Prime Directive Traveller

[Jean]

I sort of covered this with the ACTA crew and this is what I told them:

Basically, you cannot write about a ship [class or type], character, species, weapon, planet, etc. that we haven't already used [from Paramount]. The famous ship is off limits. We have it in the list of ships that exist, but her adventures are so well documented, we don't see a need to explore them. (Besides, it is outside of our license! )

So no scenarios, no fiction, and no RPGing may include the [famous named] characters. The assorted comics, novels, movies, and later series are not in our license. So there's no bat'leth in our art or fiction, for example. Our Klingons and Subject Races have various blades, but not that particular one.

The Mirror Universe wasn't in the SFU; it cannot be used. We have played with a Reflection Universe, but that is one that SVC would need to run past the lawyers first prior to publication.

[Can we typo the name and have Captain Kork and Mr. Stork?] Let's not go there. That's one of those "we could probably win, but the court costs would be too high" battles. Never start a battle you don't have to (or cannot) win. There are lots of people and ships in the SFU to write about.

The Kzintis are used with permission of Larry Niven, but they are not his Kzintis. Ours are bipedal tigers and if you ever thought that one of their females were not sapient, she'd disabuse you of that notion so fast that your head would be spinning after her "love tap." We never, ever abbreviate Kzintis as "Kzin" as that is not what our Tigermen are known as. Do they eat their foes? They certainly have that reputation and there are rumors of a specialty book titled "How to Serve Hydrans" and it isn't for those who "buttle." :shock: [Yes, they are allies, which is why the book is a rumor! The Lyrans, on the other hand ...]

 

[Jean]

The problem is that if ANYONE identifies them as something from one of the other series, things could get sticky. But that is something for SVC and Matthew to handle, not me. It is SVC's business which is placed at risk; he gets to decide how much risk he will tolerate.

 

[Da Boss]

Da Boss, that is beyond what I can discuss. That is an upper, upper management decision. Let's wait to get both Traveller: PD and ACTA: SF out the door before trying to do cross-overs. That way we have a team of horses in front of our cart and not vice versa or some mish-mash of horses and carts. :shock:

No worries - just throwing stuff out there - I like shiny things and spend alot of money on them :wink:

 

[mechascorpio]

Sadly, much the series of statements that I expected.

Of course, I didn't say "Jem'Hadar for Prime Directive". I said "Jem'Hadar for Traveller". But it seems ADB feels that the business agreement between ADB and Mongoose has given ADB veto power over this forum. Before the game has even been released, even (and if ever).

Do a search here and elsewhere. There have already been discussions about statting up the Enterprise (not "the Enterprize" or "famous Constitution-class starship whose call letters begin with "N" and end with "1"). Adapting and sharing other universes for Traveller is a tradition that goes back as far as Traveller itself, even before widespread use of the internet.

ADB goes out of its way to say "No, no, SFU and Prime Directive are not Star Trek!", yet insist that they have veto power over discussion of Star Trek and gaming. I know of no precedent in which a license-holder was held responsible for what consumers do, especially when it's over IP you've explicitly NOT licensed, so I've never bought that argument. It's ego, pure and simple.

I was hoping that the usual SFU posturing and "honor and duty bound" tattle tale threats would stay on the ADB boards. But with three staff members, the influx of the self-appointed SFU police, and statements throughout this thread, it's obviously not to be. I'm not going to buy or support a game that I can't discuss and expand upon well within the bounds of fair use. I don't want to read (over and over and over again) how much "better and more consistent" the SFU is than Star Trek (it's not), or that it's Paramount's fault. BTW, newsflash: Paramount doesn't own Star Trek. CBS Corporation does and CBS Consumer Products controls licensing. So make sure you call the right number when you go to report your customers.

Anyway, best of luck on your games, and best of luck to those Traveller players and Mongoose customers who buy the game and want to do what they want with it. I'll stick with Mongoose and Traveller, but I won't have anything to do with this.

 

[Jean]

mechascorpio, I am sorry you feel that we are "tattletales" when we do what we are supposed to do.

Most licenses expire. Ours does not. Most licenses grant rights to do things. Ours does, but also specifically prohibits certain things. Dealing with Star Trek outside of our license is strictly prohibited. Those are the legal facts and are non-negotiable.

When Mongoose agreed to the joint venture under our license, then we all became bound by it. This is the penalty that you pay when you can produce your game forever and it cannot be withdrawn at the whim of some other company.

