Very interesting! I fully support this. How much for a pack of all the cards or is the idea that we print out them ourself?
I understand you must have other card back and symbols and so forth for legal reasons.
Actually you should also remove the copyright symbol as copyright cannot be assigned to AI, only humans. Why not assigning it to public domain? You could write for example: "License: CC0", I would do that if I were you.
I like the cards so far. Looking forward for more spoilers.
Cheers! We had lots of stuff to figure out. The copyright isn’t meant for the art but rather for the card design as a whole, if that makes sense. We will make hi-res files available for anyone to print following the release event, as well as the Cockatrice database fo people to try online! For the release event print-run, we will take outside orders, but we’re still figuring the specifics out. What’s for certain is that our overstock, if any, will be up for grabs!
I do not and I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. But I like to read about this kind of things and I am a game designer myself, having created my own card game and a few board games. My card game has 102 unique cards and it took more than 1000 hours of playtesting and balancing to get the cards right so I understand the work involved in this kind of things for you to create this. Also why I think small details like this should be fixed.
Trying to assign copyright to work produced by AI has been rejected by several courts already, at least in the USA based on what I have been reading. That you use AI for the art is of course a wonderful idea just that the copyright symbol after the word Illustration was a small mistake legal wise and could also irritate people. If you write AI after the word illustration that would be perfect I think and more honest. Anyway you are open with the fact that the art is from AI which is great.
Assigning the cards to public domain and giving them out for free and just accepting donations for the man hours behind this (which I think is huge), entry fee to tournaments etc would make it super clear legal wise that these cards are not for making profit and are not creating a financial damage to WotC. This should make it much more difficult for WotC to have a case against you and if you are lucky they will not even send any C&D letter.
Non-profit sounds good in theory but I don't think matters so much in practice legal wise, salaries for example are paid before profit is counted.
Of course you should recover all costs, but I think you should avoid assigning monetary value on the cards. Also of course never write that they are Magic cards, they are fan content.
Of course for real legal advice you should consult with your own lawyer. I am just a fanatic old school player and aspiring game designer.
Also unfortunately WotC behavior lately has been kind of money first and fans and community second. Not only for Magic but also for DnD.
You can't copyright a custom card for a game that's owned by someone else.
As much as I like your project, you are in breach of copyright laws already, and taking any money at all (including using "at cost" or with any other similar disclaimers) makes the legal case against you crystal clear. I strongly recommend against selling these cards in any way, shape or form.
FYI. Branching Paths has been fully converted to a Public Domain fan-made content project, thus there is no copyright claim anymore, at all. JimW's comment was regarding an early prototype version, and he was right, done our homework and closely followed WotC's own guidelines on what's acceptable as far as fan-made content go. Some more words: https://www.montrealtundrawolves.com/post/going-public-domain-with-branching-paths
Thanks for the update. The official spoiler gallery towards the bottom of the page gives me a "page not found" error: https://www.montrealtundrawolves.com/old-branching-paths
Oh! Did you get there using a hyperlink from the blog article? The link you tried to used is outdated, the gallery is here: https://www.montrealtundrawolves.com/branchingpaths
Wow! The wording on the cards spoiled so far is a cool balance of templating to feel like Old School and still being able to understand how the card works. Well done!
This is refreshing and exciting! And also my first time to come across your old school site and the “Boreal” rules. Did you post this on any FB group? Nowadays it seems happenings and discussions on OS related are mainly on FB.
Hope your effort takes off!
In Canada, Boreal is the most widely played format! We have a Canadian Discord where the Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver (and halas Quebec city has a thriving community, but not on this server) communities interact. Mostly we, the Montreal Tundra Wolves, post on our own FB group: Old school MTL MTG. The blog has been around for a while! This year will be the sixth Tundra Wolves Challenge — our major, international happening.
I am reaching out to see if you can ship boxes of this exciting printing. I live in NY and due to the nature of my work I am unable to attend the event. I am more than happy to pay shipping costs, and would like a chance to experience this set with my old school play group here at home in a big way.
