Any open gaming license roguelikes?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

I was reading the Open Gaming License software FAQ
(http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/oglfaq/20040123i) and came up
with a couple of questions for this newsgroup.

1) Has anyone tried using the open gaming license to license their
software? The one part I like about it is the separation between open
content and product identity. This seems like it would appeal to people
who want to make their code public but who want to retain copyright
over their worlds. Are there any open source software licenses that
include this kind of provision?

2) Has anyone tried making a roguelike or other CRPG based on an open
game ruleset, such as Dungeons & Dragons, Star Munchkin or Mutants &
Masterminds? Of course, by the rules of the d20 license you wouldn't be
able to advertise such a game as being compatable with the d20 system.

I'm interesed in this because I just recently started playing "Temple
of Elemental Evil" again. It's a great game, but it lacks
replayability. Maybe roguelikes have spoiled me. Combat in ToEE is
fantastic. The D&D3.5 ruleset is great for tactical play. However, you
can count on facing the exact same town quests, the exact same
monsters, and the exact same treasure drops.

I also think that the subject of creating a computer game from a
non-computer game is interesting. You need an interface which supports
all the kinds of interactions needed by the game. You'll also need to
account for all the different rules and special situations in the game.
It seems to me that third edition D&D would be much easier to make into
a computer game than any of the previous versions, simply because 3rd
edition standardizes many things which were special cases before.

I know, the last thing the world needs is another generic fantasy
D&D-inspired CRPG... but, I could use one decent one.

- JH.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

copx wrote:
> "Joe Hewitt" <pyrrho12@gmail.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:1126621130.484186.11260@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> I've followed the whole OGL drama since the stuff was originally released
> and the only legal way to make a D20 computer game under OGL terms seems to
> be to put all the rules into a plain text file and have your program read
> them from there. Too much of a hassle if you ask me.

According to the FAQ that's not the only solution. The main provision
is that the user have access to all the rules. I can see two easier
ways to do this: allow the stats of the open content to be viewed from
within the game, or use a documentation tool to extract rules/stats
from comments in the source code.

Actually, the FAQ also claims that a game written in Java might be
sufficiently human-readable to count as open content. In any case I
doubt these issues will ever be challenged in court with regard to an
open source game.

Coming back to ToEE, I think that game handled rule openness fairly
well, although AFAIK the OGL wasn't invoked in its liscence. There was
a console to view all dice rolls made, and clicking on a value would
usually bring up a window explaining all the modifiers contributing to
it. The manual was practiaclly like the d20 SRD.


> I totally agree with you. It's a shame that Troika went out of business. I
> was really looking forward to expansions / new games based on the same
> engine.
> Those real-time D&D games from Bioware just don't do it for me. I'm hoping

The only real-time RPG that I ever liked was Arcanum. Most of the
others I've tried have been very disappointing. I hope that someday
there's a resurgence in turn-based RPGs and strategy games. These
things happen in cycles, so I expect there will be.


> My personal wish list:

I'd like to see CRPGs based on Earthdawn, Mekton (preferably the
Starblade Battalion setting), DeadLands, Paranoia, and as mentioned
some more games faithful to the d20 rules. Of these, I'd want to see
the original game mechanics preserved for Earthdawn and d20. The
setting is more important for DeadLands and Paranoia. I'm wavering on
whether mechanics or setting would be more important for Mekton.

- JH.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Joe Hewitt wrote:

> copx wrote:
>> "Joe Hewitt" <pyrrho12@gmail.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
>> news:1126621130.484186.11260@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>> I've followed the whole OGL drama since the stuff was originally released
>> and the only legal way to make a D20 computer game under OGL terms seems
>> to be to put all the rules into a plain text file and have your program
>> read them from there. Too much of a hassle if you ask me.
>
> According to the FAQ that's not the only solution. The main provision
> is that the user have access to all the rules. I can see two easier
> ways to do this: allow the stats of the open content to be viewed from
> within the game, or use a documentation tool to extract rules/stats
> from comments in the source code.
>
> Actually, the FAQ also claims that a game written in Java might be
> sufficiently human-readable to count as open content. In any case I
> doubt these issues will ever be challenged in court with regard to an
> open source game.
>
> Coming back to ToEE, I think that game handled rule openness fairly
> well, although AFAIK the OGL wasn't invoked in its liscence. There was
> a console to view all dice rolls made, and clicking on a value would
> usually bring up a window explaining all the modifiers contributing to
> it. The manual was practiaclly like the d20 SRD.

That's because it wasn't an OGL game. They had a genuine D&D licence for
that

>> I totally agree with you. It's a shame that Troika went out of business.
>> I was really looking forward to expansions / new games based on the same
>> engine.
>> Those real-time D&D games from Bioware just don't do it for me. I'm
>> hoping
>
> The only real-time RPG that I ever liked was Arcanum. Most of the
> others I've tried have been very disappointing. I hope that someday
> there's a resurgence in turn-based RPGs and strategy games. These
> things happen in cycles, so I expect there will be.

That's funny, I like Arcanum by I though the fights in that game were of
poor quality. The game was really unbalanced : too easy at medium/high
level.

