Forum:Traveller writers' guideline FAQ
In the Facebook group "Traveller RPG Headquarters", I started this discussion: What are the current rules for Traveller-compatible publications?
In a comment I posted today at 4:06 pm (below), I proposed assembling the information in the discussion into a reference document for potential Traveller writers, and writers for materials that are sufficiently close to Traveller to appeal to the same gamer audience but sufficiently different to be permissible without a license.
Since the Facebook group is private, here's the rest of my initial post. I'll ask others in the discussion for permission to re-post here too.
- I know that free stuff is easy: just include the usual Far Future Enterprises boilerplate and you're good. (Correct me if I'm wrong about this, please.)
- I also know about the Mongoose TAS sub-license, but my understanding is that Mongoose gets a piece of the action, and the action is probably pretty small before sharing it.
- There's also a way to do stuff that is compatible with Traveller but not explicitly licensed. My understanding is that Cepheus and Clement Sector materials fall into this category, but I don't know how to comply with those rules. Can anyone explain how to charge for stuff without a license or sub-license so that it doesn't run afoul of the rules? Do I just avoid mention of copyright canon, and stay clear of Traveller trademarks?
- For small stuff that I'd write anyway, I'd rather give it away so more people can enjoy it. But something that takes a lot of concentrated effort is worth a little licensing hassle.
This is my 4:06 pm comment (which may not show up with that time stamp if you're the outside Pacific Time zone):
- Thank you very much, John Watts! Thanks to others for replies. Perhaps this discussion could be assembled into a Facebook Note for general reference for potential Traveller writers, including "everything but the trademarks" writers. My thought for that is to assemble it in a shared Google Drive document, or perhaps a wiki.travellerrpg.com article if the senior folks there approve. It would be great to have it all in one place.
Would a writers' reference guide (beyond the Manual of Style that's specific to writing for this wiki) fall within the reasonable domain of this wiki? If so, where should it go? Or is there one here somewhere already?
- ― Steve98052 (talk) 19:40, 4 July 2018 (EDT)
- As I've said elsewhere, I'm not on facebook so can't comment on your thread. Per your question: Yes, you are more than welcome to post a Writer's guideline FAQ here on the wiki. The official TML FAQ is here. At minimum, if you decide to post it elsewhere, please add to the Traveller RPG:Community Portal. We have a Copyright page here which you can link to, which probably needs to be refreshed. Tjoneslo (talk) 21:03, 4 July 2018 (EDT)