Quote

Edge of the Frontier is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

and on page 3 it states:

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Edge of the Frontier is based on the popular Star Wars: Edge of the Empire roleplaying game (EotE) by Fantasy Flight
Games. It uses the same game terms and many similar skills and resolution mechanics. In order to play Edge of the
Frontier, you will need to own and be familiar with the EotE game, as this document will make references to it. You
can learn more about that game and purchase it at https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/star-wars-edge-of-the-empire/

means "needs the original players handbook to play"

and if i saw that correctly, he even uses different names for the talents in the talent trees, to avoid possible copyright issues.

It took WoTC a while before they created open licensing for 5e. Before that happened people just wrote their modules/settings with the tag "Compatible with the world's most famous rpg". If you create a setting or module with original splat blocks and don't use any term or phrase trademarked by FFG(like FFG or Genesys) and avoid any copyrighted material(dice symbols), you're fine. Only thing I've seen an issue from this pop up is with Palladium and that's because the creator of that system is super protective(he sued the MMO computer game Rift over its name).

But I'd just wait. It's a bit crazy to assume just because they don't have an open/fan system license yet that they never will. My guess is they're waiting on getting a couple settings out themselves first(Android, Rune World) to serve as an example for the community on how splat books should look like.

If you create a world on par with Forgotten Realms, Wheel of Time, Eberron, Star Wars, etc. go crazy! Get some novels written, develop the IP, sign some TV / Movie deals, make billions then just license the system like Star Wars is. If your brain is screaming "Let me build!", build! You can always discuss licensure or development of the product after you build it.

I say which system can make your setting better (Genesys, Cypher, 5th ed, etc.). Use that system, FFG probably will not make OGL available until they are done with their settings. In other words, it is not on the top of their list of things to do as they probably are concentrating on their own settings first along with finishing up the Edge system as well. So you either make your setting Genesys or find another system. As I would think there is enough Settings out there.

I would first put out feelers first to see of others really do like your concept for your system and see of there is enough interest in your little game world to try and get it published...

You guys are great and thank you for the suggestions! Makes a lot of sense.

16 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

I would say FFG has rights over the game and system, you cannot publish a book of condensed rules.

But if your book entirely contains new content, with no repeat of original rules then it would seem to be a much more grey area. Of course that also means your world needs to be entirely original as does all the names and places etc.

How grey would be up to the courts if FFG decided to pursue you, something highly unlikely. Of course if they decided to release books that utilised rules similar to yours then things get very prickly.

Edit: all that being said I don’t think it’s right to choose your system based on a very distant and probably unlikely goal that’s bound to make you all of about $50.

There are three main parts of intellectual property law: copyright, patent, and trademark.

Copyright protects artistic works, like fiction, plays, visual arts, dance choreography, and the like. This covers the "expressive" content of games like RPG settings, characters, and so on.

Trademarks are, well, marks of your trade--the things that are part of a company's identity. So the funky dragon-ampersand of D&D, UPS's brown trucks, stuff like that. An RPG might conceivably trademark particular words, but this is pretty rare (TSR infamously tried to trademark "Nazi" back in the day; I don't think it was ever challenged. On the other hand, Battletech was known as Battledroids--until Lucasfilm sued them over the use of "droid").

Finally, and very relevant here, patents cover inventions. However "inventions" also include processes and systems--like games. The words you use to express the rules are protected by copyright. But the rules as such are not--they could conceivably be protected by patent, but it's very rare. WotC did patent "tapping" a card to indicate a change in state in the game. I don't know if it's ever been challenged, but patents have to be non-obvious ways of doing things, so there's no certainty they would win.

So, yes, you totally "could" publish a book of condensed rules. It's not even really grey. But the problem is you have to defend yourself in court, and that is very expensive and time-consuming. So, I don't agree with your premises, but you are dead to rights on the conclusion--it's not worth pissing people off who can afford lawyers.

17 hours ago, tquid said:

WotC did patent "tapping" a card to indicate a change in state in the game.

...

So, yes, you totally "could" publish a book of condensed rules.

Are you sure it was a patent? Because while in other games you don't "tap" cards, in old L5R you certainly "bowed" them, which is the exact same thing.

Anyway, most of the folks here aren't really advocating for releasing condensed rules, they're looking at making a setting. And, to be fair, while you legally could, the CYA measures would make it really cludgy. If I write a setting for D&D, it's pretty simple. They're not using any symbols or anything for base mechanics. Plenty of games use Armor Class and Hit Points, and the numbers 1-20 have been around for some time now. When I slap that label on the back saying, "Compatible with the 3rd/4th/5th edition of the world's most famous Role-Playing Game," everyone knows what I'm talking about. Most people don't even know there are other RPGs, honestly.