>> My personal wish list:
>
> I'd like to see CRPGs based on Earthdawn, Mekton (preferably the
> Starblade Battalion setting), DeadLands, Paranoia, and as mentioned
> some more games faithful to the d20 rules. Of these, I'd want to see
> the original game mechanics preserved for Earthdawn and d20. The
> setting is more important for DeadLands and Paranoia. I'm wavering on
> whether mechanics or setting would be more important for Mekton.
>
> - JH.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 19:06:42 +0200, "copx" <invalid@invalid.com> wrote:

>Those real-time D&D games from Bioware just don't do it for me.

D&D is turn-based. Real-time can't be proper D&D. Real-time could be a
LARP adaptation. Heh, that'd be a cute idea for a FPS game, where you
play a LARPer...

--
R. Dan Henry = danhenry@inreach.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

"R. Dan Henry" <danhenry@inreach.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:nhafi19pmodr8u8u1s6pde0bklakh3ui3f@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 19:06:42 +0200, "copx" <invalid@invalid.com> wrote:
>
>>Those real-time D&D games from Bioware just don't do it for me.
>
> D&D is turn-based. Real-time can't be proper D&D.

Tell that WoTC who sold Bioware the rights to put the D&D label on their
games.


copx

 

[Edward]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Joe Hewitt <pyrrho12@gmail.com> wrote:
> content and product identity. This seems like it would appeal to people
> who want to make their code public but who want to retain copyright
> over their worlds. Are there any open source software licenses that
> include this kind of provision?

I plan to release my game content under a separate license from the game
engine. I'm not aware of any impediment to applying the GPL to my source
code, and then placing my data files in a separate directory with a
separate license. Of course, this requires a hard separation between the
two to make the difference clear.

If anyone knows of any impediment to my doing this, please let me know!

But as I understand it, it would even be possible (though fraught with
clarity problems) to apply different licenses to each file of source
code, so long as there was sufficient compatibility of the licenses to
allow the compiled binary to be distributed.

Speaking of licensing of game content... am I right in thinking that
it's quite legal to copy the general idea for a whole race (like, say,
Dungeon Crawl's demonspawn), with or without copying of source code?
Assuming it's a wholly GPLd game, that is.

--
--jude hungerford.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

<edward@lore.net> writes:
> I plan to release my game content under a separate license from the game
> engine. I'm not aware of any impediment to applying the GPL to my source
> code, and then placing my data files in a separate directory with a
> separate license. Of course, this requires a hard separation between the
> two to make the difference clear.
>
> If anyone knows of any impediment to my doing this, please let me know!

If you're the sole author of both code and data, then there is
absolutely no problem with this. You can release both under whatever
terms you like. Of course, other people might have problems editing
them afterwards, but you don't.

If you're including other GPLed code (such as libraries, or patches
supplied by other people) in the roguelike code, it gets a bit more
complex. You should be fine provided you can convincingly argue from
the architecture that what you've really written is an interpreter for
roguelike data files - so someone downloads the interpreter, and
separately downloads the data files (which could be yours, or not, and
could be under any license).

--
Chris

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

<edward@lore.net> wrote:
>Speaking of licensing of game content... am I right in thinking that
>it's quite legal to copy the general idea for a whole race (like, say,
>Dungeon Crawl's demonspawn), with or without copying of source code?
>Assuming it's a wholly GPLd game, that is.

Ideas are not subject to copyright; only their implementations are.
You can lift the core mechanic of the d20 system (generate a random
number between 1 and 20, add some numbers to it, and compare it to
another number) without any licensing issues whatsoever.

Likewise, you can have a race in your game that randomly mutates every
time it gains a level without Linley's copyright on the implementation
of demonspawn being in any way relevant.
--
Martin Read - my opinions are my own. share them if you wish.
\_\/_/ in the metal and blood in the scent and mascara on a backcloth of
\ / lashes and scars in a flood of your tears in sackcloth and ashes
\/ -- Sisters of Mercy, "Flood I"

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

On Wed, 14 Sep 2005 07:06:37 +0200, "copx" <invalid@invalid.com> wrote:

>
>"R. Dan Henry" <danhenry@inreach.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
>news:nhafi19pmodr8u8u1s6pde0bklakh3ui3f@4ax.com...
>> On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 19:06:42 +0200, "copx" <invalid@invalid.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Those real-time D&D games from Bioware just don't do it for me.
>>
>> D&D is turn-based. Real-time can't be proper D&D.
>
>Tell that WoTC who sold Bioware the rights to put the D&D label on their
>games.

That's just corporate whoring, nothing to do with the *game*.

--
R. Dan Henry = danhenry@inreach.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

On 14 Sep 2005 11:20:26 +0100 (BST), Martin Read
<mpread@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

>Likewise, you can have a race in your game that randomly mutates every
>time it gains a level without Linley's copyright on the implementation
>of demonspawn being in any way relevant.

I'm not sure Linley beat Zangband Beastmen to the mutating-freak
player-race punch, anyway.

--
R. Dan Henry = danhenry@inreach.com