The OGL is Dying

"You can't copyright game mechanics."

I see this in the increasing number of Kickstarter game projects, which are abandoning the OGL for better licenses and cloning the content they want from the old SRD. Nobody wants to be exposed to the OGL, and publishers feel it is toxic waste as they migrate away from it.

None of this is legal advice; it is just an opinion of what I see.

It's funny how a good thing, once loved and supported by the community, is now seen as a dark stain on gaming. One of the original reasons for trying to pull the licenses was, "Social media companies will come along and clone our game!" MMOs such as World of Warcraft and EverQuest have already done "generic swords and sorcery" decades ago, monetized the concept better, and continue to this day.

The content published under the SRD is being removed, and the SRD is becoming meaningless. This is another reason for Wizards to hurry up and publish earlier-edition Creative Commons works, since they still have some chance to gather all these ideas and put their names on them. Given how most of these monsters and ideas were in the public domain, to the public domain they shall return.

I added a Kickstarter link to the sidebar for a book converting old Pathfinder SRD monsters to Shadowdark, which looks like a great project to support. The monsters only share the names, and the numbers and abilities are different enough from the source material, so this is more of an "inspired by" work, practical for Pathfinder adventure conversions.

This is the same creator of the Westlands game (now defunct, but I loved this one) and the Sword of Cepheus 2 game (which is the current 2d6 fantasy game, and according to a comment by him in the Kickstarter, this same creator worked with the original publishers at Stellegama Publishing to update and unify the fantasy rules). It is nice seeing his projects and supporting them, and seeing him as a creator for Shadowdark is a good thing. I would love to see more Pathfinder 1e content converted over, like classes, races, and magic items.

Shadowdark is becoming what Pathfinder 1e was: the fantasy game everyone plays by default.

You can mod Shadowdark to play more pulp and heroic, so you can get that "Pathfinder 1e" heroism feeling, and the casting rules are better than the Vancian system found in 3.5E. Want to be OP? Give the character a new talent roll every level. It is your game.

Shadowdark is the better "figures on a map" game than any current standard-bearers for the hobby. The gameplay is tight, the dungeons are small, and the "get in and get out" challenge is highly compelling and depends on teamwork around the table.

D&D 5.5E and Pathfinder 2 have become too rules-intensive and are not "games for everyone."

And Shadowdark's license is far more permissive and open, allowing the community to step in and write books like this. Where the OGL is dying, Shadowdark is a lush garden that supports the creators creating for the game. We are seeing a shift in the market, and the creators are leading the way.

Grimdark Pathfinder 2: Rules

I want a darker, more horror-infused game full of suspicion and hard times.

Pathfinder 2E defaults to a lighthearted world mood, sort of an "everyone gets along" neutral-positive setting where no controversial subjects exist, everyone gets along, there is universal acceptance for every point of view, and controversy and conflict - in the setting - are written out of the rules. This broadens the game's age range, so eliminating many of these topics extends the game's range and longevity.

I get it; the game is a neutral base, blank sheets of paper that make no assumptions about your world. The Remaster books are much better setting-neutral rulebooks with the OGL stripped out and binned. If you don't like the presentation of a particular Remaster monster, reskin and rename it. Designing new monsters is easy, so we are back in D&D 4E, where groups were expected to develop their own monsters and build encounters that way.

And I am done with 5E; the more dungeon-focused games of 3.5E and the better experience of Pathfinder 2E are where my tactical dungeon gaming is these days. If it isn't that, then the first-edition rules speak to me the most. Also, I have tried setting-neutral 5E, and once you start mixing in 3rd-party content, things start to break down since every book attempts to rewrite the core rules to make setting-specific ideas work with the rules. Setting-neutral 5E seems to gravitate back towards "Wizards reality," and I can't get that feeling out of the game.

I am coming to see the OGL and SRD as chains, not expressions of my imagination.

Ideas and concepts that come from outside the tabletop gaming community are superior. Too often, we endlessly recycle the same dog food of "things in old games" and convert it to new rules, never ask questions, and endlessly repeat the past. When I saw the work the Paizo team did in the Monster Core Remaster book by "doing their own thing" with the monsters they supposedly "lost," I was shocked.

Then new stuff is ten times better since the team actively put their imagination into rebuilding these and, in many cases, went back to the original lore and made something more faithful to the myths and legends than a 50-year-old SRD hand-me-down.

If we enshrine the past too much, it becomes a tomb of dreams and ideas that we end up living inside.

This is the "rot" that lives within the hobby. Gygax and his team pulled ideas from "outside roleplaying" to make the first edition D&D game. The entire "Appendix N" thing comes into the discussion here. When those ideas first went in, they were new—fresh from outside sources.

Every edition of D&D past AD&D was a rewrite that included the previous edition without adding too much new. As we enter the "nostalgia era" of D&D, where they endlessly recycle a cartoon and mass-market strategy that nearly bankrupted the company in the 1980s, we get more of the same. The same 50-year-old ideas are recycled, and nothing fresh is pulled in. The game becomes a buffet of artificial and recycled foods. Nothing fresh. Nothing new. Nostalgia is recycled and repackaged. The 50-year-old mutant ideas, once the "original source derived," are seen as more authentic to the myth than the original myths themselves.

You can reprocess food so much that it turns into poison.

