Chaosium Releases Basic Role Playing SRD

Chaosium has released the Basic Roleplaying System Reference Document (SRD).



The Basic Roleplaying SRD is based on Basic Roleplaying, the simple, fast, and elegant skill-based percentile system that is the core of most Chaosium roleplaying games, including Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, SuperWorld, and others.

Under the provisions of the Basic Roleplaying Open Game License (OGL), designers can create their own roleplaying games using the Basic Roleplaying rules engine, royalty-free and without further permission from Chaosium Inc.

For further details and to download the SRD document, see our Basic Roleplaying SRD information page.

This uses an opening gaming license, but not THE Open Gaming License (the commonly used one published by WotC nearly 20 years ago). It is based on similar concepts, but this uses the BRP Open Game License. A notable difference is that instead of "Product Identity") (which in the original license typically includes trademarks, proper names, a handful of iconic monsters, etc.), this license used "Prohibited Content" which expands that to include mechanics, or "substantially similar" mechanics to some selected features of the rules system. For example, part of the prohibited list includes:

"Augments: The use of one ability — whether skill or characteristic — to augment another ability of the same or a different type, in a manner substantially similar to those of the RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha rules."

Obviously you can make similar mechanics without using this license, but if you use this license you agree not to use mechanics similar to those in the prohibited content list.

The prohibited content list also contains Le Morte D'Arthur, and the Cthulhu Mythos.

 

[aramis erak]

The BRP is next only to the d20 in popularity I believe.

Not in terms of present market share... (based upon ICV2 data)
Not in terms of player count in online games.
And top 5 is more than 90% of the market.
D&D is king
Pathfinder is the queen. (It's D&D in drag...)
FFG SW and Modiphius Star Trek are top 5.
Fate is a top 10 plays; Fate Core is consistently top 10 seller.

BRP is one of the oldest engines... and the Mongoose RuneQuest version is already open ;licensed. So this is purely a brand image move. the "OGL 00" mark is quite present in the marketplace, and has been for well over a decade (GORE was, IIRC 2006), but few actually adopted it.

But it's not been top 5 in a long time. Even in terms of open license SRDs, the Mongoose RQ SRD didn't get much adoption. Nor did the earlier GORE SRD.

The BRP engine has been driven by three major game lines: RQ, CoC, and Stormbringer/Hawkmoon/Elric!... With Pendragon passing through several hands...

The only real reasons to use this license that I can see are:

• you hope to convert CoC or BRP Generic players
• you want to support Chaosium's overall market share by letting Chaosium claim your sales numbers as part of their engine's total.

It doesn't allow materials for use with their existing games.
It specifically excludes the best mechanics, which can already be wedged into the MRQ SRD under the Wizards OGL 1.0a, at least if you live in the US (because choice of law then doesn't apply, and Chaosium being US - the mechanics are not protectable in the US, unlike France and Germany.)

 

[aramis erak]

The BRP is next only to the d20 in popularity I believe.

Not in terms of present market share... (based upon ICV2 data)
Not in terms of player count in online games.
And top 5 is more than 90% of the market.
D&D is king
Pathfinder is the queen. (It's D&D in drag...)
FFG SW and Modiphius Star Trek are top 5.
Fate is a top 10 plays; Fate Core is consistently top 10 seller.

BRP is one of the oldest engines... and the Mongoose RuneQuest version is already open ;licensed. So this is purely a brand image move. the "OGL 00" mark is quite present in the marketplace, and has been for well over a decade (GORE was, IIRC 2006), but few actually adopted it.

But it's not been top 5 in a long time. Even in terms of open license SRDs, the Mongoose RQ SRD didn't get much adoption. Nor did the earlier GORE SRD.

The BRP engine has been driven by three major game lines: RQ, CoC, and Stormbringer/Hawkmoon/Elric!... With Pendragon passing through several hands...

The only real reasons to use this license that I can see are:

• you hope to convert CoC or BRP Generic players
• you want to support Chaosium's overall market share by letting Chaosium claim your sales numbers as part of their engine's total.

It doesn't allow materials for use with their existing games.
It specifically excludes the best mechanics, which can already be wedged into the MRQ SRD under the Wizards OGL 1.0a, at least if you live in the US (because choice of law then doesn't apply, and Chaosium being US - the mechanics are not protectable in the US, unlike France and Germany.)

 

[TrippyHippy]

Not in terms of present market share... (based upon ICV2 data)
Not in terms of player count in online games.
And top 5 is more than 90% of the market.
D&D is king
Pathfinder is the queen. (It's D&D in drag...)
FFG SW and Modiphius Star Trek are top 5.
Fate is a top 10 plays; Fate Core is consistently top 10 seller.

BRP is one of the oldest engines... and the Mongoose RuneQuest version is already open ;licensed. So this is purely a brand image move. the "OGL 00" mark is quite present in the marketplace, and has been for well over a decade (GORE was, IIRC 2006), but few actually adopted it.

