Open Gameplaying Licence 2.0
Game: Open Gameplaying Licence 2.0 GM: Andrew Players: 2 to 6, could stretch to 8 Characters provided? Yes or bring your own (must be Magi).
Suitable for all, from beginners to seasoned pros, but will need at least one seasoned pro in the troupe.
August 2023. Gaming mega-corporation Witches By The Seaside recently unveiled the 5th edition of their classic Caverns & Griffins roleplaying game, together with a revision of their Open Gamplaying Licence. Unfortunately C&G 5th Edition seems to incorporate real Hermetic spells, and mundane players are somehow able to actually cast them. Magi are asked to assist Interpol in investigating and solving this problem.
PLAYERS
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Note: If you wish to bring your own character, assume some stupendous wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey longevity ritual hand-waving, to work around any issues with the present-day setting. Don't worry about it.
Caverns & Griffins (C&G) is a long-established pen & paper fantasy roleplaying game, which evolved from toy soldier tabletop wargaming in the 1970s. A couple of decades ago, C&G was purchased by mega-corporation Witches by the Seaside (WbtS), previously known as the publisher of hugely successful sticker albums that accompanied the Benjamin Sniddlegrass movie franchise.
WbtS released a third edition of the game which was immensely popular, including the Open Gameplaying Licence (OGL) version 1 which allowed fans to create and publish works based on C&G without paying royalties.
The fourth edition of C&G was not popular and not profitable. Gamers continued playing 3rd edition, notably the independent spin-off Roadseeker, for which WbtS earned no money.
WbtS have revised OGL to v2.0 at the same time as publishing C&G 5th Edition.
OGL2 is controversial. Gamers appreciated the wider permissions to republish more of the core game, but detested new restrictions on royalties and freedom of speech.
Wider permissions:
• Republish character classes
• Republish skills
• Republish spells
• Republish weapons and equipment details
New restrictions:
• 25% royalties on any spin-off that earns more than US$75,000 per year
• WbtS own joint copyright of all spin-off content that earns more than US$75,000 per year
• A ban on C&G-themed blockchain activity such as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)
• A ban on any C&G-themed spin-offs that WbtS consider hate speech, with no appeal
The gaming community have been raging online against the new restrictions. You may even have caught this in the news. The real problem, though, is the new permissions - and the lack of restrictions to control them.
You see, it seems that someone at Witches by the Seaside ran out of ideas for new spells for 5th Edition, and somehow copied genuine Hermetic spells into the Player's Handbook.
Worse, it seems that mundane players are actually able to cast the spells.
The good news is, we had the first imprint of Fifth Edition pulped.
The bad news is, not before the gaming community had taken advantage of the new permissions to republish those spells. And there are still a few copies of the first imprint doing the rounds.
Interpol have asked magi to investigate and solve this problem.
