I took a one month break from writing the State of Open Gaming since the website has really slowed down. I think I’ve found most of the major open games on the Internet, and now all that needs to be done is keep up with the new ones that are released.

On the other hand, there is plenty room for growth in the gratis games section of the site. There are thousands and thousands of free, closed games that could be added to the wiki. I don’t have the time or inclination to do so, however.

New Games

Open Games

Old favourite Dungeonslayers is available in five European languages. As well as English, you can read it in French, German, Italian and Spanish.

Lady Blackbird has seen another Hackbird published: Old Messila, which is a story of Billy the Kid and his escape from the law.

Icar has been free for years and is a favourite of the open gaming community. It’s now under an open licence. It’s a story of the far flung future with nicely rendered images.

Five by Five is a generic RPG that was favourably reviewed by The Free RPG Blog.

New Realms is a generic anime RPG with its own licence.

LORE bills itself as the Lightweight Universal Roleplaying System. It comes with a sourcebook called Belief.

Closed Games

Matt Snyder has released two of his games, 44 and Nine Worlds, for free.

An ashcan of cult worship by Paul Czege called Acts of Evil was released under a semi-open licence.

Wheel of Fate is a combination of FATE and Burning Wheel.

Legendary Quest is a heavy game system with a focus on real-world myth and legend.

New Material

There are character sheets and other resources for the Saga RPG.

Irregular Magazine is a closed but free RPG on the Closed Resources page.

Donjon Pak B-1 is a sourcebook for open RPG Donjon.

Island of Eo is an open supplement for the gratis game Risus.

Icke is a short story written by RPG designer Greg Stolze.

There are two new design courses on the Open Resources page: Game Design Concepts and Game Balance Concepts.

There’s a page for the Founders’ Copyright licence, a closed licence which follows the copyright law desired by the US Founding Fathers.

I’ve also decided to expand the scope of the wiki from simply open games to include all ‘free’ games – whether they are free because they are open or free because they are gratis. This is a natural evolution given our close ties to 1KM1KT.net.

I strongly recommend you check out the wiki if you haven’t visited in the last week or so. A lot has changed. Please email me if you notice any problems (sanglorian@gmail.com).

I worry that people think of the wiki as an encyclopedia of open games and nothing else. I would love for it to become a storehouse of ideas: if you invent material for an open game, put it up on the wiki! I’ll make sure it gets filed in the right place.

Support open source stock artwork: Last month I discussed Love Vector Free, a website for open vector art. The man behind LVF has set up a Kickstarter account for Stocky, which is intended as a stock photography, font, vector, film, etc site strictly under open licences. You can support him with a donation of $1 or more.

New games: We only had one new game on the wiki this month, Telgrathia. It’s a fantasy game with mechanics based on Blackjack.

The Great Hundred and other open resources: Currently the Great Hundred is only material I’ve written and stuff I’ve taken from Ryan St’s original Great Hundred. But I’d love for you to add content of your own.

• Oracles
• A World of Wonder
• Single Page Settings
• List of Aspects (for games like FATE and Fudge)

Open games by genre: I’ve assigned every game in our database a genre. If you’re looking for a specific style of game, check it out!

New open resources: Get the links here.

• The Beekeeper Model of Commercial Open Source, advice on profiting from open source material.
• MyPaint, an open source painting program.
• Alchemy, a free drawing program.
• Clearbits, open source (and therefore legal) torrents.
• A Clipart History, public domain old images.
• Lobster, an intricate and well-developed font.
• Ryzom Asset Repository, 3D images from the open source MMORPG.
• Game Design Concepts, a course on game design.
• Game Balance Concepts, a course on game balance.

Closed material: As mentioned above, the Year of Living Free is expanding to gratis closed games. There isn’t a lot here yet, but there will be.

• List of Closed Games
• Closed Games by Category
• Closed Publishers and Designers

• Blog (http://blog.yearoflivingfree.info)
• Twitter (http://twitter.yearoflivingfree.info)
• Forum (http://forum.yearoflivingfree.info)
• Wiki (http://www.yearoflivingfree.info)

Wiki Rearranged
The wiki’s List of Libre Games now shows all open games in alphabetical order. Other lists are Libre Games by Publisher, by Category and by Licence. Hopefully this will make it easier to find the game that suits you.

Please contact me if you find any problems with the wiki.

New Features

New Fiction: Two Things She Does With Her Body (Greg Stolze).

Open Images: Love Vector Free is an open source collection of vector images.