I am trying to fund this mythical Pathfinder 2 Grimdark game, but I must reflect deeply on my inspirations and sources. Once upon a time, I saw other horror games as inspirations. Now, I know those are false sources. They are a few times removed from the original sources of horror, fear, suspicion, and the darkness inside the human spirit.

These games also need to be stripped of their whitewashing and happy-game narrative style. As for the guardrails and safety tools, I don't need them, and they will get in the way.

This is why I like the first edition and OSRIC; they are one level removed from the original inspirations, and Appendix N is in there, so I can go back to those works and "find them for myself." Every future edition tried to hide these and present these "nostalgia pass-downs" as the original IP. Appendix N is the Rosetta Stone, so I can look those things up and find what they mean to me.

I love Dungeon Crawl Classics, but that, again, is Appendix N written through someone else's eyes when it is always better to return to the source and find meaning for yourself. My ideas, pulled from an original source and translated into any game of my choice, are always superior to a game trying to translate them for me. Or worse, going back to the SRD, which has ideas passed through hundreds of designers and now an unrecognizable blob of numbers and text that maybe has "the flavor" of the original idea but no soul and nothing else.

But Grimdark Pathfinder 2 is more than Appendix N. That is just an example and a warning to not rely on sources inside the hobby too much, to lean on nostalgia, and to ignore the truth you can only find in reading an original source and creating new ideas through that synthesis.

The goal of today's entertainment companies is to strip your imagination away, deeply plant the seeds of nostalgia, turn the past into golden calf idols, and instill a culture of dependency on them as the primary source for your imagination. D&D 5.5, with its booze-like nostalgia-infused imagery, pours those feelings down your throat and shamelessly recycles your memories into reprocessed factory food.

Parts of the OSR are just as tied to nostalgia, so this isn't just a Wall Street thing. It is a more profound idea that we don't question or submit to without thinking. Yes, I love my nostalgia, too, but I understand how it can turn into a diet of the past and never think about the future—or even the things inside myself.

Seeing OGL-free games breaks the chains in my mind.

New myths and legends exist.

You can pull in ideas from original sources, run them through your mind a few times, and create something more meaningful to your truths and feelings than this endless stream of nostalgic drool.

Year Zero Engine SRD

https://freeleaguepublishing.com/community-content/free-tabletop-licenses/

The Year Zero Engine SRD is a generous gift to the community and a rules hacker's delight to play with. This includes both the d6 and polyhedral versions of the game, so whatever dice you prefer, the SRD has you covered.

Oddly enough, the only thing missing is an armor table. But Year Zero armor mirrors the AC bonus of B/X: 2 is soft leather, 4 is hardened leather, 6 is chainmail, and 8 is full plate (rolled as a dice pool to subtract damage from attacks). That same scale could be applied to anything from fantasy to sci-fi, and you have workable armor.

With Year Zero, the games they build with this always have these extra systems layered on to cover genre rules, so this is the DNA you build games from, not a complete game in itself. And by 'complete,' I mean the design has the attached special rules, a gear list, and a power list if needed. You could play games with the SRD, but they would be generic. A complete spell list is included here, so you could easily hack a fantasy game out of this.

Think of this SRD like bread. The extra game you layer on top is what makes the sandwich.

Free League does an excellent job of not overloading the basic game but tweaks it ingeniously - and very carefully - to touch those genre notes a setting needs. Other games will waste pages on things better handled with roleplaying, like pages of rules for honor duels - and really?

Roleplay it. I don't need rules for everything, and some games fluff out 400-page book counts with filler. Today's designers learned nothing from the overly complicated games of the 1980s and 1990s, and some of them are arguably worse than Rolemaster - and that game had far fewer pages than today's games.

When you build a genre game, you want the baseline setting support, and then carefully consider genre rules that players will link the players to the setting. If you did a cowboy game with the YZ SRD, you would need a gear list, weapon list, and the prices of items in the 1880s Old West. That gets you in the door.

The next thing you need is rules support for something that takes the SRD and turns it into a complete game; ideally, these are a few genre rules. For a spaghetti western, honor is an integral part of the Old West - either holding it or lacking the same. Where do you add that to the rules? Does it have a mechanical effect? Is it even a good rule to add, or is it just a part of roleplay?

You then brainstorm, add things, test more, tweak things, test, remove things, and test some more.

The art of making these games is not to overload them with junk rules. Free League games should straddle that line between abstract board games and theater-of-the-mind roleplaying games. Any additions should be elegant and simple and serve a purpose. If 'showdowns' are a thing in Westerns, does the game handle that well? Do you need a tweak? Lastly, should you make a new minigame? Only as a last resort should you add a new rule subsystem.

The best Free League games have a minimalist design quality to them.

But that doesn't mean you should ignore fun touches. If you use the polyhedral version of the game, rate horses from A-D and allow them to buy 'horse specialties' - or randomly determine those and let them 'level up' with advancements. That may be a fun addition to the game and make it unique, adding a little bit of detail and complexity in an area where it would make your game unique.

Don't go overboard; the game is supposed to be player-hackable, so you don't need a list of dozens of horse specialties. If players want to expand that area, let them, and just supply the best of the best and most iconic choices.

Minimalist designs mean only shipping the best of the best.

Do you want a detailed reloading system and counting bullets, or do you want to simplify the ammo system? Twilight: 2000 does an excellent job with ammo as a part of the dice and combat system. Some YZ games use stress dice mechanics to determine the out-of-ammo condition. You will make choices like this based on the genre you are targeting.