Now, for GeneSys, I'm pretty sure you could use Success, Failure, Advantage, Threat, Failure and Despair (like 60% sure). Don't think you can use the symbols, though, which means your tables are going to be a pain to read. What's more, if you really can't mention GeneSys on the book, nobody's going to know what your book is for (and honestly, I have no idea why you can't say, "Compatible with FFG'S GeneSys," but NOBODY in the last 17 years has said "Compatible with D&D." I don't understand why you couldn't make mention of another brand as long as you make it clear that you do not represent that brand, but there it is).

So you're left with a fantastic setting, with clunky tables and rules, "Compatible with a fairly popular Narrative Role-playing Game published by an industry leader. No, not that one. Different. Better, in our opinion. They did that one game based on the magic space monks. Again, not that one company, because they did it too, but these guys did it more recently. Also they have the samurai card game. You know the guys."

37 minutes ago, The Grand Falloon said:

Are you sure it was a patent? Because while in other games you don't "tap" cards, in old L5R you certainly "bowed" them, which is the exact same thing.

They patented pretty much everything about MtG. I'm not a lawyer, so I can't say why they haven't sued anyone over rotating cards ninety degrees, but I'd guess they wouldn't expect to actually win such a lawsuit.

Yes, they patented tapping, lot of griping about that at the time. Worth noting, a patent can be extended for, at most, 20 years, so that patent is either expired, or will very soon.

Wizkids (the first one) also tried to patent click bases. Not sure if that one actually got approved though.

Alright, former IP lawyer here. Fun fact about patents (and by fun I mean "I hate them"): patents actually have two stage validation.

First, there's the application process. That's a threshold screen, upon which you are awarded a patent. A patent that is presumed valid. But a patent's validity may be contested in a lawsuit. When there's a lawsuit regarding patent infringement, first, you figure out if the alleged infringement falls within the scope of the patent. Then, if it does, then a judge begins to evaluate whether the patent is even valid.

So WotC's tap patent is presumed valid. I don't know of any lawsuits about it. It's a dumb patent. They know it. We know it. It wouldn't stand up in court. Game mechanics aren't really something I would ever want to rely on a patent for.

I think the larger question is: If you try to sell a book that makes no mention of Genesys, no reference to Genesys, how usable is it? Because I wouldn't buy it. And how are you going to market it? "This awesome setting book uses a generic undefined system and custom dice, for only $10!" Hard pass.

On 12/18/2017 at 10:37 AM, widomknight said:

oh well, I was going to make quite a few custom charts, talents, super powers, monsters, setting stuff etc as I was excited about this new RPG and the community.

Ive been into and making RPGs for well over 30 years and I had some great stuff to contribute.

I guess I will rethink it, thanks for letting me know ahead of time.

So, I hit up FFG's legal department for explicit permission to distribute the EotE font that contains the symbols, they said they couldn't grant permission but they also didn't say I couldn't distribute it, and here we are years later and nary a peep about it. I think perhaps you're putting too much weight onto the legality of this and perhaps portray a more grandiose vision than you intended. FFG has thus far taken a very lax approach to fan-created content until it is a blatant copy & paste from the book.

If you're just making a few items to share, knock yourself out. If you intend to charge for this work where everyone else is doing it for free, no really, knock yourself out. This community is great, open, and sharing and we are prone to heated discussions but at the end of the day we're pals or on someone's ignore list. We have been sharing our work, for free, for years now. There are of course a few folks trying to make a buck at it, and hey that's fine.

If you're going to pack up shop at the first sign of skepticism, you might be in for a Bad Time™.

The difference is FREE versus MAKING A PROFIT. I'm sure if you started charging $5 for the EOTE Font, you might find yourself in Hot Water. The fact you made it available for free has therefore been seen as a community project for people to use as a tool to make FFGs game more accessible.

On 19/12/2017 at 7:03 AM, Richardbuxton said:

I would say FFG has rights over the game and system, you cannot publish a book of condensed rules

IANAL however my understanding is that you cannot copyright rules, only the expression of those rules. That means you can indeed write a condensed version of the rules as long as you write it all from scratch and don’t copy / paste from a copyright work. The symbols my be a little different (as they aren’t English language) so you might need to stick to ‘Dispair’ and ‘Triumph’ etc rather than using them directly.

Writing a book of new content for the FFG system should be fine as long as you don’t use any IP. Since we are dealing with a generic system here I can’t imagine anything outside of the example setttings would qualify, so no references to people or places in Terrinoth, for example.

2 hours ago, GM Hooly said:

The difference is FREE versus MAKING A PROFIT. I'm sure if you started charging $5 for the EOTE Font, you might find yourself in Hot Water. The fact you made it available for free has therefore been seen as a community project for people to use as a tool to make FFGs game more accessible.

I think that's the key difference. They knew flat out I was going to do it, and they'd have to be blind to not notice the lists of fan-created resources freely available to all, posted in their own forums. I think they're some nice folks who want us to have fun with the stuff they create. That's a smart move, too - cool tools can entice just like cool artwork and cool rules.

Of note, I didn't create the font, I just added the light/dark pip with permission and rehosted it. When I tried to make a genesys font I tasted sweet, sweet failure.