Location Database for Forgotten Realms?

[AndyWanKenobi]

Has anyone made location data for the Forgotten Realms used with Dulux-Oz's Location Database extension? I'm considering trying to do that for the particular region of the Sword Coast my players are in but wanted to see if some of the work has already been done.

[Trenloe]

Be careful what is shared regarding this. Forgotten Realms names, locations, history, deities, etc. are not part of the 5E (or 3.5E/d20) OGL and so are covered by copyright.

[Nickademus]

*Whabam!* Legals.

[AndyWanKenobi]

I'd have to read the license to be sure what is covered but my understanding is that FR content can be published to DMs Guild. May not apply to thing like FG modules though, of course.

[damned]

You can publish to GMs Guild (providing you follow all the requirements) but you cant publish or share it here...

[dulux-oz]

And the License on the DOE Locations specifies that anything created with it is for PERSONAL use only, unless explicit written permission in obtained from the Extension's copyright holder (that would the company to which I am the CEO).

[AndyWanKenobi]

Makes sense. Mostly I was wondering if anyone had done work like that so I wouldn't be repeating effort or we could work together on it.

I think it would be cool especially if paired with the weather extension to have that data for the realms.

[damned]

It would be great to have resources like that available unfortunately the content that makes these up belongs to someone else...

[LordEntrails]

With dulux's permission, wouldn't it be possible to distribute something like this through the DMsG? I believe (again, with permission from dulux) that it would then be within all of the various licensing requirements.

Dulux, would you be ok with that? Would you want to see it posted only for free?

[AndyWanKenobi]

From my quick research on "Personal Use Only", posting it to a public forum for mass consumption leaves the realm of "Personal" and becomes "Public". It may still be free and so not "Commercial", but it is no longer "Personal". Such a restrictive license indicates requiring written consent for taking any content made with these extensions and sharing with the general public.

[dulux-oz]

From my quick research on "Personal Use Only", posting it to a public forum for mass consumption leaves the realm of "Personal" and becomes "Public". It may still be free and so not "Commercial", but it is no longer "Personal". Such a restrictive license indicates requiring written consent for taking any content made with these extensions and sharing with the general public.

Our lawyer says otherwise, but OK, I'll withdraw all my stuff and we'll actively hunt down and prosecute anyone and everyone who uses a scrap of my code without my personal written permission - and don't think that's a bluff, because it isn't!

[Trenloe]

Our lawyer says otherwise, but OK, I'll withdraw all my stuff and we'll actively hunt down and prosecute anyone and everyone who uses a scrap of my code without my personal written permission - and don't think that's a bluff, because it isn't!
My interpretation on reading AndyWanKenobi's post is that he's saying the same thing as you - i.e. anything using your code that is public in any way shape or form needs your written consent.

[Nickademus]

My interpretation on reading AndyWanKenobi's post is that he's saying the same thing as you - i.e. anything using your code that is public in any way shape or form needs your written consent.Ditto.


Our lawyer says otherwise, but OK, I'll withdraw all my stuff and we'll actively hunt down and prosecute anyone and everyone who uses a scrap of my code without my personal written permission - and don't think that's a bluff, because it isn't!
This is why I stopped using all of your extensions (and thus stopped providing feedback). I saw the license and knew you had chosen legals and protection over friendliness (not that I blame you from a business standpoint).

Be advised anyone thinking to cross the legal boundaries: companies actually make money by suing for for infringement, so it is well worth their time to litigate. Do not take this threat lightly.

[LordEntrails]

So, dulux-oz, would you be willing to grant permissions for modules made using your extension to be created and distributed through the DMsGuild? What conditions would you want?

[damned]

I may be mistaken but its possible that dulux-oz and AndyWanKenobi are talking about slightly different things.

I believe that AndyWanKenobi is talking about the output from your extensions while I believe that in the specific post at top of this page dulux-oz is specifically stating that his code is his and always his regardless of where he posts it. Im not sure he is referring to the outut in this specific instance (he talks about that in the license itself and in the earlier post).

If you want to share/distribute content made with one of dulux-oz's extensions contact him via PM and explain what you want to do and request permission. If its a commercial release propose a fee split remembering that he has spent hundreds of hours on these tools.

Of course I could have misread all the above.

[dulux-oz]

So, dulux-oz, would you be willing to grant permissions for modules made using your extension to be created and distributed through the DMsGuild? What conditions would you want?

Sent you a PM (well, I will in in a moment or two :) )

[dulux-oz]

OK, you're right, I did misinterpreted Andy's post - Sorry Andy, I apologize for this 100% - I was tired when I read things, but that is no excuse.

@Nick => I'm sorry you feel that I'm being less then friendly. I personally don't see it that way, as I'm providing free of charge a set of functions that people have found really useful. All I ask is that people use them for their own use, and ask me first before they do anything else - don't "sub-let" the apartment without getting permission first. I don't think its unfriendly to include some protection to my work, especially as the protection is pretty generous to the end-user - more generous then a lot of commercial software licenses. I also don't see it as "restrictive". I haven't said people can't use it; all I've said is that they need to ask permission first if they want to use it for anything other than personal use! If you were to make a piece of land available for people to use recreationally then you'd be pretty pissed off if someone then built an amusement park on that land - wouldn't you!?

