way around the copyright.
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
NeroHQ
>As Chris said, I'm not sure how legalities and copyright work in the UK, but
>in the US, if any product is changed by 40%, it is no longer considered the
>same product and therefore isn't under copyright protection.
That is not a hard and fast rule -- there is no law or court case that says
"39% you lose, 40% you win." It's always handled on a case by case basis. (And
after all, some people will see a difference where others will not -- this
isn't a science.) Still, the larger the % difference the harder it is to
enforce your copyright.
Mike Ventrella, Esq.
(I like putting that Esq. in there every now and then; it makes all that money
paid to student loans sound worthwhile almost)
Matthew Pennington
<si...@mindlib.clara.net> writes
<copyrighting plot snipped>
I'm afraid I can never take seriously all this stuff about copyrights
and trademarks and reference to laws and such. I don't know anything
about these kind of laws, nor do I want to, because quite honestly I
just don't see it as remotely relevant to me, my life, and most
particularly my LRP. While discussions of who has the moral right to
control the plot and the campaign are meaningful and relevant, the legal
side of it is just so much hot air.
I've never met anyone who was sued for running LRP in any way and I
don't expect I ever will. To me lawyers are like hurricanes, everyones
frightened of them, they do tremendous damage to society, but
realistically they're something that only happens to Americans (apolgies
to our American friends, who I'm sure have never been sued either and to
our lawyer friends who I'm sure sue people all the time). Lots of people
threaten to sue, but in this country, in the LRP fraternity, no-one ever
actually does.
If you accept the hypothesis that you quite simply are not going to be
sued for infringing copyrights then all the talk of who owns the legal
control of something becomes irrelevant, leaving only the issue of who
has the moral control of it. But thats a much more contentious and
interesting issue anyway...
>IMO (H deleted for the sake of honesty), anyone who claims
>to promote player-led plot must, logically, accept the fact
>that the players own the campaign. They therefore cannot
>maintain the double standard of demanding plot control
>authority over events they do not organise set within the
>same campaign. Sanctioning and franchising agreements must
>recognise that the campaign belongs to the players, and may
>not be taken from them.
I played table top for 15 years before I started larping, so it tends to
influence my thinking on these matters I guess. My view is quite simply
this, I don't give a shit who wrote the world, who inspired the
campaign, who trademarked the races, who copyrighted the weather
patterns, if I'm writing the plot, I'm controlling the gameworld, like
it or lump it.
I believe passionately that the refs should always avoid limiting a
players choices and a players freewill. The fundamental essence of role-
playing IMNSHO is to make choices, if the ref makes the choices for the
players, then no-one is role-playing anymore. The character they play is
theirs, and it does whatever the god damn hell they feel like. That is
integral and as I've said a long time ago, the real challenge of a good
plot writer, is to make the choices the players make, difficult and
significant.
But if I write the plot, if I create the campaign, if I make the props
and set the monsters, then the world is MINE, and it does what I say it
does. I write the plot, you play the plot. If I say it has no horses,
then there are no horses, and if I say it rains sheep, it rains sheep,
if I say Zombies like to boogie, then the unliving do disco. The
corollary of that is that the players do NOT control the world, they
control their characters and nothing more.
I think it has to be like that for a great many reasons. One is fairness
to the players, if some players are writing parts of the world, it
raises serious play balance issues. Another is fairness to the
organisers. If I choose to create a world, you can choose whether to
play in it or not and thats pretty fair all round, I get the pleasure of
creation, you get the pleasure of playing. It's like karma dude, you
don't get to create the world I then have to ref. You also avoid
arguements and continuity problems, when visions differ.
Of course what you gain in continuity and play balance, you lose in
creativity. One person can never be as creative as that person plus
their mates. It's undeniable that the Gathering (for example) has gained
immensely from the many sanctioned events that have been run, and the
plot, campaign, history, background, etc, etc that they have
contributed. Which raises an obvious contradiction of how do you reap
the harvest of that creativity while maintaining control of the world?
Actually I don't think it's all that hard to do. I think most sensible
people are always willing to look at and accept input from players, and
that doesn't have to mean any lessening of control. In my experience of
LRP many of the problems I have seen, have arisen when a disparate group
of people considered themselves to have the right to control, rather
than to contribute. Dispute leads to arguments, arguments leads to
politics, politics leads to suffering. :)
Obviosuly some folks will disagree with my definition of who should be
in control of the game world and why. What I hope people will all agree
with is this, to be fair to yourself and your players you should always
be totally honest with everyone joining a campaign about how much
control of the gameworld they can expect to have. Which in my case is
absolutely none mate. :)
And much more contentiously and far less reasonably, everyone should
shut up about lawyers, copyrights and trademarks and spend the time they
don't spend worrying about such irrelevant nonsence, worrying about very
relevant nonsence, like improving their game world for players.
Hobbes
Mark Storey
talk to our contracts department; (television company contracts departments
are VERY hot on copyright law). I am *not* a lawyer and can only pass on
what I understood to be the case btw. We were concerned that as we were
basing the game on the ex-treasure trap rules that there may be copyright
implications. (16 years ago TT was all we knew).
