Securing Data/Closed Beta/Licensing

[Tommycore]

Hi!

I'm looking at a special situation. I want to make a closed beta for a ruleset. The idea is that selected people will get the ruleset, and be allowed to hold demo games with anyone. At the same time I don't want anyone else to be able to use/start a campaign. When I look at the "Create New Campaign" screen, I can pick Call of Cthulhu as ruleset, but I can't click Start, and I have a purchase option in the description. I want something like that, minus the purchase option. It should only be distributed to the beta-gms by the original license holder.

Now my questions are:

1. How do I accomplish that?
2. Can I somehow guarantee that even if the ruleset gets out, noone can use it who isn't supposed to?
3. Did I get that right, that if the gm has some kind of content, like a ruleset or module, that the players don't have, they can still play it together?

Unfortuately my google-fu is weak, and when I search for closed beta all I find are posts about FGU or announcements regarding rulesets. One idea I had though was making the charactersheets readonly in the ruleset and hardcoded in the modules, so even if someone would get their hands on it, they'd have to fumble around the db.xml in order to adjust characters. That's a start, but not much. And I know that game mechanics are not copyright protectable (luckily), but I don't wanna piss the license holder off.


Cheers!
Tommy

[damned]

Copy protection is provided by storing in the Vault.
Only Fantasy Grounds official store products are vaulted.
You will need a licensing agreement with Fantasy Grounds and they will need to assign the product to your play testers.

[Tommycore]

Sounds good. What about when someone just sends the pak to other people. Can they use it as is, or do they need a license?

[damned]

If they have the pak they have the pak. They can use it and share it.

[Tommycore]

Copy protection is provided by storing in the Vault.

If they have the pak they have the pak. They can use it and share it.

Ok, so instead of distributing a .pak ruleset to the beta-gms, it's possible to have Smiteworks distribute a vaulted .dat file, so the gms can't edit it. And if I hardcode* anything but the most basic rules, it suddenly becomes pretty useless outside of the distributed scenarios. Sure, a gm might share it, and that person can then play the demo scenarios as intended. But if they want to create their own content, or reproduce copyright protected content, all they have to build from are some dice rolls. And that is it. Basically like a demo-ruleset like they get distributed at conventions. You got the most basic of game mechanics, but that is it. All the intricacies are missing. You can of course play with the demo and make up your own stuff, but there is a massive gap to the actual rulebook.

Did I get that right?

_____
* For example, I don't create a race class. I have a field on the character sheet that says "Race: Orc" or whatever, and has no additional data. So the character sheet is more or less like a .pdf file that anyone can print and/or fill out however they like. Pretty useless unless you have the actual rule book.

[Zacchaeus]

What kind of content are you thinking the DM can make?

The ruleset is just the way that a set of rules for a game work; it determines attacks, damage and all the other things that go into the rules. The content which allows the rules to be fully utilized is held in modules and just uses the rules to, for example, build characters correctly etc.

So for example the 5e ruleset is the rules and provides a character sheet but without something like the Player's Handbook you can't create characters unless you type everything into the character sheet yourself. So the DM or character can 'create' that content. Whether the ruleset is copy protected or not doesn't matter - the content can be created.

If on the other hand the DM wanted to add a damage type to the ruleset that wasn't in the ruleset already then they would need to be able to access the ruleset in order to find out how they might code that in an extension. If the ruleset is copy protected they may not be able to do that.

So it depends on what you mean by content; if you mean can the DMs make new monsters, spells, items etc then yes they can irrespective of the state of the protection. If you mean can they change the actual rules then they can't if it is protected.

[damned]

No. You are asking and replying to things out of order.

A pak file cant be protected.
A file in the vault is protected.

If you want it protected it needs to be in the vault.
That requires you to have an agreement with SmiteWorks.

The ruleset - pak file (in the vault or not) - is not content. It is programming written for the game engine to understand (more or less) the game mechanics of teh system and to present the system to the players and GM.
Modules contain content of some sort. Usually rulebooks, settings or adventures.
They too can be in the vault or not.

[Tommycore]

Oh, yes, I mixed up some stuff. My bad, sry.

So does a ruleset have to be in an unprotected pak file, or can it be in a protected dat file in the vault?

[Zacchaeus]

Oh, yes, I mixed up some stuff. My bad, sry.

So does a ruleset have to be in an unprotected pak file, or can it be in a protected dat file in the vault?

It can be either

[Tommycore]

Ok, I think I got it now. Thank you =)