Harnworld in Hardback Kickstarter

 

I have been a fan of Harn, both the setting and the Harnmaster rules, for a long time. Ever since I encountered the original Harn setting folio at Games Unlimited in Pittsburgh PA. 

Columbia Games just announced their latest Kickstarter, HarnWorld: Medieval Fantasy RPG Setting Hardback.  This hardback will contain the following Harn articles: Harnworld, the Harndex, Ketheria, Lythia, and Cities and Towns as well as the physical map of Harn and PDFs of the above.

Background

Harn has been continuously published since 1983. Harn is a fantasy medieval setting that located on an island the size of Madagascar. Harn is divided into several distinct realms including one dominated by the elves and another dominated by dwarves. Some realms like Kaldor are feudal realms, some are merchant republics with vague echoes of Rome like the Thardic Republic. There is an "evil" kingdom, Rethem. And there are Vikings in Orbaal. 

I recommend downloading the Harnworld preview from DriveThruRPG. Columbia Games cleverly made a version of their map with an overview of the setting. 

In addition there is my own summary of Harn, All about Harn

Overview

As I mentioned in previous posts, Harn is a premium-priced product line. One thing that warrants its price, is the consistent quality of its releases since 1983. Not only they are of good quality, everything released for Harn remains compatible with the initial release in 1983. There are not many other RPGs settings that make the same claim. 

Another quality of Harn is its ability to be used with other settings especially those made for Dungeons and Dragons. While Harn emphasizes the medieval over fantasy it still originates from the same wellspring of fantasy that Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax drew from for DnD. This makes it very easy to incorporate Harn as part of another setting or more commonly to use parts of Harn in another setting. The individual entries of Harnworld and Harndex articles are useful for fleshing regions of your setting if you don't opt to run Harn itself. 

So what are you getting for your $69.

Harnworld and Harndex

The original version of Harn was a folio containing two staple bound letter sized books; Harnview and Harndex. 

The hardback has newest version of both; Harnworld and the updated Harndex. Harnworld is an overview of the setting and in 58 pages describes it's history, gives an overview of feudal life, cultures, and religions, along with a few useful aides like prices, incomes, and weather generation. Basically everything mention in the summary earlier but fleshed out in more detail.

Harndex is a 152 pages index containing one or paragraph entries on geography, economics, religions, cultures, realms, rulers, and points of interest. 

Here are some examples.

Kethira

Kethira is the name of the planet on which Harn is located. This ten page article give an overview of its geography and other physical details including a star chart of Harn's night sky. And yes those square show the possible regional maps to cover the entire planet. Although only a dozen regions have been fleshed out to date.

Lythia

This 32 page article describes the continent that Harn is part of. Unlike Kethira is also describes the various cultures and religions found on the continent. Half of the article, 16 pages, is similar to the Harndex, an index of geographical and cultural entries describing the continent.

Wrapping it up.

There are only a few RPG that I have consistently used for over forty years and Harn is one of them. Not everybody is a fan of the product line's loose leaf format, and now having the core Harnworld material in a single hardback hopefully makes it more accessible for everyone.

Finally, I can't stress enough how well Harn is written. While the product line (and community) does go down to the Nth level of detail each level is written in a terse format giving just enough at that level of detail. The additional material fleshes out what in the core Harnworld articles but it is not required reading.

An Unexpected Victory, Unconditional Surrender, and Unfinished Business.

I understand everybody is tired of Wizard's drama despite the good news. I appreciate that once again you have taken the time to read my post and hope the following is informative and useful.

Friday afternoon, Wizards of the Coast using DnD Beyond announced this.

The hobby and industry resounding NO! worked! With results far better than expected with the entirety of the 5e 5.1 SRD released under the CC-BY 4.0 license. The link is below.

SRD 5.1-CC

Saying No!

The numbers were pretty clear even for an Internet survey.