However as we had considerably added and amended to them the fact was that
what were now *our* rules would be now our copyright (1) regardless of
source.
The following points were also made -
1 Copyright exists in publications not ideas. That is, you can only claim
copyright to a work, and the work has to be published which is defined as
produced for someone else to read - until it is read it is not published.
The copyright is infringed by copying the work - not the ideas in it.
So for a group of people to perform a free form role-play (for instance) and
claim copyright on the plot is a nonsense, unless the plot is clearly
written out and given to a third party to read. If then someone goes home
and writes
the plot out from memory they have an original document which breaches no
copyright.
2 Intellectual property is impossible to prove especially in regard to
literature and even more especially in regard to fantasy as the sources for
such are too widely ingrained in the human population's subconscious.
This was 16 years ago and laws change so if any specialist out there knows
better then I defer to their knowledge.
P.S. They also made the point that if I wanted legal advice to go to a
lawyer who specialised in copyright law as any other lawyer could only give
a professional opinion - that could possibly be a *wrong* professional
opinion!
Edwin Hofstra
Matthew Pennington wrote:
> And much more contentiously and far less reasonably, everyone should
> shut up about lawyers, copyrights and trademarks and spend the time they
> don't spend worrying about such irrelevant nonsence, worrying about very
> relevant nonsence, like improving their game world for players.
>
> Hobbes
Think of how much more you could improve your game world if you do it full
time, and then find out you can't make a living out of it.
There is such a thing as an entertainment industry, and professional LRP
organisations are not necissarily a bad thing. The good thing being a number
of guarantees a commercial business will offer their players, like the
guarantees of proper logisitics, proper lodgings, proper food, proper
costumes and props - things like that. It would be hard to guarantee the
players will have fun, but at least there will be little to complain about.
You can write a tune on your PC, find some hot young boys and girls to dance
to it, sell a good number of albums and make a lot of money. No one will
care whether you care. Then you can device a game-world and a rules system,
write a plot, involve up to a hundred personal backgrounds of PCs into
multiple storylines, make or otherwise arrange a bundle of costumes, weapons
and armour - you know, the works. And you can try to live on the
appreciation of your peers. Sure it's rewarding. So is being a
mother-at-home: slave all day - without the pay.
I can well understand the relevance of event-organizers and plot-writers
being protective of their creations.
Edwin Hofstra
Paul Wilson
<lekker.b...@dinges.demon.nl> wrote:
>
>
>Matthew Pennington wrote:
>
>> And much more contentiously and far less reasonably, everyone should
>> shut up about lawyers, copyrights and trademarks and spend the time they
>> don't spend worrying about such irrelevant nonsence, worrying about very
>> relevant nonsence, like improving their game world for players.
>>
>> Hobbes
>
>Think of how much more you could improve your game world if you do it full
>time, and then find out you can't make a living out of it.
>There is such a thing as an entertainment industry, and professional LRP
>organisations are not necissarily a bad thing. The good thing being a number
>of guarantees a commercial business will offer their players, like the
>guarantees of proper logisitics, proper lodgings, proper food, proper
>costumes and props - things like that. It would be hard to guarantee the
>players will have fun, but at least there will be little to complain about.
>You can write a tune on your PC, find some hot young boys and girls to dance
>to it, sell a good number of albums and make a lot of money. No one will
>care whether you care. Then you can device a game-world and a rules system,
>write a plot, involve up to a hundred personal backgrounds of PCs into
>multiple storylines, make or otherwise arrange a bundle of costumes, weapons
>and armour - you know, the works. And you can try to live on the
>appreciation of your peers. Sure it's rewarding. So is being a
>mother-at-home: slave all day - without the pay.
>I can well understand the relevance of event-organizers and plot-writers
>being protective of their creations.
>
>Edwin Hofstra
>
Just a personal observation, but in the tabletop world, it seems to
me, that those games which bring out oodles and oodles of "product"
that you must have to play their games - usualy quite crappy games, at
that - invariably do well and are very popular. On the other hand,
those games that seem to realy care about their players and bring out
only a few quality "add-ons" ( and are usually very good games) never
seem to do well.
I also find this in larp. a lot of terrible clubs up and down the
country of the "Yes- we- are -authentic -celts -but- we -have-drow-
and- ninjas- and -you- can- play -a -minotaur- and- shout -15 damage "
type get hundreds of players, yet realy well thaught out non-generic
clubs who make sure that their world and background make sense,
struggle. We find it hard to get more than about 30 players.(Wyrd
Weavings).
Paul
Simon Oliver
a creation. In that sense it is a moral matter, not a legal one. My three
statements cover the three catagories of creation integrated into LRP. The
rules, the published works that govern the gameworld, and the role-playing
at events. At no time do I expect to resort to lawyers to resolve my
differences with players and other event organisers within the game, unless
they:
1. Use the Honour and the Blade rules without crediting me with authorship
(and pay me the royalty for each copy sold if they decide to charge for the
rulebook, something I don't intend to do).
2. Copy and distribute gameworld documents I have produced without crediting
me as the author - this includes running events within the gameworld without
crediting me since the fundamentals of the gameworld are my creation.