Now I did make an assumption and that is you meant for Traveller: PD. You did, after all, post in the Traveller: PD thread. On something as you were discussing -- well that would have to be taken up by Matthew and SVC. It is, after all, their decision on what to risk, not mine.

Remember that a fair chunk of "fair use" is determined by if the company is making a profit and if the profit of another entity is adversely affected by the publication. Selling RPG licenses is lucrative for the ST franchise. The profitability is damaged if another company is taking potential customers. Once the two companies entered into an agreement to produce the SFU/Traveller synergy, then the profitability/loss to other companies is invoked and fair use becomes much more narrowly defined, especially with the sort of license we have. "For profit" is a far different world than education.

Do I enjoy telling people that they cannot do something they want to do? No, but I know it is necessary and so I do it so we do not break the terms of our license. Notice that I have specifically said I don't go hunting for other places where people might get into grey areas.

The alternative to our being on this Forum is that Mike and I go off into the wilderness and don't get any input from the folks who know and love Traveller. That isn't a good option. I want the input from here so that it is the best game it can be. Opinions here have already shifted some of the thoughts about the product.

It is always your option to not play or support a game. I hope you enjoy the rest of the Traveller universe.

 

[Rick]

Well, I for one am very happy with the idea of the ACTA: SF and Traveller PD products.
I've got a much clearer idea of what is and is not in the SFU and I'm perfectly fine with that. I own the old LUG system and if I want to run a game of Trek, I'll use that.
However, I will buy this game because of it's strengths, not it's weaknesses, and I think it will give much more freedom to add to and adapt than the franchised Trek has ever done.
I would like to boldly go beyond what I saw on TV, not try to recreate or imitate it! 8)

 

[ctchapel]

Jean covered the topic better than I could have. To be clear, I just wanted everyone to know that there are some serious penalities and I didn't want people getting into trouble when it can be avoided.

 

[rust]

Most licenses expire. Ours does not. Most licenses grant rights to do things. Ours does, but also specifically prohibits certain things. Dealing with Star Trek outside of our license is strictly prohibited. Those are the legal facts and are non-negotiable.

Ah ... the license prohibits you, and in future also Mongoose, from doing
anything with Star Trek outside of the license. However, it does not pro-
hibit me, or anyone else who did not sign the license agreement, from
doing so, we "outsiders" only have to consider the usual copyright rules,
which are different depending on where we live.

Mechascorpio's problem obviously is that the license holders could try to
force the "outsiders" to adhere to the rules of the license although those
rules do not apply to them. Frankly, any attempt to do this would not go
down well at all with the Traveller community, which is used to a rather
liberal fair use policy.

It seems to me that ADB and Mongoose will have to discuss their policy
for this forum, keeping in mind that the more restrictive this policy will
be, the more Traveller players will turn away from the forum and the ga-
me.

 

[Rick]

They're only asking us "outsiders" to follow the terms of the licence on forums owned and run by Mongoose and ADB. What we do on other fora is our own business (and risk!).

 

[DFW]

If someone here stats up and posts (for instance) the Jem'Hadar for Traveller ...

... he is probably clever enough to call them "genetically engineered elite
troops of a major interstellar power from a distant region of the Galaxy",
which avoids all possible copyright problems. 8)

Actually, in the US, a private person can post something like, " I just statted James T. Kirk for blah, blah game. Isn't IP infringement here.

 

[rust]

They're only asking us "outsiders" to follow the terms of the licence on forums owned and run by Mongoose and ADB.

At least according to our laws even that would be unnecessarily restric-
tive, because the owner of a forum is not legally responsible for the con-
tent provided by the users of the forum, with the only exception of obvi-
ously criminal content he was aware of. However, I do not know the legal
situation in the UK.

What we do on other fora is our own business (and risk!).

Yep, which is why it could encourage people to move their discussions to
other fora.

 

[rust]

Actually, in the US, a private person can post something like, " I just statted James T. Kirk for blah, blah game. Isn't IP infringement here.

Yep, it is the same over here.

 

[Rick]

Yep, which is why it could encourage people to move their discussions to
other fora.

Hmm. Would it, though? I guess I just don't think it's that big a deal. Perhaps I'm in a minority by thinking that the SFU is big enough to do so much with without needing to add relatively minor bits from the other TV shows. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree! :lol:

 

[billclo]

One thing that occurs to me that might be useful is what they do over on the Classic Battletech forums. There's a situation where it's possible that some fan posts a custom design, and a writer sees said post and uses the same or very similar stats for a Mech/unit in one of his stories. Or that said fan thinks the writer did, but can't prove it. Possible messy legal action could ensue.

