As Open As We Can Make It
So, The Dresden Files RPG is based on an OGL (open game license) system called Fate, which in turn is based on an open system called Fudge. The nature of the OGL is such that previously established chunks of content that are inherited must remain open, but it’s up to the publisher then to decide how much of the new material in the product is open.
With this game, we had something of a dilemma, there. While we made much — nearly all — of our previous Fate game Spirit of the Century open content, with the Dresden Files RPG we have a brand new boat of intellectual property issues we have to keep an eye on. We can’t risk accidentally declaring some part of Jim’s world to be open content and fair game. (His copyright on that would override it in all likelihood, but the tangled knot of legal issues proceeding from there is one we’d rather not get tied up in in the first place.)
And knowing that, we also had the issue that we’ve really thoroughly entangled Jim Butcher’s intellectual property with our own in this game. It could not ever be as simple as “Oh, this chapter here, that’s fair game; that chapter there, it’s product identity.” As a result, and with some regret, that meant that in the case of the DFRPG we had to make this statement at the end of our OGL copyright block:
Any material found in this book which is not directly taken from the above named works is deemed to be product identity.
As expected, someone has already given us a raspberry over this choice, which is why this post. Above, you see the roots of the decision. Now, I’ll talk about related implications and future plans.
First off, that does not mean that the system content of the Dresden Files RPG will never be open. It just won’t be open by or in this product. Whatever we can take out, scrub clean, and make open in our planned upcoming Core Fate product will be. So the sentence I quoted above from the license isn’t a period at the end of the Fate sentence. It’s more of a semicolon.
Secondly, it moves this product firmly into the territory “governed by any rules involving Jim Butcher’s intellectual property”. This is actually a good thing, because that means that anything that people do with it can be handled more or less under a fan fiction policy. At first blush that might sound like a bad thing — if you aren’t current on the state of fanfic with Jim’s stuff, you probably only know that it’s been living under a “don’t ask, don’t tell” sort of thing that says keep it out of Jim’s sight so he doesn’t have to take legal action against you.
But that changed a few months back, in January of this year. You can read all of the particulars of Jim’s new fanfic policy here (but you’ll probably need a forum account to do so) – http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,15307.msg0.html
I’ll quote the policy as it currently stands from the above thread here:
We are pleased to announce that Jim is altering his stance on fanfiction, much like Mercedes Lackey did last October. Rather than upholding the awkward “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy towards fanfiction he used in the past, Jim is embracing the Creative Commons. Now, fanfiction is to be licensed as derivative, noncommercial fiction under the Creative Commons umbrella.
What does this mean?
A) You can’t make money from fanfic based on Jim’s work.
B) Jim still isn’t going to read it. (Wouldn’t you rather he spend that time writing the next book, anyway?) Do not send Jim your stories or story ideas.
C) You need to post a disclaimer on your fic, like this handy example: “The Dresden Files/Codex Alera is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction.” In doing so, you waive any rights to that work–you can’t sue Jim for compensation if he writes something similar.
D) Fanfic can now be talked about in places that had previously been off-limits, like our forum. We’ve created a separate “Fan Creations” section of the forum for for this purpose.
This is the goodness, then. You can post about your games, share your ideas about how to hack the setting, the stories that result from your games, etc, under this policy. Jim’s intellectual property remains protected, and since our specific game largely falls under that umbrella, you’re pretty much in the clear from there.
It’s maybe not the best solution for the system-heads out there, but until we can get our Core Fate product out the door, it’s what we can give you for now. But that’s just for now. The next step awaits.
Very interesting information Fred, I’ve been considering FATE as a system for a game project I have on mind and I was already asking myself about what is usable and what not.
I know it’s not very fair to ask this as you are still working on DFRPG’s final steps, but… any idea about when the Core FATE (3.0) will be released?
Selenio.
@Selenio, nope. Much will depend on what we can schedule with Lenny and how much work we need to do to generify & provide other build options.
There are always some people who complain unless you follow whatever rigid code of free software, content, OS, or file format they deem to the The One True Way. And then if you make them happy, someone else will ding you for not putting it in the *other* One True Format.
You did as good a job as you could with what you had to work with. I’m thankful for that.
Also, I’m to hear glad Jim Butcher has a generous fanfic policy. My friend Naomi Novik runs the Organization for Transformative Works, and has been trying to convince more writers to take Jim’s new policy as a standard. ( http://transformativeworks.org/ )
Thanks for the explanation… and for the update on the fanfic policy! I hadn’t heard about it either for Jim Butcher or for Mercedes Lackey, and although I’m not a fanfic writer myself (though I will admit to the occasional derivative LARP), I support this wholeheartedly. I know more than a few people who’ve gotten hooked on awesome books because of someone else’s references to them in fanfic and the like…
Thank you for being open and honest about this. Even with this limit, it lookes like TDFRPG has still been a great testbed for developing FATE into a more powerful and interesting direction.
Also, if the Ariel who Larps but does not fanfic is who I think it is, ‘hi’.
I seem to remember in a “That’s How We Roll” podcast it was stated, that it is Evil Hat’s policy to allow GM’s to lend to their players the PDF’s of the Dead-Tree books they purchase. Does that policy still stand?
@JimB, share it like you’d share a book. You have to “get it back” from them (get them to delete it after a reasonable period of time), but, yeah, short-term loaning, totally.
