Tell me more ×
Role-playing Games Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for gamemasters and players of tabletop, paper-and-pencil role-playing games. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 10 down vote favorite
1

I'm planning a project to create a retro-clone of a non-D&D game. The problem is that I specifically want to restate the mechanics of the game as faithfully as possible, but I'm not sure how to handle things like the skill list and skill names, spell names, a mechanically-central set of tables, and other things that are in the "grey" area of functional versus presentational and hence uncopyrightable versus protected expression.

To sort this out, I want to see what has worked in the past and what compromises other retro-clone authors have found necessary. I know there are lots of D&D retro-clones using the OGL, and lots of non-D&D games using the OGL that are not retro-clones. Unfortunately, most retro-clones solve the problem by either deriving presentational elements from another OGL'd set of rules (e.g. skill names from d20 SRD), using a different set of rules (e.g. Mutant Future is mechanically unlike Gamma World), or by getting a license/permission from the original game's author (e.g. ZeFRS has Zeb Cook's blessing). I don't have an OGL game to derive from, no license, and I don't want to change the mechanics unless absolutely necessary.

So, I'm looking for examples of other OGL games that:

  1. Clone a game's mechanics without deriving from an OGL set of rules
  2. Created by someone without rights to the original game
  3. Licensed under the OGL (so I can see how they pulled it off)

All the games listed in the Wikipedia article on Open Gaming are disqualified either by (1) or by both (1) & (2). In fact, the coverage of "retro-clones" in that very article makes "retro-clone" out to be synonymous with "D&D simulacrum".

It might be that the answer is "none exist", but even that would be useful information for me to move forward with.

share|improve this question
Do they have to be direct copies? I've got one that is a direct clone below, but there is also Mutant Future, which is an 'Inspired by' retroclone of Gamma World, but uses different mechanics. – Canageek Jun 10 '12 at 3:04
Point! MF is just Labyrinth Lord with some alterations. It does match the criteria, but doesn't have anything to teach me about my predicament… Hm. I have to think about how to tighten up the question. OTOH, DoubleZero is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for! – SevenSidedDie Jun 10 '12 at 3:52
Yeah, I made the first criterium specific to mechanical clones. It doesn't have to be perfect (like OSRIC deviates some), but still clearly the same game. e.g., Stars Without Number doesn't count as a Traveller clone. If I just wanted to make an "inspired by" game, I wouldn't have to think about copyright issues at all; but it's the mechanics I want to rescue from obscurity. – SevenSidedDie Jun 10 '12 at 3:56
A request: It sounds like you asked this question to get at a larger problem. Next time, could you include a mention of the larger issue in your question? Not only will it help people zero-in on what you're looking for, it'll make your question more useful to future users. – AceCalhoon Jun 13 '12 at 13:06
1  
@AceCalhoon I thought "I'm planning a retro-clone of a non-D&D game" was pretty clear! I am considerably confused by people unable to divine my reason for wanting to inspect existing examples, when it's the very first sentence. – SevenSidedDie Jun 13 '12 at 16:21
show 7 more comments

4 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

There is DoubleZero: A Percentile-Based Modern Role Playing System by Berin Kinsman, a retroclone of the James Bond 007 RPG. It has mostly vanished from the net, but the SRD can still be found at http://livingfree.wikidot.com/doublezero-srd

share|improve this answer
up vote 1 down vote

There are several.

4C System is a retroclone of TSR's Marvel Super Heroes (FASERIP). Unlicensed, and some subtle differences (including ditching the labels) but it works the same way.

There's a retroclone of Classic Traveller, I forget the name, but it's genericized (and not very well done, either). Mongoose Traveller is a pseudoclone of Classic Traveller, but is done under license.

Mongoose Runequest is a pseduoclone of RuneQuest by Chaosium/Avalon Hill/Games Workshop. Legend is the same game, without the trademarks. There was no license for the mechanics, and the new mechanics are OGL, while the original are closed-source.

Mutant Future is a pseudoclone of one edition of Gamma World. It was adapted to be compatible with Labyrinth Lord, itself a D&D pseudoclone. Starships and Spacemen is likewise being pseudocloned to LL/MF compatibility, but they have the rights to S&S....

Legends of the Ancient World is a close pseudoclone of The Fantasy Trip (Melee/Wizard/In The Labyrinth). It changes the way talents work (from reducing die-codes to adding points to the attribute), but is otherwise quite faithful. It's really a justification for them to release a bunch of TFT compatible modules. (And, if talents worked the same way as in TFT, it would be a retroclone, not a pseudoclone.)

