OGL: Kobold Press 'Raising Our Flag' For New Open RPG

Kobold Press has announced its plans regarding the upcoming new OGL v1.1, which involves a new, open game codenamed Project Black Flag.

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Kobold Press has been and always will be committed to open gaming and the tabletop community. Our goal is to continue creating the best materials for players and game masters alike.

This means Kobold Press will release its current Kickstarter projects as planned, including Campaign Builder: Cities & Towns (already printed and on its way to backers this winter).

In particular, Deep Magic Volume 2 will remain fully compatible with the 5E rules. We are working with our VTT partners to maintain support for digital platforms.

As we look ahead, it becomes even more important for our actions to represent our values. While we wait to see what the future holds, we are moving forward with clear-eyed work on a new Core Fantasy tabletop ruleset: available, open, and subscription-free for those who love it—Code Name: Project Black Flag.

All Kobolds look forward to the continued evolution of tabletop gaming. We aim to play our part in making the game better for everyone. Rest assured, Kobold Press intends to maintain a strong presence in the tabletop RPG community. We are not going anywhere.

Raising Our Flag - Kobold Press

Kobold Press is committed to open gaming. We are moving forward with clear-eyed work on a new Core Fantasy tabletop ruleset: available, open, and subscription-free for those who love it—Code Name: Project Black Flag.

koboldpress.com

 

[Nebulous]

I have been running Tales from the Old Margreve for 3 years now, with healthy doses of other KP products and my own ideas, so the original module has been bastardized into something unrecognizable, but it is still mostly Kobold ideas and themes. I think their material is even better than WotC, and if they're developing their own fantasy system, that is the one I would roll with over 6e. My concern is that in the next two years there's going to an avalanche of independent systems, way, WAY too many for consumers to try out, so only a small handful will rise to the top.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Depending on the system they go with, I think KP could be the next WotC's D&D, if they play their cards right.

I just wish they'd steal the art director of Free League, because I've a personal distaste for the art of Brian Syme. The the writing of KP is top-notch and generally more creative and innovative than WotC.

Paizo would be probably in the best position to take over as leader, but their systems tend to be too heavy for casual use.

 

[Marc Radle]

I know they can create new PC races/lineages/species, but I feel curiosity about if they are going to create new classes, and someone with some special game mechanic.

Deep Magic 2: Spellcaster's Emporium for 5th Edition Games​

Heed power's call! New spells and new styles of magic, plus entirely new classes, downtime activities, familiars, and much more for 5E!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/deepmagic/deep-magic-2-spellcasters-emporium-for-5th-edition-games

 

[Garmel]

Interestingly, BlackFlagRPG was launched in December 2021. Maybe this is a repurposed older account?

Or maybe this Kobold RPG has been started and worked on for over a year?

 

[Zehnseiter]

Teorically WotC should enjoy the adventage of the no-English-speaker market because they have their own translator team, and they shouldn't need partnerships with other companies.

Theoretically is the word here given how WotC bungled for example German translations for several D&D editions. 3E lol bad. 4 lol bad. 5E ? They needed Gale Force 9 and Ulisses Spiele to finally have actually a line of German language books and not just maybe the Core Books.

And now that WotC yanked that away from GF9/US and translates themselves guess what 5E stuff gets translated into German by Ulisses instead:

https://www.f-shop.de/5e/mythgart/

But honestly those third party 5E translations are a drop in the bucket compared the the staggering amount of Pathfinder I + II translation Ulisses did and continues to do

 

[Doctor Futurity]

The drow read suspiciously like the Black Martians, from Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Barsoom" stories. They appear in The Gods of Mars, published in 1913, and now in the public domain.

This emphasizes a key issue with D&D....the majority of its content is actually derivative. Trolls in D&D are from Poul Anderson's novels. Drow may be an amalgamation of Black Martians and Norse dark elves, and clearly are related to other IPs that stand uncontested like Warhammer. Displacer beasts are renamed versions of a monster from a John Campbell scifi story. I think the number of unique creations in D&D are fewer than the derivatives.

My favorite example here is the Balor, because in 0E D&D the balor was unabashedly the balrog, and they got in trouble for it. The name balor was chosen to fix the issue by AD&D, a good choice, but its also a reference to a fomorian from celtic myth. A contemporary version of the balor through the OGL 1.0a is effectively a bastardization of a celtic monster mashed in the skin of a renamed Tolkien property, now sitting in D&D.

 

[overgeeked]

This emphasizes a key issue with D&D....the majority of its content is actually derivative. Trolls in D&D are from Poul Anderson's novels. Drow may be an amalgamation of Black Martians and Norse dark elves, and clearly are related to other IPs that stand uncontested like Warhammer. Displacer beasts are renamed versions of a monster from a John Campbell scifi story. I think the number of unique creations in D&D are fewer than the derivatives.

My favorite example here is the Balor, because in 0E D&D the balor was unabashedly the balrog, and they got in trouble for it. The name balor was chosen to fix the issue by AD&D, a good choice, but its also a reference to a fomorian from celtic myth. A contemporary version of the balor through the OGL 1.0a is effectively a bastardization of a celtic monster mashed in the skin of a renamed Tolkien property, now sitting in D&D.

It's always weird when companies that blatantly rip off others' IP get all fussy about protecting "their" IP. GW I'm looking at you, too.

 

[Vaalingrade]

People often ask me how, as an IP holder, how I can be so hard in favor of reforming IP law.

It's this. This right here. I know how coming up with ideas works. I who have been feeding on X-men, Runaways and Legend of Nightfall shouldn't be keeping the people inspired by my stuff from eating.

 

[Reynard]

People often ask me how, as an IP holder, how I can be so hard in favor of reforming IP law.

It's this. This right here. I know how coming up with ideas works. I who have been feeding on X-men, Runaways and Legend of Nightfall shouldn't be keeping the people inspired by my stuff from eating.

As a writer, both freelance and indie, I am all for copyright being life of the author or 30 years (for corporate created stuff). Almost all of the cultural material we love today is built on the past and on things that are in the public domain. Comic books and fantasy are just 2 prominent examples, but even all the romcoms and dramas and detective stories are built on a mountain of previously created material going back literal centuries.

 

[overgeeked]

As a writer, both freelance and indie, I am all for copyright being life of the author or 30 years (for corporate created stuff). Almost all of the cultural material we love today is built on the past and on things that are in the public domain. Comic books and fantasy are just 2 prominent examples, but even all the romcoms and dramas and detective stories are built on a mountain of previously created material going back literal centuries.

If that. Life of the author or 50 years, whichever is longer. The person who creates the thing should be able to reap the benefits of the creation (since that's the crapsack world we live in). There's no reason people later on (who had nothing to do with the creation) should exclusively benefit from the creation. But people create things when they're older and/or die young, so there should be a period the creation is protected, but it certainly shouldn't be the current madness. Everything's derivative. Even the "original" ideas are just remixes in disguise.