3. Use plot history generated by the players (see my other post) as
background for their own publications without crediting those players
(collectively) for the act of creation.
No-one can control a gameworld in LRP to the extent that it becomes their
creation, and I have no intention of trying. But I do have control over the
rules and the background I produce, and that will inform and shape the
campaign as much as anything. If people change it and pass it off as the
same creation, or keep it the same and pass it off as a different creation,
then they are stealing from me and from the players who take part in the
campaign. Just as a GM would be stealing from TSR if he decided to pass off
a set of AD&D rules as his own.
Matthew Pennington wrote:
> Obviosuly some folks will disagree with my definition of who should be
> in control of the game world and why. What I hope people will all agree
> with is this, to be fair to yourself and your players you should always
> be totally honest with everyone joining a campaign about how much
> control of the gameworld they can expect to have. Which in my case is
> absolutely none mate. :)
Simon Oliver
Simon Oliver
NeroHQ wrote:
> You don't want to have some player contribute some great new idea, you run with
> it for a while, and then have that player leave and tell you that you can never
> use any plots derived from that idea again because he owns the copyright.
>
> You also don't want a player creating something for you and then you build on
> it and then have your player say "I don't like what you are doing with my plot
> so you can no longer use it" or worse "No, it's my plot so I hereby declare
> that I am the only one who can say how it evolves, and coincidentially, all the
> benefits of this plot go to me and my friends."
If an individual contributes plot to a campaign for public consumption, there are
not usually any publications. However, the plot involves many players who may then
claim intellectual property over the course of events, since the act of creation
was witnessed and possibly recorded by all there. The people who own the plot are
therefore the players as a collective, not the individual who gave their idea to
the event organisers to include in the campaign.
The original idea is the intellectual property of the person who thought it up, but
when they offer it for inclusion in the campaign they are implicitly granting
permission for that idea to be integrated into the campaign, and this permission,
once given and accepted, cannot be withdrawn. Just like the Lorien Trust gave
permission for anyone and everyone to use and reproduce the Earthworks rules by
placing them in the public domain. A set of rules called the advanced Earthworks
rules cannot re-claim copyright on the ideas in the original version.
In the area of intellectual property, permission once given and accepted may not be
withdrawn except under stipulations made at the time. That is why people who wish
to protect their property make clear statements establishing the fact that
permission has NOT been given.
(Please note that I am not talking written law here - I know very little about that
- I am talking the common sense, moral principles, right and wrong law.)
But I cannot withold permission on acts of creation which will be made in the
future by a collection of players. It is not my copyright to claim. However, if I
wish to preserve the unity of the plot and gameworld I need to have someone or
something to hold copyright on the campaign. So I claim it on the behalf of a
collective made up of every player who attends events within the gameworld.
One might argue that these acts are ephemeral and impossible to copy, but they can
be - and are - recorded. Televised American Football games include the claim,
spoken by the commentator, that the broadcast is copyrighted to whichever TV
station or football franchise owns the rights to the game. In the same way the
material derived from LRP events (the unfolding history and in-character reports
that can be copied) and by extension, the campaign itself, is capable of being
stolen, and must therefore be protected. Declaring who owns a thing is the first
step towards preventing it from being stolen.
Taking another example from recent UK history (and I don't want to spark off any
more whingeing and mudslinging, so just treat this as an intellectual exercise),
the Renewal campaign was an effective branching off of the Erdreja campaign, but
because the Erdreja campaign was started by a player collective, it can be argued
that neither Merlinroute (who use the name Lorien Trust) nor Curious Pastimes own
the campaign. Since the organisers of the player collective never claimed ownership
of the campaign (and are no longer able or willing to represent that collective)
the campaign itself can be said to be public domain. Anybody can make use of it
without qualms.
So, to re-iterate, whilst the rules and supporting publications may be copyrighted
to individuals (and for a consistent campaign, one individual or group), the
campaign itself, and any records of the campaign contained within publications,
should be coyrighted to the players as a whole.
Ian Sturrock
lang...@dinges.demon.nl> writes
>professional LRP
>organisations are not necissarily a bad thing. The good thing being a number
>of guarantees a commercial business will offer their players, like the
>guarantees of proper logisitics, proper lodgings, proper food, proper
>costumes and props - things like that.
I think you mean "the number of guarantees a commercial business *could*
offer their players."
IME 80% of commercial LRP businesses offer a lot less than amateur-run
ones. There are exceptions, but they're few & far between. I'm not
going to mention any names though...
--
"I am a free prince, and I have as much authority to make war on the whole world
as he who has a hundred sail of ships at sea, and an army of 100,000 men in the
field, and thus my conscience tells me." (Captain Bellamy. A Pirate)
Katie Brown
> The good thing being a number
> of guarantees a commercial business will offer their players, like the
> guarantees of proper logisitics, proper lodgings, proper food, proper
> costumes and props - things like that. It would be hard to guarantee the
> players will have fun, but at least there will be little to complain about.
Hmmm. Maybe. Be wary of taking that thought too far. Good logistics does
not a good game make.
I'd rather have fun than any of the above. Food, lodgings and so on are
definately important, don't get me wrong, but I've been in some really
memorable games in the woods near my home with a group with two piece of
knitted chain between them, bring your own food and 'those trees over
there are the great city of where-ever.'
