S&S setting?

danbuter

Mongoose
I seem to remember Mongoose saying they had a vanilla sorta-Conan Swords & Sorcery setting in the works. Is this still true?
 
Sounds interesting. I would be interested to hear (read) more about this, if it is still a live project...
 
danbuter said:
I seem to remember Mongoose saying they had a vanilla sorta-Conan Swords & Sorcery setting in the works. Is this still true?

Are you confusing Mongoose with D101 games? They're producing 'The Savage North' for OpenQuest which is a sort of Conan-less-serial-numbers setting.
 
How exactly can d101 get away with using the Mongoose RQI SRD as the basis for a product they are selling? I don't get this at all. This seems like it would be an IP violation!
 
dbhoward said:
How exactly can d101 get away with using the Mongoose RQI SRD as the basis for a product they are selling? I don't get this at all. This seems like it would be an IP violation!

Short answer: See http://www.earth1066.com/D20FAQ.htm section A, it talks a lot about d20, but pretty much the same applies to any OGL licensed game.

Longer answer: As long as they abide by the terms of the OGL (which is basically a copyleft license, i.e. you can't limit the rights of the consumers of your product (much) beyond the rights you yourself were given when allowed to use OGL material.) they're fine. Basically, once something is OGL, it's forever OGL. So, as Mongoose said that all material in the SRD was under the OGL, anyone is free to use it for any purpose as long as those who use it follow the OGL.

Oh, by the way, IANAL, and this was not legal advice. It was also not a comment on whether or not the product in question follows the OGL properly. But it made me remember I had intended to buy it. :)

/Jonas
 
Thanks for the info. Stinks that people can profit from someone else's hard work because it's OGL, yet all the great old OOP RQ stuff from the early years is locked down so no one can legally use it. :(

(I would love to see MRQII versions of Griffin Mountain & Snake Pipe Hollow... by Loz Whitaker and Paul Jaquays, as long as I'm dreaming...)
 
Mongoose Runequest might not exist without the OGL. But this is a threadjack :evil: .

I thought Matt had posted something about this over on RPGNet. It could just be me losing my mind, though. Or I am confused with another company (definitely not D101 Games).
 
Hi,

I must jump to Newt Newports'd defence here. Newt has done everything above board with Mongoose for the D101 games. OpenQuest is only aspect of the D101 company, Newt supports several systems and licences his products with several companies. All perfectly legally.

Newt has been a huge supporter of Glorantha, Runequest and BRP and has done much to promote Roleplaying in the UK. He is a friend of Moon Design, Mongoose and Greg Stafford.

His company is very small, not some global monster (I do wish people would stop beleiving in vast RPG empires these days, there are so few RPG megacorporations LOL) and he makes virtually no profit, ploughing his funds into producing more fun products.

OpenQuest is a very elegant adaptation of the RuneQuest OGL with lots of rule adaptations and developments. It uses its own settings, which are not simply Gloranthan rip offs, but all great fun. It owes much to RQ1 and BRP, and the games of yesteryear in some respects, but is also well thought out and most of all fun.

All Gloranthan licences are the property of Greg Stafford, he worked with Mongoose to develop the fantastic second age setting, but retains the rights to Third Age Glorantha, which he licences to Moon Design. Our products are so rules light that they are perfect resources for MRQ2, OpenQuest, BRP or any other game you fancy, the most recent products and our future products, Sartar:Kingdom of Heroes, the Sartar Companion and the forthcoming Whitewall and Pavis books will be packed with accessible information. For example in the Companion we have several scenarios based on Apple Lane, the Haunted Ruins and appearances from old friends like Gringle, Londra of Londros and Joh Mith. Balazar, SPH and other setting will see new light one day, we are just endeavouring to bring out the best books we can.

Finally to go back to my original point, Newt is not a profiteer, he is a patron of artists, writers and gamers.

Simon
 
If things are happy and cooperative among Greg, Mongoose and D101 I am happy to be corrected and I will not believe rumors to the contrary.

I have not been aware of Moon Design and I believe I shall look into their products.

Thanks again for the correction.
 
dbhoward said:
How exactly can d101 get away with using the Mongoose RQI SRD as the basis for a product they are selling? I don't get this at all. This seems like it would be an IP violation!
Heh, Mongoose themselves once caught flack for flogging the d20 and d20 Modern SRDs in book form, too. They sold a lot of copies and irritated WotC, who never foresaw someone taking their free SRDs and making cash from them in that way.

Oh, on topic; I've not heard of any generic S&S setting from the 'goose. I'm still hanging out for the RQ Arthurian Britain setting they promised many moons ago! :mrgreen:
 
On the license issue, the OGL is specificaly and deliberately designed to allow derived commercial products. I believe the idea is to allow others to easily develop compatible products, thus growing the ecosystem. Nonissue.

If OpenQuest was just a minimally variant clone of MRQ1 it would be completely uninteresting. However while it started off using the SRD as a basis, it's evolved significantly since then. It is now a very stripped down BRP variant that uses some common concepts with MRQ. Many of the rough edges in MRQ1 have been filed off, but it retains a considerable amount of MRQ compatibility.

All of the OpenQuest system is of course still OGL, which means you can pick up the source text and use it to develop your own house rules and campaign material. I think it's a great resource.

Simon Hibbs
 
OpenQuest

I have been running an OpenQuest for the last month, and have to say I am really enjoying writing for it. I'm using Newt's Savage North Setting and my players seem to be really liking it.
OpenQuest really takes me back to the old days of the original RQ2.

I would recommend anyone just giving it a look.

I have run MRQII, which I really enjoyed reading and using, but in the end my players preferred OQ. But both are close enough you can use either freely with the Savage North (with only the smallest of rewrites).

Andrew
 
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