You are also not trying to simulate everything; the narrower and more focused your inspiration, the better your game will be. Trying to make a "does everything" Wild West game will deliver a bloated system that doesn't do its inspiration justice. You will have dozens of inspirations, and most will conflict and negate each other. It will be a mess that does everything okay but no singular thing great.

Instead, I would deliver a Good, the Bad, and the Ugly game with tense showdowns, bullets flying, and double-crosses rather than a roleplaying game that looks and plays like a history book. Those great experiences will make your game much more memorable in players' minds than a bland do-all game.

Note to the wise: solo play rules help!

I could hack this game into dozens of unique experiences based on movies, books, and TV shows. A game based on a comedy movie would have a stress mechanic called embarrassment. Players could trade jabs, and those embarrassment dice pile up, and the silly things keep happening as they roll a one. Pie in the face! Pants drop and undies with hearts! Step on a rake, boing! Bucket of water on the head!

This hacked core system is Free League's business model, one they recently expanded a little by launching Dragonbane, but this system could be used for decades to ship all sorts of fun games with a common, solid, and fun core engine.

If your game could sit on a bookstore shelf in a beautiful box and straddle that board game and roleplaying game line, deliver a focused YZ experience, and not go overboard and try to do everything - you have a winner.

M2E Traveller: Breaking from the Norms

With all my exploration into M2E Traveller and the OGL retro-clones such as Cepheus Engine and Cepheus Light, I find it fascinating the power nostalgia and the traditions play in these games. I watched a video on Youtube the other day on Traveller, and a player brought out his ship's deck plans and reminisced about all of the adventures the stock ship had seen.

I am getting the same feeling with the 3rd Imperium setting in a lot of what I read and watch as well from the Traveller faithful. I wonder with that feeling of nostalgia so strong is stepping outside of the norms for Traveller a good thing or a bad thing?

I know, it is your game, play how you want. And I play for just me these days...so who is going to argue?

The Traveller Companion

A strong source of support for DIY Traveller games comes in an 'official' book, the Traveller Companion. The book is almost entirely alternate rules for new technologies, character generation, XP systems, and other home-brew hacking of the game and its systems. This book begs us to change anything and everything about the game, so it is a strong argument for doing whatever you want and making your own universe and conflicts.

I like this book and its message of "the game is big enough for everyone" and the focus on tweaking and customization. The base rules hold together the universe and systems, and past that point you are free to take the game in any direction you can imagine.

The Starter Set

Another pro-DIY product is the Traveller Starter Set. I feel a lot of information on the 3rd Imperium here was left out to create a more generic and universal experience. My first experience with this edition was with this set and I still get a very strong DIY vibe from picking up the booklets and flipping through.

Another point is on the emphasis on creating subsectors, randomly generating stars, and giving you a huge blank map to fill out and explore on. You don't need a large, established setting here, and the game is complete (save ship design) and sets you out on adventures and exploration of your own.

The Exploration Campaign

Part of me always likes the exploration campaign, and if you are cruising around a galaxy that has been mapped in every direction for a thousand parsecs it is harder to run these games. I have always wanted to start "on the edge of the map" and go out from there, and while that is possible, you still have a lot of unused sector information sitting back home. That can be a good thing since you need to know what and where "home" is and who the major subsector players are, so it is helpful.

Part of me though likes "fresh starts" and some borders and political drama to paint a backdrop onto exploration efforts. I like places where there is some "fight" going on, and the explorers "out there" are critical in making discoveries and supporting the home planet. And then, the bad guys show up and try and jump your claim, and it is on...

OGL vs. Official

Really, I feel what my thoughts are on this subject are like this, "Do I play, mod, and support M2E Traveller for my home-brew games?" The advantage is I speak the language with the game and more people get what I am talking about. I do feel if you are supporting and playing the 3rd Imperium setting, you should play the official game (and the most current version if you want to support the creators of the game).

The alternative is, "Do I use OGL games like Cepheus Engine or Cepheus Light for my home-brew games?" I am supporting the OGL version and bringing attention to it, and supporting the community of OGL creators. The more discussion and exposure for these games, the better it is for everybody. The network effect also means the more people talk about and play OGL versions of Traveller, the more they will play the official versions of the game as well (M1E and M2E).

People forget the lessons of the OGL and create walled gardens out of fear and short-term thinking. There is a reason D&D became dominant and that is because of the OGL and d20 SRD. Variants of the game make more people play the official game. The noise and discussion generated is greater. The rising tide lifts all boats, and the largest boat the most. This is why I feel Cepheus Engine and Cepheus Light are important to the success of mainstream Traveller and good for everybody who loves the game.

In my session-to-session play, it does not matter much what I play - this is just me and what matters is, "Am I comfortable with the system and having fun?"

When I share my experiences with others it matters.

Cepheus Light and Solo

The math changes when I figure Cepheus Light and Solo into the mix. These two games (along with Cepheus Modern) forms a sort of "fast solo-play gaming system" that I like and appeals to me for one-shots and fast games. I have created M2E Traveller characters and love the experience, writing down every life event and creating a mini-history for this person that I get to know through character generation.

