(TFT) TFT: Middle Earth

["Dave Seagraves" <dseagraves@austin.rr.com>]

Justin writes . . .

>You better make sure you don't violate copyright.  I love LOTR but so
>does Tolkien Enterprises.  I would be interested but I don't want to
>see you or your friend get in trouble and possibly the list if you
>publish it over it.  Be careful!

   Oh yeah.  Exceedingly careful, and that's one of the things we've been
discussing in our negotiations.  The question has been: How does one create
a LoTR adventure without upsetting the owner of the Middle Earth copyrights
(Tolkien's son, isn't it?) to the point of them taking legal action against
us?
   My answer has been to make the adventure generic enough so that it is
merely "Middle Earthesque" and not Middle Earth, but players would still
recognize it as Middle Earth and LoTR and that they would recognize most or
all of the characters, places, and events even with the names changed and
the serial numbers filed off.  Not hard to do, really, especially since TFT
(and other games) are already rather "Tolkienesque" anyway.  For years I've
been running a fantasy campaign featuring dwarves, hobbits, elves, orcs,
dragons, wizards, magic items, and evil masterminds, and Tolkien's son has
yet to write me to stop doing so or be sued.
   The bad part is that many players will /not/ recognize it as anything
more than an interesting wilderness adventure, which could possibly keep
them from then discovering and enjoying Tolkien's works.  This is
unfortunate considering the three LoTR movies coming up.
   Kirk (the adventure's creator) actually wrote the holders, and they told
him not to publish the adventure in any way or face legal action.  I
inferred from the way he said it that they would not even /entertain/ the
idea of sanctioning a LoTR adventure even if given a big bag of money for
allowing it . . .  they just simply said NO.  So instead of a real LoTR
adventure he's instead left with a watered-down generic adventure featuring
an old wizard, an elf, a dwarf, a woodsman, and four "halflings" who need to
trek across a continent to destroy an evil magic sword.  Doesn't sound quite
as interesting, does it?
   Is this pretty solid, or can you shoot holes in this for our own good?

Dave Seagraves
Seagraves Computers   dseagraves@austin.rr.com   1 (512) 255-2760
Taco Bell: Where's the beef?


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