TSR The Cult of Abaddon - Release from NuTSR/TheEvilDM

[Thunderfoot]

<SNIP> (The film, btw, is not that great.)

Not to steal a thread, but I concur. Okay, back to the antics...

 

[Thunderfoot]

Ummm…are they even publishers?

I don't understand why everyone is dissing their editing and spelling... I mean, they are 'Nu'TSR.

I think we should all be grateful they aren't run by a water buffalo... Then they would be GnuTSR.

 

[DLIMedia]

Ummm…are they even publishers?

Well, and I honestly never thought I'd say this, they technically are publishers now. This is their first product to see the light of day.

 

[Stormonu]

Well, WTG did do the layout for free, so I can see where there would be no expectation of text editing would occur. “You get what you pay for” comes to mind, though if it were going through my hands I wouldn’t have let myself get involved in releasing something with such glaring issues. I mean, why make yourself look bad because of someone else’s lack of skill/attention to detail?

 

[Jer]

Well, and I honestly never thought I'd say this, they technically are publishers now. This is their first product to see the light of day.

Ah, but they didn't publish it. It had to be self-published by the author.

 

[darjr]

Anyone order a print and get it?

 

[Sir Brennen]

yes. This exact dance of trying to declare compatibility with D&D without mentioning D&D to avoid a TSR legal team coming to beat down your door is exactly the kind of dancing that the OGL and the d20 license ended back in the day.

Amusingly If they aren't actually using the OGL then the I don't think the word is forbidden. The OGL is a license that works both ways - Wizards agrees to let you use the D&D rules, and in exchange you agree to not use selected terms that they consider unique identity that they want to preserve for themselves. If you go off and try to do the old-fashioned lawyer avoidance dance, then you haven't agreed to anything and are setting up some kind of claim that game rules can't be copyrighted, only expressions of game rules, so your usage is perfectly cromulent.

Aren't most OSR game made without an OGL license though, as they're

1. not claiming to be compatible with any D&D edition that has an OGL
2. not using any material from a WotC OGL

So, yeah, there's a little bit of that dance still going on in the OSR community today, as some publishers are making product that should be playable with earlier D&D editions. (Many others are creating completely new games and systems, along with accompanying adventures, to capture the feel of 70's and 80's D&D, but I don't think Cults of Abaddon falls into that category, as it's an adventure, not a new game system.)

That said, Underdark is probably copyrighted by WotC (or TSR before them, and the rights passed onto WotC). So, it doesn't necessarily matter if it's explicitly called out in an OGL as being a verboten term for third party publishers.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I've worked as an editor and as a writer. As a writer, I try to be diligent in turning in a polished product, but there's always the chance of me missing something because my brain fills in a word or corrects the spelling for me in my head and not on the page. With gaming materials, I imagine there's the additional task of making sure the mechanics are consistent.

As an editor, I've had to correct the above many a time. I've also had to take articles that contained enough spelling and grammar errors to be unpublishable without my work (the worst was the time in the 90s I had to clean up one with a negative review of my own band!).

I must admit that I am a bit surprised at the thought of an editor being the person to salvage a badly written text. Shouldn't the text be sort of okay at the get go? Sure some cuts here, some suggestions for rewrites there, some grammar fixes. But the responsibilty for the text being of sound structure and passable grammar and spelling must surely rest on the writer?

Or is it normal for writers to turn in bad text to be fixed by editors? Is that industry standard?

I love The Road To Wellville. "My bowels are immaculate!" Bookended by Shadowlands and Legends of the Fall, it certainly is an anomaly.

Definitely the weirdest performance of Anthony Hopkins' career, to be sure

 

[Sacrosanct]

Aren't most OSR game made without an OGL license though, as they're

1. not claiming to be compatible with any D&D edition that has an OGL
2. not using any material from a WotC OGL

So, yeah, there's a little bit of that dance still going on in the OSR community today, as some publishers are making product that should be playable with earlier D&D editions. (Many others are creating completely new games and systems, along with accompanying adventures, to capture the feel of 70's and 80's D&D, but I don't think Cults of Abaddon falls into that category, as it's an adventure, not a new game system.)

That said, Underdark is probably copyrighted by WotC (or TSR before them, and the rights passed onto WotC). So, it doesn't necessarily matter if it's explicitly called out in an OGL as being a verboten term for third party publishers.

OSRIC has an OGL at the back. Personally, I think it's a good idea to use it even for OSR products, because while not 3e or 5e specific, there are a lot of terms and rules in the OGL that also existed in earlier editions.

And IP, like terms such as "Underdark", are off limits whether you use it or not. You need a special license for that from WotC.

 

[adamantyr]

Basically, WotC could serve a C&D and possibly file an injunction to stop them from even selling the module.

They didn't do it often after 3E's OGL, I recall one module that got blocked because they used shadow dragons which were not in the SRD but in a licensed FR product.