If I want a weekend of comfort I'll go to a hotel. If I want a weekend
of high quality entertainment I'll go lrping - and only complain if
despite my best efforts I don't have any fun. (Never happened yet though
;)
Katie
Matthew Pennington
<si...@mindlib.clara.net> writes
>Copyright, to my mind, is about the right to be identified as the author of
>a creation. In that sense it is a moral matter, not a legal one. My three
>statements cover the three catagories of creation integrated into LRP. The
>rules, the published works that govern the gameworld, and the role-playing
>at events. At no time do I expect to resort to lawyers to resolve my
>differences with players and other event organisers within the game, unless
>they:
Certainly there is a moral dimension to copyright, I accept that, though
it's not one that holds any personal appeal to me. I'm more than happy
for anyone to use anything I do or make, I'd consider it rude not to put
my name on it somewhere, I'd consider it silly to pass something off as
their own when it blatently wasn't, but I certainly ain't going to lose
any sleep over it. (I WOULD feel differently if this was my livelihood,
I might add, but it ain't so I don't).
Like most folks in LRP I suffer from a badly inflated sense of my own
self importance, so I think all the stuff I write is dead good. (of
course in my case I'm right...). :) Given that I'm prejudiced enough to
think the stuff I do is worth nicking, copying, using, whatever, then
ultimately my own appalling hubris means I'm happy when I see anyone
using my stuff, attributed or otherwise, cuz I think players are gonna
enjoy it. So I don't get the credit for it, wooee, mildly miff causing,
but hardly the end of the world.
</Troll on>
If you run LRP do you do it so players will enjoy it, or so that people
will recognise and appreciate your brilliance?
</Troll off>
<3 lines in the sand snipped>
All the theory about where you draw the line and how far people are
allowed to go in copying your work before you sue, is irrelevant though,
because whatever they do, you ain't gonna sue them. Sure thats a damned
irresponsible attitude to take, clearly you could sue, but simple real
world facts (you don't have months and thousands of pounds to waste)
dictate that you ain't going to. So wheres the point even wasting time
thinking about it, when you aint ever going to do it? (Obviously I
accept you can have a completely reasonable counter-argument that I'm
just plain wrong and you WOULD sue, I just think it's wrong).
>
>No-one can control a gameworld in LRP to the extent that it becomes their
>creation, and I have no intention of trying. But I do have control over the
It all depends what you define as control, I think you can control a LRP
gameworld. You can't control the game of course, since thats the sum of
yours and the players input, but you can control the gameworld.
Matt
--
Matthew Pennington
Matthew Pennington
>Think of how much more you could improve your game world if you do it full
>time, and then find out you can't make a living out of it.
>There is such a thing as an entertainment industry, and professional LRP
>organisations are not necissarily a bad thing. The good thing being a number
>of guarantees a commercial business will offer their players, like the
>guarantees of proper logisitics, proper lodgings, proper food, proper
>costumes and props - things like that. It would be hard to guarantee the
>players will have fun, but at least there will be little to complain about.
>You can write a tune on your PC, find some hot young boys and girls to dance
>to it, sell a good number of albums and make a lot of money. No one will
>care whether you care. Then you can device a game-world and a rules system,
>write a plot, involve up to a hundred personal backgrounds of PCs into
>multiple storylines, make or otherwise arrange a bundle of costumes, weapons
>and armour - you know, the works. And you can try to live on the
>appreciation of your peers. Sure it's rewarding. So is being a
>mother-at-home: slave all day - without the pay.
>I can well understand the relevance of event-organizers and plot-writers
>being protective of their creations.
>
As I said elsewhere I'd feel differently about infringement of
copywright if my living depended on it not being infringed. Since it
doesn't and god help me I hope it never will, I really don't give a roos
poo about anyone infringing my copyrights in respect to LRP.
I'd like to point out that I don't have the slightest problems with
professional (profit-making) LRP, to be precise I see profit making as
an irrelevant issue to LRP. The ONLY thing that I think needs concern
LRP event attenders is "Is the event value for money?" If it is, then go
and enjoy it and if it ain't then don't. Who cares where the money goes,
so long as the event is enjoyable? (And yes I realise where the money
goes affects whether the event is enjoyable or not, but the relationship
is a complex one).
However, were I in the unenviable position of running an LRP event for
profit then I STILL wouldn't give a roos poo whether someone nicked my
gameworld, all my creative ideas and my rules. LRP events are one shot
thing, you pay for the whole living experience, not the rules, or a plot
summary or whatever. People copying areas of what you've done does not
reproduce your event, nor does it (I think) have any large impact on
your ability to run future successful, profit making events.
If I ran an event, and a week later someone ran the same event, with the
same world and the same plot, I wouldn't sue them, I'd laugh at them.
If people use my work to supplant their own abilities then more fool
them, if they use it to support their own abilities, to write better
plot, better rules and better game worlds, then I have only one thing to
say. "Where do I get my ticket?"