Why should someone give away all their rights just because other people see that not doing that is being unfriendly? The OGL and similar licenses (like the ones on the SRDs) retain their copyright even though they provide the material for free, so why shouldn't other people?

And for the record I am not a Patent Troll. Both times we've had code stolen (non-FG code) we've settle things before they got to court for a binding promise not to do it again - and then we've watched them like a hawk to make sure they didn't break that promise.

And it wasn't a threat - it was simply a prediction of what would happen (p>> 99% for all the probability-geeks out there). As damned pointed out, I've spent 100's of hours putting this stuff together for my own use, and have decided to be generous by allowing others to use it as well free of charge. I'd save myself a bunch of trouble and extra work if I didn't provide it to others, and I have no problem at all in withdrawing it from use and/or no-longer updating it when required by FG updates.

And if people interpret that as me taking my bat and ball and going home then fine!

[Nickademus]

Oh, you don't have to convince me. I believe I already stated,

(not that I blame you from a business standpoint)

[dulux-oz]

Oh, you don't have to convince me. I believe I already stated,

I know - and I appreciate your views - just making sure everyone understands mine :)

So you're sure I can't convince you its OK to use them???

[Nickademus]

I'm sure it's okay to use them. I am just very forgetful when it comes to legals and I wouldn't want to risk making something for the community and not realizing it had some of your code in it.

[LordEntrails]

Everybody ok now? I'm ***-u-me-ing yes... :)

So, here's my understanding of a path forward;
1) Make sure we are all on the same page
- Intent would be to release on the DMsG one or more FG modules of FR locations using dulux-oz's Locations extension
- I believe everyone would be willing to release these for free? If not, dulux-oz would need a share. I do not want one at this time.
- We would need to organize this. i.e. a project lead and an outline of how we would go about this
2) Somebody volunteer to lead/organize this
3) dulux-oz (I think) would want to review the DMsG licensing and determine what would need to be included in the modules for his protection
4) An outline of the requirements be defined
- legal inclusions for the module and how the modules may be released/shared etc
- size/scope of each module (i.e. I don't know how big a module could or should be)
- standard naming convention
- standard text to be included on the product homepage
5) a thread or other means for collaborating

Hows that for a plan?

[AndyWanKenobi]

I think that all sounds pretty good. I guess a FG module would be the best delivery method for this FR location data? I'm pretty new to FG so I'm actually not sure if there are any other choices besides directly hacking into the campaign's db.xml.

Even though I started the conversation, I'm not sure I would want to lead the project. My time is rather limited and I originally only asked to see if I could save some time by using or adding to a framework someone had already started. I would be happy to contribute to building this database though!

[bnickelsen]

Just wondering if this has gone anywhere yet? Is this something people are working on? Or is the ideal dead?

[LordEntrails]

The idea is still here. I've moved onto other projects so couldn't lead this one right now. But would be willing to help.

I think we're things are left off;
1) Delivery method? DMsG module(s)? Free or paid?
2) Present #1 to Dulux and get a license from him accordingly.
3) Someone needed to step up and lead this :)

[bnickelsen]

The idea is still here. I've moved onto other projects so couldn't lead this one right now. But would be willing to help.

I think we're things are left off;
1) Delivery method? DMsG module(s)? Free or paid?
2) Present #1 to Dulux and get a license from him accordingly.
3) Someone needed to step up and lead this :)

I would be willing to help, but I don't know enough about the code or even how to fully optamize the setup in the extension to lead.

[AndyWanKenobi]

I'm definitely still interested, and every time I think about climate or geography for some place in the Realms I wish I had the database.

I'm probably the de facto leader of the project since I opened the idea. I'm just not sure how much time I can dedicate to it. Maybe a couple of hours a week.



One issue I've run up against is finding a canonical source for climate information. We could certainly make it up, but having it align with published info would be better.

The best I've found in my search so far is this:

18422

Which overlays Faerun over North America, and this:

18423

which does the same thing for all of Toril over Earth.

[LordEntrails]

The problem with overlaying Toril with Earth to determine climate patterns is that doing so fails to account for the difference in geography. i.e. locations of mountains and oceans have major impacts on precipitation etc.

But, all that said, Nobody is really going to argue with you if you do base climate off of an earth overlay :) I guess the only thing "official" is if you went through every book and pulled out references to climates! I don't think any of the campaign settings ever talked much about climate.

[Varsuuk]

Why do I think I recall extensive climate charts regarding Greyhawk?
Maybe in a Dragon Magazine? Wilderness Survival, Opium-dream?

Dunno... goodnight all, I go to dream about weather patterns, I guess.


EDIT: OK, fast google shows this: https://grognardia.blogspot.com/2011/11/articles-of-dragon-weather-in-world-of.html
I think that's the issue I remember. No clue how extensive it was etc. Would have to pull out my Dragon-Archive CD PDFs. But think this is what I recalled, dates seem about right.

EDIT2: Yeah... not FR... forgot about that, I REALLY need to sleep.

[dulux-oz]

For the record the 1E DnD Wilderness Survival Guide Weather chapter was used as the basis for the DOE: Weather engine.

Basically, for the purposes of this discussion, if you assign appropriate latitude and terrain data to the different parts of Toril you end up with weather that is appropriate for the region.

And a better accuracy is to lay the Realms over Europe, as this puts Kara-Tau over Asia and Maztica over the Americas (which is sort of where they are representing) - IMNSHO :)

Cheers