Blooded animals

[Mirviriam]

Fair enough. I can't put numbers on it as it is just my interpretation of the discussion here in combination with the conversations we have had in this mailing list/forum over the last ten years or so. My opinion is that a large number of players wouldn't want to include it. You Dooley, obviously aren't one of them. I am just asking that you bear that in mind when you consider how people are responding to your posts. In turn, we would like to treat your suggestions as ideas of how the campaign setting can be adapted. We are having trouble seeing how it can be treated as an interpretation of the rules/scenario as they stand.

All criticism should be constructive. We all just have to deal it out and read it in that fashion.

Sorontar

Sorontor: Why are you quoting me, but talking to dooley?

To save me double post:

There's two reasons I'm posting instead of lurking. A third one occurred to me as I was comparing this forum to the battletech ones where I programmed for their webplay.

1) I care that an old ideology of evil always loses in the end is blunting what could be a very constructive & interesting addition to the wiki, so I called out the participants to reform their methods & not use the morally/logically weak methods such as:

Ad hominem, isolation mind games (using "we", "the community feels"), apologizing for your opinion (as seen in all the movies representing good Christian house wives gossiping), dismissive arguments (unless you're the OP, as you direct the thread it's your right), fob off your idea's as some expert, group of experts or common consensus to lend it strength which it does not have on it's own.

2) It's why the forum is here...people, whom we don't know, posting things we wouldn't discuss with the intent of a better game. Some of the arguments were at the least creative & it should be recognized.

3) You guys need to thank dooley for caring enough about the game to even bother posting. I recently met a security guard - he thanks people even when they make mistakes! For the opportunity to speak with them etc, it's almost hilarious - except the fact that he's completely sincere!

[Sorontar]

Sorontor: Why are you quoting me, but talking to dooley?

Because it is a conversation and to keep it in context. I was responding to both of you as well as speaking to everyone.

I called out the participants to reform their methods & not use the morally/logically weak methods such as:

I have no problem with you doing that. However, what I have been trying to say is this discussion is fine for Br.net in my opinion, but all participants (and not just Dooley) have to realise that everyone has an opinion and sometimes they conflict. Therefore, rather than arguing about the conflict lets use constructive criticism and try to make it sound like constructive criticism and read other's posts as constructive criticism.

The only problem about this was that I too had an opinion on the matter, which I declared. Therefore, I was talking to myself as well.

Your comments Dooley are interesting. They just don't fit into my Birthright. Part of the problem is that the discussion so far has largely been about they fit into your view of Birthright and how they don't fit into the Birthright of others. We need to find a middle ground/understanding so that we can help you improve how they fit into your Birthright.

3) You guys need to thank dooley for caring enough about the game to even bother posting. I recently met a security guard - he thanks people even when they make mistakes! For the opportunity to speak with them etc, it's almost hilarious - except the fact that he's completely sincere!

Sounds like the New Zealand police according to some of the tv shows I have seen. They seem so overly polite even when they are arresting people.

Sorontar

[Mirviriam]

Because it is a conversation and to keep it in context. I was responding to both of you as well as speaking to everyone.

You said both of us twice now, I'm not understanding what makes you link dooley & I together. His opinions are not mine. I merely thought to help improve the community of birthright.

One step Gary, you or anyone who knows should explain where the power to claim king of copyright stems from & the process they use to vet materials?

Thank you for your message early this week too. It helped restore my faith in public forums. Birthright has a better quality of character than many D&D forums, or I would have never come back after 2001 & you reminded me of that in your message.

[Birthright-L]

At 07:32 AM 9/15/2010, Mirviriam wrote:

>One step Gary, you or anyone who knows should explain where the
>power to claim king of copyright stems from & the process they use
>to vet materials?

King of copyright? I`d imagine he comes from one of the goblin realms....

You mean who has the copyright for BR? Or do you mean what the
current standards for copyright itself are?

If the former, the copyright holder for Birthright would be
WotC. They bought out TSR and the copyright transfers. Depending on
what country your in (and how savvy/despicable the attorneys and
their corporate masters are in that country) copyright for creative
works normally goes for the life of the creator +70 years. So,
Birthright won`t be in the public domain for some time. It`s a
little shakier when copyright runs out for corporations, however,
since they don`t really ever die. Normally that means just the 70
years, but in the past 30 years corporations have gained more and
more rights, so I wouldn`t be surprised if they get the vote soon,
and as they never actually die.... A lot of things that people
normally think are copyrights are really trademarks, and trademarks
never go away. Mickey Mouse, for example, isn`t actually a
copyright. He`s a symbol--a trademark. So, even if it were 70 years
after Walt Disney died (he died in 1966--so 26-7 years more) it
doesn`t matter. Even if WotC lost the copyright for BR materials,
they could retain the logo.

There are a lot of loopholes in the whole copyright law,
however. For example, there is "fair use" which means you can
directly quote a small portion of any particular work at any
time. How small a portion depends a bit on what kind of work it is,
but generally it amounts to a page or three of a short novel. So, if
someone were to reproduce a page from one of the Birthright texts
they probably would not lose a copyright lawsuit. They still might
be sued, but they`d win. Winning the case, however, doesn`t mean
someone would really win since that`s an awful lot of time and effort
to deal with, so just being threatened with a lawsuit is usually
enough to get people to stop what they`re doing.

