What If?

[hunter]

Would anyone be interested in a 'limited' license to produce and sell their own Traveller compatible products?

Here's what we (Marc and I) are considering:

Anyone could produce and sell products that carry some sort of 'Compatible with Traveller' logo or brand. There would be a couple of catches however:

1) All such products could be PDF format only and could ONLY be sold through this website.

2) The author/publisher would receive a majority cut of any sale (exact percentage not yet determined).

3) The product could claim only mechanical compatibility. No compatibility with the OTU, nor any use of OTU material could be used. If you want to do that you need a full license.

4) The license for a product (or a publisher) could be revoked at any time for any reason. (This is mainly for reasons of quality and decency on our end for anything that is directly linked to the Traveller trademarks).

5) The author/publisher retains copyright on their material. Though if you want to sell the material elsewhere or bring it to print you would have to either obtain a full license or remove any reference to Traveller trademarks and remove any material that would violater the Traveller copyrights.

6) This license would cover all version of the Traveller rules except for GURPS: Traveller. Of course if you use anything from T20 you will may have to follow the OGL license as well (depending on what you use).

That's the bare basics. So what do you folks thinks? Any interest? You could publish rules enhancements, generic adventures, your own settings, and tons more. You won't get rich, but you might make a few bucks to help support your Traveller habit

Please note that the basics I have outlined here might be subject to change, but are currently what we are considering going with).

Hunter

 

[Malenfant]

Hm. So things like, say, world building rules would come under this....?

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Hm. So things like, say, world building rules would come under this....?

Hunter

 

[Blue Ghost]

Sounds like a plan... but only if you promise to fix the "review films & books" section

Serisouly, it would probably expand Traveller for a lot of authors by throwing off any restraints of having to fit into the official setting(s).

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by Blue Ghost:
Sounds like a plan... but only if you promise to fix the "review films & books" section

Can you email me the problem (customersupport@RPGRealms.com) or point me to the thread where it's mentioned? I'm doing a lot of backend work on the site right now and have a chance to look at it at the moment.

Serisouly, it would probably expand Traveller for a lot of authors by throwing off any restraints of having to fit into the official setting(s).

I see a lot of potential in it both for us and for the fans. I'm rather excited about the prospect! I think the potentially larger base of supporting material will give Traveller more exposure and appeal. It also lets us see what kind of talent is out there that we might be interested in working with on bringing the product to full production or on other products.

As a side note, we are also planning to start carrying science-fiction PDFs for games other than Traveller. The first of which, from Ronin Arts for d20 Future and Star Ace, I am in the process of adding to the catalog now. I'll be announcing that next week.

Hunter

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

I would love to do this. I think that it would harken back to the heyday of Traveller when FASA got its start. I'd like to tackle this head-on and see what could be done with it.

A question, though. How does this apply to fiction written as part of the PDF set in the OTU? I ask, because some of the best gaming material I've ever seen has been the format from the WEG Star Wars Adventure Journal in which a short story was written and interspresed throughout the story were Adventure Seeds and stats for the main characters, worlds, equipment, and starships in the story. I think that Traveller could be very accomodating to that format of product.

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by Jeff M. Hopper:
A question, though. How does this apply to fiction written as part of the PDF set in the OTU? I ask, because some of the best gaming material I've ever seen has been the format from the WEG Star Wars Adventure Journal in which a short story was written and interspresed throughout the story were Adventure Seeds and stats for the main characters, worlds, equipment, and starships in the story. I think that Traveller could be very accomodating to that format of product.

As we currently envision things working this wouldn't be acceptable. The OTU would be off-limits. The problem being potential conflict with future canon material, introduction of concepts that are not valid in canon, etc. If we allow the Traveller compatible logo to be used with the OTU, it would imply offical approval of that material (ie: canonicity).

Hunter

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Originally posted by hunter:
As we currently envision things working this wouldn't be acceptable. The OTU would be off-limits. The problem being potential conflict with future canon material, introduction of concepts that are not valid in canon, etc. If we allow the Traveller compatible logo to be used with the OTU, it would imply offical approval of that material (ie: canonicity).

Hunter

Would it be possible to do this outside of the OTU and have it still be considered Traveller compatible?

I'm thinking that this is a dumb question, but I am very excited by this possibility.

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by Jeff M. Hopper:
Would it be possible to do this outside of the OTU and have it still be considered Traveller compatible?

I'm thinking that this is a dumb question, but I am very excited by this possibility.