Hobbes
--
Matthew Pennington
Simon Oliver
> However, were I in the unenviable position of running an LRP event for
> profit
I must have missed the bit in the Omega handouts where it said they were
non-profit. I hope it breaks even then :)
Simon Oliver
Mindlib Live Role-playing
Where events are priced to enable me to keep doing them.
Larry
President of a "for profit" LARP. We budget at the beginning of the year
what expenses we expect to incur, we estimate how many players we expect
and then cut the price as close as we can.
Where most commercial ventures tack on 100% profit to whatever product they
are selling, (That's right, that $1.00 bottle of soda costs your local
store less than 50 cents..) we aim to make just enough to keep our game
going, each of our board members and staff people put in between 30-100
hours a month to make the game successful. Much of that time for me and
some others is spent creating plot, characters and of course rules. We will
not let someone else run a game by stealing our hard work, if we were
interested in donating our time to charity we would do so (ands some of us
do). If we were interested in helping someone create a game that competes
for the leisure time of our player base we would do so directly. These are
the fruits of our labor and we should not have to share them with usurpers
without our permission, and we don't.
The pride and sense of propriety we have for our game contributes to its
success and quality, the idea that for profit Larps are somehow
"mystically" inferior to free ones is ludicrous. Money equals better
facilities, better advertising (and consequently more players), better
props and costumes, and in general a higher quality game.
Simon Oliver
> The pride and sense of propriety we have for our game contributes to its
> success and quality, the idea that for profit Larps are somehow
> "mystically" inferior to free ones is ludicrous. Money equals better
> facilities, better advertising (and consequently more players), better
> props and costumes, and in general a higher quality game.
Here Here.
Making a profit (enough to live on, or just enough to justify the time and
effort) is not just acceptable, I view it as essential for a good quality LARP
event/campaign. Fair competition keeps costs reasonable, and generally
reflective of value.
Unfair competition, where one organiser takes advantage of the groundwork of
another by appropriating their campaign world, is symptomatic of a lack of
committment. It is far more likely to indicate low value for money. The events
may be priced similarly, but the profit margin is greater in the stolen world.
It is a safe bet that the organisers are more interested in the short term
money than the long term player satisfaction that can make a campaign work (and
the income persist and even grow).
The difference between a reputable builder and a cowboy is not the appearance
of the finished job, it's the underlying work that will make it last.
This is what copyright is all about - ensuring fair competition and maintaining
standards across the board, whilst guaranteeing that the people who do the work
get the opportunity to reap the rewards. Campaign copyright is about protecting
the integrity and standard of a campaign against inferior imitations. Rip-offs
that take away players who then get disillusioned and give up all together.
I want to establish the principles protecting the Mindlib campaign world so
that if and when someone tries to cash in on the hard work of all the players
(and myself, before anyone thinks I am trying to hide my self interest), there
will be some way to stop them and keep the campaign going. Players may leave
because it is not to their taste, or because they've found something they like
better, but if they leave in the belief that the usurper campaign will become
the mainstream version, everyone loses out.
Simon Oliver
Mindlib Live Role-playing
go see http://home.clara.net/mindlib for news of Conclave and booking
information.
Lizi Cable
is, can it ever really be run for profit?
As soon as the organiser goes "professional" all the good will -
the free plots & ideas, the monster crew, the loan of costume
etc. etc. dries up, and as far as I have seen (never having tried
it myself - I would if I thought it would work!) the club goes
under.
Others in this thread talk about all the hours they put in for
free - so how can they say they are running for a profit?
Lizi
--
Ask me about LRP Insurance.
Edwin Hofstra
Relying on players to bring their own stuff however, does put the organizers in the risk of being `out-professionalized' by their costumers. And indeed, once you start asking entrance fees based on profit, you should forget about relying on player input (though you should always keep an open ear).
Professional organizers won't stop with the rather limited target market of experienced role players. They'd target the masses via travel & leisure time agencies and provide costumes and weapons for their players (which could make for a boom in costume-renting business, think about it), all the while keeping their system & worlds attractive enough for veteran LARPers. I guess a lot of veteran players would be put off by the thought of sharing a game with these lay masses, but think of the advantages:
- More people would be introduced to the hobby if they only need to buy a ticket and read a few rules.
- Costuming would be more consistent - you won't find Brian the Beggar outdressing the baron of Bulbosia. (I know, too extreme an example :-) .)
- Any improvements made in professional games would be followed (to an extent) by non-profit games.
- As the industry grows, better accomodations would become available. (Though not necessarily to non-profit games :-( .)
- Weapons and equipment would become cheaper. (Even if they don't need to buy one, returning players will want to own their own swords. After all, they're displayable. And one can never have too much practive with them. A bigger market leads to lower prices.)
- Occasional players will be less power hungry and rules wary, making for more candid role playing.
I also think that a lot of power playing is caused - indeliberately perhaps - by the nature of the various rules systems, since these are designed by one-time players, who are attracted to the idea of `well thought out' characters. And indeed, to the average LARPer, such a system just may be more attractive than one that's truly balanced.