There`s also an issue with derivative works. Most of the
contributions to the Birthright.net download section are owned by the
people who wrote them. Copyright is assumed these days, even if the
person doesn`t make any particular effort to establish it. However,
because those things are based on the Birthright original materials,
they are considered derivative works. As such, the owners of that
original material could at any time require that such derivative
works not be sold or publicly distributed. Nobody can tell anyone
what to do with their own creations in the privacy of their own home,
or in a very limited distribution (family, friends, professional
relationships, etc.) but owners of original material could step in
and require any derivative not be put on something like a public
forum. WotC could NOT take those files and publish them for a profit
since the authors own the copyright, but they could prevent someone
from distributing those works because they own the original materials
upon which they are based.

Only rarely does that actually happen, though, and I`ve never heard
of it being done for fan-inspired creations distributed for
free--even the worst of them. Lots of people like to write Star Trek
inspired erotica, for instance. I`m sure that makes Gene Roddenberry
turn over in his grave, but it doesn`t seem to inspire Paramount to
halt it being published on the Internet. It really only happens if
someone tries to sell their derivative work, and even then only if
the money involved is worth the effort of the copyright holder
starting a lawsuit. (The last time I talked this over with a lawyer,
she told me that few lawfirms will touch a case unless the damages
will amount to $90,000 minimum. Lawyers get 1/3, so they need
$30,000 to break even. That was about 10 years ago, and it wasn`t
about something as detail oriented as copyright. I`m sure it`s more
than that now.)

WotC could step in at any time around here and put a halt to the
distribution of lot of the stuff folks have published, but it would
be expensive and time consuming to do so, and most importantly not in
their best interest. It`s just not a good idea to sue your
fans. Besides, we actually are supporting the company by creating
new material, and anyone whose taken a Marketing class in the last 40
years is going to realize that. Even those guys who have made whole
new seasons of Star Trek based on the OS don`t get in trouble, even
though they do have some sponsorship....

When Birthright.net was "official" and the BR updates were as well
there were a lot of license agreements and that sort of stuff flying
around. I wasn`t involved in any of that stuff directly, but I`m
sure the folks who were could provide some insights.

With all that said, however, there is an interesting argument to be
made for "abandoned" or an otherwise unenforced copyright being
lost. This one usually doesn`t get exploited too often, but when a
copyright holder doesn`t protect that copyright then it can go away,
particularly if the copyright isn`t serving the purpose of copyright
in the first place (to protect innovation and allow for creators to
recoup their expenses along with a profit meant to encourage such
people.) In recent years, some folks have been arguing that things
like computer software has accelerated the speed of copyright
abandonment, and where the technology goes, so goes the rest of the
world (usually.) The licence that D20 was issued under, for example,
was based on a lot of copyright licensing thinking that went into
software copyright release. The current incarnation of D&D appears
to have gone more old school when it comes to copyright, and it looks
to me like they`ve managed to put the genie back in the bottle pretty
well. Microsoft "owns" Windows 3.0--but unless they actively protect
that copyright, it might not exist anymore. What about some old
text-based game? If someone were to make a graphic version and the
original owner doesn`t do anything, then they probably can`t do
anything about someone who makes an updated, 3D version of that same
game. Of course, no corporation is going to acknowledge that kind of
reasoning, and they tend to be the side with the most
lawyers. (Lawyers are like artillery: the side with the most usually
wins--and they are both noisy, obnoxious, self-destructive errors of
human civilization....)

Right now, I seriously doubt there is anybody from WotC watching the
Birthright community, and it`s hard to imagine them suddenly growing
interested in us unless somehow lots of other people start getting
interested first. Even if that were to happen, the smart thing would
be for them to use a revitalized BR community as a portal to the
other product lines, so it`s really unlikely they`d do anything to
stifle contributors.

>Thank you for your message early this week too. It helped restore
>my faith in public forums. Birthright has a better quality of
>character than many D&D forums, or I would have never come back
>after 2001 & you reminded me of that in your message.

Usually we stay pretty civil around here. Every once is a while
people go D&D-l (which was notorious for personal attacks for a long
time) but even then its often based on some misunderstanding rather
than outright trollishness. In my opinion, BR does lend itself to a
more "politically minded" so there is a more debatey style to the
participants as a general rule. Some folks seem to take that kind of
argument personally, which can make it tough to participate sometimes.

Plus, there does seem to be a particular kind of Internet user who
posts not because they want to converse, but because they are looking
for validation. That`s all well and good. I like validation as much
as the next guy.... Not a lot of validating goes on around here,
though. We`re more likely to critique.

Gary

[Sorontar]

You said both of us twice now, I'm not understanding what makes you link dooley & I together. His opinions are not mine. I merely thought to help improve the community of birthright.

