Ah. My mistake! Either way, Sentinels Bunker is way more interesting than DC Bunker.
I agree it allows giant corporations to bully people, but our Government has been supporting that in any industry for well over 100 years, whether IP rights are involved or not.
In the case of IP rights though the abuses to creative people and the time spent with no compensation would be far worse than what we see today, and it would destroy the independent gaiming industry that is giving us such quality entertainment right now.
At any rate, no one is stopping you from creating and sharing a custom character. You just can't do it on this site.
That's equivalent to saying that nobody is stopping you from living somewhere, it just can't be in your own house. This is THE Sentinels forum; there is no other place remotely as appropriate for anything Sentinels-related.
This is not your house; this is the house of Greater Than Games. They bought it, they decorated, they pay the bills. There are plenty of other nice places around, like BGG, but just because this forum has been set up for us it doesn't mean we own it.
I dunno much about DC or Marvel and their message boards (if they have any official ones), but do they really want you popularizing your tales of Original the Character hanging out with Spider-Man and Aquaman all the time?
Maybe I'm a bit boring, but I generally stick to Greater Than Games and their creations (or official endorsements of other peoples' creations such as the "Create-A-Villain Contest") when it comes to mechanics. I'm sure other people come up with great ideas for homebrewed cards, but that's not an aspect that really impacts my playing Sentinels of the Multiverse. Also, a lot of this game rests on thematics and the plot developed by the creators, so I tend to put custom characters and cards in the same category as fanfiction. There isn't anything wrong with it, but I don't feel like that is an "essential" thing that Greater Than Games needs to support directly on their own site.
If the creators are worried about legal mumbo-jumbo, then fine. Do away with fandecks until further notice. But hearing about some forumite's new character they've inserted into the Sentinels Multiverse seems like something that isn't really a need to include in the forum. This fandom is full of fan-created work that is fantastic (randomizers, statistics, deck boxes, etc.), and including a fan creation on one of those sites will do nothing but add credibility to your creation. It by no means is a void that needs to be filled on this forum.
I'm sure, in time, there will be a homebrewed section on this forum that people can use. In the meantime, there are already sites and groups willing to hear about a fan creation.
GtG encourages people to make their variants, and they even said as much in the podacst about Sentinels Tactics. I could be wrong, but the rule is to protect GtG from us, so that we don't sue them. Consider this, someone puts up a character, and later, GtG comes out with that same exact character. What happens now? We all know that Christopher knows all the characters already, but that won't stop someone from suing them. Also, with having everything planned out, should he then have to change something, because one person had an idea. Regardless of whether they win the lawsuit or not, it will be a hassle, so their lawyers told them not to have any ideas here. 99.9% of the people might not care, but you only need the one who does (or thinks he can get something). This was my understanding at least.
This is a big issue in Japan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Djinshi
To be clear, I don't currently even have any fan-creations that I would want to post (beyond a tweaked version of Omnitron which I've already discussed in general terms without any complaints). It's just that I object to the mentality that creates a rule specifically prohibiting the possibility of anyone exercising their creativity, just because it MIGHT conceivably go wrong. It's like murdering children in case they grow up to become serial killers; it's an act whose immediate cost far outweighs its potential risk.
This can EASILY be taken care of with a single sentence in the forum terms, something to the effect of "In no event shall the Company be held liable for any coincidental similarity between the Company's publications and material posted to this forum". Some companies go further by claiming that everything posted to their forum becomes their property, but that's even more evil than regular copyright law. (The real evil is the very existence of litigation, but as so often true in war, the existence of one weapon mandates the creation of more of them for the sake of defense, resulting in the world becoming ever more dangerous until it eventually self-destructs.)
This is a big issue in Japan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Djinshi
I fail to see what's an issue about it. Doujinshi are a huge part of the reason manga have become as popular as they are in the first place. The greater creative freedom possible when not working inside some corporate monolith almost invariably produces more appealing results. GTG itself is proof of that.
It isn't just law but precedent and the possibility of arguments that you don't want made that cause rules like this to exist.
Lawyers have their job, and they do it. I may not like what happens, but I understand enough to know that protecting what is yours is never something you take lightly, which is why you listen to your lawyers.
It's just that I object to the mentality that creates a rule specifically prohibiting the possibility of anyone exercising their creativity, just because it MIGHT conceivably go wrong.
Welcome to the real world. I remember being at a concert back in the day, where a fan ran up and handed something to the singer while he was monologing between songs. He took it pleasantly enough, but when he opened it to see what it was, he dropped it to the stage like it was kryptonite and kicked it off into the front row, explaining that it looked like a song, and he didn't want to be in any kind of position for someone to say that some future song of his was in any way derivative of that song they just tried to hand him.
You can exercise your creativity anywhere you want, just not here. :)
If we as a society weren't so focused on suing everyone to try to make a buck, it wouldn't be an issue… 
But we are, so it is.
