Games - Open gaming

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	Games - Open gaming

Open gaming is the movement within the role-playing game (RPG) industry that is somewhat analogous to the open source software movement. "Open gaming" can also be used to refer to a type of game event, typically at game conventions, where players are free to join at any time. This article deals with "open gaming" in the former sense.

What is "open gaming"?

"Open gaming" refers to the practice of publishing content (rules, sourcebooks, etc.) under a "copyleft", open content, or free content license which grants permission to modify, copy, and redistribute some or all of the content, such as the publication of works derived or modified from the System Reference Document under the Open Gaming License.

A number of role-playing game publishers have joined the open gaming movement, largely as a result of the release of the System Reference Document under the Open Gaming License by Wizards of the Coast. Open gaming has also been popular among noncommercial role-playing game and supplement authors. Several licenses have been used to facilitate open gaming. Despite this, the concept has yet to make a significant impact on games outside of pen-and-paper RPGs, and most commercial RPG publishers continue to use proprietary game systems.

History of open gaming

For many, the history of open gaming begins with the publication of the System Reference Document and the simultaneous release of the Open Gaming License. However, role-playing games had been licensed under open and free content licenses before this.

The Fudge Legal Notice

The Fudge role-playing game system was created in 1992 by Steffan O'Sullivan with extensive help from the rec.games.design community. One of the keys to the success of Fudge is that the author released it under the FUDGE Legal Notice, a license that made it essentially "open" for non-commercial use. The FUDGE Legal Notice is exceptional in that it is one of the few open gaming licenses which predates the publication of the System Reference Document under the Open Gaming License. However, like most open gaming licenses, the FUDGE Legal Notice (more commonly known as simply "the Fudge license") was never intended to cover any work other than its eponymous role-playing game. The FUDGE Legal Notice permitted the creation of derivative works for personal use and for publication in periodicals. Derivative works which were to be distributed for a fee required written permission from Fudge's author, Steffan O'Sullivan. The details of the Fudge Legal Notice were modified and expanded from time to time as O'Sullivan updated his work, but the essential elements of the license remained unchanged ( ).

In March 2004, Grey Ghost Games acquired the copyright of Fudge, and in April 6, 2005, they released a version of Fudge under the Open Gaming License.

Dominion Rules and Circe

Other "open" game systems published prior to the System Reference Document were the Dominion Rules fantasy role-playing system, the license of which permitted supplementary material to be written for its rules, and the Circe role-playing system, which was published by the WorldForge project under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Open Gaming License

Despite Fudge and other games, the open gaming movement didn't gain widespread notoriety within the role-playing game industry until 2000, when Wizards of the Coast (WotC) re-published the 3rd Edition of their popular Dungeons & Dragons
role-playing system as the System Reference Document under the Open Gaming License. This move was driven by Ryan Dancey, then Brand Manager for WotC, who drafted the Open Gaming License and first coined the term "open gaming" with respect to role-playing games.

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