:^) Don't worry I wasn't putting you both in the same box with regards to opinions. I was merely talking to everyone, but in the same paragraph I was directly responding to what Dooley had said and what you had said about my previous response to Dooley. In separate ways you were both questioning the validility of my response, so I was trying to explain that I was basing it on personal experience not statistics. I felt that that was a suitable explanation that partly responded to both of you. If not, so be it.

I'm just glad we have stopped a flamewar (which was my original aim and why I tried to summarise the debate), but we need to get back on topic and discuss the topic at hand, hopefully all with a better idea of what angle each other is looking at this debate from. As Gary said, we like to critique here. If someone comes up with a new idea, we will review and try to find its flaws so as to make it a better idea. Unfortunately, that we take that approach isn't always obvious.

Thank you for your message early this week too. It helped restore my faith in public forums. Birthright has a better quality of character than many D&D forums, or I would have never come back after 2001 & you reminded me of that in your message.

Not sure who you are directly that to, but I am always glad to see new contributors (or old ones returning). Now if only we could get people adding to the wiki!

Sorontar

[dooley]

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back (Ignoring the catcalls of "Why did you bother?" from the peanut gallery ) but RL got in the way.

Gary asked what I thought the main issue was, I'm still of the opinion that Blooded Animals is, as that's what the thread began as.

However there are several different but interconnected things being discussed.

1 Blooded Animals as a Resource.
My take on things:
One type already exists according to the source books, and they are valuable.
As a function of game mechanics there is a source of others.
There's money to be made so somebody will do it.

Somebody will always interfere eventually, but lots of money could be made in the interim:
In the case of an NPC it'll either be another NPC that the PCs get to hear about, or the PCs themselves.
In the case of a PC, who probably gained the idea by putting down such a scheme run by an "Evil" NPC, it'll be the other PCs or avenging Rangers and Druids, people stealing the stock or the secret breeding manuals etc. Plus the problems raised by others here could also raise their heads, inbreeding rather than linebreeding, parasites etc.
This seemed so obvious to me that I was just glib about it in post #3


2 How absolute is the change of shape?
My take is that it is such, and that progeny will be viable. Others disagree


3 How long will a bloodline in animals remain viable?
Who really knows, and to be honest who really cares? Profit can be made in the interim.


4 When do blood line and abilities manifest and why?
In 2e gain bloodline derivation, score, and strength at birth, no mention of when abilities manifest.
In 3e/d20/etc gain bloodline derivation, score, and strength at conception (nicely closing the strange quirk of father's blood changing being able to affect the baby's in those 9ish months, shame about losing any benefits from mum though) then being latent until 12-14 usually.

I still have 2 main problems with the latter.
Firstly, despite opinions here to the counter, I can find no rules reference of not being able to commit blood theft on a child. The terms used are Latent and Dormant, neither implying that it is unavailable to be taken. If there is such direct me to it please.

Secondly
Why do they manifest at 12-14?
I will admit that it's easier to say they do then because that's when gaining first level, but I fail to see the causal link.
Could someone please point me in the direction of the underlying mechanism, so when my players ask I have something better than, "that's just how it is!"

Somebody mentioned somewhere about one of their PCs having their abilities first manifest when needed. IMO many of them are needed well before in double digits, and I'd again like to thank Gary for the idea that some are needed before birth. As to why there's no reference to it, I think I'll rely on quoting from p112 of BoR, "Dungeon Masters should not limit themselves to recorded events. Over 1,500 years have elapsed since the Battle of Mount Deismaar—certainly not all of the world’s events can be detailed in BIRTHRIGHT sourcebooks and accessories. DMs should create their own legendary battles, magical events, and incredible happenings."

[dooley]

I think the "0" is something that got overlooked by the editors. I`m
pretty sure the original idea was that 0 and N/A would be the same
thing. After all, it would have been easy enough to have 1d6 -1 as a
method for rolling up bloodline score, and they didn`t do that....

Alternately it could be for those Regents who've lost Bloodline Score (though in the rules they say strength, sloppy editing on p48) due to failing to address Divestiture or a random event etc. Any child born at this time, could also have a Blood Score of 0. This is using the 2e rules obviously as that's where the table is from.

I assume you`re talking about Anneke Sturmdotter from the KotG
accessory. Well, OK, I accept the reference, but this is a case in
which I think you`re wildly misinterpreting the evidence. First off,
that is a 2nd edition character written up to describe a frail old
woman at the end of her life. She`s not REALLY 0-level. She`s near
death. Her 0-level status is meant to describe her
frailty. Secondly, he portrayal of a character having a bloodline at
0-level at the END of her life doesn`t really work to validate the
idea that people should get a bloodline BEFORE they reach
0-level. In AS`s case, she`s DECLINED to 0-level after a lifetime of
being a scion.

Without one reference to her having a former career (class), all we're doing is interpreting the material differently. Who's to say which of us is wildly misinterpreting things. Many other frail old people have been described in D&D, but if there was something about them being a former priest, rogue, warrior etc. it's usually mentioned. The fact that you're using your unsubstantiated claim that she USED to have a level to prove that you need a class before get a bloodline is just wrong on so many levels.