It takes a while though, at least an hour of so the way I do it, so the faster and less complex character generation of Cepheus Light really appeals to me if I want to run a "monsters in space" game where the crew is disposable and like the cast of a horror movie. For these games, I don't want to spend an hour creating each crew member, I want a 6-7 person group ready to go in 30 minutes all by myself.

I have a digest book coming for Cepheus Light and the PDF in my hands (though my printer is out of toner so I am waiting for that to get resolved). More on Cepheus Light and Solo when I can print up some sections and play.

Awareness and Options

I love the selection of games here and the options. I love the OGL versions of the game. Right now I am playing both Cepheus Light/Solo and M2E Traveller and will report back on my experiences soon. At this point, talking about the games, raising awareness, and playing is what I want to do and what I am going to do.

It is good to be exploring space again, no matter how you choose to get there.

DarkgarX: Why Do We Need Another OGL SRD?

That above headline was Darkgar X's response when I talked about D&D 5 SRD going OGL to him. He has a valid point, the D&D 3 SRD is a pretty complete document, and it nearly a complete and playable game in its own right with a couple tweaks.

Sometimes we argue about these things and it gets silly, but he brings up some good points. I took the position where the D&D 5 game is a streamlined experience where-

And then he cut me off.

"Streamline the 3.0 SRD if you want that. There's more there to start with, and you are not adding anything that will be incompatible with the product identity of the 5.0 SRD to fill in the missing parts."

And I had no real great answer to that, and a lot of great games do just that, such as Basic Fantasy. It really begs the question, do you really have to be playing D&D 5 to get the D&D experience? I took the position where I said the D&D 5 experience-

Yeah, he cut me off again.

"The 3.0 SRD, and the Pathfinder SRD are out there, well used and understood, insanely supported, and people play with those all the time. Is this something that people really need?"

Well, um yes, and he has another good point. The 5.0 SRD feels more suited for game designers than players this time around, and if you are developing a 5.0 compatible module or game, it will be of some use. It's not 100% usable since a lot of feats and spells are missing, so if you wanted to put a monster with Warlock powers (and feats) in your creation you would need to create clones of what you wanted and not really-really be 100% the D&D 5 experience.

Interesting stuff, and DarkgarX is a tough guy to argue anything with. He is firm in his game preferences and makes some great points all the time.

Free and Open Means Community

Being a creator, it is difficult to be creative in games which do not have open licenses for third-party content. This was a problem I had with 4th Edition D&D, and it is currently a problem with 5th Edition D&D (though OGL was spoke of by the team, to be fair).

If I build something, naturally I want to share it, for profit or not. I remember TSR AD&D and 2E with the silliness third party publishers (and even individuals) had to go through to make compatible content, and that is a time that is 15 years ago and thankfully over with, for the most part.

And then by some miracle we got the OGL and SRD, and it was mostly a good thing (save for electronic and game publishing). It was great, and the Open Gaming license today survives and thrives with many game, a lot having nothing to do with d20 or D&D. It was a gift that kept giving, and it continues to give today.

I seriously think 5th Edition could have been put out with full OGL and SRD support, just like 3rd Edition and they would have seen the same or even greater success. D&D is what it is, there's no taking that away, and being open and compatible from the start would have just won over many and led the industry again.

I like Legend, and I love the thought at being able to use that system to build an entirely new game from - that is cool. I like Pathfinder and the OGL/SRD, and I can share my ideas and even sell them if people become fans and want to support the idea.

I like the OGL/SRD retro-clones, those are exciting and cool as well.

I love all the games with open licensing, like Traveller and others - these are great developments and gifts to the gaming world.

I want to be someone who does more than buys and plays a game, I want games that I can share my creativity with the world. I'm finding myself drawn to those and playing those more than I do my collection of "play only" games. When you buy an open-license game, you are becoming a part of a community of creators and players - and not just players. I find more and more the community matters, and fostering a large and vibrant creative community is where I like to spend my gaming time.

OGL & d20 SRD vs. Android & Linux

I am feeling unhappy about the OGL and d20 SRD today. There are so many limitations, there's product identity, no electronic gaming or software, no character creation, and all sorts of other 'so you have to buy the base book' limitations in these licenses you wonder if it isn't time to scrap the whole load and start over again.

There is a lot in the d20 SRD that is open and free public-domain content, and the D&D game mixes in copyrighted 'product identity' (mind flayers, beholders, etc) with that to create a unique game. It's their right, and they do an incredible job - I have no problem with that and I am a fan. But there are certain monsters and fantasy races that belong to humanity, and anyone can make a game with them - such as orcs or elves.

There are times where I just want to throw it all away, and start over with the original public-domain monsters and races that humanity owns, and create something the whole world can share. Yes, this means writing books, selling videogames, and everything else you can do with a true open source and open license product. It is for the good of the world, not for the good of the creators.

I feel the Creative Commons is a better, more creator-friendly license to work under instead of the OGL and d20 SRD. These two licenses created for D&D 3 are great, and at their time they were revolutionary, but they aren't free and open enough nowadays. They will also never change, and be stuck in the year 2000 when they were created and to some extents, abandoned.

A lot would have to be rebuilt in such an effort, and there would need to be a conscious effort to make things different enough from other fantasy games to keep the idea open and free.

It just feels like a moment in the open source movement where a project existed, and the creators realized it was being built on copyrighted or proprietary code - and a desire comes forth that 'we just need to rebuild.' Consider Linux/Unix, without that, there would be no Android OS (or to an extent, no OSX on the Mac). There had to be that base there that gave the creators of Android the freedom to build something cool and benefit humanity. There is no profit in the base system, but if you put in the effort and build a cool phone or tablet - that's where customers can say 'good job' and buy your stuff.