But it's not been top 5 in a long time. Even in terms of open license SRDs, the Mongoose RQ SRD didn't get much adoption. Nor did the earlier GORE SRD.

The BRP engine has been driven by three major game lines: RQ, CoC, and Stormbringer/Hawkmoon/Elric!... With Pendragon passing through several hands...

The only real reasons to use this license that I can see are:

• you hope to convert CoC or BRP Generic players
• you want to support Chaosium's overall market share by letting Chaosium claim your sales numbers as part of their engine's total.

It doesn't allow materials for use with their existing games.
It specifically excludes the best mechanics, which can already be wedged into the MRQ SRD under the Wizards OGL 1.0a, at least if you live in the US (because choice of law then doesn't apply, and Chaosium being US - the mechanics are not protectable in the US, unlike France and Germany.)

Pretty good summation, although Modiphius’ Star Trek isn’t Top 5. In recent times, Shadowrun, Alien, Vampire: The Masquerade and Legends of the 5 Rings have been making out the top 5 retail games. I think it mainly has to do with distribution channels. My understanding is that Call of Cthulhu is by far the best selling Chaosium game, and their biggest market, apparently is in Japan. Neither BRP or Legend (which is mostly dormant) really has any impact on the top sales, although games like RuneQuest and Pendragon are considered historically significant, landmark roleplaying games and so there will always be some sort of market for them. Moreover, you don’t need to have a Top 5 game in order for a RPG to be worthwhile and profitable. A game can still be a ‘hit’ within its own market and fanbase, without challenging the sales of D&D.

Where Traveller fits in to all of this is not well understood, because data is not publicly available. Classic Traveller, back in the 1970s and 1980s sold hundreds of thousands of units and was a major hit. I think they lost their mass market share when West End Games released the D6 Star Wars game in 1987 and became a bit less fashionable as a style of sci-fi when Cyberpunk and Shadowrun were also released in the late 80s. They still maintained a long time loyalty from fans through T4/T5/T20, GURPS and Classic Traveller reprints before reaching an agreement in the late 2000s to publish with Mongoose under licence. Mongoose had about 10 years of this licence with MGT1, which was pretty much OGL and had a number of third party publishers. They renegotiated a license for MGT2, released a few years ago, which had a more restrictive licence in terms of IP ownership, so some 3rd party companies decided to go it alone with the Cepheus engine, which is a MGT1 clone and is about 95% compatible with the current edition of Mongoose Traveller.

I think the difference between the BRP license suggested here and the MGT1/MGT2 and Legend licences pertaining to third parties, is that Mongoose doesn’t really seem to care. I think Marc Miller cares about the Traveller IP and probably sought to tighten the licence arrangements for MGT2. Chaosium do seem to care enough about BRP that it seems important that they stick a flag into the sand about what third parties can publish or not. Personally, I just don’t see the point of the BRP licence though - it’s not really ‘open’ and third parties already make their own games regardless now.

 

[aramis erak]

It predates Hasbro’s ownership of WotC.

And the ownership at pre-HasBro WotC had some of their worst fears vindicated when Monte Cook did Arcana Unearthed.... an ex-employee creating a close variant with a significant visibility due to his time at WotC. And HasBro's notoriously "sue everyone and settle for 'shut it down or pay through the nose'" policies prior... it is quite apparent that their own lawyers said, "Not worth our time thanks to the small share and the open license…"

And then a second time, with Pathfinder...

Chaosium isn't the only major company to have severe doubts about the OGL...
SJG has, at times, expressed doubts, but eventually used it for the Munchkin RPG.
ADB went and separately negotiated with WotC for their d20 and d20M licenses... which cost them lawyer time to wind up using the OGL anyway.

 

[aramis erak]

Not really, no. Cepheus has had some support certainly, but really the sales are essentially PDF driven and account for a fraction of the sales that Traveller makes overall.

The 2nd edition of Mongoose Traveller seems to be more focussed on concentrating on its own core setting than the 1st edition was, which has seen an increase in product for that setting. While I was not in any way privy to contractual decisions made by either party, the outcome seems to suggest that the new license prioritized protecting and supporting Marc Miller’s IP more than giving opportunities to 3rd party publishers.

One of the tasks Marc asked some inner circle folk was to watch the playtest for "this contradicts the OTU" elements in the MGT 2E playtest. About 1 page worth of stuff got sent to Marc by myself and my co-admin of COTI, Cryton, and after us being told by Matthew that he wasn't going to change back to the canon formulae; he did change back, apparently after a call from Marc. Robject, as well, was watching, and Don was more directly involved.

My slightly more inside view is that the OTU focus change has less to do with Marc and a lot more to do with the low adoption of the TAS license (which is modeled after the DM's Guild license). The best known Traveller 3PP's took their settings to CE because they were unwilling to give up their ownership.

