Café de Nuit

Hopefully this isn't old news to everyone here - a quick search revealed no references to this in the forum.

As part of the Hackmaster line, a scenario has been released called Robinloft. It looks to be a rather pun-filled affair, right down to the cover art. I'm somewhat curious as to how far one can go with poking fun before legalese becomes an issue, but that's neither here nor there.

Anyway, hopefully this will amuse or at least prompt conversation: http://www.kenzerco.com/product_info.ph ... cts_id=127

Yes, that has been out for some time now, I have both it & the sequel Robinloft 2: Tahd's Legacy in my collection.

http://www.kenzerco.com/product_info.ph ... 1a56935310

I don't have the Hackmaster rules, so I just bought them to see how Kenzer handled the parody. These probably haven't been mentioned on the boards for over a year.

To Jim - thanks for the info. I'm guessing the threads must have dropped of the forum. Are they any good?

To Dion - Umm, kitten? Thanks.

That kitten has freakishly large eyes!

Bloody Morgan wrote:To Jim - thanks for the info. I'm guessing the threads must have dropped of the forum. Are they any good?

I remember looking over Robinloft at a Fsemi-LGS; it was a surprisingly straightforward conversion of I6 to Hackmaster, with even a lot of secondary character and place names preserved.

Bloody Morgan wrote:Hopefully this isn't old news to everyone here - a quick search revealed no references to this in the forum.

As part of the Hackmaster line, a scenario has been released called Robinloft. It looks to be a rather pun-filled affair, right down to the cover art. I'm somewhat curious as to how far one can go with poking fun before legalese becomes an issue, but that's neither here nor there.

Anyway, hopefully this will amuse or at least prompt conversation: http://www.kenzerco.com/product_info.ph ... cts_id=127

Unless I'm mistaken, they can go pretty far as long as it is a parody. Parody is a protected form of art in US copyright law. Lots of people don't seem to know this, and post all kinds of "please don't sue me" disclaimers that they don't need to.

Yeah, Robinloft is NOT a parody sadly. I was expecting a huge poking fun at TSR's Ravenloft line and instead the story is almost identical to Strahds. Of course, people forget that House of Strahd had humor in it as well (remember the zombies in the Stewpot and what was written on the tombs?)

The only differences are...

* Tatyana was a Drow that killed Strahd and cursed him.
* Irenya is the daughter of a bitchy maiden Strahd fell in love with later after Tatyana.
* Some Gargoyles hiding from their women jokes.
* The addition of a Beholder in the basement.

Hence the kitty in the cup. I was going for "copycat," but a little kitty's always good, in or out of context.

Nifty - thanks for the info all!

mistshadow2k4 wrote:Unless I'm mistaken, they can go pretty far as long as it is a parody. Parody is a protected form of art in US copyright law. Lots of people don't seem to know this, and post all kinds of "please don't sue me" disclaimers that they don't need to.

I was more wondering about the fact that they could have been providing the same info, maps, etc. as in the original book but with silly names. So you would effectively get the content of the original adventure from a different company. Akin to releasing somone else's computer game, with the same maps and engine, but a different name and claiming you can't be sued coz it's a parody.

This is probably why I'm not in law