But the pen-and-paper industry seems stuck back in the days where you had to buy your operating system. Imagine if you had to buy the next version of Android when it came out - it would be silly and a mess. It's what you do with it that matters, it is the device and the functionality and ease of use. I could care less about rules, I care more about having a great time. As long as my device runs the current version and can be upgraded, I'm cool with it.

Presentation, device quality, functionality, and ease of use - that's what I look for in an Android product.

Presentation, book quality, functionality, and ease of use - that's what I look for in a pen-and-paper game.

The Tyranny of the Whiteboard

The latest spat between the XBox1 and the Playstation 4 got me thinking, especially under the topic of used games. Now yes, I know this doesn't have much to do with pen-and-paper, but stick with me, it will in a moment. I'm not looking to start a flame war between PS4 and XB1 fans, just make a point.

Microsoft seems like they lost touch. Clearly, their odd restrictions on used games with publishers being allowed to allow or disallow this, and the further limit on 'who' gets to sell used games is just strange beyond belief. Then add the strange 'games can only be traded once' deal, the Internet requirement anywhere from a day to each hour depending on where you are, and all of a sudden, your users have it worse off than the game pirates. Yes, the restrictions are like Steam, but Steam is even freer than this, and plus Steam wins on price every time.

With the PS4, it's easy, Trade your game, sell it to anyone, rent them (a huge casualty in the XB1, no Redbox or Gamefly), but pre-owned, trade them in for the next year's big thing - whatever. Oh yeah, I expect publishers to continue the practice of downloadable pay-per extra content and online passes, but that's their choice and not forced on us as gamers. The system is kept simple, free from online activation, some sort of trading scheme, or any other artificial limit - things work like they always did.

I've been in this place before, it's called a corporate meeting room with a giant whiteboard where managers try to one-up each other with crazy ideas, pet projects, power blocks, and tons of other hair brained schemes that should never make it out of the building. That's okay though, a business needs free thought and to be able to try new things internally, along with come up with new ways of doing things. With guidance, the best ideas will rise to the top, and the company presents a unified plan that works for everybody.

With Microsoft, I can't help but think that some of these crazy ideas escaped from the board room, and the company hasn't lost its way a little bit. Games and consoles are still part toy, something Nintendo and Sony still get, and you need to trust your users and not make them worry about licensing and other restrictions when they pick up one of your system's games from the shelf. It's like making gamers worry about 24-chracter activation codes, holographic stickers of authenticity, and the other little things companies do that essentially say 'we don't trust you.'

Pivot now, and think about pen-and-paper RPGs. There are plenty of strange whiteboard craziness that escaped pen-and-paper meeting rooms in the last few years, the pullback of the OGL to GSL being one of them, the elimination of electronic rights from the SRD/OGL, the Pathfinder Basic Box not being licensed as a base product to expand upon, and a whole bunch of others. Put some trust in your users if you want them to play your games, aka the PS4.

As a creator of games, yes, you do want to worry about sustaining your product; but you also need to make your entire ecosystem friendly and open. The D&D 3.0 to 3.5 OGL was a remarkable achievement, but it did not go far enough. As pen-and-paper game creators, your #1 job is creating a healthy ecosystem where everybody can join in, be creative, and play. With games like Labyrinth Lord, Basic Fantasy, and the other OGL clones, you can even write and sell your works as a third party for those games - without the publisher's approval. You can even do that with Pathfinder (paper and PDF products only), provided you follow the SRD's restrictions.

In an open system, freedom is celebrated, and people that want to participate in the 'game economy' can do so without restriction. With video games this means we support rental services, used game sellers, swap meets, and even friends that want to trade games with each other. With roleplaying games, it means creating a great base system, and then opening it up for everyone to play, buy your stuff, make money from, and enjoy. The great success stories in technology have always been from open systems with wide support (Android, iOS applications, Windows/Mac applications, etc). Where are our great open systems in roleplaying games? What will the next great success story be?

DNDClassics and the OGR

Victory, of a sorts.

Wizards and DriveThrueRPG have launched a new PDF store, dndclassics.com. This doesn't look to be a one-time thing, as they will be having rolling releases every so often. Check the press release for more info. The prices are great, only $5 for a D&D rulebook, and there are sales, which shows an active effort to maintain and drive interest in the store. Wizards deserves kudos for supporting one of the largest PDF distributors, DriveThruRPG, that is great to see them working with the third-party community, and noted and appreciated.

Overall, very nice, and thank you again Wizards for supporting players in the iPad and Android era. This is long overdue, and wonderful to see. I call out the good moves when I see them, and this is a great one, just like the re-release of the D&D 3.5 hardcovers. Hats off to you guys again for doing a great thing.

A couple issues come up because of this. Firstly, I hope D&D Next follows a similar release model with a PDF version being available on Day 0. I know Wizards needs to support its retailers, but that can always be done in other ways, like physical-only copies of modules, special box sets, and other deals. Give me a reason to drop by the game store and I will, but core rules products need to be available in PDF to strengthen the brand.

