 January 9, 2008 - 11:57am | The second issue is being put together now. If you wish to submit any kind of Star Frontiers, D20, or open gaming content please PM or email it to me. Starting next week or so I will be formatting the new content and will be releasing it on the first of next month. I already have some materials, but I am waiting to get some more. If you wish to get some kind of royalty for your articles submitted please contact me on that as well so we can work it out. Thanks, Greg Rapp Confucious Says: Man with one chopstick go hungry. Man who eat many prunes get good run for money. Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement. |
 January 9, 2008 - 5:46pm | Royalties? Are you going to be charging for issues? You better dot your i's and cross your t's. You wouldn't want to be sued for making money on other companies' games. By the way, I haven't had much time lately to read the issue. After the 16, I'll have the time. |
January 9, 2008 - 10:06pm | No I am not continuing WOTC's Star Frontiers until I can argue out a license from them. But, until then I will be mostly going with D20, regular non-rule errata, gaming guides, and so on. When I am able to get a Star Frontiers license worked out i will be doing that. Confucious Says: Man with one chopstick go hungry. Man who eat many prunes get good run for money. Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement. |
 January 10, 2008 - 6:36am | Ok, Im confused... what kind of royalties are you speaking about? especially if the ezine is a free download. Time flies when your having rum. Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time. |
January 10, 2008 - 11:46am | It for when I sell the hard copies. Confucious Says: Man with one chopstick go hungry. Man who eat many prunes get good run for money. Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement. |
January 10, 2008 - 12:00pm | But to answer your question Corjay I have figuered a way to where I dont have to argue out a license from WOTC it is said in their D20 Guide: "Requires the use of of Core Rule Book published by WOTC". Since TSR is now owned by WOTC it is like they published the book themselves. Confucious Says: Man with one chopstick go hungry. Man who eat many prunes get good run for money. Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement. |
January 10, 2008 - 2:13pm | But the downloadable version I am putting on the site (next issue) will be free for everybody on the site. Kind of a thanks for allowing me to put my project here and for the input. All of the articles seen in this ezine can be used by anyone and I hope many of the sci-fi and gming articles will help people. Confucious Says: Man with one chopstick go hungry. Man who eat many prunes get good run for money. Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement. |
January 10, 2008 - 6:34pm | But to answer your question Corjay I have figuered a way to where I dont have to argue out a license from WOTC it is said in their D20 Guide: "Requires the use of of Core Rule Book published by WOTC". Since TSR is now owned by WOTC it is like they published the book themselves. How does this resolve your problem? Publishing rights are still exclusive without an OGL. |
January 10, 2008 - 7:16pm | Thats how you do it with D&D, D20 Modern, and so on. Confucious Says: Man with one chopstick go hungry. Man who eat many prunes get good run for money. Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement. |
January 10, 2008 - 10:35pm | That's because they have OGL's. Star Frontiers does not. If you noticed, "Star Frontiers" is not a part of the d20 OGL. If you use creatures or other material from D&D and d20 Modern books that aren't listed in their SRDs, again, you're liable. I'm just trying to protect you here. You don't seem very well versed in copyright or trademark (no offense meant by that. Just stating an observation). I don't think they'll bug you over producing free materials, but I can be very sure they won't take kindly to making money off their brand names without permission. |
January 11, 2008 - 9:34am | Actually if you look at the D20 Future rulebook and MSRD you find that Star Frontiers is in the D20 SRD. Many of the mechanics are taken from the Star Frontiers RPG. Confucious Says: Man with one chopstick go hungry. Man who eat many prunes get good run for money. Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement. |
January 11, 2008 - 6:32pm | No. None of the mechanics are in the SRD and none of the story. What is in the SRD is what you find in the d20 Modern and d20 Future books. The only thing from Star Frontiers you'll find there are the races, PSA names turned into classes and some of the equipment. Races, PSA names, and equipment are not mechanics. They are product identity. |
January 12, 2008 - 10:42am | If you look at the MSRD and D20 Future all lot of their ideas are taken from some star frontiers rules and canon. Confucious Says: Man with one chopstick go hungry. Man who eat many prunes get good run for money. Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement. |
January 12, 2008 - 11:50am | Perhaps you can provide an example, because I'm finding no actual mechanics from Star Frontiers in the d20 Future materials, and I'm already familiar enough with the d20 Modern materials to know that there are none besides those common to any RPG. To clearly define "mechanics", a mechanic is a tool used to accomplish a task within the game. An ability score is a mechanic. A calculation is a mechanic. A movement is a mechanic. The name of an organization or a race is not a mechanic. |
January 12, 2008 - 12:20pm | The D100. This wasnt originally used in D&D until later on. You also have the "Tangler" in the future equipment under the D20 SRD, starships from Knight Hawks can be also see, and so on. Confucious Says: Man with one chopstick go hungry. Man who eat many prunes get good run for money. Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement. |
January 12, 2008 - 12:41pm | Those are not mechanics. The d100 was indeed used at that time. It was called a percentile roll. The reason it was not used in the creation of creatures and gods is because they wanted a curve on which to get closer to an average. Saying 10d10 gives you a bell curve, where as 1d100 is completely random. However, again, a 1d100 is common to many, many games. Not just Star Frontiers. As for "tangler", it is a item name. It is not a mechanic. The ships in Knight Hawks also do not use any Star Frontiers mechanics, and their names are common to just about every space game in existence. Again, they are not mechanics, but are simply names. I am still not seeing ANY mechanics provided here. |
January 12, 2008 - 3:17pm | But they do come from the game. And I talked to Bill and he said that WOTC will allow you to use star frontiers but you have to use the D20/OGL materials. Which with the article I can say does and doesnt. Confucious Says: Man with one chopstick go hungry. Man who eat many prunes get good run for money. Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement. |
January 12, 2008 - 3:20pm | I put in the legal stuff so if they dont like it and want me to end it I will. But, there wasnt a single copy sold and I am not making any profit. So thats it. I was saying royalties because if writers didnt want to be posting their stuff without some compensation. But, that doesnt seem to be the case. But, in the next few issues I hope to build some sort of budget by selling AD space in the ezine and from their I hope to get both more art and maybe some kind of editor looking at the documents. Confucious Says: Man with one chopstick go hungry. Man who eat many prunes get good run for money. Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement. |
January 12, 2008 - 3:56pm | For a free magazine, you shouldn't have to pay anyone anything. There are lots of people out there willing to lend their services. Bill got permission to publish without profit. It extends to him and him alone, though if publishing on this site, the permission by extention is granted to those publishing to this site with his permission, but I wouldn't rely on that. I don't think WOTC will worry, though, as long as you aren't making any money from their product. Again, the d20 MSRD does not apply to the original Star Frontiers mechanics. Even if there was one mechanic that appeared in the MSRD, it would not apply to all Star Frontiers mechanics. Likewise, just because the MSRD contains names regarded as product identity from Star Frontiers does NOT mean everything in the original Star Frontiers game is covered by the MSRD. |
