{"id":108,"date":"2020-01-26T11:21:08","date_gmt":"2020-01-26T10:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/betola.de\/wandererbill\/?p=108"},"modified":"2020-01-26T11:21:08","modified_gmt":"2020-01-26T10:21:08","slug":"a-free-and-open-source-setting-for-role-playing-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/betola.de\/wandererbill\/uncategorized\/a-free-and-open-source-setting-for-role-playing-games\/","title":{"rendered":"A free and open source setting for role playing games?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yesterday on Mastodon @BindRPG<\/a> asked about popular libre settings for rpg gaming. Interesting question I thought, some chatter went back and forth, and \u2026 man, this really got me thinking.<\/p>\n

I mean, there are a whole bunch of gaming systems realeased under some sort of libre license. Prominently Fate core<\/em> and Dungeon World<\/em> come to mind, which both are available unter Creative Commons Attribution 3.0<\/a> for example. But there are others under some kind of creative commons license like Gumshoe<\/em>, Eclipse Phase<\/em>, Freeform Universal<\/em> (disclaimer no 1: please check the respective web sites for exact licensing terms). Apart from that, there are hundreds of games released under the Open Gaming License<\/a>, which might be considered less libre<\/em> then creative commons, and hardly anyone of those is open source<\/em>, too (Basic Fantasy RPG<\/a> being one exception). And hey, since yesterday I know of BindRPG<\/a>, which is even released under the GNU General Public License<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But a libre setting? When I think about settings, various creations come to mind, most of which are big companies interelectual property – most probably with some big time fierce lawyers just waiting for you to stray into their territory.<\/p>\n

But do we actually need a libre setting?<\/h2>\n

Well, not if you just want to play in, say Hogwarts<\/em>, or on the Planet of Tatooine<\/em>. In those cases you\u2019ll likely have payed for a commercial setting book anyway, which of course is meant to be used just for that. And if you home brewed your way into that other setting, the lawyers simply won\u2019t find out. And even if they would, such use would always be covered by the concept of fair use<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At your gaming table, you could always take the Infinite Worlds<\/em> mega-setting from GURPS<\/em>, and include just about any other setting there is, but again, Infinite Worlds<\/em> is intellectual property of Steve Jackson Games.<\/p>\n

And don\u2019t even think about doing anything commercially for some others intellectual property setting. Don\u2019t do it – unless you really want to, know what you do, and have put some money aside to pay the lawyer.<\/p>\n

So in fact, having a good libre setting would allow folks to not only play in a cool setting, but anyone could publish for this setting, and thereby add to it, for everyones gaming fun and pleasure.<\/p>\n

And opposed to commercial licenses, open source and a libre license substantially facilitates crowd sourcing and collaboration on a common shared<\/em> setting.<\/p>\n

So, do we need a libre setting? I think yes, it would be terrific!<\/p>\n

So, but what is a setting<\/em>, really?<\/h2>\n

Role playing settings can be as small as a map of a village, some hills and a cave or dungeon just behind those hills. But a setting can also be huge, spanning one or even multiple planets, multiple star systems, and rather often than not, multiple planes of existence, epochs far in the past and future, accessible by some means of time travel.<\/p>\n

So, on the small scale, a setting would need definitions of:<\/p>\n