Hyborean Adventures - in Xoth?

[pachristian]

Snake-eaters -

Mongoose published some truly great adventures for the Conan RPG. I'm wondering if some of them could be converted to Legend, and Xoth? The milieu is the same, even if the worlds are different. And after all, Spider-God's Bride was originally for the D20 system as well.

I don't see a need to create another world, so this might be a way to produce some already-tested adventures, and support the Legend line.

PC

 

[warlock1971]

This is a very cool idea

 

[The Wolf]

It depends on what Matt wants to do, worlds live and die by his hand.

 

[Prime_Evil]

It depends on what Matt wants to do, worlds live and die by his hand.

Does this mean that he's Galactus?

 

[The Wolf]

I never thought about that, but now that you mention it.

Wait, does that make me the silver surfer, because if soooo I need a new surfboard!

 

[pachristian]

A surfing wolf...

The Boggle Minds! :mrgreen:

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

A surfing wolf...

The Boggle Minds! :mrgreen:

How sad am I that the first image that popped into my head was the "Car Surfing" scene from the original "Teen Wolf"...

Seriously, I never had any connection to Xoth before SGB, but I REALLY like it and have decided to revise my personal setting to be more S&S.

Blood Magic, Sorcery and buff guys walking around with big swords...

 

[Prime_Evil]

Looking at the Mongoose releases for Conan, there are plenty of OGC monsters and spells that could be converted to Legend. In most of the books, the Hyborian Age setting and all related references are declared as Product Identity, but game statistics and supporting information are Open Game Content. Most of the books clearly state that "all game mechanics and statistics (including the game mechanics of all feats, skills, classes, creatures, spells) are declared open content." This means that most of the crunchy content from the Conan product line is available for conversion by Mongoose or another company - you can't reference the names of characters, places, or deities specific to the Hyborian Age but you can certainly file off the serial numbers

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

So an enterprising soul could do the Legend conversion themselves and publish it OGL... Couldn't call it Conan, but Legendary Swords&Sorcery might work...

 

[pachristian]

I don't know copywrite law very well.

I know that Robert E Howard's work is all public domain now.

How does this affect Conan licensing? If at all? Because certainly the Conan RPG's (all of them) referenced a lot of material from pastiche authors.

Myself, I've been adapting many of the Conan d20 RPG sorcery rules into a Legend format - but all of the references I use are straight REH. Does that make them immune to copywrite (other than Mongoose's game system, which is property of Mongoose)?

I will post my "Hyborian Age Sorcery" document on these boards (once I've refined it a little more). As long as this won't cause problems for Mongoose.

(Okay, I'm a little off topic).

But my original proposal still stands: Convert some of the already published adventures into Xothian terms....

 

[strega]

Ahhh it's so sweet, the fallacy of thinking you 'know' about copyright law and what's public domain.

Think again or win the lottery to pay the lawyers.

 

[pachristian]

Ahhh it's so sweet, the fallacy of thinking you 'know' about copyright law and what's public domain.

Think again or win the lottery to pay the lawyers.

Let's try this again: As I said before: I don't know copyright law...

And yes, Robert E Howard's work is now Public Domain, and can be acquired for free on numerous legitimate ebook sites - include several major booksellers.

Clearly, based on your post, you have other information. Would you care to share your facts?

 

[Prime_Evil]

Although the copyright on some of the original Conan stories may have expired in some jurisdictions, the situation is very complex.

Paradox Entertainment claims ownership of all intellectual property rights associated with the works of Robert E. Howard and has successfully defended this claim against Stan Lee, Marvel Comics, and the Disney Corporation. The most recent of these lawsuits was only settled last year. Paradox also holds current trademarks in Europe and the US on most of the significant names and places mentioned in the Conan stories. Basically, you can't publish derivative works based upon the works of Robert E. Howard - including those based on works that may or may not be in the public domain - without a licensing agreement with Paradox.

Keep in mind that Conan and the Hyborian Age are valuable intellectual properties - they still generate a large amount of revenue through movies, computer games (including the Age of Conan MMORPG), comics, and general merchandising. Therefore, you can expect that Paradox will defend any infringement vigorously, especially now that Arnold has signed up to do the forthcoming Legend of Conan film.

Having said that, under the terms of the OGL much of the content from the Mongoose Conan products seem to be available for conversion to Legend - I'd just be very careful about using anything that specifically references the stories or the Hyborian Age setting (including character names, place names, deity names, etc). If in doubt, check the legal notice at the front of each book and the OGL declaration at the back. There's still a vast amount of cool swords & sorcery content just waiting to be pillaged - albeit in a generic form

 

[strega]

Thank you Prime_Evil for summing up the situation in my absence. It's amazing that in this day and age people can't do basic research on the subject of copyright law (in their jurisdiction as in varies) and even a little research on the status of any particular Intellectual Property and rely on someone on the Interwebz for their legal advice.

The number of companies and products that have fallen foul of IP lawyers is major and even if they have a tenuous legal right to the IP their pockets are considerably deeper than every small press publisher.

If you are going to put hundreds of hours of work in to producing a manuscript involving IP that isn't your own, doing some proper research on that IP should be the first thing you do and consulting a lawyer the second.

 

[The Wolf]

This is why I hand-built a Swords and Sorcery world, which doesn't reference Conan or the works of R.E. Howard - it merely dives into the genre and the tropes which surround it, rather like Xoth does.

 

[Prime_Evil]

I think that there is a market for supporting material that helps GMs to construct their own swords & sorcery setting.

 

[pachristian]

Thank you, Prime Evil, for a meaningful answer.

I'm still not clear on how Paradox Entertainment got the rights to RE Howard's work. That's an entirely different discussion thread. They don't appear to be worried about booksellers giving away, or selling as public domain, the original stories (they just went public domain this year), but any attempt to make new media draws their attention.

Either way - my original proposal is still valid: Repackage adventures that are written, and have been playtested, into a new format where they can be published and made available to gamers.

 

[strega]

Go on then, take an adventure and strip out every mention of anything associated with Howard's world and submit it to Mongoose for them to publish. If they think it'll sell Matt will tell you. I believe that the text is probably copyright Mongoose (I don't have any of the MGP Conan material) if the work was done for hire otherwise it will probably be copyright the author and you'll have to negotiate with them.

Or before you do anything you could send an email to Matt and ask if it would be possible to do a rework of the Conan material for re-publication as basic S&S.