Further, Marc has said that CE is Traveller enough to be supported on the official Traveller boards; I suggested, and got an explicit yes, for COTI to support CE. CE is mechanically closer to CT than is MGT 1 or MGT 2. The "OTU-ness" of MGT is unchanged - 3I trade dress material is setting canon; non-dressed has no canon OTU impacts, and rules in either have no canonicity outside the mongoose edition.

I don't know if Marc has marked CE as part of the Traveller rules-system on DTRPG.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Basically another good post, although Cepheus doesn’t seem to be any closer to Classic Traveller than Mongoose’s Traveller System Reference Document was. It’s a clone of the Mongoose Traveller 1e rules, which were, in turn based on the Classic Traveller rules (but still distinct). Mongoose Traveller 2e has some new ideas, like the Prisoner career and boon/bane dice, but really the whole lot is more or less compatible with each other and distinctions are so slight most people would hardly notice or care.

Personally, I just don’t see enough 3PP stuff for Cepheus that does enough to win me over, I have to say though. This is unlike the BRP spinoffs like Delta Green, Mythras or M-Space (which is like a BRP version of Traveller) which I find quite interesting.

 

[aramis erak]

... although Cepheus doesn’t seem to be any closer to Classic Traveller than Mongoose’s Traveller System Reference Document was.

That tells me that either you really don't know CT all that well, or don't have an eye for detail. The changes to character gen are quite substantial...
CT: 4 tables per career, no subcareers, no enlisted ranks, separate commission and promotion standards, separate reenlistment, no special duty/event rolls, aging effect rolled separately for each attribute.
MGT: 6 tables per career, 3 subcareers per career, commission and promotion use same chances, reenlistment handled by the advancement roll, special event roll. Aging rolled for by the term with 1 roll saying how many points are lost from choice of attributes.
CE: 4 tables per career, no subcareers, no enlisted ranks, separate commission and promotion rolls, separate reenlistment roll, no special duty/event rolls rolls, one roll per term aging...

The changes to the rules of play? still MGT1 for the most part, but a few changes back towards CT.

Character generation is a huge part of the game, tho', and the fact that it's mechanically much more aligned to CT CGen than to MGT CGen, and push the rest a good bit, too.
If I ever decide to commercialize my Ellestrial Concordat setting, it'll move to CE, and a different (more MegaT-like) damage system.

 

[TrippyHippy]

That tells me that either you really don't know CT all that well, or don't have an eye for detail. The changes to character gen are quite substantial...
CT: 4 tables per career, no subcareers, no enlisted ranks, separate commission and promotion standards, separate reenlistment, no special duty/event rolls, aging effect rolled separately for each attribute.
MGT: 6 tables per career, 3 subcareers per career, commission and promotion use same chances, reenlistment handled by the advancement roll, special event roll. Aging rolled for by the term with 1 roll saying how many points are lost from choice of attributes.
CE: 4 tables per career, no subcareers, no enlisted ranks, separate commission and promotion rolls, separate reenlistment roll, no special duty/event rolls rolls, one roll per term aging...

The changes to the rules of play? still MGT1 for the most part, but a few changes back towards CT.

Character generation is a huge part of the game, tho', and the fact that it's mechanically much more aligned to CT CGen than to MGT CGen, and push the rest a good bit, too.
If I ever decide to commercialize my Ellestrial Concordat setting, it'll move to CE, and a different (more MegaT-like) damage system.

All that tells me that you have an axe to grind....

Cepheus Engine is based on the Mongoose Traveller 1e document as a point of fact. That they have chosen to adjust the character generation, so that they have about 24 different careers rather than about 36 or so sub careers, is fine. To me, this is just a difference of organisation rather than anything romantic about being more ‘classic’. Characters still have background and zero level skills like in MGT, not Classic, and the way skills and all the other various other systems and subsystems work are like in MGT.

If I wanted to play Classic Traveller, I’d play Classic Traveller, not Cepheus.

 

[dragoner]

Why such shrill attacks on Marc W Miller and Cepheus Engine? He is right, you don't know classic very well. Without classic and Marc Miller's IP, nu-mong would just be another mediocre space fantasy rules set, with long drawn out whiffy combats, and bean-counterish spreadsheet subsystems that front load a lot of heavy heavy crunch on the GM.

Going back to d100 games stuff, I heard Chris Spivey has been working on a sci-fi rules set for chaosium, that I am interested in, though personally I am fine with M-Space, and that isn't just because Clarence Redd is great person, I have helped with proof-reading and such; the books are nice:

I ran a game for years, using various stuff, from the Design Mechanism, including Mythic Constantinople and Monster Island. So it's a great Space Opera rules set, with a lot of adventures, well written (A Gift From Shamash by TDM should be owned by any sci-fi GM) with a huge amount of crossover potential. Which if someone wants to use this OGL from chaosium, that is great, except it isn't hugely necessary.

 

[middenface]

I don't know if Marc has marked CE as part of the Traveller rules-system on DTRPG.

That was done at the request of one (or more) publishers to DTRPG.