Open letter to D20 publishers

[Luke]

Publisher Support
I'm starting to make open content source material downloads available for the RolePlayingmaster software product. These can be seen at the download section at http://www.enworld.org/roleplayingmaster .

I'm very keen to hear from any publishers that are willing to have their content available as RolePlayingMaster downloads. I can be contacted at luke_jones@bigpond.com .
In other words, I'm after your special permission to incorporate closed content in the RPM download suite. This would be similar to permission obtained by PCGen from certain publishers.
Whilst RPM has significant lookup content for core SRD material, I completely understand (and welcome), simply using references to D20 publisher book material (to assist publishers in marketing their products).

There is significant support for comprehensive publisher support in RolePlayingMaster, as follows:
- Publishers can create their own "Source", which can contain their own feats, skills, spells, races, items, etc.
- A source can also contain an encyclopaedia of campaign setting material ( tree-view search and access with hyperlinks, including graphics, rich-text, Word cut and paste).
- A full source module, combining all these facets can easily be exported, and made available for import.
- RolePlayingMaster also supports Adventure Building (complete with maps, locations, descriptions, and prepared encounters), which can also be made available as module imports.

Your material doesn't have to be a free download. As with PDFs, you can create your own modules, and charge for them, if you wish. There is no need to pay any royalty, or anything else, to use RolePlayingmaster in this way.

Benefits to consumers
- The material is much more malleable thatn for example, that which is published in PDF format. DMs can easily adjust encounters, or other material, to suit their campaigns.
- RolePlayingmaster offers very significant software support at the gaming table. Hyperlinks in content detail could result in quicker and easier lookups. Maps can be used directly on-screen, and encounters can be played out with computer assistance (RolePlayingMaster's primary strong point).

Licence Compliance
For the record, over the last year and a half, RolePlayingMaster has only distributed open content material.

Whilst the legalities of the OGL/D20 licenses are seen as being software un-friendly, I have, in fact, recently been through fairly rigorous checking of my software for license compliance by Wizards of the Coast.
To date, I have been able to successfully address all questions, and am not aware of any non-compliance issues (the best that a software developer can hope for on this issue). It would be fair to say the some officials were surprised. Additionally, in conversation with Wizards, it appears that should any anomolies appear, any possible issues should be minor enough to easily correct within the allowed 30 days.

Looking forward to any forward thinking from D20 publishers

Regards,

 

[PosterBoy]

What license?

Luke,

I've been following RPM for while, but I've always been a little unclear at what license you release RPM under.

Can you clear this up for me? I couldn't find the info on your site.

I was under the assumption (and I could be wrong) that you were using power builder (or another borland product). Now that there is a linux versions of many of their tools, any chance you'll do a linux version of RPM?

 

[Luke]

Re: What license?

Luke,

I've been following RPM for while, but I've always been a little unclear at what license you release RPM under.

I was under the assumption (and I could be wrong) that you were using power builder (or another borland product). Now that there is a linux versions of many of their tools, any chance you'll do a linux version of RPM?

The software is OGL (shown on installation, or looking at "Help - About" on the main menu).
Basically under the OGL I can resolve attacks, damage, skill checks etc, but never under D20. I suppose that I could release a version that doesn't do these things under the D20 license, but I've always been more interested in making the "best RPG utility software", than worrying about marketing and branding.
It's possible that people will pass by, not even realizing that they can do D20 stuff with this, so maybe it's time to reconsider.

I do use C++Builder, and I keenly await Kylix on Windows to see if I can do a Windows/Linux version. Been waiting a very long time... There are, however, some serious licensing issues that I'm not sure Kylix can address.
Essentially, to meet licensing requirements, I make very strong use of the JavaScript interpreter available in Internet Explorer ( and in all versions of Windows). Trying to achieve the same thing in a combined Windows/Linux world may be a either too difficult, or too expensive an exercise.

 

[Luke]

Sample Adventure

Well, I had "Wizard's Amulet" all entered and ready to go as a sample downloadable adventure module.

I wasn't careful enough, and though free, it's not freely distributable. Luckily, I spoke to Clark P. and he picked me up on this before I made it available to anyone.

If anyone (especially an owner/publisher) knows of a good free adventure (open game content) that I could turn into a downloadable RPM module, please e-mail me at luke_jones@bigpond.com .
I'm all for credit where credit is due, and can easily include any web page URLs etc, along with the credits

Thanks,

 

[Luke]

Re: Sample Adventure

Thanks for the suggestions received.

I've made available an Ennie adventure winner called "The Burning Sage's Demense". Took about 2 hours to copy-and-paste, and I tidied up my "Adventure Builder" module.

I also received an excellent suggestion about restructuring the main Adventure report, to make it suitable as an HTML file that can be used in PDAs such as a Palm or PocketPC.
The Adventure report is now more compact and supports lots of links for moving to needed parts of the document.

It was such a great idea that I made the adventure available on-line here
You can click on the above link and reduce your browser window to about 3" in width and 4" in height, to get the feel for using it in a PDA. The maps are included (and generally resize nicely in PDA browsers). Try clicking around the location links to see how easily this can become useful.

I'd be interested in any publisher comments on the usefulness of the basic approach. Import modules could always be password-protected, making distribution a bit more commercially friendly.

I'm also investigating an option to produce reports as PDF documents.

Regards,

 

[The Sigil]

Re: Re: Sample Adventure

I've made available an Ennie adventure winner called "The Burning Sage's Demense". Took about 2 hours to copy-and-paste, and I tidied up my "Adventure Builder" module.
here

Wow, great choice for an adventure!

I just stumbled across this thread and was going to offer its use to you anyway.

If you would be so kind as to drop a link in to my website, http://www.cooleys.org/publishing/ (where you can find a slightly-dressed up version of that adventure in PDF format for free), I would appreciate it.

--Spencer "The Sigil" Cooley

 

[Luke]

In the credits area?

If you would be so kind as to drop a link in to my website, http://www.cooleys.org/publishing/ (where you can find a slightly-dressed up version of that adventure in PDF format for free), I would appreciate it.

Great! You want the URL put in the credits area, just above your e-mail address?

Thanks for a great adventure and good luck with the publishing!

Regards,

 

[The Sigil]

Re: In the credits area?

Great! You want the URL put in the credits area, just above your e-mail address?

That would work just fine for me.

Thanks for a great adventure and good luck with the publishing!

Thank you for the wishes of good luck.

Our next release will (hopefully) be sometime in October or November, but I am in the process of buying a home and moving, so that may slip to December.

--The Sigil