I’m interested n creating a multiplayer tabletop game inspired by dramatica. The results of the players actions would be determined by a random draw of 64 cards that comprise the 4 domains as “Sphere, Thought, Deed, Mask.” Each card contains situations informed by dynamic pairs. Everything else is original: the art, the story setting, etc.
Am I infringing on Dramatica by basing the game engine on it? Would i have to come up with brand new terms for the dynamic pair cards in order to avoid copyright infringement?
I believe that this game engine is inspired by dramatica, but I’m not sure if using the dynamic pairs is fair use.
In general, using high‑level inspiration from Dramatica is fine – there is never a problem with “content”, “setting”, or any of third-party subject-specific illustrations of Dramatica theory concepts.
What we need to check is the case where the entire copyrighted terminology is repackaged. My guess is that our IP lawyers will suggest some way we can do a simple, specific, limited license so we aren’t putting the entire copyrighted work into the public domain to be used for any purpose. That would probably include some kind of appropriate attribution.
Can you give us a week or two to check with our IP lawyers to figure out how best to support you?
What Melanie Anne Phillips and Chris Huntley have created is breathtakingly brilliant. Unfortunately, we live in a society where such a transformative narrative philosophy cannot be given to humanity as a gift to enhance ALL creative endeavors, because such geniuses still have to struggle to put food on their table.
If i ever become a millionaire off of some future creative project, I’ll be more than happy to buy a license to be able to incorporate the 64 words or any of the other amazing concepts Dramatic offers.
But for now, this is just too scary and overwhelming for me to consider during this preproduction phrase.
Honestly, I will just come up with a similar version of the dynamic pairs, riffing off of Jung’s Archetypal Opposites. Yes, it’s inferior, but I’m fairly certain i won’t have to deal with an IP lawyer. I hope, lol.
Thanks, anyways, and i appreciate the quick response to my question.
I was the one that suggested we needed to consult the IP lawyers.
I’m not suggesting you need to, or that any such license needs to be of significant cost.
The dilemma is this: if the owner of a copyright, patent, or trademark doesn’t assert those rights, then they are in danger of losing them – which doesn’t help when the “bad guys” actually misappropriate intellectual property.
Rest assured, we want to help – we just need to figure out HOW to do it and not create problems for us in the future.
Can we talk off-line? DM me privately through this discussion and we’ll set up a Zoom.
Pythagoras would be the richest man in the world nowadays if he would get a penny every time a schoolboy would use his theorem to solve a right triangle…
He probably wouldn’t need the pennies. Pythagoras was already living pretty comfortably for his time. He wasn’t some starving mathematician stuck in a cave scribbling triangles—he came from a well-off merchant family, traveled all over the ancient Mediterranean getting an education most people couldn’t dream of, and then set up an elite philosophical community in Croton where the local aristocracy basically bankrolled him.
And once the Pythagorean brotherhood got going, members literally pooled their property into a shared treasury. So by ancient standards, the guy was rich—rich enough to never have to work a trade, rich enough to influence politics, and rich enough to spend his days talking about numbers and harmonics instead of figuring out how to pay the rent.
Capitalism wasn’t a thing yet, obviously, so there were no royalties to collect. But if you’d like us to set up the Dramatica Brotherhood, or know any wealthy patrons interested in underwriting our narrative research, by all means let us know.
I was the one to defend paid services on this forum some time ago. And I believed that then and I believe thet now. (Is it just me or someone said it before?)
But this? A bit too much for me.
What am I going to tell my wife when she start an argument for the next time? “Wait a minut darling. Seems like Feeling vs Logic conflict in Standpoint domain. I need to check our license first.”
PS. I’m still in love with Dramatica. Maybe that’s why it hurts so much
You might want to read up a bit on copyright law to see where we’re coming from — it’s the same reason Disney will still protect seemingly harmless uses of Mickey Mouse or why they’re reprinting the original Star Wars for the 50th anniversary. If you don’t actively protect your IP, you’re essentially signaling that it doesn’t matter.
And as for the example about talking to your wife — that’s obviously not something anyone would consider a commercial use, so it isn’t really part of the conversation.
That’s what I missed at the beginning and what puts me now in really uncomfortable position.
Let me apologize. I understand the point now.
And let me keep it secret from my wife. With this ‘license’ shield I have some chances at least
Speaking about business, just out of curiosity - if you can share a bit:
I think learning curve for Dramatica is pretty high in comparison to other theories.
In the past theory book was free and there was also demo software (with some limitations) available as a desktop application.
Possibly the maturity of the Dramatica community is no much higher than years ago but still there are newcomers.
Do you have some strategy for them? Is there free theory book (at least part) offered? I can find it on other sites (not sure if complete) but on dramatica com there is just a link to amazon.
And although basic and plus plans are pretty affordable in most countries, there is no free trial/0$ plan with very limited features. It’s kind of buing black box for newcomers. The business is running, so my guess is, it is not necessary…
It’s a different time now. In the 90s, you’d print a CD and be done with it. There might be the occasional update, but for the most part what you paid for in 1994 was the same thing you got in 1998 (or 2006 or 2014).
Modern software will continue to integrate LLMs and its descendants at a massive rate. It will be so pervasive that you won’t be able to produce anything without it–as pervasive as electricity or gasoline. Intelligence will be a commodity that you eventually won’t think twice about paying for. I don’t ask Mobil where the free version of their gasoline is because I recognize it’s an essential for driving my car from one location to another. I’m exchanging one form of energy (money) for another (gasoline).
It’s the same for intelligence.
Are there cheaper gas stations? Absolutely. But I also recognize you get what you pay for, and putting cheap gas in my car is just going to destroy the engine and eventually make it inoperable.
So you can find the Dramatica theory book online already. You can download it and put into ChatGPT or Claude or Grok and you’ll be able to drive around for a couple of hours–but eventually you’re gonna crash into a brick wall.
That’s why we charge for the platform. So you won’t crash and so you know you’re getting the absolute best in narrative intelligence. Everything gets funneled back into the platform so we can continue to make it better and better, and so that the theory doesn’t become an artifact of the last century.
To your point about trials, there’s no point in offering a free demo for something that obviously has tremendous value. Again, this isn’t 1996–there are enough public demonstrations of what the platform can do online here and on YouTube that if you can’t see for yourself how crazy magical and helpful it is, then Dramatica might not be for you.
As far as where to send someone who is new to the theory, this community site has over a decade of posts and conversations they can search. They can also jump online when I do livestreams which are always open and public and I’d be more than happy to walk through it all.