I was one person giving the raspberry over this. I didn’t mean it personally, and I thought I had spelled out I might understand *why* this happened. It still makes me sad, but I’m more happy with a DFRPG being out and the prospect of Fate3 with a lot of the good stuff makes me happy.
Again, apologies if this offended anyone involved in the making of DFRPG. It’s awesome and it’s my new recommendation for anyone who wants to do urban fantasy style games.
Oh, and by the way: The loaning thing is totally awesome.
Where can I see or who can I talk to that would show me an example of play….I am running an adventure for my buddies at the end of May.
@Kirk, two places — I’d recommend both dropping by Rick Neal’s blog and looking at his extensive Dresden Files RPG posts http://www.rickneal.ca/ — or over to the Jim Butcher Online forum in the RPG board to ask this question http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/board,5.0.html
I was personally hoping for something like “all the rules, none of the people, creatures or stories”; that is, the black court vampire stat block itself might not be open, but at least the skills, stunts and powers that went into building it would be. However, I’m not an IP lawyer, so I don’t know how much of a briar patch that would’ve been.
Still, if it’s all gonna be open once Fate 3 comes out, I’m not terribly worried.
*Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and nothing in this post is to be taken a legal advise. ( always good to be safe
)
I played my first game last night with a buddy, and it was pretty cool. As a GM I like difficulty based systems to begin with and the aspects/etc that encourage the players to stick with character concepts is one of the best ideas I’ve come across in a while. Heck this is the first system in well over a decade that has made us want to pick up the dice and char sheets instead of just free-forming everything.
The only problem I had was needing to constantly scroll through the char sheets to check stats and aspects and whatnot. Being a software developer the solution is simple, make a GUI application to allow editing, saving, and loading of character sheets.
However, being a supporter of sharing with the community, I would of course want to release this application on the web for others to use.
That brought me here to do some research on what license the RPG was released under.
Not in my wildest dreams did I expect to find that the RPG, and Jim Butcher fan fiction, would be released under a Creative Commons license! That is the best information I could have heard and much props to all for this decision.
I would like to point out that, based on the information found on the Creative Commons site for including license information in offline works (ie documents), it is more proper for derivative works to start with this (first line taken from opening article, paragraph copied from Creative Commons website):
”
The Dresden Files/Codex Alera is copyright Jim Butcher.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
”
Also, could you perhaps clarify for me. Is Butcher fan fiction, and by extension the RPG, covered under the Attribution/Non-Commercial license, or is the Attribution/Non-Commercial/Share-Alike license used? The main difference being, the former allows derivatives to use a different license, but the latter requires derivatives to release under the same license.
@Jeckel, I haven’t heard anything suggesting that the share-alike element is needed with the license, but frankly I’m not authoritative — I’m just quoting the policy as given to us.
And hey, if you do end up developing an application that does what you’re talking about, drop us a line — I’d be interested in the possibility of us hosting it directly here on the site, if you’re willing (and if I’m not for some other reason uncertain about doing so, i.e., “ooh, that made my virus checker go nutty”).
Cool, I didn’t think the share alike part applided, and even being non-authoritative, your answer is confirmation enough for me.
As for the application, I am a huge proponent of free and open-source software, so all sources will be available and those that desire can check the code and compile it themselves. There really is no better virus protection for a program then having its source available to the community.
As I’m sure you guys are aware from what I’ve read on this sight, I’ve worked on enough projects that I won’t commit to something until I’m sure, but I’ve made simple utility applications for all the systems I’ve RPed with in the past and I doubt this will be any different.
Thanks for your quick response, and if anything comes of it, I’ll be sure to post on this forum to let ya know and we can see about the hosting thing.
Today though, I’m going to continue our new campaign (for which I’ve already re-purposed your wonderful system to a 4,000BC-esk setting).
Totally in keeping with how cool Butcher in real life. Glad to hear it.
Just wondering, that previously, it was stated that after the completion of the Dresden Files RPG, the FATE 3 will be compiled as a standalone core system. Is it still in plans, and can I hope to get someday?
)
(Though the ‘core’ would nice to have the fantasy elements too, not just the pulp modern basics
And checked the preview from the site. The book really looks beautiful, congraulations on that (the content naturally will be good
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@Meglivorn, that’s still the plan, though time-wise it depends somewhat on Lenny’s ability to get out from under classwork and other economic imperatives.
While Fate 3 is in progress, is there any chance of maybe an IP-sanitized SRD of the Dresden Files rules (“The Stuttgart Reports”?) being released under the OGL at some point? Or will we have to wait until the whole shebang is finished, art, layout and all?
@CLAVDIVS, there’s no chance of that. We’ve looked at the “numbers” as it were and determined we’d be better off focusing on getting a Core Fate product done.
Core Fate 3. Beautiful. God, I’ve been hoping for a fantasy (or core)Fate system to replace D&D 3.0/3.5. The D20 system was a huge improvement, but it is still very limited. Now all I have to do is convince my crew to switch over. And wait a few years, of course…
@Mr Sleep, on the fantasy tip, Cubicle 7′s branch of Fate (as first manifest in Starblazer Adventures) is now seeing a fantasy treatment in Legends of Anglerre.
I’m concerned that this policy may be inspiring developers of new FATE implementations to not release SRDs.
There’s no obligation to release SRDs. Hell, the reason Fate has one is because fans created it when we were slow to do the (no-actual-financial-incentive) work.