2Q: Fact or Fiction first? & Mentioning another game...

[daMoose_Neo]

Hmmkay, two questions (2Q from above):

1) Fact or Fiction first?
My latest project is an expansion on my card game Final Twilight. As I'm putting together the book for this, I'm wondering if I should put the fact, the game mechanics and rules and everything first or the world history, fiction, and race information first?
This is a product that will primarily appeal to players of Twilight, so most of the rules and such are going to be familiar, though it could spark some interest in others.

2) Mentioning another game...
In this project I'm including a section "What is a CCG?". This discusses a little bit of the history of the catagory and where the different terms came from. To do this, I'd be at the very least mentioning the creation of the term with the birth of Magic: The Gathering. What are the rules on this? Or is it better to totally avoid it (probably)?

[Bardsandsages]

http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/checklist.htm

In general it is OK to mention the existence of copyrighted or trademarked items for illustration purposes.  For example, you can say "CCG's became poplular in the (time period) with the birth of (name of game) created by (name of company).  Since then, hundreds of CCGs have appeared on the market..."continue your paragraph.  You aren't attacking the copyright or violating the trademark.  You are simply making a statement of fact.

You cannot go into details about the rules of other games, or use illustrations, etc from them.  In reality, I don't think it's really neccessary to go into an explanation, particularly in a marketable book product.  If you're writing the book for a target audience, they already know all of that anyway and it becomes redundant.

[daMoose_Neo]

Well, thats a fun fact about the upcoming product- its geared toward the target market that would be aware (CCG players), but its also got its sights on a market thats probably not as familiar (RPG players), as well as possibly drawing in folks too new to the market to really know whats going on (IE Pokemon/YuGiOh/Duel Master initiates who are AWARE of Magic, but nothing much beyond that).
To myself, the distinctions in the explanation are important in showing what the product is/means. CCG is a varied term, unlike RPG or LARP, and part of that history explains why it is such a varied term.  The emphasis on the final product is the Customizable definition, while CCG by itself could mean Collectable OR Customizable, which Magic is both (especially to older players). Newer gamers, and newer games even, view their games on the Collectable level, which is something I'm rallying against in my own little way.

[jerry]

You cannot go into details about the rules of other games

You might not want to, but you could. You could present all of the "details" of the rules, as long as you don't quote the text exactly (and you could even do that, if that is the most reasonable way of stating the rules--you are not required to use tortured text).

Game rules cannot be copyrighted. To the extent that a particular textual presentation of game rules can be copyrighted, the restriction cannot go so far that the rules themselves are, de facto, restricted.

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wnp

Jerry