Game Design Theory: The AGE Model of Game Play and Design is an open source theory of games.

Closed Resources: These should all be usable with and for open games, but are not themselves open.

Top 5 and Top 10 Lists: I’ve made some Top 5 lists for open games, including the Top 10 Open Games. It’s not complete, so feel free to contribute your own suggestions.

YOLF Blog Post: How to choose the right open licence for your game (read it here).

Comparing Open Licences: A system to break down an open licence into its basic components for easy comparison.

Open Games in Other Languages: For those of you who’d prefer to game in a language other than English.

Gratis Games: There are some interesting free games that aren’t open. You can find them in the List of Gratis Games.

New Games
These new games can all be found in alphabetical order on the List of Libre Games.

Thrilling Noir Stories, Lost Souls, Mirima Tyalie, SpacePirates, The Alchemy System, Superliga, Dread (The First Book of Pandemonium), Dangers & Dweomers, Spellcraft & Swordplay, Realms of Wonder, Zamani, OSTS, Pollies, FAST and Toast.

Sorcerer – not an open game, but it does have an open supplement;
Shadow of Yesterday – Spanish translation;
Donjon – Spanish translation;
ZeFRS – a retroclone of the TSR Conan RPG;
Adventure Squad Core – a variation on Dungeon Squad.

Grand OGL Wiki

Our friends at the Grand OGL Wiki have plenty of open content for us from the month of May. There’s zombies, dogs made out of leaves, a table of the consequences of horror (from fanaticism to hysterical deafness), rabid miniature poodles, ghosts and gorilla men.

Green’s Guide to Ghosts, Modern Dispatch, Fear Effects, The Beast Within, Skinwalker, Brainwashed, Weekend Warriors

First Question

My game includes someone else’s copyrighted material (whether open or closed).

You are limited in your choice of licence.

If the other person’s copyrighted material is closed, you must ask their permission before placing any open licence on your work.

If the other person’s copyrighted material is open, you may be obliged to use their open licence instead of your own choice. This depends on the licence, and is too specific to detail here.

Distribution (DISTRO)

I’m happy for people to distribute my work.

Choose a DISTRO licence.

I’m happy for people to modify my work, but I don’t want them distributing the original.

Under most definitions of open licensing, the original work must be open for distribution (at least noncommercially).

Keep in mind that you could release part of your work as open and leave other content closed. That way, your trademarks are protected while the rest is available for distribution.

Adaptation (ADAPT)

I’m happy for people to modify my work.

Choose an ADAPT licence.

I’m happy for people to share my work, but I don’t want them changing it.

For a work to be open, adaptations of it must be allowed.

Keep in mind that you could release part of your work as open and leave other content closed. That way, your trademarks are protected while the rest is available for modification.

Attribution (BY)

I want credit if someone changes my work.

Choose a licence with a BY requirement.

I don’t want to be associated with whatever mess someone makes of my work.

You have three main options here.

Choose a licence without a BY requirement. These come in two forms; licences that forbid attribution and those that simply do not require it.

Choose a licence with a BY and specifically request no attribution. I doubt this is legally binding.

Use the Open Game License. Attribution is forbidden except in the Open Game License’s Section 15, and you decide what your game’s Section 15 entry is.

Copyleft (CL)

If someone changes or shares my work, their work should be open too.

Choose a licence with a CL requirement.

If someone changes or shares my work, they should be free to keep it closed if they like.

Choose a licence without a CL requirement.

Noncommercial (NONCOM)

People that share or change my work shouldn’t be charging for it.

Choose a licence with a NONCOM requirement.

If someone can profit off my work, good luck to them!

Choose a licence without a NONCOM requirement.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

• a Twitter page and
• a Forum, hosted by the good people of 1KM1KT.

In addition, we broke the hundred games mark. Links to all 137 open games are available on our most important page, the List of Libre Games. I’ve reorganised this page, and it’s worth checking it out if you haven’t visited it in the last fortnight or so.

A more in-depth update after the break.

List of Libre Games

This page has had a complete revamp and I highly recommend checking it out. I thank John H Kim for his Free RPG List which I trawled for many open games.

There are too many new games here to link to individually, but here’s a list:

Open Game License

Microlite20, Slayer of Dragon, Two Worlds, True20, Star Blades

Creative Commons

C.O.R.E., Inuma, Tiny Triangles, The Faces of Angels, Saga, RUGS, Shadows, The Genesys System, Ghostlight, Midgard, Jazz 4.0, Legendary Lives.