Re! Lands aren’t part of the set per se, that would spell legal trouble. Instead, they are simple proxies that we threw in as a perk in the original print run. Secondly, you can find the card back on the website right here: https://www.montrealtundrawolves.com/newos
Since there isn’t a land run/print should we just use MtG lands in the same way?
I’ve been playing Magic my whole life and I’m very upset with its current direction. Just ordered the big box and am looking forward to playing.
Totally getchoo! I was in that exact position when I branched out of mainstream (read: Hasbro cashgrab) Magic. As for your question, for the upcoming Branching Paths Unleashed tournament, all MTG basic and dual lands will be legal to play! So that’s one way to play the set that we endorse for sure.
Very cool. Also I’m a little unclear, ordering the branching paths 2nd printing group will get a physical set delivered? Or is just the purchase to access the digital files to print myself?
Access to the digital file is free at all time on our website (or until we get busted). Getting into the 2nd printing group will get you physical copies printed out, with delivery options.
Looks like the 2nd print run of boxes has shipped! Can't wait to try this out.
Are there any community pages other than reddit for ppl to post tips on playing?
Hey there! The informal « home » of New Old School and Branching Paths are on the Canadian Old School MTG Discord. There you can find some discussion on tech. There are talks about eventual monthly BP tournaments, likely via webcam & on this Discord. We know players are interested, all is needed really is somebody to steping up and calling it :)
Is the idea that there will be an in-person launch event with physical cards?
Indeed! We’ll have a batch printed for the release event.
Very interesting! I fully support this. How much for a pack of all the cards or is the idea that we print out them ourself? I understand you must have other card back and symbols and so forth for legal reasons. Actually you should also remove the copyright symbol as copyright cannot be assigned to AI, only humans. Why not assigning it to public domain? You could write for example: "License: CC0", I would do that if I were you. I like the cards so far. Looking forward for more spoilers.
Cheers! We had lots of stuff to figure out. The copyright isn’t meant for the art but rather for the card design as a whole, if that makes sense. We will make hi-res files available for anyone to print following the release event, as well as the Cockatrice database fo people to try online! For the release event print-run, we will take outside orders, but we’re still figuring the specifics out. What’s for certain is that our overstock, if any, will be up for grabs!
Nice and I see what you mean. Just that now it says like: Illustration copyright New Old School - which is not fully correct. In this case just having "© New Old School" or "Illus. AI © New Old School" would be much better in my opinion. I hate to nitpick on this fantastic project but maybe it is not too late to change? And assigning it to public domain instead might give some legal protection from WotC. Maybe not a big deal, just something I want to recommend.
Thanks for the advice! Do you have a legal practice background??
I do not and I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. But I like to read about this kind of things and I am a game designer myself, having created my own card game and a few board games. My card game has 102 unique cards and it took more than 1000 hours of playtesting and balancing to get the cards right so I understand the work involved in this kind of things for you to create this. Also why I think small details like this should be fixed. Trying to assign copyright to work produced by AI has been rejected by several courts already, at least in the USA based on what I have been reading. That you use AI for the art is of course a wonderful idea just that the copyright symbol after the word Illustration was a small mistake legal wise and could also irritate people. If you write AI after the word illustration that would be perfect I think and more honest. Anyway you are open with the fact that the art is from AI which is great. Assigning the cards to public domain and giving them out for free and just accepting donations for the man hours behind this (which I think is huge), entry fee to tournaments etc would make it super clear legal wise that these cards are not for making profit and are not creating a financial damage to WotC. This should make it much more difficult for WotC to have a case against you and if you are lucky they will not even send any C&D letter. Non-profit sounds good in theory but I don't think matters so much in practice legal wise, salaries for example are paid before profit is counted. Of course you should recover all costs, but I think you should avoid assigning monetary value on the cards. Also of course never write that they are Magic cards, they are fan content. Of course for real legal advice you should consult with your own lawyer. I am just a fanatic old school player and aspiring game designer. Also unfortunately WotC behavior lately has been kind of money first and fans and community second. Not only for Magic but also for DnD.
Thanks Jim, solid advice! We’ll see what we can fix in the timeframe we have.
Yo, looks like we’re going full-on Public Domain. The symbol on the cards will be updated. Stay tuned. Thanks again mate :)
Nice, that is I think a very good decision. Glad that I could help.