• 88% do not want to publish TTRPG content under OGL 1.2.
• 90% would have to change some aspect of their business to accommodate OGL 1.2.
• 89% are dissatisfied with deauthorizing OGL 1.0a.
• 86% are dissatisfied with the draft VTT policy.
• 62% are satisfied with including Systems Reference Document (SRD) content in Creative Commons, and the majority of those who were dissatisfied asked for more SRD content in Creative Commons.

Coupled with the larger media world covering the story, and major investors being critical, the conditions for a victory fell into place last week.

The fact that the tabletop roleplaying industry and hobby spoke with one voice is amazing and we should all be proud of what each of us did to make this happen.

This can't be true, I don't just trust Wizards

The licensing of the 5.1 SRD under CC is done and the license terms of CC-BY 4.0 are irrevocable. So that part we can count as a win. A win that in my opinion counts as unconditional surrender. However, there remains some unfinished business to make sure there is peace and not a ceasefire.

The OGL 1.0a

Wizards have stated they will leave the OGL 1.0a in place.

However, one result of the last few weeks was the microscope that the OGL 1.0a was placed under. To avoid the problem of orphaned works. And to avoid impact on third parties who use the OGL to support other RPGs like Legend, Cepheus and the OSR.  There needs to be an authorized OGL 1.0b released by WoTC.

The two provisions that are needed are

• That Section 4, Grant and Consideration of the OGL incorporates the term irrevocable.
• That Section 1, Definitions, Includes a definition of authorization that states it refers to any license that has been officially released for use by third parties by Wizards. That license can not be deauthorized once released.

With these two provisions, the issue with orphaned works and creators using the OGL for non DnD systems can be mitigated greatly.

The Open RPG Content License (ORC)

The development of the ORC license needs to continue and be supported. The imminent loss of the OGL 1.0a and the ethos it represented made the industry and hobby realize just how important open gaming as a whole is. Not just for the DnD but for all the other creative projects that have been shared under the OGL. If the current plan is followed, then the ORC license itself will be under the control of an independent non-profit creating a level playing field as far as control of the license goes.

From both a business and creative perspective, everybody now realizes that independence from Wizards and the DnD Brand is of vital importance.  DnD as an RPG system will remain first in the hobby's heart . With SRDs licensed under ORC the fate of the DnD system doesn't have to be tied to the fate of the DnD Brand.  With the 5.1 SRD released under CC-BY 4.0. The creation of alternative SRDs has become a lot easier. 

CC versus ORC

But why not just use one of the creative commons licenses, to begin with? Because of licensed content. If you are making an original system or setting, I agree it is a wash whether one uses CC or another license. Might as well go with the one (or none) that reflects your sentiments as to the sharing of your original work.

The point of open content licenses is to provide clarity. Letting people know what you, as the author, are OK with when folks remix your content. With traditionally licensed content, the owner IP decided that their content would only be licensed for a limited time under limited terms. The OGL recognized that by creating a way to clearly remix licensed content with open content. Doing this in a way that preserves the rights and permissions of both.

While Creative Commons has guidance on how to license only part of your work. It doesn't provide clarity and leaves it up to the author to how this is indicated. Something like ORC can help provide clarity by tailoring the spirit of Creative Commons to the conditions of our hobby and industry.

From the Creative FAQ

For online material: Select the license that is appropriate for your material from the CC license chooser and then follow the instructions to include the HTML code. The code will automatically generate a license button and a statement that your material is licensed under a CC license. If you are only licensing part of a work (for example, if you have created a video under a CC license but are using a song under a different license), be sure to clearly mark which parts are under the CC license and which parts are not. The HTML code will also include metadata, which allows the material to be discovered via Creative Commons-enabled search engines.

The D20 SRD and the D20 Modern SRD

In addition to changes to the OGL 1.0a, we need to press WoTC to release the d20 SRD and the d20 Modern SRD under a CC-BY license. These two works are foundational to many projects both DnD related and non DnD related. Plus doing this will disarm Wizard of many more terms (monsters, spells, etc.) to use for IP bullying and lawfare.

