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

 

[eyeheartawk]

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.

There's a ton of just outright copy and pasting in D&D from other sources, notably Vance, with the spell system, spell names and tons of other examples.

It seems there is a trend where big corps get so protective of their IP they forgot they stole most of it to begin with. Games Workshop is famous for this too.

You can't use the term space marine, that's ours!

Didn't you just copy and paste Dune, the Warlock comic book and Judge Dredd in different quantities to make your setting in the first place?

...Shut up!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Kobold Press already have a full line of monster books. If they end up bringing out an approximately 5e-like ruleset, they probably don't even need to write another one.

And a lot of it is built on Gygaxisms. At this point, they have 40,000 ghoul variants -- I own Empire of the Ghouls, where they're all reprinted -- each of them based on Gygax's paralyzing ghouls.

If they started from first principles -- "what is a ghoul, what is a goblin, what is a kobold" -- they'd likely come up with different answers than EGG did.

 

[Reynard]

If they started from first principles -- "what is a ghoul, what is a goblin, what is a kobold" -- they'd likely come up with different answers than EGG did.

Which is really what we should all hope for. It's what Gygax and Co did. It's almost always better when we start not with the MM, but with Bullfinch's Mythology.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If they started from first principles -- "what is a ghoul, what is a goblin, what is a kobold" -- they'd likely come up with different answers than EGG did.

You might get to the same place with goblin, but ghoul and kobold would be so far from the D&D version that the light from them would take 10,000 years to arrive.

 

[Zaukrie]

I'd be 100% cool with these companies coming up with completely new ideas for monsters......I really don't care about the lore of monsters. What I want is a good game system that can be simple, or complex.

 

[Incenjucar]

Which is really what we should all hope for. It's what Gygax and Co did. It's almost always better when we start not with the MM, but with Bullfinch's Mythology.

Or better, history and archaeology of a more academic quality to really bring the spice of the old tales before transforming them into something game-friendly.

 

[overgeeked]

Which is really what we should all hope for. It's what Gygax and Co did. It's almost always better when we start not with the MM, but with Bullfinch's Mythology.

Yes, and...

The Golden Bough. Grimm's Fairy Tales. The 1001 Nights. The Prose and Poetic Eddas. The Epic of Gilgamesh. The Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid. Mythology, folklore, fairy tales, etc.

 

[Reynard]

The Golden Bough. Grimm's Fairy Tales. The 1001 Nights. The Prose and Poetic Eddas. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Mythology, folklore, fairy tales, etc.

I was making a point, not an exhaustive list...

 

[Yora]

And a lot of it is built on Gygaxisms. At this point, they have 40,000 ghoul variants -- I own Empire of the Ghouls, where they're all reprinted -- each of them based on Gygax's paralyzing ghouls.

If they started from first principles -- "what is a ghoul, what is a goblin, what is a kobold" -- they'd likely come up with different answers than EGG did.

Years back I wrote a number articles combing all kinds of RPG monster books for interesting critters. I also quickly started a counter for super generic and repetitive critters.
From what I remember "variant ghoul" got the highest count, followed by "skeleton in a robe", "demon dog", and "evil gorilla".

For the record, I think D&D style games having monsters that don't just read like someone rewrote the 1E Monster Manual and Fiend Folio is a good thing.

There's barely been any new monsters in D&D that have appeared in more places than a one time monster manual entry since AD&D: New “canonized” D&D monsters from the last two decades – Spriggan's Den

 

[overgeeked]

I was making a point, not an exhaustive list...

I agree with your point. I'm mentioning additional sources to use.