[One Bad Egg] OBE Announces "Open Gods" project

madwabbit · Mar 9, 2009

"Open Gods is a push by One Bad Egg to create an open resource — a pantheon, complete with the attendant channel divinity powers — that other 4E publishers can make use of, at no cost. One of our frustrations when working on our own products has been that none of the Player’s Handbook gods (nor the powers that come along for the ride) are available to us when writing up our own products. Whether it’s a minor annoyance like a sample Paladin and its god to be mentioned in passing, or a bigger hurdle like a Cleric NPC for an adventure with all the fun power stuff, it came down to us needing to cook up our own pantheon if we wanted to smooth out the bumps. We figure other publishers shouldn’t have to do that work if they don’t want to."

Here are the details.

Justin D. Jacobson · Mar 9, 2009

Scooped on my own announcement.!

Gods is an interesting project for us. We had each member of the Incubator come up with one or two gods. Using multiple authors, working serially, we intentionally created a pantheon that has competing, even contradictory, claims by the various adherents. The result is something satisfyingly quirky with an air of verisimilitude.

I encourage any publisher who is interested to contact me off-list, and I'll see about getting them a comp copy for using in their own publications.

On an unrelated note, I have to say that it was fun drafting the license in light of all of the brouhaha over the revision to the GSL and the new Paizo license. I don't imagine anyone will have an issue with my effort.

madwabbit · Mar 9, 2009

Justin D. Jacobson said:
Scooped on my own announcement.!

Oops! Sorry! Until recently, I've been pretty regular about evangelizing OBE stuff for y'all, both here and at Circvs Maximvs, but then fell out of the habit. I'll wait for y'all to do so in the future.

Justin D. Jacobson · Mar 9, 2009

animadversio said:
Oops! Sorry! Until recently, I've been pretty regular about evangelizing OBE stuff for y'all, both here and at Circvs Maximvs, but then fell out of the habit. I'll wait for y'all to do so in the future.

No, no. On the contrary, I'm thrilled. Please don't stop. That was pleasant surprise in my last post.

evilhat · Mar 9, 2009

You're misinterpreting Justin's "scooped" reaction, there.

We'd much rather have some bit of news get out due to fan enthusiasm than, uh, corporate necessity or whatever. No need to change your natural inclination, dude.

SabreCat · Mar 9, 2009

This is a badass idea. I can totally understand griping about the restrictions of the GSL in this and similar regards... but you guys have taken it as a structure to spur creativity, like the form of a sonnet or what-have-you. ^.^

If I hadn't already started my campaigns using the PHB pantheon, I'd totally use these gods. Maybe I can still make use of them for the belief systems of a different land, or in a later game...

Buying the PDF tonight, in any case!

fissionessence · Mar 10, 2009

In The Lunar Scrolls (not yet released), I created Esclairimonde, a moon goddess. When needing to refer to the Sehanine's Reversal feat, I wrote:

Esclairimonde's Reversal (see the moon goddess channel divinity feat in the D&D 4E Player's Handbook)

This book seems like it would be great for having a set of gods to refer to, but it relies on the readers' ownership of the book, otherwise it becomes potentially less useful than a roundabout reference to the core pantheon.

Anyway, I really like the idea of 'crossing the streams', and I was in fact considering contacting other 3PPs for permission to use their classes and races in the Pop Creatures line. Anyway, I hope the "Open Gods" project is successful and sets some kind of precedent.

~ fissionessence

MatthewJHanson · Mar 10, 2009

fissionessence said:
This book seems like it would be great for having a set of gods to refer to, but it relies on the readers' ownership of the book, otherwise it becomes potentially less useful than a roundabout reference to the core pantheon.

For what it's worth, the license document does contain a general overview of the gods (akin to what's in the PHB). So crafty players & DMs could reference that.