DriveThruRPG and the VTTs

There is little dispute that Wizard's DnD branded products, the DM's Guild, and licensed VTT modules, form the bulk of the business that DriveThruRPG and VTTs like Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, and Foundry do. Losing access to their platforms would be catastrophic for many publishers and authors including myself. Collectively they are an Achilles heel of our hobby and industry if Wizards uses its economic power to force unwanted changes for these platforms.

This is not theoretical either. Aside from the restriction of the now defunct VTT policy proposal. DriveThruRPG posted this on their discord server.

Note this sentence

Due to this, your titles will officially not be affected on any sites whether it is DTRPG and sister sites or the Roll20 Marketplace.

So I would like to know what this was in alternative to if Wizards followed through on their initial plans? 

More importantly, this highlights how much of a vulnerable bottleneck these companies and their marketplace are.  There are no easy answers to these questions. But the discussion needs to happen. We need to deal with the fact a single company, WoTC, holds an economic dagger to the hobby's heart. Another issue that walk parallel to the IP issues surrounding the OGL.

Going Forward

I think we are in a midst of an inflection point in the history of the hobby and industry. That the events of the last three weeks will be marked as the beginning of when the hobby and industry charts an independent course from the DnD Brand and the company that owns it. Wizards will still compete but more and more it will be on a level playing field. 

I know you are tired and want to have fun playing the games we love with people we enjoy playing with. While supporting the creators who help us make this happen. But the peace must be secured or it will be just a ceasefire. 

So once again.

Fight On!

DriveThruRPG numbers for 2022

For those who don't know, there is rarely a day that doesn't go by when somebody doesn't download a free copy of Blackmarsh from DriveThruRPG. Over 13,000 since its release in 2011.  Each order is accompanied by an order number.

To date, this has meant I had a Blackmarsh order come in on the January 1st. So starting around 2015, I have been tracking the Order # in a spreadsheet. 

One of my older posts doing this in 2015.

Another from two years ago.

The idea here is that by tracking the January 1st order number we can get a sense of the relative increase (or decrease) in DriveThruRPG sales from year to year. Because we don't know what order numbers are used for internally at DriveThru, we can't use them to determine the absolute number of sales. 

Now for this year's numbers.

As you can see aside from a pandemic-related boost in 2020, the # of orders has seen a slow increase since 2019. In contrast, 2017 to 2019 saw a marked rise in sales, almost doubling.

Finally here is a repeat of the month to month chart showing the effects of the Pandemic on DriveThru numbers.

The new OGL 1.2, What is Victory?

 

I thank you for taking the time to read this post. This hobby is supposed to be a fun pastime even when it is part of one's livelihood. The past two weeks have been anything but fun. So I appreciate the time you spent reading this post amid the many outraged voices making themselves heard.

The OGL 1.2

Today Wizards finally laid some of their cards on the table and offered a proposed OGL 1.2. 

Starting the OGL "Playtest"

As an OSR publisher, several things stand out to me.

DnD and Creative Commons License

The core D&D mechanics, which are located at pages 56-104, 254-260, and 358-359 of this System Reference Document 5.1 (but not the examples used on those pages), are licensed to you under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). This means that Wizards is not placing any limitations at all on how you use that content.

I edited the D&D 5.1 SRD into three sections corresponding to the page numbers above. You can browse through  at this link. 

Proposed Creative Common DnD mechanics

What they didn't release is most of the "lists" that comprise DnD 5e. Only the Equipment List is part of the CC-BY content they plan to release. Classes, Spells, Monsters, and Magic Items are not.

Overall this is a positive step. If nothing else is gained and they follow through on this, then moving away from the OGL becomes that much easier for the OSR. It would make what I need to do with the Majestic Fantasy RPG a lot more straightforward.