Another issue that I have read on various OGR forums is that old-school retro-clones are dead, such as Basic Fantasy and Labyrinth Lord. With the release of the original rulebooks in PDF form, why play the retro-clones? Some are saying, the battle is won but the war is lost. I will agree with the elephant in the room, and say yes, the OGR is dead - at least how we knew it before.

These sort of things happen in the computer world all along, people flock to an alternative operating system because of some compatibility or workflow improvement, and then the big guys (Apple and Microsoft) copy it in their own way, and all of a sudden, everybody has this capability and there is no reason to stay with the old system. Same thing here, the original rules were out-of-print and locked away for the longest time, and the only way people could enjoy them were through the retro-clones. Now, Wizards releases the old material via PDF, and the reason to stick with the old systems is gone - right?

Not entirely. Remember, the old copies of D&D are still locked up behind a great copyright wall, third party producers still can't support 'old D&D' directly, say a module is compatible with it, or produce any material for it. If you support the OGL market, you have plenty of reasons to stick with Labyrinth Lord and other old-school clones. If Wizards starts tweaking licensing for the old books to support third-party publishers, things will really start to get interesting.

Let's call the new OGR the OGR2.0, and eliminate any notion of playing this because the old games are not available. What are our strongest reasons to play? As noted, the freedom for third-party publishers to publish and express themselves is important, and one of the great things that came out of the D&D3.0 era. Our new OGR2.0 should absorb the best qualities of why people should support it, and stick to those fundamental rights of game players. We may come to a time where the SRD and OGL is moved aside for more free and configurable licensing system such as the Creative Commons, and the electronic rights to play these games is protected and encouraged by third party developers. We live in the digital, portable world nowadays - what sense it it to play games that have such onerous electronic licensing restrictions?

In a way, D&D Classics is a great thing to happen, because it will force everybody to 'up their game.' Being the only source of old-school gaming isn't good enough anymore, quality has to improve, communicating 'the message' has to improve, and the core concept of freedom and third-party support needs to be spoken loud and clear. While I love the old games, in a way, they are not good enough to support the 'evergreen ecosystem' we desire in the digital age.

A revolution does need to happen, and while I love my copies of D&D, and Wizards, please get around to releasing Top Secret, Gangbusters, Star Frontiers and the other greats - the OGR needs to retool, rebuild, and recreate games built around freedom, quality, and openness. It is possible a new open-source 'operating system' needs to be created, and released for third party teams to support, sort of like 'The Android OS of Roleplaying'. While Android can be put of some crap hardware, it can be put on the best hardware as well, and it continues to grow daily.

The challenge both Wizards and the OGR community needs to think about is the 'Android problem,' and how to get revenue off a system such as that. You need an open-source gaming system, with hooks back home. Google does it electronically, by linking the OS to its search and advertising revenues. It could be as easy as making the D&D Next license free and open to use, but requiring every player to go through a free-to-use portal for rules downloads, character sheets, games, and the like. Free-to-play and freemium is the model to support, so subscription fees need to go away. The 'next RPG' should be as easy to play as creating an account, using the online character creator, picking a rules module, bringing up one of your character sheets, and playing. Once they are in the door, then charge for expansions and options.

You see, a fundamental shift is happening, a change in the market, and the new RPG market is waiting out there to be captured and owned. We are in a time of change, the old OGR needs to change, and someone needs to step up and own this opportunity. The new way of playing RPGs is out there and carried around in people's pockets and backpacks every day, and while PDFs address one piece of the puzzle, who is going to fill in the rest with that 'new way to play?'

The Legacy of the SRD to a Game Designer

The D&D3 Open Gaming License and SRD have been a great boon to the roleplaying world, and cemented the SRD as the de-facto rules set for fantasy roleplaying. Pathfinder and many other D&D3 based games have enjoyed this legacy, and actually in some ways surpassed the original game. The SRD provides rules for most all the pieces of D&D, monsters, magic, classes, and many of the standard fantasy tropes. Granted, most all of these items were cobbled from public-domain legends and sources in the first place, so their presence under a 'semi-open' license is sketchy at best.

The things that are not included under the SRD are character creation and level-up rules, and then most of the mutant creatures TSR and Wizards have invented over the years, like mind flayers, owlbears, and beholders. For the most part, these little omissions have been circumvented by people putting out new games, with renamed creatures almost-like the ones that were omitted, and brand new character creation and leveling rules. In some cases, the replacement rules are actually an improvement, like in Pathfinder.

Where it Fails

Where the SRD falls painfully short is the extension of the license to where people can use the SRD to publish interactive games, MMOs, and other new ways to play the game. Pathfinder's MMO (in development) needs to rewrite an entire new rules system to use for the online version of the game. The SRD limits a game designer who wants to write a game that has an entirely new way of playing it, like via tablets with people around the world online. This one point I think is the greatest failing of the license, and the game you design using the SRD isn't entirely yours.

This makes the OGL/SRD combo different than the Linux license in a very specific way. With Linux, the code can be modified as long as it is licensed for others to use freely and in new ways (I am speaking really generally here, Linux fans). With the OGL/SRD combo, the game can't be used for online games, social networking games, or for any truly new and different way of playing. The OGL/SRD limits you to a book, table, and dice. In a way, it holds back the art and design of new RPGs - ones we have no idea how they will be played.

I Love My Games, But as a Designer...