As a practical example, I remember a contest run by the distributer of the Might&Magic computor games. The ten prizes were a free saturday LARP event set in the same world as the C-game. This event was set up by people I knew, and when my `local retailer' pointed this out to me, I decided to enter - and won. Said saturday I met fourteen other players, some of my generation, but also some kids and their parents! We got a choice of pregeneratied characters, and being the only LARPer, I decided to play a priest, (I noticed the most experienced C-gamer did the same,) and settled for a supportive role.
Dispite of the lousy weather, everybody had a good time. Nobody was trying to outsmart the refs, no-one tried to out-bully other players, but people were quite inventive when negotiating with NPCs. (They tried a lot of ideas more experienced players would have discarded with `no-way is that going to work', and often they found it did work.) The C-gamer used his Body spells to heal and I saved my Spirit spells to bless weapons when finally confronting the big, bad demon (yeah, saw that one coming a mile away :-) ), and it became apparent that the refs had planted two other LARPers, who could guide the parties (the group had been split for that little bit of competition, but we were looking for two items, so that was okay) with sudden insights, should such be necessary.
The end results were a lot of wet clothes, wildly enthousiastic kids, tired parents who really had a fun day with their children, two or three new LARPers, and the realisation that novel players are not bad role players, even if they may be bad rule players :-).
Edwin Hofstra
Matthew Pennington
<si...@mindlib.clara.net> writes
>Larry wrote:
>
>> The pride and sense of propriety we have for our game contributes to its
>> success and quality, the idea that for profit Larps are somehow
>> "mystically" inferior to free ones is ludicrous. Money equals better
>> facilities, better advertising (and consequently more players), better
>> props and costumes, and in general a higher quality game.
>
>Here Here.
>Making a profit (enough to live on, or just enough to justify the time and
>effort) is not just acceptable, I view it as essential for a good quality LARP
>event/campaign. Fair competition keeps costs reasonable, and generally
>reflective of value.
There's a problem with the profit making = better event theorem, and
that is that in my opinion the numbers just don't add up. I've never
seen a LRP event where the majority of the major contributors weren't
doing it for free (although I've never been to Labyrinthe mind), and I
strongly suspect I never will. The problem is that once you cost in all
the expenses, and the value of the time etc of the people involved there
ain't anywhere near enough left out of the gate to pay any profits to
anyone, never mind spend money on all the things you suggest. Add a
nought to the gate price of events and the maths would add up,
otherwise, no chance.
All LRP I've ever seen was basically run off the goodwill and generosity
of the contributors and the quality was determined by the limits of
their goodwill and the extent of their skill, not the price. I've seen
some great LRP run off shoestring budgets by people who really cared and
some joke LRP run off movie budgets by some people who really didn't.
My point is that the maths doesn't add up, you just can't make enough
money to pay for costume, props, literature, etc, etc, and instead you
rely on getting someone, anyone, everyone to make them for you for free,
or for next to nothing. Yes, a good event "makes money" to use on props,
costume, quality, etc, but there is no *profit* in LRP and consequently
expensive has never equated to quality any time that I've ever seen.
Soom great events are cheap, some are expensive, and vice-versa.
*(I mean profit as in true profit here, for paying wages and dividends,
not profit for costumes and props etc)*
I'd like to add that I've said many times that I don't give a roo's poo
whether an event makes money or not, indeed I'm much happier thinking
some poor sod who spent weeks and months creating an event gets actually
paid for his time and effort, the only thing I judge an event on, is
whether it's value for money or not.
>
>This is what copyright is all about - ensuring fair competition and maintaining
>standards across the board, whilst guaranteeing that the people who do the work
>get the opportunity to reap the rewards. Campaign copyright is about protecting
>the integrity and standard of a campaign against inferior imitations. Rip-offs
>that take away players who then get disillusioned and give up all together.
I still maintain that all your copyright in the world ain't going to do
you one ounce of good, because you just don't have the time and the
resources to sue me when I steal it.
>
>I want to establish the principles protecting the Mindlib campaign world so
>that if and when someone tries to cash in on the hard work of all the players
>(and myself, before anyone thinks I am trying to hide my self interest), there
>will be some way to stop them and keep the campaign going. Players may leave
>because it is not to their taste, or because they've found something they like
>better, but if they leave in the belief that the usurper campaign will become
>the mainstream version, everyone loses out.
I think you'd do better to protect your investment by expending your
effots ensuring the campaign is as good as you can get it, rather than
by reaching for a set of legal rights which (IMO) aren't going to do you
the slightest bit of good. Morality ain't legality. I wish it were, but
sadly it ain't so. Still I guess you disagree... :)
--
Matthew Pennington
Bruno Murray
>is, can it ever really be run for profit?
>etc. etc. dries up, and as far as I have seen (never having tried
>it myself - I would if I thought it would work!) the club goes
>under.
Hi-
I work full-time as the manager for Labyrinthe's LRP side; the turn-over
from Labyrinthe also supports full-time employment for Jan McManus, the
owner, an office assistant, and a full-time PBM referee who runs the
PBMs for Labyrinthe characters, letting them do stuff in 'down-time'.
Now, no doubt(!) many criticisms can be levelled at Labyrinthe, and of
course we're not a perfect system, but clearly we do successfully run as
a LRP system for profit, giving 4 people full-time jobs (and paying
literally scores of part-timers at the weekends). We've been running
this way for something like 12 years, and still have a fair number of
people who have been playing regularly with us since that time; we have
maybe 120-180 people come down to our caves every weekend the entire
year round.
