Re: [Epic] New Game Grumbles

From: Joseph Looney <mlooney_at_...>
Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 22:06:09 -0600

Jason Stephensen wrote:
>
> >> The word plagarism was used against people at school and Uni for
> >>people that commited such acts.
> >
> >And copyright infringement is used in the legal system. Plagiarism
> >generally refers to non-copyrighted stuff.
>
> OK there are a lot of rules that have not been so clearly copyrighted by
> companies like GZG, so GW is able to take the suppresion counters, rename
> them and use the very same concept, but take the concept as their own.
> Taking someone to court over this is a very difficult, as it is a hard thing
> to prove.
>
<snip-o-matic>

OK kids, sorry to jump in here, but lets us get one thing 100 % correct
here. You copyright the expression of an idea, not an idea itself.

Non-rule Example: Short fat happy go lucky types that don't wear shoes
and happen to be expert shots.

If you are J.R.R.T you call them Hobbits. He invented that word to go
along with that concept.

If you are Iron Crown, (which has the gaming rights to Middle Earth) you
may also call them hobbits.

If you are TSR, you call them Halfings. Note that TSR called them
hobbits at one time and was told to "Stop that". They did.

If you are GW you call them Ratlings.

Ork (or Orc), on the other hand, is an Anglo-Saxon word for "Monster" so
it's open to use by any one, never mind the fact the before The Lord of
The Rings only about 10 people in the whole of the English speaking
world knew (or cared) about this.

Lots of war games are based on other war game systems. This is thought
to be a "good" thing, most of the time. Getting cranky because GW uses
some concepts from other game systems is NOT a good idea, given GW's
record in comming up with rules on their own.

#include "waterloo rant.txt"

While I have not seen the "Epic 40K" rules as yet, I can state that the
current "SM Mk II" rules bear more than a passing resemblence to GDW's
Command Descion Mirco Armor rules. In fact, the only thing that seems
to be differnt is Unit scale and weapon types. My "never quite
finished" "Imperial Space" rules is/was a meld of the two systems.
The thing that I was trying to do would have allowed you to fight D-Day,
The Gulf War or The Horus Hersey. For what it was worth I was going to
include some "human" options that would have allowed "Space Nazi" types,
so that I could use all of my micro armor types at the same. Saner
heads informed me that this was "silly".
Received on Sun Mar 16 1997 - 04:06:09 UTC