Open Gameplaying Licence 2.0 - Revision history

Andrew Oakley at 13:24, 7 August 2023

2023-08-07T13:24:23Z

Andrew Oakley at 13:09, 7 August 2023

2023-08-07T13:09:14Z

Andrew Oakley: edit summary

2023-08-07T13:05:19Z

edit summary

Andrew Oakley: update plot

2023-08-07T13:04:20Z

update plot

Andrew Oakley: plot

2023-08-07T12:59:15Z

plot

Andrew Oakley: BYO characters must be Magi

2023-08-07T12:56:49Z

BYO characters must be Magi

Andrew Oakley: Created page with "'''Game:''' Open Gameplaying Licence 2.0 '''GM:''' Andrew '''Players:''' 2 to 6, could stretch to 8 '''Characters provided?''' Yes or bring your own! August..."

2023-08-07T12:53:05Z

Created page with "'''Game:''' Open Gameplaying Licence 2.0 '''GM:''' Andrew '''Players:''' 2 to 6, could stretch to 8 '''Characters provided?''' Yes or bring your own! August..."

New page

'''Game:''' Open Gameplaying Licence 2.0
'''GM:''' [[Andrew Oakley|Andrew]]
'''Players:''' 2 to 6, could stretch to 8
'''Characters provided?''' Yes or bring your own!

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 the OGL seems to grant mundane players the ability to actually cast them. Magi are asked to assist Interpol in investigating and solving this problem.

PLAYERS

1.
 2.
 3.
 4.
 5.
 6.
 7.
 8.

<hr/>

Note: If you with 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.

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.

Worse, it seems that someone added an '''extra invisible paragraph to the OGL version 2, which seems to grant mundane readers the ability to actually cast the spells.''' Reproducing the OGL legal text somehow also seems to reproduce the invisible paragraph.

'''Interpol have asked magi to investigate and solve this problem.'''

@@ Line 2: / Line 2: @@
 '''GM:''' [[Andrew Oakley|Andrew]]
 '''Players:''' 2 to 6, could stretch to 8
-'''Characters provided?''' Yes or bring your own - must be Magi.
+'''Characters provided?''' Yes or bring your own (must be Magi).
 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.

@@ Line 4: / Line 4: @@
 '''Characters provided?''' Yes or bring your own - must be Magi.
-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 the OGL seems to grant mundane players the ability to actually cast them. Magi are asked to assist Interpol in investigating and solving this problem.
+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

@@ Line 32: / Line 32: @@
 Wider permissions:
-&bull; Republish character classes
+<br/>&bull; Republish character classes
-&bull; Republish skills
+<br/>&bull; Republish skills
-&bull; Republish spells
+<br/>&bull; Republish spells
-&bull; Republish weapons and equipment details
+<br/>&bull; Republish weapons and equipment details
 New restrictions:
-&bull; 25% royalties on any spin-off that earns more than US$75,000 per year
+<br/>&bull; 25% royalties on any spin-off that earns more than US$75,000 per year
-&bull; WbtS own joint copyright of all spin-off content that earns more than US$75,000 per year
+<br/>&bull; WbtS own joint copyright of all spin-off content that earns more than US$75,000 per year
-&bull; A ban on C&G-themed blockchain activity such as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)
+<br/>&bull; A ban on C&G-themed blockchain activity such as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)
-&bull; A ban on any C&G-themed spin-offs that WbtS consider hate speech, with no appeal
+<br/>&bull; 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 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.
-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.
+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'''.
 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.'''

@@ Line 21: / Line 21: @@
 <hr/>
-Note: If you with 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.
+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.

@@ Line 51: / Line 51: @@
 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.
-Worse, it seems that someone added an '''extra invisible paragraph to the OGL version 2, which seems to grant mundane readers the ability to actually cast the spells.''' Reproducing the OGL legal text somehow also seems to reproduce the invisible paragraph.
+Worse, it seems that '''mundane players are actually able to cast those spells.'''
 '''Interpol have asked magi to investigate and solve this problem.'''