working on my own version!

[Nolandaniceguy]

I am working on my own version of the BrikWars rulebook, so far its getting pretty intense, awsome, and full of dice rolling. The only problem is I don't know how to give copyright information for it so I can publish it.

Im not so much worried about copyright information for BrikWars and its contents so much becuase there were very specific instructions in the brikwars rulebook on giving copyright information, which was located under the legal section.

Im more worried about Lego copyright information. I don't know how to give copyright info on things, I havent ever done any publishing of any sort before now, so I need some help with that.


After that I would like to upload a publisher file for download (its the preliminary parts of my rulebook) but I don't know how to do that or if I can on this particular website (eg use an file sharing website instead of here)

[birdman]

How is it different from the regular brikwars rulebook?

[Nolandaniceguy]

Its alot different; the minifigs have more stats, its alot more specific (im still testing it but so far that has not done much harm, being specific), and it may remind you of warhammer 40K in some ways. Weapons are done slightly differently. Armor is done differently.

I don't know how good it will be, its still in the primary stages of development, and I may be biased on how good it is becuase i am the one who made it.

I want to upload it to show you but Im not sure how.


should i ctrl + print screen the file making it an image file?

[birdman]

How big of a file are we talking here? if it's more than 1 page then upload it to some file-sharing site so we can download it. If it isn't, just take a screencap. As for the lego copyright information, just use PBB and don't specifically reference lego and you're fine.

[Nolandaniceguy]

so far its 720KB.

[AdrianTheGeek]

How big of a file are we talking here? if it's more than 1 page then upload it to some file-sharing site so we can download it. If it isn't, just take a screencap. As for the lego copyright information, just use PBB and don't specifically reference lego and you're fine.

Yah if you reference lego, their lawyer hordes will be set out to pwn you.

[Nolandaniceguy]

what is PBB mean? Nothing at all relevent came up for PBB on google (apparently liike seven things are abbreviated PBB...)
My internet lagged out then i had to go to dinner before I could fix it then i had to upload those files, thats what took me so long.

[Nolandaniceguy]

http://dc170.4shared.com/download/15700 ... 7-5f6a9f65 table of contents
http://dc170.4shared.com/download/15700 ... 0-e3dc5acb indirect weapons reference sheet
http://dc170.4shared.com/download/15700 ... 959-a2172f Minifig rules
http://dc170.4shared.com/download/15700 ... 5-cfda5980 weapons rules

Although it says download in the link it aint no download.

[stubby]

I don't know why you want to call this BrikWars; it looks like it's completely unrelated.

[Nolandaniceguy]

Well legally it sort of is. I don't want to claim this document as work of my own becuase I don't want to get entangled with any legal issues of people saying: "oh, I came up with this idea of a plastic building brick war game before you, and I have it copyrighted. Therefore its copyright enfringement."

It may just be a terrible misconception with the law, for I don't know about copyright much at all. But otherwise I want to be safe behind some plastic building brick war game organization.

Thats why its with BrikWars

[Strana]

i despise CYA'rs. GREATLY

there are many varrying brick based combat games out there. and aslong as you presented it as a generalised toy based game (like use different examples besides minifigs, say plastic soldiers ie other toys theirs not much you could do to be sued, as long as you properly tell of your purpose of use.

don't lump your stuff in with something else when you believe thiers some powerful organization to shelter you from your mistakes. and lastly its not like you can't get brikwars for free, unless some man behind the liquor store sold you it who's name was tom or something or other.

[stubby]

You might as well call it Dungeons and Dragons. Or Chess.

There were lots of brick wargames before BrikWars, and there have been lots afterwards. No one can copyright the idea of a brick wargame, and game mechanics are almost impossible to copyright as well. Which is lucky, because there isn't a whole lot I've come up with that I haven't seen in similar form elsewhere, and the same is true of everything you've got, as far as I can see.

What can be copyrighted is the specific words being used, and the way they're written - if you're copying and pasting whole blocks of text, or copying non-generic stuff (like if you copied the Deadly Spaceman character rather than just a generic soldier), that's when you run afoul of copyright rules.

All this stuff got sorted out back in the eighties when Dungeons and Dragons' popularity exploded. Suddenly hundreds of companies were making cheap ripoffs of D&D, and D&D couldn't do anything about most of them. They could copy the system mechanics almost exactly, as long as they stayed away from the protected D&D-specific ideas like paladins and beholders.

[warman45]

this is unique enough that if you were to change the name you would not need to directly mention brikwars in copywrite (something like some ideas and concepts from brikwars sounds right)

this looks like a completely different game. so the new purpose of this thread is coming up with a cool name.

[Magic Soap]

This just looks like house rules.

[birdman]

What's more, when you create something original, you have a copyright to it automatically. Furthermore, a long discussion on /tg/ proved that it is impossible to patent game mechanics, so you can use whichever ones you want as long as you change names. Similarly, this doesn't look like brikwars at all.