hello! a newbie's questions...

[craigpierce]

hello all -

allow me to begin by saying that someone here really did wonders with this forum - it looks amazing!

anyway, i just have 2 sort of off the wall questions - and i searched, but didn't find anything:

1) when i buy, do i/can i receive disks with the license info - or do i just get a download with key?

2) if i buy now, do i have to purchace updates/upgrades? i hear a lot of talk on the boards about a 1.6 and even a 2.0 version coming soon; and i don't want to buy 1.5x if i have to turn around and buy 2.0.

thanks!
craig

[craigpierce]

this always happens...i'm new to a forum and post a question after searching, but then i stumble on the answer right away!

i've found the answer to #2 up there (about whether or not i'll be able to freely upgrade), but #1 is still up for grabs, if anyone's interested!

[craigpierce]

ok, and another question:

when a private individual (such as myself) decides to create a ruleset for the RPG of his/her choice, can that person then sell that ruleset?

i've read on here that the handful of rulesets in existance for use with FG seem to be sold somewhere (though i can't quite figure out where).

do the owners of the RPG system have sole ownership over something like this? are they the only one's who can sell a FG ruleset for their system?

again, thanks for any help!

[Jozan]

ok, and another question:

when a private individual (such as myself) decides to create a ruleset for the RPG of his/her choice, can that person then sell that ruleset?

i've read on here that the handful of rulesets in existance for use with FG seem to be sold somewhere (though i can't quite figure out where).

do the owners of the RPG system have sole ownership over something like this? are they the only one's who can sell a FG ruleset for their system?

again, thanks for any help!

When you purchase the licenses you are sent a link to download the .exe for the program. What I did was burn that .exe to a disk so I would have it incase I needed to reinstall or something.

When someone creates a ruleset they shouldn't sell it if it's copyrighted material, that would me making profit off someone else's material and is ilegal.

The only thing that's really free for use(to my understanding) is material in the SRD. https://d20srd.org

Hope this answers all your questions.

[craigpierce]

ok, thanks!

[Kalan]

First off welcome aboard :) NOw lessee if we can answer the questions w/o sounding stupid...

1. About the discs - I don't believe you can order the discs - that said, depending on where you buy from, you do have "backups" at that site. I bought mine through Drivethrustuff.com, and I'm allowed to re-dl the files up to five times. My suggestion is if you're concerned about it - burn the files to CD yerself, and store them somewhere.

Now the icky topic - rulesets :S I hate dealing with copyrights - but since I myself am entering the writing game, this is something that is important. Bear in mind these are not OFFICIAL answers, as I myself am a "noob" to the whole copyright thing - these are just my interpretations.

Unless the ruleset in question is OGC/OGL - it is technically "illegal" to distribute it...and even then, with OGC/OGL material must conform to the licences as set out by the respective holders.

You can not, distribute, whether for profit, or not-for-profit, derivative works (in this case rulesets) without express written permission from the holders of the licence in question.

That all said - your own private campaign information is another story - if you wanna share that with the world, go ahead :)

There are a number of "official" rulesets out there - primarily d20 based at this time. Two of the bigger ones are Arcana Evolved and Iron Heroes. These are licensed reproductions done by Digital Adventures (https://www.digitaladventures.net), the owner of which Thore Ironrock, frequents these boards. DA also offers a complete version of the SRD (basically D&D w/o the fluff). DA has also produced a number of adventures and addons for FG.

There are also a couple of really good d20 Modern rulesets out there: one done by DA, the other by the Four Ugly Monsters (https://www.fouruglymonsters.com).

Think that about covers it - there are people in these parts FAR more knowledgeable than I about the whole copyright thing, which is essentially your question ;)

Take care an peace :)