Over the last 8 weeks there have been a lot of announcements across the RPG world about new games, revised games, new licenses, etc, triggered by Wizards of the Coast's short-lived plot to revoke the Open Game License. This situation affected many publishers' plans, and understandably fans of Old-School Essentials were eager for news on how the situation affected OSE. While we've tried to satisfy people's need for news and updates, things have developed so rapidly that some previous announcements are now no longer relevant.
As things seem to be settling down now, it feels like a good moment to clarify our current position:
- We will continue publishing and reprinting Old-School Essentials in its current form.
- We will continue publishing new adventures and supplements for Old-School Essentials in its current form.
- We no longer feel it will be necessary to make a revised version of Old-School Essentials.
- Dolmenwood will be published as a standalone game, with a slightly tweaked OSE ruleset, customised and expanded to enhance the flavour of the setting and streamlined to be an easy-to-learn introduction to old-school play.
- None of the tweaks, streamlining, or extras in Dolmenwood will affect Old-School Essentials.
It is of course impossible to say what might happen over the next few months, the next year, or the next decade, and whether we might once again be put in a situation of legal uncertainty. We'll assess any future events as and when they arise, but until then we will continue as described above.
10 comments
>I have been a fan of the B/X based RPG way before OSE was even an idea and now OSE has taken things way beyond anything I imagined. One question though…. Does 3rd party OSE support releases still need to carry the OGL v1.0a?
The OSE third-party license doesn’t require use of the OGL. However, if you want to copy / adapt OSE text declared as Open Game Content into your own product, then using the OGL is the simplest way.
We added a clarifying note on this in the latest version of the license (v1.7): “The Old-School Essentials third-party license does not require you to use the OGL. You are free to publish original Old-School Essentials content of your own creation under any license you wish (or no license at all). If you wish to copy or adapt Open Game Content text from official Old-School Essentials books then you may either use the OGL or ask our permission to copy text outside of the stipulations of the OGL.”
I have been a fan of the B/X based RPG way before OSE was even an idea and now OSE has taken things way beyond anything I imagined. One question though…. Does 3rd party OSE support releases still need to carry the OGL v1.0a?
You’re producing beautiful, moody, fascinating material. Wormskin grabbed me from the first and I’ve been keeping an eye ever since. I’ll be joining the Kickstarter for sure. And, for me, a OSR system that flexes to accommodate the shape and colour of the setting is very appealing and more attractive.
Excellent news about Old School Essentials – recently bought into the system in a big way and really loving it – this news has firmly kept me as a customer and I’m looking forward to all your future adventures and supplements.
This all looks good to me, particularly now that you’re making it a stand alone game. I’ve long been a fan of making the rules fit the setting, rather than settings constrained to fit a generic rules set—this way, you can make Dolmanwood the best game it can be. I shall look forward to backing it the moment it appears on Kickstarter.