Recreating Eberron in RealmWorks

[artimaeus]

Recently, I've been taking my favorite D&D realm Eberron and migrating it over to RealmWorks. I've been working on it for about a month now, and while I was doing more research about it, I discovered these forums. I was surprised to see that seemingly no one else was attempting this, so I'm now reinvigorated to finish it. I'd say I'm about at 30% completion. This is the map so far https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9...DA4YTgtaFpBQVE . It's been interesting finding sources for the realm. This is my list so far

Websites
https://kingmaker-in-eberron.obsidianportal.com/
http://eberronunlimited.wikidot.com/locations
http://dungeonsmaster.com/eberron/
http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Eberron_Wiki
https://sites.google.com/site/eberronpathfinder/Home

Books
An Adventurer's Guide To Eberron
D&D 4.0 Eberron Campaign Guide
Dragonmarked
Dragons of Eberron
Eberron Campaign Setting (D&D 3.5 I think)
Eberron Explorers Handbook
Eberron Five Nations
Eberron Secrets of Sarlona
Eberron Secrets of Xen'Drik
Eberron Sharn: City of Towers
Eberron The Forge of War
Faiths of Eberron
Kyber's Harvest
Magic of Eberron
Player's Guide to Eberron (D&D 3.5)
Race's of Eberron
Eberron Player's Handbook (D&D 4.0)

I've been making this realm assuming all these sources are 'canon'. If anyone else finds any good sources not on this list, please feel free to bring it to my attention. Any advice as I'm going through this is also very welcome.

[daplunk]

This looks amazing!

[mazzy]

I've been wanting to take a look at the Eberron setting for a future campaign, still fairly new to the DM'ing side of things so wanted to start with the WotC 5e adventures before attempting any of the other realms. Thanks for rekindling the creative fire... and I'll be sure to keep you in mind if I do run into any sources

[artimaeus]

Originally Posted by mazzy

I've been wanting to take a look at the Eberron setting for a future campaign, still fairly new to the DM'ing side of things so wanted to start with the WotC 5e adventures before attempting any of the other realms. Thanks for rekindling the creative fire... and I'll be sure to keep you in mind if I do run into any sources

I've played around with 5th Edition. It's fun, but I've enjoyed pathfinder much more. It has seemingly endless character customization, and 5th edition didn't seem to be quite as flexible.

One note about this realm I'm building. I, of course, do plan on uploading it when I've gotten to a presentable state. It will be using a lot of HeroLabs Plugins with the Pathfinder mechanics. If you do use it for 5th edition, 90% of it transfers with no difficulty.

I've done a few campaigns in Eberron before. I wasn't really proud of any of them though, partially because of being newish to DMing, but mostly because it's hard to keep track of everything that goes on in Eberron. There is quite a lot of kife-and-dagger elements that help keep the party on their toes, full-on warlike battles, and really technology-like magic. Once I discovered RealmWorks, I finally found a way to do this Realm justice.

[artimaeus]

Originally Posted by daplunk

This looks amazing!

Thank you! Just placing the markers in the right locations with the right names took 12 hours. I've named most of the major locations. Now I'm working on organization and group names.

[daplunk]

I, of course, do plan on uploading it when I've gotten to a presentable state

Presentable state wouldn't be the concern here. Who own's the copyright on the world and the source data?

[artimaeus]

Originally Posted by daplunk

Presentable state wouldn't be the concern here. Who own's the copyright on the world and the source data?

Strictly speaking it's WotK, though Keith Baker was the original author of the origional content. This project draws on more than just his content though. Hopefully copyright won't be an issue, since it's very much like distributing a book report on the Lord of the Rings. Since no money is made, it isn't in it's original format, and it will be clear that I hold no personal copyright/ownership to it.

[kbs666]

Eberron is still one of WotC's properties though. They hold the copyright and the trademarks.

Repackaging material WotC, or a licensee, has published and making it available in a different format for free is circumventing their rights. You could get in a lot of trouble.

At a bare minimum you can't quote anything. Everything has to be in your own words.

[daplunk]

I wouldn't hold your breathe on that one. Pretty sure it was kbs666 who reached out to WOTC to see if he could include a simple map in the custom content he has made and he got a rejection. Unless of course the content is covered under a current OGL.

Licensing is going to be really interesting in relation to WOTC. Really what is needed is a similar agreement to the DMsGuild.com so people can release content based around the d&d rules and settings. But I would wager it's much more likely that any license agreement would be between LW and WOTC and not cover user content submissions.

Raises an interesting question though... could the export files not be hosted via DMsGuild.com effectively allowing you to host anything that is based on the 5e rules or set in the Forgotten Realms. You couldn't release Eberron setting stuff there currently, it's restricted to the following: 1) Has no setting or 2) Uses the Forgotten Realms setting.

I did something similar to you but with the Faerun (FR) setting. There was absolutely demand for it. I for one would pay for an official Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting Pack. Imagine a map full of pins and information. Would be so good.

Obviously I have no idea what's actually going to happen. Ultimately we would need to know the outcomes of any discussions between LW and WOTC which are not likely to be made public.

You should probably have a read here, it covers the difference between publishing under the OGL and the DMsGuild.
What is the DMsGuild.com

[artimaeus]

Originally Posted by kbs666

Eberron is still one of WotC's properties though. They hold the copyright and the trademarks.

Repackaging material WotC, or a licensee, has published and making it available in a different format for free is circumventing their rights. You could get in a lot of trouble.

At a bare minimum you can't quote anything. Everything has to be in your own words.

not quite. For instance, the wikia website does similar work (which is literally copy and paste; not what I'm doing) but has not had copyright issues. I'd double check with them except their contact page is down. Either way, this is happening.