Deauthorization

They also planning to add a notice deauthorizing the OGL 1.0a

NOTICE OF DEAUTHORIZATION OF OGL 1.0a. The Open Game License 1.0a is no longer an authorized license. This means that you may not use that version of the OGL, or any prior version, to publish SRD content after (effective date). It does not mean that any content previously published under that version needs to update to this license. Any previously published content remains licensed under whichever version of the OGL was in effect when you published that content.

Note the after (effective date), the intent here is to allow folks to continue selling or offering what has been previously released under the OGL 1.0a. Unfortunately, it cuts us off from building on or continuing the work we have been doing for the past 23 years.

Current authors and publishers can change the license on their original content, but for those who moved on to other pursuits or are no longer with us, this is not an option. Their work will remain unavailable to use until they enter the public domain decades from now. 

I consider this unacceptable. 

The D20 SRD

The D20 SRD is gone as a result of this section.  Wizards wants to change the license for the 5.1 SRD and remove access to the d20 SRD THIS YEAR. This is not a "wait until OneDnD is released" proposal. Although they might build in a grace period. This section is from the actual license.

(a) Content Covered

(i) Our Licensed Content. This license covers any content in the SRD 5.1 (or any subsequent version of the SRD we release under this license) that is not licensed to you under Creative Commons. You may use that content in your own works on the terms of this license.

(ii) Our Unlicensed Content. Only Our Licensed Content is licensed under this license. Any other content we release or have released is not licensed to you under this license.

(iii) Your Content. This is your creative contribution to your works that are not Our Licensed Content or Our Unlicensed Content. This license permits you to combine Your Content with Our Licensed Content and distribute the resulting works as authorized by this license.

Likewise I consider this unacceptable for anything other than future Wizard's content.

Rob's Note: While the OSR relied on a stripped-down version of the D20 SRD, the same "hack" applies to the CC-BY content they plan to release although some spell names and monster names will have to change. 

Other considerations

I did not touch on other areas as they don't impact my work as a OSR publisher.  I do not plan ever to use the OGL 1.2 for my creative works. I recommend looking to others for more details on those clauses. However, one clause needs to be addressed. 

The Morality Clause

The proposed OGL 1.2 license contains the following provision  

 No Hateful Content or Conduct. You will not include content in Your Licensed Works that is harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing, or engage in conduct that is harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing. We have the sole right to decide what conduct or content is hateful, and you covenant that you will not contest any such determination via any suit or other legal action.

This to me is unacceptable. I want to be clear about where I am coming from. A few years back I had to deal with racism, anti-Semitism, and hate speech from an individual I licensed IP from.  I paid the price for my principles as well. Seeing my income from RPG material dropping from hundreds of dollars per month to tens of dollars per month. 

Surrendering freedom, creative or otherwise, to an oligarchy like Wizards of the Coast will not solve the problems of racism and hate. Instead, their bias and their prejudices are substituted for your own moral compass. By agreeing to the OGL 1.2, you surrender your moral authority to them. 

More importantly, you surrender it to their successors. Unknown individuals who may not share your ideals, and your belief in what is right, just, and fair. 

Each of you reading this will have to decide for yourself what is the right course of action. For myself, I will not surrender my right to act in the manner I see fit, in the form I see fit. I have done so in the past, and I will do it again as circumstances dictate. I am not special in this, each of you reading this has the power to do the same.

For more a detailed essay on the problems of morality clauses and conduct codes, I recommend this guest essay by James Raggi on the Tenkar's Tavern blog. Also look up the details on the following: The Hays Code, and the Comic Code Authority. Each was born of a generation's belief in what was right, just, and decent. 

Then ask yourself as James Raggi said, were the marginalized served by these codes? Will the marginalized be served by the code as set forth by Chris Cocks CEO of Hasbro, Cynthia Williams CEO of WoTC, and their successors? Or are you the better judge of these matters? 

What is Victory?

We won a battle but not the war for our creative legacy. In the words of Churchill, 

Now, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

I realize for some of you these are not the words you want to hear. You want the hobby to be fun again. Publishers are grasping for any type of certainty for their livelihood. You want this to end sooner than later. 