I love playing my OGL/SRD games, mind you, I love 13th Age, Pathfinder, Labyrinth Lord, and all the other wonderful creations built under the combo. A part of me is sad though, knowing these games will never advance the art of game design beyond the d20 clones, and never be played in new ways. As a game designer, you want to work without limits. A huge part of adopting the SRD is a limit, and I wonder if new games should just take the public-domain parts of the D&D lore, and establish something truly free and new, without restrictions, and break from the SRD's chains.

This has to be one of the most difficult pieces of the hobby for me to deal with as a game designer. The OGL/SRD combo is an incredible resource, but using it could be holding back the art of RPG design. Mind you, some companies could care less about the OGL/SRD combo, like Fantasy Flight Games and others, and are creating new experiences with these games. How open these efforts are is always an issue, and the OGL/SRD is the defacto standard for D&D-like experiences.

For free and open gaming, there needs to be open standards a community can agree upon, public domain legends to pull from, and a license permitting remixes and new ways on playing the game people may have never envisioned. The only real way out is to design your own rules system, as the SRD is a limit in regards to game design and what you can do with your game.

Super Massive Skill Systems

Once upon a time, game companies wrote huge, voluminous games, with skill systems covering hundreds of skills. They hid basic rules for movement, combat, and social interactions in lengthy skill descriptions. Character power was defined by how many skill points you could accumulate, and the largest portion of a character record sheet was the character's skill section. Some skills replicated ability score checks, so if you wanted to lift a boulder, your character used the Heft skill and not the Strength ability score. Character design required you to know how much a particular skill cost to raise a level, which skills you could buy, and calculating the rates at which you could raise them.

Oh wait, they still make these games.

Seriously, there is little reason nowadays to hang on to skill systems that look like phone books, and operate like tax laws. These skill systems promise the holy grail of complete character customization, but too often put such a huge burden on players for knowing how to work them and manage the record-keeping they create.

Take for instance D&D 3.5, with its collection of class skills (which you have to buy with starting skill points), cross-class skills (which are bought at half rate), and different maximum levels for each. Take for instance a bard from this game, here are the class skills, reprinted from the SRD:

Appraise (Int), Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disguise (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Gather Information (Cha), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Speak Language (n/a), Spellcraft (Int), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), and Use Magic Device (Cha)

Now a typical bard gets (6 + INT mod) x 4 skill points to start, so let's assume a +2 INT mod for 32 skill points to spend on 25+ skills (plus 8 every level); and also on cross-class skills (the rest of the 3.5 skill list). All well and good, but this is an extremely complicated system to teach to new players. Many times around the table, new players would have endless questions on skills and purchasing them, asking if a skill was important, how much a purchase cost, if a skill was in their class or not, and what the maximum level was for a skill given their class. When characters got higher level, the skill lists grew exponentially, with some characters taking an entire column of a book to record their skills.

To be fair, D&D 3.5 is not the most complicated skill system out there, but it is a great example. Also, they greatly simplified the skill system in D&D 4, which helped matters in some ways, and over simplified in others, but it was still a good step towards simplicity. Other good examples of large skill systems are Space Opera, Aftermath, the Star Frontiers reboot Zebulon's Guide, Palladium, and many other systems. Some of these systems don't use a skill point metric, but they do feature long skill lists with a significant record-keeping requirement.

When you design a role-playing game, think about the skill list. What purpose does it serve? Are there too many skills for what you are trying to do? Does it require a lot of record keeping? Is the way you buy skills complicated and require hefty math and reference? Does your game even require a skill system? Can you get the same customization effect through one of the systems already in your game, such as classes, feats, or specializations?

More is not always better, and a game that requires 20 ranks in Knowledge(Role Playing Game Skill Systems) isn't always one you want your players to understand just to be able to have fun and play the game with.

Pimp My Character: Feats and Talents

Going over key differences between D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder, there is one that stands out: in Pathfinder, you get one feat every two levels; and in 3.5 you get one every three. In SBRPG, you buy semi-similar things called 'special moves' with your level-awarded character points. It is an interesting difference between the two implementations of D&D, and one that is worth exploring in a game-design sense.

Let's get our resources out of the way, and link the Pathfinder Feats and the D&D 3.5 SRD Feats here for reference. I could go over the differences in these to no end, as they are not entirely 100% compatible, and they are built along different deign goals. Also, Pathfinder's list is longer, you may want to go to the Unofficial Pathfinder SRD, and filter by the original rulebook to get a better comparison between the base games.

Pathfinder has about 50% more feats than the 3.5 SRD, and they have been reviewed and balanced a bit finer than D&D 3.5's list. Since you get feats more often, there have to be more, and also, they have to be power-balanced since you are getting more of them. At twentieth level, a Pathfinder character will have ten feats, where a D&D 3.5 character will have six. One result is an increase in complexity for Pathfinder characters, in addition to the per-level powers built into your class, you are tracking nearly twice the feats.

Power-balanced is an intentional term, since Pathfinder needs to work harder at feat-balance than D&D 3.5. It does not mean less powerful, since some Pathfinder feats are more powerful (cleave), and some are weaker (with a standard action use requirement). In general, Pathfinder feats are more specific, and 3.5 feats are more general purpose. It is a design decision possibly reflected by balance, class powers, the number of feats, and a bunch of other factors.