The way they solved it was to restrict fan designs to one particular sub-forum only and the writers do NOT go there at all. This way the fans can post custom designs, and it removes the probability of legal action.

The way it could (not 100% sure it's accurate) work would be for there to be a separate fan submissions sub-forum where fans can post their custom stuff without risk of some Mongoose or ADB employee seeing it and being forced to either remove it or risk losing the license. This would only work if the BBS staff was ruthless in removing fan stuff outside of the proper sub-forum and the ADB/Mongoose people never went in that sub-forum.

Being as I'm not a lawyer, I can't say this approach will work 100%, but I thought I'd toss it out there as a possible way to appease the fan base while protecting the license.

 

[rust]

Hmm. Would it, though? I guess I just don't think it's that big a deal.

Perhaps not, but I thought one of the aims of the project was to win some
of the many Star Trek fans as Traveller players, and from my experience
with them their interests cover the entire Star Trek universe. Making it
difficult for them to discuss all of Star Trek and the use of the Traveller
rules for it on the Traveller forum seems to be counterproductive to me.

 

[Rick]

I think it will happen organically. People will be drawn to this game because of the strengths of the Traveller system coupled with the only Trek-like rpg in print atm. But I think they'll post on this forum and others that cater for the SFU/Trek crossovers.

 

[adm]

The key problem with what can and can not be posted on the forums is not so much what is clearly legal or illegal. It is the various items in between.

While Paramount may not win the lawsuit, they can drag it out long enough to bankrupt ADB and Mongoose games. When you can afford to hire lawyers whose expense accounts are far larger than your opponents yearly income, you can afford to destroy those opponents win, loose, or draw.

 

[Jean]

adm is correct. In Real Life, sometimes it doesn't matter if you are legally right if the other guy can outspend you. The grey areas are what would kill us. We wouldn't get court costs because the plaintiff had a reasonable right to have his case heard. No game is worth having the lives at both companies ruined.

That said, I know generally that there are probably places that exist that do SSDs for all sorts of ships we could not do. I don't go looking for them. I don't really want to be the IP police. If the price for this project is that you set up a group somewhere (and I don't want to know where) to talk about stuff that we cannot legally support, then I cannot tell you that it is fine to do so. I can only tell you that we don't go wandering the web looking for stuff any more than we invade your house and tell you that the captain of the ship shouldn't be mucking about on an away team or seducing the young female locals. We have far more pressing things to deal with.

Since ADB, Inc. has had a presence on the web, our fans have managed to live with this restriction. I know now that this is a break in the Traveller culture as a friend took the time to explain that to me last night. It is very difficult to change a culture.

But in this one instance we must push the culture to live within this one restriction: nothing that breaks the license can appear here. I honestly believe that the Traveller fans are as clever as ADB fans and can find ways to do what they want to do without destroying the companies that provide the game. If I didn't, then I'd be spending my time doing something else.

With respect to you all,

 

[rust]

In Real Life, sometimes it doesn't matter if you are legally right if the other guy can outspend you.

This is a bug of the US legal system which I will never understand, but I
obviously have to accept it as a fact.

 

[AKAmra]

Yep, which is why it could encourage people to move their discussions to
other fora.

Hmm. Would it, though? I guess I just don't think it's that big a deal. Perhaps I'm in a minority by thinking that the SFU is big enough to do so much with without needing to add relatively minor bits from the other TV shows. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree! :lol:

I'll be disagreeing too. Traveller is being marketed as a generic sci-fi system; Star Trek is a big fish in the sci-fi pond - SFU is not. Prohibiting Traveller fans from creating and sharing Star Trek conversions is antithetical to the idea of a generic sci-fi system.

The attraction for PD: Traveller for me is getting professionally written Traveller rules for at least the TOS era. It would also provide a foundation to work from for extrapolating into the other eras.

Although initially excited; this turn is making my blood run cold. I think ADB is naive if they think they are going to convert Star Trek RPG fans into SFU only fans; the strength of the license for the greater RPG community is the Star Trek connection.

Based on the comments of the ADB staff here; I think the price of this project is too high. Mongoose is doing Traveller fans a disservice if they censor them the way ADB is saying they must. Hopefully, Mongoose has a different take on this issue than the ADB staffers in this thread since Traveller is theirs and so are these boards.