So how does this end for me?

• Wizards acknowledge OGL 1.0a as an authorized irrevocable license.
• That all past open content remains open content under the OGL 1.0a and free to be used as they have been for the past 23 years. Works like the D20 3.0 and 3.5 SRD. The 5e 5.1 SRD as well remains under the OGL 1a.
• In turn, I will acknowledge they have the right to license OneDnD any way they like. However, I reserve the right to make critical comments about their creative and legal choices.
• The plan to release various sections under the CC-BY 4.0 license be followed through.
• That Chris Cocks, CEO of Hasbro, and Cynthia William, CEO of Wizards of the Coast, each write and sign individual formal apologies to all the publishers impacted by their overreach and inept handling of the situation such as Paizo, Kobold Press, Troll Lord Games, Green Ronin, Gaming Ballistic, Frog God Games, and many others. 

Fight On!

Robert Conley

Bat in the Attic Games

Random Party Generator Youtube Podcast

 Two posts in one day? Wondering if we are facing an existential crisis or something.

On a more serious note, I will be on Random Party Generator tonight with Erik Tenkar, Tim Shorts of Gothridge Manor, Joe the Lawyer, and rest of the gang. We also have a guest, Douglas Cole of Gaming Ballistic. He has been badly impacted by the situation with Wizards and talking with us about it.

Hope to see everyone there.

My Response to the January 13th 2023 statement by Wizards

 NUTS!

- With all due respect to General Anthony McAuliffe of the 101st Airborne

A link to the Wizard's statement

The relevant section

The next OGL will contain the provisions that allow us to protect and cultivate the inclusive environment we are trying to build and specify that it covers only content for TTRPGs. That means that other expressions, such as educational and charitable campaigns, livestreams, cosplay, VTT-uses, etc., will remain unaffected by any OGL update. Content already released under 1.0a will also remain unaffected. 

Says nothing about being able to continue to use the OGL 1.0a license, Or whether we can make new content using the license. Or what we have to do to get this safe harbor.

Update:

(Removed because it is a distraction from the larger issues at hand)

A Network of One, Three Little Words, and an appreciated Victory.

A lot has been going on 

• Wizards tried to have a live stream and it melted down amid incendiary rage. 
• Apparently the age of ORC has arrived and this time they are the good guys as Pazio, Kobold Press, and others spearhead an effort to create a community owned open license. 
• Somebody may have gotten a peek at Wizards of the Coast's character sheet and it turns out they really turned Chaotic Evil.
• Another person may have gotten a copy of their new spellbook with OGL 2.0 in it (not 1.1 apparently)
• Matt Finch gave a good on-line talk on youtube about the future of Swords and Wizardry. I even got to help solve a minor technical issue with the livestream (half of my day job is technical support).

Next a couple of things from my neck of the wood. 

A Network of One

Over on the Roll for Combat channel they had an excellent interview with Ryan Dancey. I recommend jumping to around the 18:00 minute mark where Ryan says this

one of the things we identified as a problem was that there were all kinds of game systems that were active in the market that weren't very successful and every one of those games was a little bubble a little social network of people that played that game and because they were playing a game that was small and unprofitable and the companies that were supporting those games were not able to make those businesses get bigger the sizes of those bubbles were shrinking and getting smaller and smaller and smaller and because they were not well connected to other bubbles the overall Market as a whole was shrinking and getting smaller and smaller and role-playing games are fair to a very unusual economic phenomenon called in the network externality which means that the value of the thing you sell the product is actually external to the thing that you sell it's in the network of people that use that thing

The value of the OSR is in the fact that the classic editions we focus on are but a hop and a skip from each other. So while ADnD, B/X, ODnD, etc. all had their fans, our "network" was much larger as we can freely share useful material with each other.

