Creativity, Copyright, & Design Terms - Version 1.1

Blood on the Clocktower - Creativity, Copyright, & Design Terms - Version 1.1

This is an agreement between you and Steven Medway & The Pandemonium Institute (“I”, “me”, “my”, “we”, our”, “us”, or “TPI”).

Many players who are enthusiastic about Blood On The Clocktower have asked us if it is okay to create their own characters, alter existing characters, or create their own houserules for their own copy of the game (“Houserules”).

I’m thrilled to have lots of people creating and altering and doing their own thing. Do what you want; have fun; and feel free to share your ideas and run games with your own characters, if you agree to each of the following:

• No charging money or otherwise profiting from your Houserules;
• No portraying your Houserules as an official Blood On The Clocktower or TPI character, rule, alteration, or otherwise affiliated with or endorsed by TPI;
• No portraying yourself as the copyright holder, intellectual property owner, or other legal owner of that Houserule in such a way that financial reimbursement or design credit is owed to you.

Blood On The Clocktower has been a massive undertaking, taking many years, lots of people, and lots of ideas. I’ve created an enormous amount of material for the game, and not all of it works. Some of it is unfinished. Some of it sounds brilliant but doesn’t work at all. Some of it is finished and simply waiting to be given art and a facelift before being revealed in a future expansion or rulebook update. I really love to hear about people’s ideas and suggestions (particularly character ideas), but please keep in mind that after such a lengthy development time, many of these ideas, or very similar ideas, are things that I likely already considered or have thought of already but have not yet revealed. Ideas need time to come to fruition. Just because you gave us an idea, and then something very similar to that idea appears in a later version of our work, does not mean that the idea originated from you.

We are under no obligation to look at or listen to your ideas, and you are owed no acknowledgement for them, even if something similar, identical, or derivative is revealed or published at a later date. You are owed no compensation of any sort for your ideas, even if something similar, identical, or derivative is later published, even if your idea is acknowledged in public or in private as a source for inspiration, and even if you have tested and refined your ideas at a cost of time or effort to you. You acknowledge that I and The Pandemonium Institute cannot receive any submission in confidence and thus, the information contained in any submission you make to us is non-confidential. While I really do love that so many people are creating and play-testing their own characters and homebrew rules, it is possible, and often highly likely, that something similar is already in the works, or already completed in my design documents and in use in my private play-testing games.

The purpose of this agreement is to clear the air, and to make sure that your expectations are realistic in terms of the legalities of creating characters and rules for Blood On The Clocktower. I want to respect your wishes to get creative, and I ask that you respect my wishes in return. If you do contact me with ideas and suggestions, I would appreciate that you acknowledge this document and agree to the terms. This is to ensure that there are no hurt feelings or misunderstandings. If you do not agree to the terms of this document, then please do not send us any ideas or Houserules because we will not be able to read them or consider them.

As a way of saying thank you when a truly unique idea arises, I like to give a shout-out to the person who first suggested it, even if that initial suggestion just contained a kernel of what it would become. Currently, these thank-yous are recorded in the first page of the rulebook. Doing this is voluntary on my part, and does not constitute an admission of ownership, or that compensation is owed. Many ideas take a considerable amount of time to refine, reword, add flavour to, and to rework so that it fits into the greater whole. That work is based on the rules, themes, and design of Blood On The Clocktower already, and is usually extensive and done by myself or in collaboration with a TPI team member.

If you contact us via text or email, please start your message with the following sentence to show that you understand that we are in agreement:

“Hi Steven. I agree to the terms outlined in the Creativity, Copyright, & Design Terms V1.1…”

If you contact us in person, then please immediately follow it up with an email, text, or social media DM explicitly telling us that you agree to the terms outlined in this Agreement. We thank you for your patience and understanding of this requirement

Given the popularity of Blood On The Clocktower, we may unfortunately be too busy to brainstorm with you, so please accept our apologies if we do not reply, or reply but are unable to engage in conversation with you.

Steven Medway,

The Pandemonium Institute