GNU Licences

Hyper, JAGS, Osprey, YAGS.

Own licence

Stories System, DragonNet RPG, SKETCH System, Destiny System, Four Colors al Fresco, Kiss Roleplaying System.

Public domain

Enchanted Realms

OpenContent License

Draft, Epitome, Grey Lotus, Lycadian.

Categories of Libre Games

The games listed below are new, but I haven’t included any new games already mentioned above.

d20 Games

Animalball Melee, Simple 20, Castles & Crusades, Core Elements, Sweet20.

FUDGE and FATE

And Bake for 15 Minutes FUDGE

Retroclones

DQ Open Source

Miniatures Games

New open games from Free Wargames Rules: d20 Open Mass Combat System, Astral Dreams, Dark Millennium, Contagion.

Open Resources

New stuff:

• Yahoo Image Search (can be restricted to only return images that are under a Creative Commons licence).
• Two open source graphic design programs: GIMP and Inkscape.
• Two fonts: Tagesschrift and Yanone Kaffeesatz.
• OpenRPG, an online tabletop for role-playing.

New Pages

• vs Monsters
• Altars & Archetypes
• You Are Badass
• List of Open Licences
• List of Gratis Games
• A World of Wonder

Changes to Existing Pages

Dungeonslayers

Easter Egg and three new Dungeons2Go.

I’m considering starting up a forum, but I’m not sure if there’d be enough people to sustain conversation.

I’ve also resurrected my Twitter feed. Check it out – I plan to post at least once a week, maybe more.

I played through it a couple of times, and here’s what I got.

GAME ONE.

DELUDED. Harid. He carries a favour from the woman he believes loves him.

First Test: 4/6.

SCALED. 15. A snake, coiled and writhing, that speaks with a child’s voice that draws Harid into its watery lair.

Harid is POISONED.

Second Test: 6/4.

BRONZE. 2. A bird, whirring with tiny gears and chirping a music box tune. Harid gently extracts its clockwork heart.

Glory 4. Blood 6.

Third Test: 5/5.

MANY-HEADED. 6. A deer, with one male head and one female head, approaches and nuzzles Harid. Maddened by the poison, Harid strikes it. It tramples Harid  into the forest floor.

(For this game, I forgot to describe my battle raiment.)

GAME TWO.

ORPHAN. Amani. Wants to be worthy of her bloodline.

First Test: 4/6.

TALON. 2. A jungle cat, fashioned of clay but with teeth set into its mouth and claws set into its paws. Amani crushes it.

D: Hands, calloused and knotted like a man’s. B: A thick fur coat that changes colour with the coming night; a broach of opal and bone.

Glory 6, Blood 4.

Second Test: 5/5.

CLOTHED. 3. An old woman, cat-eyed and ragged. She invites Amani to rest before facing her next challenge. Amani strikes the woman down and she turns to dust.

D: A monocle pressed from the petals of the glass-flower, through which the truth is seen. B: A carving of the seven elders of the tribe.

Glory 5, Blood 5.

Third Test: 3/7.

BLUE. 6. The waves toss and tumble. Amani spears the mighty leviathan, but it drags her into the deeps. Her body washes up upon the shore. She is blue, but still breathing.

Amani is HALF-DROWNED.

D: A javelin carved from the jawbone of the leviathan’s child. B: A horn of ivory; a chain of gold coins.

The Village:

SILVER. 6.

The man who is always silent takes Amani’s hand. His silver hair shimmers beside her fur coat in the moonlight.

MOURNING. 9. The old woman was a loving mother and talented seamstress before she was possessed by Shanri.

And art and text you don’t have to pay royalties for.

What better source for that than the Year of Living Free wiki? We’ve got plenty of open games to scavenge from, and we have a list of open resources – from software to public domain art to US Government photographs.

If you do decide to enter the contest, why not make your game free-as-in-speech as well as free-as-in-beer? Use a Creative Commons licence and let others share and expand on your work for free.

Year of Living Free

Dungeonslayers is a lite, action-packed role-playing game. It’s a relatively new game, but it’s already had a few (free) supplements published. Download it and give it a spin!

I’ve tracked down three rather strange games, which I’ve added to the list of open games. There’s Revolucion, where you design an authoritarian state and the movement that is attempting to topple it. There’s Ostermark: The Butterforger, a game I can’t begin to describe. And there’s Warrior, Rogue and Mage, which harkens back to the earliest of RPGs.