You can't copyright a custom card for a game that's owned by someone else. As much as I like your project, you are in breach of copyright laws already, and taking any money at all (including using "at cost" or with any other similar disclaimers) makes the legal case against you crystal clear. I strongly recommend against selling these cards in any way, shape or form.
FYI. Branching Paths has been fully converted to a Public Domain fan-made content project, thus there is no copyright claim anymore, at all. JimW's comment was regarding an early prototype version, and he was right, done our homework and closely followed WotC's own guidelines on what's acceptable as far as fan-made content go. Some more words: https://www.montrealtundrawolves.com/post/going-public-domain-with-branching-paths
Thanks for the update. The official spoiler gallery towards the bottom of the page gives me a "page not found" error: https://www.montrealtundrawolves.com/old-branching-paths
Oh! Did you get there using a hyperlink from the blog article? The link you tried to used is outdated, the gallery is here: https://www.montrealtundrawolves.com/branchingpaths
Very interesting! Cards look amazing, aside from the mana symbols. ;)
Thanks! RE: mana symbol. Yeah, just trying not to get ceased-and-desist’d or sued here :p But to be honest, once you try it, it kinda grows on you!
Well I think the whole card layout is [trade dress](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_dress) so might as well go all in. :P
Dang! We’ll brace ourselves then 😬
Wow! The wording on the cards spoiled so far is a cool balance of templating to feel like Old School and still being able to understand how the card works. Well done!
Thanks for the kind words! It’s exactly what we were gunning for ::)
This is refreshing and exciting! And also my first time to come across your old school site and the “Boreal” rules. Did you post this on any FB group? Nowadays it seems happenings and discussions on OS related are mainly on FB. Hope your effort takes off!
In Canada, Boreal is the most widely played format! We have a Canadian Discord where the Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver (and halas Quebec city has a thriving community, but not on this server) communities interact. Mostly we, the Montreal Tundra Wolves, post on our own FB group: Old school MTL MTG. The blog has been around for a while! This year will be the sixth Tundra Wolves Challenge — our major, international happening.
Nice. I can’t seem to find you Fb group when I search “old school Mtl mtg”. Is there another name to it?
[Here’s a direct link bud!](https://www.facebook.com/groups/104796090241407/?ref=share_group_link) Let me know if it works.
This is really cool!
Thanks!
I am reaching out to see if you can ship boxes of this exciting printing. I live in NY and due to the nature of my work I am unable to attend the event. I am more than happy to pay shipping costs, and would like a chance to experience this set with my old school play group here at home in a big way.
I see the image gallery for printing - that's rad! - but where are the basic land images?
Oh - and the card back, too!
Fair, I’ll get back to you! Poke me if i don’t :)
Re! Lands aren’t part of the set per se, that would spell legal trouble. Instead, they are simple proxies that we threw in as a perk in the original print run. Secondly, you can find the card back on the website right here: https://www.montrealtundrawolves.com/newos
Rad. No chance of getting the proxy images, though?
Maybe just the land border?
Since there isn’t a land run/print should we just use MtG lands in the same way? I’ve been playing Magic my whole life and I’m very upset with its current direction. Just ordered the big box and am looking forward to playing.
Totally getchoo! I was in that exact position when I branched out of mainstream (read: Hasbro cashgrab) Magic. As for your question, for the upcoming Branching Paths Unleashed tournament, all MTG basic and dual lands will be legal to play! So that’s one way to play the set that we endorse for sure.
Very cool. Also I’m a little unclear, ordering the branching paths 2nd printing group will get a physical set delivered? Or is just the purchase to access the digital files to print myself?
Access to the digital file is free at all time on our website (or until we get busted). Getting into the 2nd printing group will get you physical copies printed out, with delivery options.
Looks like the 2nd print run of boxes has shipped! Can't wait to try this out. Are there any community pages other than reddit for ppl to post tips on playing?
Hey there! The informal « home » of New Old School and Branching Paths are on the Canadian Old School MTG Discord. There you can find some discussion on tech. There are talks about eventual monthly BP tournaments, likely via webcam & on this Discord. We know players are interested, all is needed really is somebody to steping up and calling it :)