Yes you could write it in a non-OTU setting and use the Traveller compatible logo. The 'compatibility' is refering to mechanical compatibility not setting. So you could write and adventure that is CT compatible but it cannot be set in the OTU specifically.

Hunter

 

[hirch duckfinder]

not wishing to dampen enthusiasm , but isn't there a chance this could dilute traveller and make it very confusing? there are already lots of systems , lots of settings could leave the newcomer bewildered.

also , doesn't this already go on freely within the forums ? would the difference just be that we would have to pay to download (for example) adventures from the f-library? what about quality control ? having lots of mediocre product doesn't help anybody.

just my 2 pence worth.

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by hirch duckfinder:
not wishing to dampen enthusiasm , but isn't there a chance this could dilute traveller and make it very confusing? there are already lots of systems , lots of settings could leave the newcomer bewildered.

I doubt any more so than a newcomer to D&D with regard to PDF offerings.

also , doesn't this already go on freely within the forums ? would the difference just be that we would have to pay to download (for example) adventures from the f-library? what about quality control ? having lots of mediocre product doesn't help anybody.

Again, how is this much different from the current situation for D&D? There are tons of places on the net to get free D&D campaigns, adventures, etc., yet the paid market for them doesn't seem to notice.

There will always be chaff among any group of products. It doesn't take long for word to get around to avoid them and those that produce them. You will also notice I mentioned we have the right to revoke the license for a product.

It is however one of the things we do want to give consideration as to what we can do to prevent truly low quality work for entering the system ahead of time.

just my 2 pence worth.

Exactly the reason I brought it up

Hunter

 

[hunter]

Let me also repeat that this is all in the 'What If' phase. Yes we are considering it and want to explore the possibilities, but a final decision has not been made. I want to see want the interest is, what problems folks might foresee, and what we might do about those problems if anything.

Hunter

 

[RandyT0001]

Interested? Yes!
Questions?
1. Would we have to create the pdf's or would you do it? (I going to guess that the author will have to do it but I would like a clear answer.)
2. If the author has 'Ancients' whose descendents are not part of the setting (ie Dryone) but did scatter species about the galaxy would that be too closely related to OTU 'Ancients' for this limited license?
3. What is the estimated cost of this license and who determines the price of items sold under it, QLI, Marc or the author?
4. Would the limited license permit out-sourcing of material (deckplans, illustrations, adventures, etc.) for the license holder to use with his material?

I'm sure I'll think of more questions later. I hope to see it happen.

 

[Lord Iron Wolf]

Hi Hunter,

It sounds like a good idea and would allow a lot of intellectual expansion of the Traveller universe (even if it isn't OTU.) My question would be format: word count, graphics, art and any other things.

Also would the pdf's sold be physical disks and/or downloads? Is there a restriction to file size due to some of us poor sob's being restricted to dial-up? (myself included ) Would there be some form of security to keep a pdf from spawning itself all over the world wide web?

I'd probably use Classic Traveller system and try to use the LBB format for adventures. It sounds interesting, I could convert some of my old games to Traveller Adventures.

Lord Iron Wolf

 

[Gruffty]

Definitely interested!

Hunter, any ideas on the cost of a license/ce on the described basis?

<rummages through wallet.........>

 

[hunter]

As far as GT goes, I have no control over that. I'm pretty sure if we go ahead with this and SJG is interested in doing the same Marc would approve it, though I can't say positively one way or the other. The licensing there is between Marc and SJG.

On the fees, that is something we are still kicking around.

On the OTU issues, I see this is something we are going to have to detail out a bit if we do this.

I want to thank everyone who has responded so far. Your comments are helping me to figure out some questions we haven't asked ourselves yet! Keep them coming please!

 

[mike wightman]

Where does LBB:8 Robots fit into all this?

Can an author of a non OTU adventure/supplement use the stuff in there?

As others have said, the OTU and the Traveller rules, especially books 4-8, are so tied up it is difficult to know which bits are allowed and which bits aren't.

The problem gets worse with MT and TNE, since the rules and setting are so entangled.

T20, T4 and CT B1-7 are probably the easiest to separate from background material, and are the most internally consistent with each other with regards to tech paradigms.

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by thrash:
Is the Traveller's Aid Society fair to use? It appeared in the original Book 1 (p. 22), long before there was any published OTU setting. The same question applies to "air/rafts," or any of the original standard ship types (though not their class designations, which came later). Possession of "scouts" or "free traders" is a mechanical result of character generation (ibid., pp. 22-23).

Off the top of my head I would say no to TAS, but yes to the rest. 'Air/rafts' while pretty specific to Traveller is still fairly generic, and 'scouts' and 'free traders' are certainly generic terms.

How about the Hiver Technical Academy? It is explicitly an option for character development in TNE (p. 41). Similarly, there are specific mods to TNE's starship allocation process (p. 38) based on whether the ship is obtained in the Regency or not.

I'd say no on the HTA, but the Regency ship stuff could probably be worked out.

Unless you can clearly define the difference between setting and mechanics for all the versions you support, I think you're asking for headaches. It might be simpler to clearly label all such products as Unofficial Variants instead, or market it as "Traveller My Way" -- maybe adopt "IMTU"?

Certainly looking that way! This is why I brought this up. Excellents points we need to consider and deal with.

Is there a fee associated with the license? That is, does some part of the profits accrue to Mr. Miller or QLI above the actual overhead of creating and selling the .pdf? If so, I would be uncomfortable with revocation "at any time for any reason," where I wouldn't be with "reasons of quality and decency." After all, I am paying for the privilege, and I have a reasonable expectation of a return on my investment. (If the license is gratis after extracting reasonable expenses, of course, I have nothing to say.)

Current thinking is no upfront fees or if they are fairly minimal. As for the cancellation of the license for a product, I see that happening only for violations of decency/quality or for someone attempting to sell the product outside the channels we have permitted.

In fact, I'm not sure I see why there should be any reason to pull a license after publication. Mr. Miller and QLI should review each submission for quality, decency, and compliance with the terms of the license (e.g., use of OTU trademarks) before acceptance. Once the product is accepted and the license is granted, what would legitimately cause a product's license to be pulled? Hidden plagiarism or something, perhaps, but that would be a violation of the license per se.

We are looking at this more along the lines of the d20 License, in which the publisher producing the product is responsible for making sure the product is within the guidelines specified. Trying to take on the task of reviewing every submission would take a considerable amount of our time if enough submissions are made.

One thing we are considering is an 'review or advisory council' of fans who would handle this for us in return for copies of the product.

6) This license would cover all version of the Traveller rules except for GURPS: Traveller.

I understand why this has to be from your point of view, but not from Mr. Miller's. He should be able to offer the same deal (less t20 products) to SJ Games, through their existing e23 system.

In any case, this stipulation drastically lowers my personal level of interest.[/qb][/quote]

As mentioned in another post, this is not within my realm to comment on. Marc and SJG would have to work this out. What we are considering at the moment is the proposal I made to Marc on the material I have the ability to work with. Personally if this is something we do, I'd love to see GT as part of it.

As a separate issue, what about Traveller material for non-Traveller game systems, e.g., Fuzion or FUDGE? Of course, the author would be responsible for conforming to the individual licensing requirements of the system in question as well. (I've toyed with a non-OTU FUDGE Traveller campaign off and on for years, so it's not an idle question.)

I wouldn't see this as a problem myself, but I will talk with Marc about it.

Hunter

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by Randy Tyler:
1. Would we have to create the pdf's or would you do it? (I going to guess that the author will have to do it but I would like a clear answer.)

The author would be responsible for this. I could however see possibly offering this as a service for an additional fee.

2. If the author has 'Ancients' whose descendents are not part of the setting (ie Dryone) but did scatter species about the galaxy would that be too closely related to OTU 'Ancients' for this limited license?

Iffy. I would tend to lean towards allowing it, but will consult with Marc.

3. What is the estimated cost of this license and who determines the price of items sold under it, QLI, Marc or the author?

Currently we haven't made a decision on an upfront fee, but it would be minimal if anything. Sale prices would be determined by the author.

4. Would the limited license permit out-sourcing of material (deckplans, illustrations, adventures, etc.) for the license holder to use with his material?

Good question, which I will talk with Marc about for an answer.

Hunter

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by Lord Iron Wolf:
Also would the pdf's sold be physical disks and/or downloads? Is there a restriction to file size due to some of us poor sob's being restricted to dial-up? (myself included ) Would there be some form of security to keep a pdf from spawning itself all over the world wide web?

Actually hadn't thought about CDs, but don't see a problem with us offering them that way as well.

As for security, frankly there isn't anything out there that will prevent material from being pirated despite what some folks think about DRM and Watermarking. None of our own products carry it and those offered through us will not either. About the only thing such security measures do accomplish is ensure that some fans won't touch them with a 3m pole

Hunter