• igmelonh@feddit.online
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    1 day ago

    Literary RPG; novel with RPG elements like classes, levels, stats, skills, etc. with a focus on progression. Can be considered a subgenre of gamelit, which is any story in a game-like world.

    Not sure about why the author and artist went for that cover, aside from the obvious of the guy holding what is presumably the eponymous staff.

    • athatet@lemmy.zip
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      10 hours ago

      They went for that cover so they could make a post about how ‘gay’ it was and now people post it other places but cause it’s funny and now they get free advertising for their book.

      • taiyang@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Same. 'Roll a d20 and add it to your perception skill stat. If it is higher than 16, turn to page 133; if lower, page 64."

        • dwemthy@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          There’s a book series called Lone Wolf that is exactly that. There’s a character sheet inside the back cover and your copy it over from book to book

        • craftrabbit@lemmy.zip
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          1 day ago

          Huh, let me google that

          Alright so it’s apparently just a trademark on the term “choose your own adventure”, held by chooseco. So you can do those kinds of books as long as you don’t call it that.

          • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            21 hours ago

            It’s funny that there is a whole informal genre of CYOA stuff that uses the name, presumably in violation of that trademark, but actually has very little relation to those books and is more focused on spending points to build characters or settings.

          • Leon@pawb.social
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            1 day ago

            Aah. I see. Didn’t Netflix get in hot water with them over that one Black Mirror thing?

        • [object Object]@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Can’t copyright game mechanics, because copyright involves a particular arrangement of words, visuals, or sounds. But can potentially patent them, not sure what the legal consensus in the Questionably United States is like about that.

          As is tradition, copyright keeps getting confused with trademarks and patents time and again.

          • OwOarchist@pawb.social
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            22 hours ago

            You can copyright the rulebook and the description of the rules.

            You can’t copyright the rules themselves.

            Like, for a dumb example, if you invented the game of baseball, you could write a book explaining the rules of baseball and how to play, and you could copyright that book and if anybody made unauthorized copies of that book or even just portions of it, you could sue them for copyright infringement. But you could not sue people for copyright infringement just because they were playing baseball without your permission … or writing books about playing baseball, etc.