Feats and special moves are like the talent system used in many MMOs, and server the same purpose - to make your character different than others who have the same character class. It is interesting to see some MMOs split these into two or three specializations in the class, along with talent tree (WoW), specializations with their own talent trees (early WoW, Diablo 2), and pick-all systems like 3.5 (EQ, EQ2). Feats in Pathfinder and D&D seem to be more like rules tweaks than MMO character customizations, so it is a comparison with key differences.

Do feats need to be broadened, and allow for greater customization? Possibly so, you could imagine picking less feats (1/4 perhaps), and gaining greater powers inside the feat. Selecting an 'elemental fire warrior' that gives you extra fire damage per attack, fire immunity, and other powers would be cool, and move the feat system towards a higher-level of customization than just rules tweaks like 'improved crit range'.

It depends on your goals 100%, if your game is more focused towards tweaking rules, than feats how they exist are fine. If you see feats as being character customization, you need less of them with more power and 'punch' to them. One thing you don't want to do is lay extra systems on top of feats to accomplish the same thing, such as creating an extra class specialization system on top of your already in-place and working feat system. If the goal is to allow for customization, make one system that does it well, and avoid duplication of sub-systems.

One of the problems with D&D4 was excessive duplication. They had two multi-classing systems, a feat system, synergies within class power trees, and they also made new classes to cover variant builds. It was a nice system in the first three books (the first multi-class system was not the best), but it quickly grew unmanageable one you added expansion volumes. Needing a computer program to generate valid characters was a problem at most of out D&D4 games, many players enjoyed the convenience, but they also did not like the ability to do it themselves, and craft builds in their heads.

What is the lesson to take away? Possibly that character customization systems need to be built into the game from the ground-up, in order to avoid duplication and complexity. Building them in from the start also gives the system a feeling everything works out of the box, that this is the way classes work, and these are the ways you can customize each one. Give people clear paths, and they will be happy and walk them.

Target Numbers versus Challenge Levels

While looking out at the clouds today, this thought came up:

"Dice + Modifier >= Target Number"

or

"Dice + Modifier - Difficulty >= Fixed Number"

SBRPG chooses the latter method for two reasons. One, difficulty is directly rated on level, which is equivalent to character level. A level 5 thief picking a level 5 lock has a base 50% chance of success (without ability modifiers). Ability scores bend the curve, allowing you to do better with better scores. The second reason is successes depend on the amount the roll beats the fixed target number. It is easier to do some math during the roll to keep the number range down, so calculation of the degree of success is easier.

The first method sets a target number, such as 25, and lets players add up modifiers and their roll to reach it. It is a simpler system, in that it does not require the subtraction step, but it is a bit more obscure in that the target number does not mean much. Of course, TN = Level + 10 in SBRPG-terms, but the mechanic seems more prone to made-up target numbers than real level-based difficulties. The system is also prone to blow-out at the high end, since there is less of an urge to cap the target number. Finally, calculating successes requires more math, for example:

The dice roll is 12
The modifier is 7
The problem level is 5
The fixed number is 11+

12 + 7 >= 16, true; a total of 19 - 15 = 4 successes

or

12 + 7 - 5 >= 11, true; a total of 14 - 10 = 4 successes

In the 11+ fixed number, you take 10 off the difference to determine successes. The second method of "knocking 10 off the roll" to determine the level of success is easier math than (roll minus 10+PL). Why is the success number so important?

Success measures the level of the job performed. In the above example, let's assume this was the level 5 thief picking the lock. The job was done at a level 4 of a result, at or near the thief's level of 5. We can assume this was an average job result for a level 5 thief. Let's say the thief only rolled one success, that would be more like how a level 1 thief would have picked that lock - it would have been a messy job, taken a while longer, made a lot of noise, and so on. If the thief rolled high, say an 18, and got 10 successes, that would tell you the thief did that job as efficient, fast, and quiet as a level 10 thief's average lockpicking attempt- smooth, quick, and quiet.

SBRPG has a whole "skill level versus problem level" mechanic, and using successes as "result level" gives the dice rolling system a nice tight, immediate, and X vs Y = Z feel.

90's Flashback! Capitalized Game Terms

I am cursing myself for following the 1990's RPG tradition of capitalizing Game Terms. I am now having to go back and fix all the capitalized Game Terms in the SBRPG document for the SRD release, and it is annoying to say the least. Why I ever thought doing this to every Game Term I don't know, only that many other games written in the time did it as well. One can't simply find and replace, since that will hose paragraph starts when a Game Term appears there.

Rules Light and SBRPG SRD

Two thoughts. One of the goals in producing SBRPG 2.0 is to create a rules-light version that is fast, easy, and fun to play. We live in an iPad world nowadays, and there is no reason RPGs should read like a textbook. I have a mock-up for a page describing the character card that would be cool to share. The final version of the game will originate from this document, since it will be graphically compelling, visual, and look cool.

Speaking of that, I want to also product a SBRPG SRD - basically a text-only version of the rules that reads like a textbook. This should be the definitive rules-resource for the game, and be the DNA all SBRPG documents are created from, including the rules-light version. A SRD can be produced faster, since there is less layout and graphic design work. A SRD will also serve as the beta-test document for the game.

I also need to put together a beta-test agreement, or just put the "all rules feedback is property of us" type message in the preamble of this blog. We love our players, but this sort of thing is needed nowadays and protects everyone. In return, we will think of a way to give back to a number of our top contributors (when the beta ends), like a copy of the printed game or something nice like that. More on what we come up with later.