Now, I don't know why we have remained afloat, albeit with various ups
and downs over the years, while other people have failed to run for
profit. The cave system no doubt has something to do with it...
Nevertheless, we _are_ afloat. So there ;)
--
Bruno Murray
Shoud
writes:
>Now, I don't know why we have remained afloat, albeit with various ups
>and downs over the years, while other people have failed to run for
>profit.
Probably because your players are having fun, keep coming back and tell their
friends about your game.
If games in the UK are anything like games in the US the other games might
possibly have failed because the people running them made major mistakes in
customer relations not because of any intrinsic faults with their systems.
F. Pyne
Simon Oliver
> Probably because your players are having fun, keep coming back and tell their
> friends about your game.
>
> If games in the UK are anything like games in the US the other games might
> possibly have failed because the people running them made major mistakes in
> customer relations not because of any intrinsic faults with their systems.
A neat summary.
It is often the case that the people who control an institution are those that
are best at gaining control, rather than those that are best at wielding the
influence once they have it. In my experience the two abilities seldom reside
happily within the same person.
Simon Oliver
Mindlib Live Role-Playing
http://home.clara.net/mindlib
Taz Higgins
is the easy access to/from London and the cachement area thereof.
--
Taz Higgins
Virtually Accessing the Net with V I R T U A L A C C E S S
con...@my-dejanews.com
Bruno Murray <postm...@labyrinthe.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Now, I don't know why we have remained afloat, albeit with various ups
> and downs over the years, while other people have failed to run for
> profit
Do Labyrinthe still act as an outlet for CCGs and stuff? I know that they
used to. This extra business must help in supporting the other sides of the
company, as it is relatively low maintainance.
You also have the advantage of having a system in place to run multiple events
on any given weekend. This is why so few startups succeed. To make a profit in
LRP (at least in the UK) it seems to require that you run more than one event
per month (no matter how big that event).
Certainly I can't comment about the standard of Labyrinthe today, but when i
last visited the caves (in about 1990), the quality was very low. It felt very
much like a production line, with adventures herded into the caves and out the
other side as quickly as possible. Thus maximising profits.
I appreciate that much of the money made was ploughed back into the club (and
have heard that since the change of management the quality has consistently
improved), but this attitude must have helped Labyrinthe remain as a viable
business concern.
I think that the "bad years" at Labyrinthe (bad from the point of view of the
players) must have contributed to it's ongoing success as a professional
company. To be able to make a large amount of money in as short a period as
possible has to be a major help, providing costumes, masks and a large amount
of working capital for the club.
Please feel free to disagree with me.
John S.
The Sophist
I think you're on the dead on the mark; I wouldn't disagree with any of your
comments.
Darrell
Paradox LRP: http://members.tripod.co.uk/~eloquent
con...@my-dejanews.com wrote in message
<7f1loi$pol$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
Bruno Murray
writes
>In article <H27qROA7...@labyrinthe.demon.co.uk>,
> Bruno Murray <postm...@labyrinthe.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> Now, I don't know why we have remained afloat, albeit with various ups
>> and downs over the years, while other people have failed to run for
>> profit
>
>Do Labyrinthe still act as an outlet for CCGs and stuff? I know that they
>used to. This extra business must help in supporting the other sides of the
>company, as it is relatively low maintainance.
Hi-
Most of the comments below seem reasonable (although please notice that
as John says himself, he's referring to the way things were 9 years
ago!); I'm just posting to say that No, Labyrinthe don't deal in CCGs
anymore - or rather, the company split into two halves, both called
Labyrinthe, but with nothing to do with each other. Labyrinthe LRP _do_
make additional money from running two PBM games based on the LRP game -
but this is just an extension of the LRP side, of course.
>
>You also have the advantage of having a system in place to run multiple events
>on any given weekend. This is why so few startups succeed. To make a profit in
>LRP (at least in the UK) it seems to require that you run more than one event
>per month (no matter how big that event).
Quite right; I'm sure the caves site is a massive advantage.
>
>Certainly I can't comment about the standard of Labyrinthe today, but when i
>last visited the caves (in about 1990), the quality was very low. It felt very
>much like a production line, with adventures herded into the caves and out the
>other side as quickly as possible. Thus maximising profits.
>
>I appreciate that much of the money made was ploughed back into the club (and
>have heard that since the change of management the quality has consistently
>improved), but this attitude must have helped Labyrinthe remain as a viable
>business concern.
>
>I think that the "bad years" at Labyrinthe (bad from the point of view of the
>players) must have contributed to it's ongoing success as a professional
>company. To be able to make a large amount of money in as short a period as
>possible has to be a major help, providing costumes, masks and a large amount
>of working capital for the club.
>
>Please feel free to disagree with me.
>
>John S.
--
Bruno Murray
Labyrinthe's LRP Manager
J.H.T. Fattorini
>Quite right; I'm sure the caves site is a massive advantage.
