Why Pay to Play?™

 

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Jörðgarð™ is a product of the Vintyri™ Project, a subsidiary of Steigerwald EDV Verlag.  Jörðgarð, the Vintyri Project, Dungeons Daring™ and Steigerwald EDV™ Verlag are trademarks of Steigerwald EDV Verlag.  This entire website is Copyright © 2003-2014, Steigerwald EDV Verlag, all rights reserved.

 

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Jörð Campaign Setting

Open Source Reference Documents

 

License Model:  Open Game License 1.0a

Reference Documents accompany all Jörðgarð Campaign Setting

PDF Book Publications

 

All Open Source Reference Documents are editable.  They are available

in OpenOffice.org® Writer/LibreOffice.org Writer formats.  (.odt) and can be processed with modern versions of Microsoft Word®

 

Accessories available:

 

Editable maps in Fractal Mapper™ 8 format (.fmp)

 

 

Why are there Open Source Reference Documents?

 

The OSRDs are released to help two different user groups:

 

·             Game masters.

 

·             Authors and publishers who wish to incorporate parts of our material in their own work.

 

 

Open Source Reference Documents for Game Masters

 

Many game masters like to make handouts for their players.  Others like to modify the original texts in published gaming materials to tailor them for their own campaigns.  And some game masters like to do both.

 

Unfortunate, many open gaming products are more or less closed source products.  If a game master wants to customize a publication's texts or excerpt player handouts from the published texts, he or she may have a time-consuming job at hand.

 

Open gaming products printed on paper are very much "closed source."  To edit texts or to make handouts, a game master either has to retype everything or do an OCR scan and correct scan errors.  One can use cut-and-paste to a certain extent with PDF open gaming products, but this also can be time-consuming.  In addition, if the PDF was produced with a different international code set than is being used on the game master's computer, the paste might insert many false characters that need to be corrected.

 

Every bit of gaming text in our PDFs is included in our reference documents, which are available in the .odt format, for OpenOffice.org Writer, LibreOffice.org Writer and current versions of Microsoft® Word.  A game master simply can open the OSRD version of one of our products in his or her word processor and go to work.

 

Likewise, if a game master wants to add a village or dungeon to one of our maps (or get rid of or move one that's already there), he or she need only open the map in Fractal Mapper 8 and go to work.

 

 

Open Source Reference Documents for Authors and Publishers

 

The advantages mentioned above for game masters apply equally well to authors and publishers.  However, OSRDs serve yet another purpose for those who wish to incorporate our material in their own works under the terms of the Open Gaming License.

 

When Wizards of the Coast® released the OGL in 2000, the company provided for two types of content in products that are published under the license:

 

·             Open Game Content

 

·             Product Identity

 

Open Game Content is available to any author or publisher who is willing to publish under the OGL.

 

Product Identity is protected.  One may not incorporate elements that are designated as Product Identity in other products published under the OGL.

 

The Vintyri™ Project attempts to make as much of its work as possible available as Open Game Content.  However, in our PDF books, there are two types of content that we must label as Product Identity:

 

·             Trademarks.  We must protect our trademarks, meaning both the graphical trademark symbols and the trademark names such as Jörðgarð, Vintyri, etc.  It's the only means we have to keep others from publishing incompatible or offensive material under our trademark names.  However, we do offer others means for indicating Jörðgarð compatibility.  The name of our campaign world, The Jörð, is Open Game Content.  Anyone working under the OGL may use it.  We also give specific permission for others using the OGL to call their works unofficial Jörðgarð products.

 

·             Illustrations.  Our publications use a wide variety of photographic illustrations.  The Vintyri Project does not own these photographs.  We are licensed to use them in our PDFs, but we have no right to assign further usage licenses to third parties.

 

The OSRDs give other authors and publishers a copy of the PDF texts that has been cleansed of Product Identity.  The only Product Identity in our OSRDs are a cover page and an impressum that is required by German law.  These pages are clearly identified, and must be removed before the content of the OSRD is republished by third parties.  This single page of Product Identity contains no gaming material.

 

In addition to offering the OSRDs, we also can negotiate trademark licenses and the use of the illustrations in our publications, should an author or publisher need either or both.  We charge no fees for such services.  However, if an attorney is required for the issuance of such licenses, the licensee must pay the attorney's fees.