As a result of the Hillfolk Kickstarter, Pelgrane Press and I proudly make the DramaSystem rules engine available under two open licenses; the Open Gaming License and the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution Unported License. If you backed the campaign, take a moment to congratulate yourself for making this possible.
Download the CC version here.
Download the OGL version here.
With the Hillfolk Kickstarter having funded both open licenses for DramaSystem and now GUMSHOE as well, it’s time to consult the stakeholders on just what the configuration of those licenses ought to be. Ultimately the decision will be mine (DramaSystem) and Simon’s (GUMSHOE), but we’re both on the same basic page in wanting low-hassle licenses that encourage uptake by gamers and commercial users alike.
(With GUMSHOE there’s a wrinkle concerning foreign languages. The games have been licensed to various territories, and Simon will respect the wishes of those publishers if they don’t want third-party GUMSHOE material published in their languages. That’s why the text on the Kickstarter site refers to the English language. At least some of our translation partners seem stoked about the open license, so we may be able to widen this out.)
Parentheticals aside….
Hillfolk backers made this happen, so I want to take your preferences into account.
Those of you who aren’t going to use the licenses or play the games, but are here purely out of abstract interest in open culture, will have only the steely rigor of your intellectual argument to fall back on.
The question at hand is whether to adopt an OGL, or OGL-like, approach, or to go the Creative Commons route—or a hybrid of both.
A Creative Commons attribution license that allows for mash-ups would be simplest for me. But that doesn’t require give-back the way the OGL does. Do you as Hillfolk funders want a give-back provision that requires anyone adding or modifying to the DramaSystem structure to also make their design work available on the same open basis as the core license itself? Or do you not care if someone designs a great new sub-system and then treats it as proprietary?
A CC attribution license with Share Alike doesn’t allow third-party publishers to cordon off the story elements of their products from the rules stuff, keeping their intellectual properties proprietary while letting the rules stuff enter the general use pool. When George Lucas wants to do his dramatic game of marital strife between Darth Vader and Natalie Portman, he can’t use DramaSystem under a Share Alike without backdooring Star Wars into the public domain. I’d love to see DramaSystem games based on existing properties, which requires the kind of carve-out the OGL allows for, where certain chunks are designated open content and others product identity.
Stalwart Wolf Clan member and open content maven Bryant Durrell has proposed a CC/OGL mash-up, the details of which I hope he’ll provide in a comment below.
Have at it, people, and don’t let the eternal enmity between Wolf and Lion deter you from speaking out in the name of all the badlands…
To celebrate-slash-publicize Atlas Games’ release of WaRP, the underlying rules system for the Over the Edge game, under an open license, here’s a character in the WaRP stats. If you sense the presence of the Cut-Ups Method in the concept, you just might be onto something... While the WaRP license doesn’t grant the right to publish material based on the Al Amarja setting, hey, this is a blog entry and I’m a friend of the family, as it were.
Jewel Broussard
Weirdly Normal Person
Ever since she first saw the cartoon character Tiffany Trilobite on television as a young child and sensed weird depths in her, Kipton, OH native Jewel Broussard has instinctively pursued the random and offbeat. Now twenty-nine years of age, working as a substitute teacher, she has lived her entire life in this small village, never suspecting that the mundane events of her workaday existence play out in exaggerated parallel on the mysterious island nation of Al Amarja. When she spoke up at a village meeting for an increase in the firefighting levy, a new crew of violent, privatized emergency workers, the Broussard Clarions, sprang up on the island. When she caught a fellow teacher stealing money from her school’s prom fund, the dean of D’Aubainne University was arrested and executed by the government.
A few days ago, a plane ticket to Al Amarja arrived in the mail. Though usually cautious, Jewel has chosen to go to this place she’s never heard of, in hopes of discovering why someone would have sent it to her.
Mirrored Existence Events of her dull but happy life in Ohio reflect or create dramatic outcomes on the island. What happens when she gets there? 2
Substitute Teacher Knows a little about everything, but mostly how to earn the cooperation of unruly groups. 3
Inspiring Speaker Confidence and innate goodness make those who listen to her want to do as she suggests. 3
Sweetly naïve (flaw)
Hit Points 14