Lady Blackbird, John Harper’s ready-to-play game, has been spun off onto its own page and several variants have been uploaded: Alien Survivor, Darkening Skies (an unofficial sequel by me, Chris Sakkas), My Darn Ex-Wife and The Lady Blackbird (Age of Sail). I’ve also updated the System Reference Document for the game’s newest version, which also released this month.

I’ve added three new entries to the Open Resources page. They are Wikimedia Commons (a great source of photographs and illustrations, including hundreds of dinosaurs), ROLPUNK: A Manifesto (a call to arms for gamers) and the logo ‘Banned on RPGnet’.

Greg Stolze’s page has been updated with his advice on running and playing role-playing games, his short stories and the supplements for his game Reign – all of which are open!

You can watch the birth of a retroclone by following the Dark Dungeons link on our Retroclone page. The author’s just finished the chapter on immortals.

There’s a miniatures game, Brikwars, which you can play with Lego pieces you have lying around.

Eclipse Phase is a transhuman (or is that posthuman?) RPG set in outer space. I don’t know much about it, but I do know it has space whales and a very-complete SRD.

Three new products have come out for the 4C System – two character records (one form-fillable) and a GM screen for the game. All are public domain.

I’ve also dredged up two things from the past. Sacred Steel is a card-based game thought lost but rediscovered and saved through the Internet Archive. It’s a great example of how open licensing can give your game a second life – I’d never have uploaded it if it weren’t under an open licence.

Grassroots Gamer came into existence more recently, but it seems to have blossomed and then died. It’s not exclusively for role-playing games, but I like that remixing and modifying games is explicitly encouraged. I’d like to see a community like that evolve around the Year of Living Free.

Rebirth of The Great Hundred

A few years back gaming staple Ryan encouraged the creation of an open, community-built campaign setting. I wanted to create a similar repository of open inspiration, but focused on many campaign settings instead of just one. I wrote a blog post to discuss this issue more extensively. I’ve copied across some of the best material from the original Great Hundred, and the 4C System community are using the Living Free wiki to design a supers campaign setting.

Feel free to contribute your own stuff!

Grand OGL Wiki

The Grand OGL Wiki is working towards much the same goal as our own Year of Living Free wiki. The main difference is that Mark Gedak and his team focus mainly on d20 System games like D&D and Pathfinder.

The open content of eleven books has been been uploaded to the Grand OGL Wiki. If you’re interested in adventures, NPCs, equipment, cleric spells, tomes and libraries, serpentfolk, kobolds or sahuagin, then give the wiki a visit.

The project led to dozens of pages being created, but it never built up momentum and the proposed final book (with one page for each of the best 144 entries) never came close to publication. Still, creating a campaign setting collectively and in encyclopedia form struck me as a sound idea.

I prefer lite and freeform games without rich and well-developed settings. Working with no or little setting is great because you can give your ideas free rein. The problem is that sometimes you need rich and well-defined ideas and none come to you.

That’s why I’ve reimagined The Great Hundred as an encyclopedia of role-playing elements. Some might be loosely connected to other entries, but mainly they should stand on their own. That way, people can insert as few or as many as they need into their games, when the need arises.

If you have fantasy ideas you’ve never put to use, and you’re happy for them to come under a Creative Commons licence, please post them on The Great Hundred.

Problems with the Original Great Hundred

• Too wide. The setting had dozens of cities, dozens of god-kings and dozens of barbaric tribes outside the cities. It was huge, yet empty. None of the cities were tightly fleshed out. Few of the gods were. In fact, the barbarians came across as the most well-rounded – and I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that they had the least to do with the god-kings.
• Which brings me to my second point, which that it was too narrow. Having produced dozens of god-kings, Ryan had an understandable desire to focus on the god-kings – but the stories people wanted to tell didn’t fit with them.
• Differing visions. Ryan’s goal was for a book with 144 microfiction entries which, together, created a shared world. But people were writing encyclopedia entries, and good ones too. A role-playing campaign setting can be written from subjective perspectives (‘Report on the Barbarian Hordes’, ‘Reasons to Hate the Yuan-Ti’) but I don’t think it can be written as fiction.
• Changing conditions. Ryan’s original vision of the project changed, meaning articles that had been marked publishable-quality now needed substantial re-writing.

This is not to diminish Ryan’s efforts – after all, he did get scores of entries and was an enthusiastic and wise driver of the project. But they’re thoughts I’ve kept in mind for this new Great Hundred.