The Realm Guard hack is freaking awesome. I’ve got to find a way to help out in some way.
I posted up my experience on my blog:
http://platonicsolid.blogspot.com/2009/06/mouse-guard-everything-from-small-stuff.html
Luke mentioned this over at the Forge:
Holy cow, has anyone seen or even used MagCloud yet?
http://magcloud.com/It’s an endeavor by HP to create a Lulu-like service for short run, low page-count magazines. It seems utterly perfect for creating slick micro games – $4.80 production cost for a 24 page, full color zine.
I’d love to have a few freebie handouts for Realm Guard. Is there any chance we could get this in under 24 pages and set up for MagCloud? If so, I’ll spring for each of the contributors to get one and have a few to give away for my players at Gencon and Dragoncon.
Doesn’t have to be 24 pages, btw. That was just an example. I want one if you print them!
Please do put me down for one.
Splendid.
Hmmm… cool! Just need character images for the sample characters and it’d be good to go.
That said, wouldn’t there be serious copyright issues with printing it…?
I apologize for my brevity here, but I lost a much longer post yesterday that says pretty much the same thing.
In Realm Guard, a character’s “House” and “Heraldry” stand in for Mouse Guard’s “Fur Color” and “Cloak Color”, I believe.
This substitution was offered up in the origination thread for the hack, and folks basically went along with it. The problem is that those two concepts are largely unsupported by any kind of examples from Tolkein. The RG text says something like “you can look up the houses of the Edain and Dunedain online - there are many options” but… well, you can’t.
Because there aren’t.
Outside of the lineage of the major characters, no ‘bloodlines’ or families are detailed. Heck, hereditary surnames aren’t even a tradition of Men, for that matter.
Essentially the same thing goes for Heraldry. Outside of the main population centers of Gondor (Dol Amroth, Minas Tirith) and the Kings of Men, there is virtually no heraldry – the Grey Company is a fine example of an exception, but it’s essentially the only one.
In short, these two attributes aren’t ‘finished’ in the hack – by finished, I mean that there’s no options to choose from in the same way that you do with every other area – and (in my experience doing chargen with three players so far), essentially inventing these two attributes after the clear and obvious setting-reflective selection process inherent in every other aspect of character generation leads to a sudden drop in interest, a drop in momentum or (in one canon-grognard’s case) real confusion.
Thoughts?
I really don’t know. If just for myself and my friends with out any money changing hands is this an issue?
In short: You make 'em up.
There are likely tonnes of Houses, beyond the three original ones. There’d have to be. I will remove the “look it up” portion, though, as that is indeed misleading. Cheers!
In terms of canon, my take is that canon which holds up the fun ought to be dropped. When it comes to Houses and Insignia, just make them up. After all, the character you create isn’t part of canon, so why worry about whether a fictional character’s lineage is? 
I pushed hard for only having Insignia and no Heraldry, but I think the compromise was that we’d have both and people could pick which. I prefer Insignia, because that’s something most of us have, regardless of whether it has wordly importance or only personal importance. For instance, I have a ring my girlfriend gave me and a ring on a necklace one of my Chinese students gave me. They won’t rock the world, but people who know me recognize them.
I’m honestly not sure. While I’d love to do it, I won’t (and won’t condone it) if there’s any liability whatsoever. The fact that we’re using property of Tolkien’s estate without permission and art without permission could be pretty serious bid’ness. It isn’t for simple, no-profit (no-money!) PDF distribution, but to get into any kind of publishing is risky, I feel.
I’d welcome Luke’s advice on the matter, as I’m sure he has lots of experience with property right and copyright matters.
Well, yes; I know that’s what’s necessary – my point was is that the RG character creation process (and Mouse Guard is pretty much the same in this regard) is pretty much a series of listed-choices - switching to “and now you just make this part up” has been a jarring change of method (in my experience with it, thus far).
I’m not saying that Houses need to be invented for inclusion in the text – I’m suggesting their they’re not the right things to substitute in there, and that, perhaps, those two attributes should be scrapped for the hack.
Just a thought. You know I love the hack, I’m just pointing out a spot that’s proven (just for me and mine) to be a snag during character creation.
Ah, specific to the character creation process. Gotcha. Given that, I totally agree: The text will have to reflect the “now it’s your turn – get creative!” kind of separation from the MG (and most of RG) chargen mind set.
I’m not sure I want to remove it, however. After all, what does fur colour have to do with the game? Nothing that I’ve seen. Insignia and House are the same. I’ll make a note that the players are to be creative and come up with something they enjoy knowing, but realize it won’t be game-relevant. It’ll sit in the background, as does fur colour and cloak colour.
I see where the disconnect could come in, but aren’t we talking about the equivalent of asking for hair and eye color? I don’t think there should be a list of choices. I think there should be explicit instructions on how to make up your own.
-L
Short answer to Luke’s post: “Explicit Instructions: Yes.”
I’ll work that out this evening, if I have a chance to do so.
I didn’t see anyone reply to Rafe’s concerns about printing. Could someone (nudge, nudge) give us advise. I would really like to do this and the cost seems doable. But I’m not going to put us in a legal hole for it. Any help would be appreciated.
Bah! I still have those corrections to make. slaps himself
Asking for help on Story Games started this thread:
http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=9582&page=1#Item_3
You may want to look it over. Short answer; the PDF may be more problematic than a couple of prints.
Well, in terms of some of the art, I sought to get permission from some of the artists whose work I knew I was using (JAE and one or two others) and there were no replies forthcoming.
I think Doycet made a good point in that thread re: wikis and such. If there was really an issue with not-for-profit information spreading (which is what Realm Guard: Rangers of the North is), we’d have seen wikis removed after C&D orders being given.
Again, I see a separation between PDF and hardcopy, though I know that, legally, there isn’t one. I think the real issue would be for-profit distribution, in any form. I don’t think either of us have any intentions of that, at any point. It would be great, but I don’t think we’d ever get permission rights (definitely not affordably) from Tolkien’s estate.
So… what the heck do we do with this thing? We’re in potential danger on two fronts: Tolkien’s estate for content and likeness, and the artists for use of work without permission (despite some attempts at gaining that permission or finding out who the artists are).
I think if you try to contact them and you credit them in the work with a clear indication that you attempted to contact and will remove upon request I’d say we done as much as a wiki would.
Yeah, I think I definitely need to put a mention of that in there. I wish I had the names of every artist whose art is in the PDF, but I’ve been collecting images for gaming, reference for players, inspiration, etc. for 3-4 years. I also need to put in a copyright notice relating to Tolkien and his estate.
You may want to look at the Tolkien notices on the “Hunt for Gollum” fan project.