Hi - I'd heard that, despite having the best site in the UK (if not
Europe or the World !) for real caves and dungeons, the passages are
normally used as "paths in forests" etc. and the caves are "clearings".
I thought this sounded a bit odd - is this true ?
Jules.
Bruno Murray
<LAW8...@leeds.ac.uk> writes
Well... no. What is true is that given that lots of our players are
very regular, adventuring every weekend or nearly so, referees don't
always run every single adventure 'in a cave', or at least not the whole
adventure - for example, the walk down the tunnel to the main
adventuring area might be rep.ing the walk up the side of the mountain
to the cavern entrance. While this can be a shame on the reality-
standpoint, a couple of hours suspending disbelief for a change can
sometimes appeal if your last dozen adventures were all in caves, and it
gives referees a lot more flexibility.
I certainly would disagree that referees 'normally' set their adventures
in such a way - I'd admit to 'occasionally' though. I'll add that I do
encourage referees reffing players inexperienced within our game-system
to try to stick to caves settings...
--
Bruno
Tom Jewell
<postm...@labyrinthe.demon.co.uk> writes
where we where sent to a school of Art and told as payment we could keep
any of the Art we found. It was School of the art of Weapon use.
Anyway this time the Caves where used to represent a building in a town.
Not a cave or a forest glayde. Sometimes when I've run adventures in
woods it gets frustrating that woods are always woods and I've told my
players it is now caves and they can't stray from the paths.
I personally think this is good as it is about roleplaying and
imagination and you need the variety occasionally.
Tom | Blue is Beautiful,
| Blue is Best,
| I'm Blue, I'm Beautiful, I'm Best
Sean Cook
ll.nospam.demon.co.uk> writes
>I personally think this is good as it is about roleplaying and
>imagination and you need the variety occasionally.
world. This world is not subterranean, so not every adventure can take
place in caves. Admittedly, when you're told you're in fields on a
bright sunny day and you're actually in caves where you can't see your
hand in front of your face without a torch, your imagination can be
stretched a little. But nonetheless imagination is as important in LRP
as it is in TT, Labyrinthe has its flaws like most systems, but this is
not one of them.
--
Se...@netheril.demon.co.uk
"The trick, Fletcher, is that we are trying to overcome our limitations in
order, patiently. We don't tackle flying through rock until a little later in
the programme." Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Tag
<Se...@netheril.demon.co.uk> quoth...
>In article <uPgOcCAD...@tjewell.demon.co.uk>, Tom Jewell <Tom@tjewe
>ll.nospam.demon.co.uk> writes
>>I personally think this is good as it is about roleplaying and
>>imagination and you need the variety occasionally.
>Exactly. The Labyrinthe system tries to represent an entire fantasy
>world. This world is not subterranean, so not every adventure can take
>place in caves. Admittedly, when you're told you're in fields on a
>bright sunny day and you're actually in caves where you can't see your
>hand in front of your face without a torch, your imagination can be
>stretched a little. But nonetheless imagination is as important in LRP
>as it is in TT, Labyrinthe has its flaws like most systems, but this is
>not one of them.
As long as you don't waste your natural benefits, variety's great. We
had a DUTT adventure recently using Great High Woods as a sewer system,
which worked pretty well, except people had a habit of accidentally
wandering off the path, and thus into the "wall"! It was also a bit
annoying not to have anywhere to jump when the monsters rolled a boulder
at us...
Tag
--
-------------------- Yet Another Message From -----------------------
Tag Bresun - tag(at)packer.demon.co.uk - http://www.dur.ac.uk/~d81uby
---------------------------------------------------------------------
J.H.T. Fattorini
>As long as you don't waste your natural benefits, variety's great.
>We had a DUTT adventure recently using Great High Woods as a sewer
>system,
This was done at night wasn't it ? (so that you really were in the
dark)
>which worked pretty well, except people had a habit of accidentally
>wandering off the path, and thus into the "wall"! It was also a bit
>annoying not to have anywhere to jump when the monsters rolled a
>boulder at us...
Was this one of the foam and gaffa-tape covered chicken-wire-frame
boulders of legend ?!
Jules.
Tag
> Tag <t...@packer.NOSPAM.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >As long as you don't waste your natural benefits, variety's great.
> >We had a DUTT adventure recently using Great High Woods as a sewer
> >system,
>
> This was done at night wasn't it ? (so that you really were in the
> dark)
I gather it was in the first sewer bash, but not in this one. We were
told that a glowing fungus lined the walls, enabling us to see as if
it was daylight...
> >which worked pretty well, except people had a habit of accidentally
> >wandering off the path, and thus into the "wall"! It was also a bit
> >annoying not to have anywhere to jump when the monsters rolled a
> >boulder at us...
>
> Was this one of the foam and gaffa-tape covered chicken-wire-frame
> boulders of legend ?!
Tragically not. We had to imagine the boulder and run like hell.
This lack of realism was more than made up for by Ian MacCreadie's
earlier impression of 'thousands of half-dead fish'. I believe that
got him a pint.
--
--------------Another message from the pigeon loft of---------------
Tag Bresun - ta...@bigfoot.com - http://www.dur.ac.uk/~d81uby
--------------------------------------------------------------------