The Rule of Retro-Clones
The general consensus among people who understand these sorts of things is that game systems can’t be copyrighted. You can only copyright the expression of an idea, not the idea itself. This is what makes retro-clones “legal”. You re-write and re-word things so that you’re not just copying and plagiarizing other peoples’ work. It kind of seems like a fine line and a bit of a cop out to justify using someone else’s work.
But the retro-clone movement isn’t about stealing other peoples’ work. It’s about keeping out of print games alive. It’s the same spirit demonstrated by anime fans who create their own dubbed and/or subtitled material not available outside of Japan, so that it can be experienced by others. There’s no intention to infringe upon intellectual property rights, and ethical anime fans cease making fansubs and fandub available if and when a legal copy of the work is available for purchase. For the most part, the anime industry seems to understand and appreciate this. It generates buzz and creates demand for a product without them having to spend much money at all on marketing.
Industry types tend not to talk about retro-clones much. Or at all. They don’t seem to want to acknowledge that they exist. That, or they’re too busy promoting their current games, which is absolutely understandable. I don’t think that retro-clones really represent competition. The people who buy and play retro-clones seem to be people who were fans of the original. They’ve had years to migrate to a new system, to spend money with current publishers on current products, if they so desired. They like what they like, though. They stick with the game that works for them. Or, they have moved on to other, in-print, officially supported systems and for one reason or another didn’t find them to their tastes and went back to the old game.
I’ve been asked, why bother creating a retro-clone? Scans of the original game can be downloaded from file-sharing sites. Old copies can be purchased through various online retailers. It’s a bit like reinventing the wheel, isn’t it? There are a few good reasons that I can give. First, as I stated before, it’s a way to introduce new players to the game. There are people, like myself, who avoid file sharing sites for legal, ethical, and computer hygiene reasons. There are those of us who just prefer printed books to PDFs, and sometimes used copies can be expensive. Most tabletop roleplayers also use the hell out of their books, and the availability of brand-new copies of retro-clones means we don’t have to treat the books gingerly, fearing to write in them, scuff the cover finish, or dog-ear them.
Retro-clones also mean that new publishers will be able to create new, compatible material for the game. Yes, it’s been proven that it’s perfectly legal to produce material compatible with another game, even without a license. There’s still the possibility of getting sued for it. As most retro-clones are either produced under Creative Commons licenses, or are published by generally amiable people, it’s a lot easier to say “for use with DoubleZero” on the cover than to risk saying “for use with the J********D RPG”.
This brings me to my final point (for now) about retro-clones: they’re just rules. They don’t include settings or characters, which is the intellectual property other companies actually get touchy about. That’s one of the reasons I have the profanity filter on this site set to automatically redact the name of DoubleZero’s “father”. Neither “he”, nor his supporting cast, nor the fictional elements of his setting are in the game. It’s just rules.
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