And because most of us used the OGL 1.0a those of us who focused on sharing and publishing could build off of each other work. I didn't have to start my own Majestic Fantasy RPG from scratch as Matt Finch graciously shared Swords and Wizardry for all to use under the OGL. Plus Autarch shared a lot of ACKS as open content which helped me with started with the mechanics of worldbuilding my Majestic Fantasy Realms.

The Post OGL World
In the coming days, I think it is important to carefully consider what licenses we adopt for our current and future works. Regardless of the outcome of the situation with Wizards we can never trust their word again. If too many of us pick too many licenses then we lose the advantages of the fact that classic edition clones were all under the same license. Our network will fragment and I fear the OSR  as a whole will shrink, and reduce the number of players of these excellent editions. 

I am a computer programmer and have been involved in software development since the late 80s. I saw the rise of open source and participated in it in a small way. And the open source licensing situation is a sea of compatible and incompatible licenses. Just read the Wikipedia article to see how much of a mess it is. I don't want to see people in the OSR having to use a chart like below just to see if they can build and remix someone's content.

Maybe Paizo's ORC is the answer maybe it isn't. We should think about what we want before we split into an archipelago of hundreds of islands. 

I admit it won't be easy because the vast majority of us, including myself, like to march to the beat of our own drummer.  Many early OSR community efforts collapsed into arguments and factions. But I think it is important that we try to do something together for this particular issue. 

The result doesn't have to be a one size fit all solution. See Creative Common for how a standard system of options can be worked out. Keep in mind that some of us, while small, work with licensed content that will not be opened. OGL with the distinction between product identity and open content was great for that.

Three Little Words

On a different topic, I am pleased to say that a situation regarding the Community Content Programs that OnebookShelf runs on DriveThruRPG appears to have been resolved. I first reported this back in January of 2018. 

To summarize in Section 4 of the license that the OBS boilerplate used stated.

Except for short promotional excerpts used to promote your Work, you may not display, recreate, publish, distribute, or sell your Work (or derivatives thereof) outside of the Program administered on Roll20 websites or through other platforms or channels authorized or offered by the Publisher.

The three bolded words meant if I wrote Tower of the Dark Sage for the Glorantha setting used by Chaosium's Jonstown Compendium, I couldn't turn around and adapt my original IP (characters, maps, room descriptions) and released it under the OGL for Swords and Wizardry. Or for another CCP program like the Savage Worlds Adventurer Guild using Savage Worlds system. This was confirmed by OBS \in this blog post. 

Over the years I kept complaining to OBS and got nowhere. I had better luck with some of the programs themselves. I helped the Genesys community get the clause removed from the Genesys Foundry. But to be clear their community did most of the work.  

I talked to Daniel Fox of Zweihander and the folks at Hero Games about Hall of Champions. While both didn't change their license, they did let the contributors know they were free to adapt their original IP elsewhere. So I count those as partial wins. 

An Appreciated Victory

So two days ago, I heard that Modiphus was starting up their 2d20 Community Content program. As I usually do I contacted Modiphus privately and laid out my argument about getting rid of those three words. With OBS because I got nowhere before, I called them out publicly and politely on their discord server. 

And guess what thanks to the work of Chris Birch on the behalf of Modiphus and Kage on the behalf of OBS, the Modiphus license, and the OBS boilerplate are being changed! And OBS is going to work with other publishers to change their licenses.

This going to be great news for all the CCPs that remove this clause. This means contributors who are fans of multiple systems can adapt their original IP for other CCPs. Thus they benefit from the Network Externalities effect that Ryan Dancey talked about. They cease to be isolated islands doomed to rise and fall on their own.

To be clear the 50% royalties is still in place (30% to OBS and 20% to the publisher), and the work for that specific program still can only be released within that program. Also, Chris wanted everybody to know that Modiphus 20% is going into buying art and assets for all to use in the 2d20 World Builders program.

We still have the bigger problem of the OGL 1.1 and Wizards of the Coast to deal with. But this is a small victory we can enjoy. It is a good example of what can happen when a bunch of folks with good intentions can get together to hash out a solution to a problem.

Fight On!