apocolyptica help!

[wizopizo]

Apocolyptica is a game started 4 years ago in high school with the purpose of making the old fashioned rpgs come back to us, since the new ones are not very interesting (like new dnd), but making this game with the concept of an apocalyptic future in mind. On this post i would ask help for any suggestions on a publisher, editoror illustrator. I know that i am terrible at english and grammar hence why i need an editor and maybe an artist/publisher that exist in western wasthington. I have beta tested it for the last 3 years working out buggs, making the game better etc and am opening it to others. Please give input or help for me to make this game a reality. Also if it is only in a word document and i don't have a site dedicated to this game, how can i post it on here? and also i heard that on this site it is illegal to steal work that isn't copyrighted also. I am new and would like people to comment and help me please.

[wizopizo]

just as a quick reply to people who read this and think o god its another crappy game, i have taken this game to pax and people love it, i just need an editor and publisher later since it has been rigorously tested, loved, and well interests people at least to the point where the only negative feedback was it wasn't published, no website, and english/editing is difficult to understand.

[bosky]

Why don't you convert the rules Word doc to PDF and then upload it to a file hosting site and link it here? Something like Filedropper or Mediafire should be sufficient.

[Joseph]

Yeah, you sound like you've got it going on. I'd love to help in any way I can. Like bosky said, let's see a PDF! I believe Word can save natively to PDF, but if it can't, PDFCreator can be used to print to PDF. If you're on a Mac, PDF Printing is supported natively.

[wizopizo]

Thank you for that but the concern i have is that if apoc is put into a pdf someone can just copy it and then take it as thier own. The main question i'm posing is does this site protect against that or is it fair game for anyone?

[wizopizo]

If no one can steal the work from this cite and the forge protects against Intellectual property theft or anything related, then i would love to post the whole game for everyone to check out.

[bosky]

If you're worried about theft why not just put your work under a free, protected license like Creative Commons? You can even specify whether people can use it commercially and other parameters, and it's actually legally binding instead of just randomly putting Copyright!!!1! on and thinking that does anything.

Regardless I don't think anyone is going to steal your groundbreaking idea ;P

[BubbaBrown]

Any mechanics and methods in the game cannot be protected under copyright.  In theory, those can be patented, but since the novelty of dice rolling and pen and paper mechanics way in the pass... No chance there.

Any unique literature and story elements are protected under an implicit copyright by the creation of the material.  This can be reinforced by putting an explicit notice on the material and maintaining ownership of an authoritative original source of the material.  (The original file.)  Publishing it online isn't going to protect it any less.  In fact, in some cases publishing it online with a date stamp can sometimes protect the material better by publicly advertising the work and owner.  Same concept as of getting the source materials notarized or mailing a copy of the materials to yourself and keeping them a sealed envelope with the postmark date.  It just establishes a point of reference for any contention.

Also, your average website can't protect from intellectual property theft, unless you are paying them to have a team of lawyers ready to pummel anyone who tries.  In the user agreement upon getting an account on the site, there is usually a clause stating whether or not the material posted on the site remains the property of the poster or becomes the property of the website.  That's as far any website goes.

Realistically... No organizations with the capability to effectively steal intellectual property and make actual money off of it is going to bother with anything they see on the web or someone's "secret project".  Why?  They got an entire staff for creating ideas that are under tight contracts and paid for.  No one wants to deal with the legal hassle of it all.  And you are going to put off many people who can help you if you they have to play the whole "Non-Disclosure Agreement" game.

Just stick the Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives License on it and get it out there.  ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ )  Frankly, anyone going to steal ideas and pawn them off as their own are going to go for FAR bigger targets than someone's pet side project.

[wizopizo]

thank you so much, some time soon i would like to put it up on that site and give a link here in this post for all to enjoy, the entire hard to understand game haha. But if you can grasp the concepts of it, many avid tabletop players like apoc more than most other tabletops. So once again thank you, enjoy, and i will ask for help on editing and artistic work if people desire to do so.