I agree with arenson9 that this will soon no longer be an issue, and we might even be able to have a forum focused on home-brewed creations. Hopefully sooner than later. 
And just thought of something else: Having the >G folks work on getting the legal review/approval on this will probably take away from current work on new sets / games, not to mention that answering rulings questions is also probably higher priority than this.
There's only so much they can do with the time they have.
Those are part of the system of law.
Lawyers have their job
Whether they should is another story IMO. "Loan shark" is a job description, after all. So is "thief" or "murderer". Only the whims of a governing body decide which of these careers is legitimate and which is criminal. Just because a society has a concept of "laws" does NOT mean it requires lawyers, because the definition of "lawyer" is "someone who argues over what a law does or does not mean". In a society which had only the minimal necessary number of laws, and revised them as necessary due to the passage of time, there'd be no need for prosecutors and defense attorneys, because you could just ask the governing body to clarify anything ambiguous, and regard any law which requires too many such queries as needing to be thrown out and replaced with a simpler, cleaner version.
I may not like what happens, but I understand enough to know that protecting what is yours is never something you take lightly, which is why you listen to your lawyers.
We disagree on this as well. I say that if someone doesn't like what happens, they have a right and an obligation to change it. And I don't think "ownership" is an institution terribly deserving of protection. When a plot of land sits undeveloped or a building stands empty, because it profits the owners to let that space go to waste even though people are going homeless, I say "ownership" should not be protected, but disregarded freely in favor of "need".
I may not like what happens, but I understand enough to know that protecting what is yours is never something you take lightly, which is why you listen to your lawyers.We disagree on this as well. I say that if someone doesn't like what happens, they have a right and an obligation to change it. And I don't think "ownership" is an institution terribly deserving of protection. When a plot of land sits undeveloped or a building stands empty, because it profits the owners to let that space go to waste even though people are going homeless, I say "ownership" should not be protected, but disregarded freely in favor of "need".
Are you serious here? We are talking about a card game still right?
Aside from that, freely disregarding ownership in favor of need, who would you let decide where need comes in? Do we keep some kind of court system, a ruling party, or are we going full anarchy here, because while I'm down with that, it in no way would be a happy communal world, it would just set us back to rebuilding governments that would end up right where they have always been.
No, we are talking about the principles under which a society should operate, which apply regardless of whether the subject is real estate or entertainment (both of which are fundamental rights IMO, although one is obviously more important).
Aside from that, freely disregarding ownership in favor of need, who would you let decide where need comes in?
Generally, the needy person. With some check based on common sense being administered by the general population.
Do we keep some kind of court system, a ruling party, or are we going full anarchy here
There would be no formal authority, but something resembling the old tribal system of a council of respected elders would tend to keep things from getting completely ridiculous. The Internet has made us a global community, so we ought to organize our society along such lines, with a goal of minimizing suffering for all involved, generally by defusing conflict. The result would bear a vague resemblance to the administration of loosely-moderated forums, such as this one or the Goblins community, where the overall rule of "don't be a d***" is about the only one that's needed.
Getting back on the subject, if I understand the policy right, it would be perfectly legitimate to create homebrew on another site, and then link to it here, yes? That way, the admins can just not follow the link.
I think the general understanding is that if we want homebrew decks then we should look elsewhere. Homebrew formats (playing as villains, multiple villains in one game, etcetera) are less dangerous because you're just using the components given to you in a different fashion. I don't pretend to understand the distinction. I just accept it as the rules.
Your best bet is to go to BoardGameGeek, post/find what you want, and go from there. I don't know what their policy on links is, so you might want to check with the admins before posting any links up.
Dude, seriously, whining and complaining aren't going to get them to change the rules, and the rules are there for a good reason, whether you understand it or not. So please, just get over it.
So please, just get over it.
That is not likely to be a very useful comment in a conversation with someone who obviously cares very deeply about the topic. I'd agree that complaining about the state of society at large in a forum for a superhero card game probably isn't too useful either though. ;)
There would be no formal authority, but something resembling the old tribal system of a council of respected elders would tend to keep things from getting completely ridiculous.
Except that this has been done already. It led us where we are now. The best you can do is try to hit a reset button and set society back, it will still progress to where we are now.
Disclaimer: I'm using small and large in reference to area and people contained.
Small government is great, but they lose to large governments, which is why people build larger ones, because if there are enough resources population goes up, and if there aren't we look for new recources. That naturally leads to expansion, which leads to resource competition. Without infrastructure that facilitates transportation of food, infrastructure that requires a large government, population numbers have to be far lower.
As for >G, they have to exist in the world they live in, and that's why these rules are here. They need lawyers to protect them from other peoples lawyers, it sucks that they have to worry about that, but it would suck more if they didn't have any protection from people stealing their ideas.
I'd like to ask that we don't debate our views on big and small government here on the >G forums. I don't see that going anywhere good, and it's not going to make >G change their policies about fan creations. In fact, this topic may be a good candidate for being locked down by an admin before it spirals towards the Bad Place.