Re: (OT) Rules "inspiration"

At 10:08 AM 9/24/98 +0100, you wrote:
SNIP
>
>At the end of the day, I guess the real question is at what point does
a
>collection of mechanisms (very few of which are individually
"original", as
>with so many games on the market almost everything has been done before
>somewhere) actually become definable as a "Rules System", and therefore
>become an intellectual property of the designer and thus "protectable"
in
>an ethical if not a legal sense. I don't think I've got an answer to
this
>one. Have you?
>
>Jon (GZG)

     Last year, at GenCon (US), I was at a seminar put on by Dave
Arneson
(of Dungeons and Dragons fame, the other desinger with Gary Gygax, that
is)
about writing/creating games.  One of the points he brought up is that
according to US Copyright law, a games system is not copyright-able,
only
the presentation (the way it appears and feels).  He used the specific
example of how D&Ds Armor Class rules are a direct copy of the armor
rules
for a civil war ironclads game.  It is my understanding that this is why
there are so many "roll a 6 sided die and move" boardgames, and so many
barely covered copies of D&D floating around (also how many universal
roleplaying games end up looking very similar).

     I'm not a lawyer, and to my knowledge, neither is Dave Arneson, but
this one very much surprised me and helped me understand why there were
so
many clones out there.	On the other hand, the recent US patent that
Wizards of the Coast received for "collectable card games" seems to be
an
indication of some ways around copyright law.

     My personal feeling is that it is certainly ethically wrong to
fully
copy one system and just change it to a new setting.  This may still be
a
violation of US copyright law since it may be imposible to completely
copy
a system of rules without copying most of the feel, but it certainly
seems
to allow a mix and match of ideas from different games and new ideas.

     However, just because some thing is legal doesn't keep you from
defending your right to do so in court.  This keeps many people
honest(ethically at least) here in the states, since we can't afford to
go
to court even if we won.

     I don't know how much of this applies to International Copyright
Law,
but I figured it was relevant to the topic.  I can look for my list of
links regarding US copyright laws, if there is any interest.

Later,

Ryan aka Shrike
voivode@io.com

-  It is slavery to deny the individual the rights  -
-  and means for self defense, for without them     -
-  freedom can be neither achieved nor maintained.  -