None of these had parent games under the OGL, all of them are themselves released under the OGL. Three were licensed by the original IP holders (Mongoose's Runequest and Traveller, Goblinoid's Starships & Spacemen).

definitions

Pseudoclone
a game that is pretty compatible with it's inspiration, but has "improvements" in the mechanics, and is not written/published by the current owners of the emulated game.

Retroclone
a game that is as compatible as possible, essentially a rewritten version, only different enough to avoid copyright infringement.

share|improve this answer
Mongoose games were OGLed by the copyright holder so they're no help, Mutant Future doesn't clone anything (setting or mechanics), ditto Starships & Spacemen. Four Color would be interesting, but it doesn't appear to use the OGL—or if it does, it's improperly excluding it from the PDF. – SevenSidedDie Jun 12 '12 at 1:37
The new s&s is a hybrid, it's up on kick starter right now. It clones the original. The mongoose games in question are all clones of games by other companies. The original companies in all mongoose cases did not release them ogl... only mongoose did. In the case of RQ, their license ONLY covering setting and the trademark (as Greg only owned those) not the game mechanics which they cloned. And MF is a setting clone of Gamma World. – aramis Jun 12 '12 at 6:55
1  
I'm not cloning a setting, so Mutant Future isn't relevant. S&S2 appears to be being published by Goblinoid, which holds the license for S&S1, so the licensing issues there are non-existent. But I didn't realise Mongoose didn't have a license to the RQ rules. How much does the Mongoose edition deviate from the originals? Would they be considered compatible? Compatible with some conversion work? Separate editions? Are the alterations to peripheral subsystems, or are there mechanical differences in core subsystems? – SevenSidedDie Jun 12 '12 at 8:09
Does the question edit make the trouble clearer? – SevenSidedDie Jun 13 '12 at 17:16
Mongoose RQ is character compatible with RQ 2/3, but uses different CGen mechanics, but not character identical. Magic, and such are slightly different; close enough that the conversions are obvious. Note that Chaosium's response was to release a new edition of BRP. You can check out the MRQ rules in their de-gloratha'd edition for $1 - Legend is on DTRPG/RPGNow for cheap. Truth be told, tho', since you're not mirroring the setting, you don't need to worry about it. Copyright law doesn't protect mechanics, and skill lists are "prior art" and or "inevitable method" issues. – aramis Jun 14 '12 at 4:48
up vote 0 down vote

Goblinoid Games' GORE may be of interest to you, since it's basically a stripped-down version of Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying, which - as far as I know - doesn't have any OGL. Unfortunately, they don't seem to support the game anymore - at least it's nowhere to be found in the download section of GG's homepage.

share|improve this answer
I downloaded a copy of GORE when I was first researching this. Unfortunately GORE fails (1): it's derived from the 2006 Mongoose RuneQuest SRD. – SevenSidedDie Apr 14 at 22:42
up vote 0 down vote

From what I understand based on copyright law, at least in the US, comes from an interesting discussion. Here's exactly what someone over on 1km1kt.net (Chainsaw Aardvark) said when I was talking about a game:

Technically, you can't copyright game mechanics - otherwise we would all have to pay Milton-Bradly every time you specify "Roll 2d6" - but story elements are definitely yours.

The legalese for this can be found here:|

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html

In particular:

Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles. Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form.

In short, you may not be able to find many good examples (though some have been given here), but legally you're fine and dandy so long as you don't use trademarked terms (for instance, when cloning D&D, you can't say "Action Points", though some mileage may vary on exactly how far these trademarks extend, if you enjoy lengthy and expensive court battles you'll probably lose).

In short, if you want to reboot your favorite system, feel free to, just don't steal text from it.

share|improve this answer
I am not a lawyer, but I would be more cautious than this answer implies is necessary. It is true you can't copyright game mechanics, but if your game is clearly a "derivative work" of some other game, you have probably violated copyright even if you didn't copy a single word. Also remember that in many RPGs certain mechanics are tightly tied to the setting and copying those (even with paraphrasing) might caus an issue. When in doubt, it might be wise to speak to a lawyer. – TimothyAWiseman Apr 15 at 23:30
Good point. The copyright law isn't explicitly written with pen and paper roleplaying games in mind, so rulings could go either way, although I would be highly surprised if they did. – Kyle Willey Apr 15 at 23:36
Does not answer the question - he's asking for specific extant examples of this and the other possible approaches. – mxyzplk♦ Apr 16 at 1:47

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.