Organization: University of Maine System
Date: Friday, 18 Dec 1992 19:10:30 EST
From: Solipsist at Large <IK20001@MAINE.MAINE.EDU>
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Palladium/WotC Lawsuit--How You Can Help


Mavra says:

>2. Promote our products.  Getting through this is going to take money,
>and our primary source of money is through sales.  Aside from buying
>our products, you can tell your local retailers about this situation
>and see if they'll help promote us a bit, you can tell all your
>friends and associates, and you can promote our products at
>conventions by running games--particularly games designed and
>advertised as introductory games.  Talislanta is ideal for this.
>
>(gads, that sounds like shameless)

Heh.  I ought to tell you that I never picked up TPO or Talislanta.
No problems against it -- I was just never interested.  I have
every intention now of buying them both, to look at.  There are a
lot of games -- companies with guts and a willingness to speak straight
are another matter entirely.


>3. Help increase our press coverage by submitting articles about our
>products to magazines and amateur publications.

It might be nice for you to indicate which Magazines and APAs have
been supportive of your systems in the past.  That way writers
won't waste time and postage sending materials to Magazines who
couldn't be less interested.


>4. Let us know how you feel.  We really don't want to do anything
>wrong, and we enjoy getting feedback, pro or con, about what we're
>doing.

Keep the faith.


>Steve Spencer graciously mentioned writing for us for free.  We
>appreciate offers like this but we can't accept them--it puts us into
>a conflict of interest and really isn't fair to free lance authors who
>are trying to earn a living through writing.  As I mentiond above, if
>you want to help us through writing, submit articles or letters to the
>editor to various magainzes and amateur publications.

Furthermore, it wouldn't serve the career of the Author in any way.
When Steve said `writing for free,' he didn't really think through
the legal (gah, that word again) aspects of that.  Would he be willing
to sign over all rights to his work without recompense?  That's
very poor business -- and if Wizards accepted his offer, and word
got out, it might *discourage* other writers.  The best of intentions
can be horribly mislaid....


>If anyone can think of anything to add to this list, please do so and
>I'll comment on it next time I'm on usenet.

Letters to the Editor of major non-game specific magazines expressing
support, letters to both companies expressing positions, and letters
to the officials named above are all good starting places.  All we
can *really* have are opinions.  Furthermore, if a good number of
Gamers (read, the market for all this stuff) write these things, both
GAMA and various companies will be more inclined to at least verbally
support Wizards -- and less likely to institute suits of their own.

Finally, mail to Palladium expressing *politely* your support of WotC
may help.  If Palladium gets the feeling that their market is being
lost by their lawsuit, they may decide to drop it even if they feel
they can win (win the battle, lose the war).
--
Eric Alfred Burns                        "Life is full of decisions
Solipsist at Large                        but you never get to make any."
"It's all in your mind"
IK20001@maine.maine.edu                           --Linus Van Pelt
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc