The issue is that Oliver and Kestas are not willing to run the risk of a copyright fracs here, and sadly (but wisely) so, such a game may never appear here. However, there are many concepts and discussions about how to design a Westors variant, and such a game could be played by email with a human GM.

Considering the books are still being written and George R.R. Martin is very much alive, I would imagine there woukd be a huge copyright issue.

Excepto that good George Santa R R Marrtin is not too worried about copyright and so, for instance, you can easily get all his books online for free

It could be an issue, and as said, I can clearly understand and respect the choices made by this site's owners. But the reality is that it would be extremely difficult to prove any damages, and even more so to collect them since no revenues, profits, or advertising are related to the play of the game here. On top of that it would cost an enormous amount of money to prosecute such a case, and the very likely result would be a cease and desist order. Pressing a copyright case in this context would be like going after fan fiction writers, extremely pointless.

Tell that to Disney and others who pursue fan fiction writers...

There is a diplomacy style board game available for purchase that might make Martin more likely to object on copyright grounds.

The problem I see with the actual map would be that Fleets might be mostly worthless. There is only a few islands and land travel would be faster.

I don't know the map having not read the books or anything, but are there no rivers?

There are actually several maps that have been developed by Dip players that show promise for developing a very playable variant in the Westeros universe, including those with very interesting sea spaces.

Disney probably has a tremendous amount of available resources and vested interest in protecting their intellectual property. They larger point is that prosecuting a gaming website that generates no revenue, and uses no advertising would be entirely pointless. But Martin is a weird old bastard, so who knows?

I would add that the same copyright issues that you suggest are so very real and looming exist with the very notion of playing Diplomacy at all. Diplomacy is owned by Hasbro (Avalon Hill). If Hasbro decided to come down and pursue copyright infringements all of the various online versions of Diplomacy, the site could be at similar risk. Steve Jackson Games (GURPS) is deprived of a huge inventory of their original products (Car Wars, Melee, Etc.) because someone else owns the copyright to them and refuses to sell them or allow their publications. You never know what will happen in these circumstances.

GRRM isn't going to go out and sue anyone. He's too busy eating burgers to finish his books, let alone launch some legal case on a free web site.

Sometimes I wonder if GRRM was born with his brain inside his penis. Whenever it's hard, ideas come to him.

His obesity has caused erectile dysfunction, which explains why his books aren't finished yet.

It probably could be done, but a few changes would have to be made that would make it a bit non-canon. The Neck would have to be a canal SC, like Con or Kiel. Iron Islands would have to be structured similar to England, The reach similar to Italy (with the Arbor acting as Tunis). Dorne is a fitting Turkey. That would leave the Westerlands as your France, stormlands as your Austria, Crownlands or Eyrie as Russia, and Riverlands as Germany. Frankly, it makes sense to just cut out the majority of the North. Have it act like Scandinavia does in Classic. Either that or expand the variant beyond 7 players out to 8 or 9....but that becomes trickier.

This topic has come up before - at least twice.

I tried to get in contact with HBO about it the first time, got this response: http://i.imgur.com/FQcXFpn.png. Since I'm in the UK, I would prefer not to have to call the US, so if anyone else wants to carry it on from there please do so.

I remember the second time this came up someone PM'd me saying they'd be willing to phone in, but I was extremely busy at the time and never replied.

This is the fourth one of these threads that I have commented on.

The copyright issues are real: HBO is owned by TimeWarner (the most hated corporation in America according to polling), the books are published by Bantam in the US which is owned after a few layers by both Bertelsmann and Pearsons (yay, Mexican oil), the books are published in the UK by News Corp and then there is GRRM himself. So everyone except Disney seems to own a piece and would have standing to take legal action. When I was a kid, a daycare center got sued by Disney for having a mural of Mickey Mouse on the wall of an interior space. Given that Oli has repeatedly stated that he does not wish to take any risk in this vein, we should respect the issue as being settled.

I actually do not find this world to be conducive to the Diplomacy format. The Riverlands are the center of everything and would be absolutely unplayable. Every power except the Stormlands and Dorne border the Riverlands. The Vale is then cut off barring a naval invasion of the Crownlands or Stormlands.

As for any connections between obesity, erectile dysfunction and artistic output, GRRM has been a large gentleman for some time, and his output declined largely when the wider world's attention turned his way in the latter half of the last decade.

I'm pretty sure HBO doesn't own the copyright to the source material, gopher. The only person you'd need permission from is GRRM, not his publisher or anyone he's licensed it to. If they have exclusive rights, GRRM will simply tell you that you can't do it.

(meaning email him first before someone makes the variant)

Like gopher27 wrote it, this question has been raised in this forum many times and, in answer to that, Oli has repeatedly stated that he does not want to take any risk at all with potential copyright problems.
vdiplomacy is Oli's site and everybody should respect his decision.

When did I make any claim that HBO was the entity to talk to?

And just to mess with people's heads.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMgUIPvAlLI&list=PLCsx_OFEYH6vAkHO0gakDrZ8Kuteu-nUn

If you don't have to talk to HBO, why mention them at all in your comment?

HBO's rights are likely limited to screen productions of the stories bought off GRRM just as the publisher's will be limited to right ofnfirst refusal regarding publication of printed stories and possibly graphic novels. GRRM probably still holds the rights to games (card, board, and video) for himself unless he has sold them off to someone else.

@goldfinger.....my point, which I thought was rather clear, was the involvement of four major multinational media firms. What I mentioned was that HBO was owned by TimeWarner.

But....HBO and all of those media firms aren't involved.

Peripherally they may be. It depends on what their licenses entail - what rights they are granted and what protections they are given that the IP won't be significantly degraded and therefore reduce the potential from their investment.