Shadowrun and Open Source, Open Source a solution for SR? Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Switch to: Outline Switch to: Standard Linear+

[TBRMInsanity]

Open Source comes from the computer world. It is a way of licencing software so that others can come along and change the software to meet their needs. A lot of Open Source software is given away for free but that is not always the case. Some business like Red Hat have become rich using the Open Source business structure. This structure could be applied to other business including publishing companies like Wizkids. What it would mean is the SR community would be given access to the development stage of new products, and they would be able to submit changes to the new product before it is published. These submitters would be 100% volunteer and WizKids would still retain veto rights on how the SR universe would play out. In the end WizKids R&D costs would go down but there would be new product leaks on every product they have. Also people would be free to modify and re-publish any released book, as the material printed would be the legal property of the SR community (ie anyone reading the material).

[odinson]

[TBRMInsanity]

[Wasabi]

Open source: Good for apps, bad for p&p games.

[knasser]

Posting this from my housemate's Linux box using an Open Source browser, I can say that I voted a definite 'No.'

FanPro are doing an excellent job in terms of quality. You can consider their model to be open source if you like as any of us can submit a proposal for material and potentially get published. In Open Source terms, FanPro would then be in the position of maintaining the main tree of the project, ensuring only bug-free additions with functionality that is actually desired are added. And that's a good thing.

Whilst I personally would like to write and potentially sell some adventure modules for the game, which I'm told FanPro aren't interested in doing at the moment, I think the model as it is, is good. The sole problem seems to be allocating resource to producing the product, but that's not a problem with the model itself.

So long as they don't come round and threaten me with lawyers for all the Shadowrun material that I have put on my site (and it would be self-harming to do so), then I'm happy with the current situation.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

There is no real point in asking for 'Open Source', as the rules are already open.

What you mean is a free licence.

[Baphomet69]

While FanPro's release schedule has admittedly been pretty slow thus far, the quality of the product they have released has been fantastic. I whole-heartedly stand behind them (drooling for more...).

I think the best thing we could all do as a community is draw as many more people in to the world of Shadowrun as possible. If we increase FanPro's sales of their current offerings, they'll be able to hire more folks for the editing and such, thus increasing their turn-around time on new releases. At least that's my theory and I'm sticking to it... :D

[lorechaser]

I too am a huge supporter of open source software. And much as I might get cancer for saying it, I think WoTC has the best model of Open Source RPGs, if you want to try that.

But I don't see any reason to apply Open Source to SR. SR is doing fine. It has good support. As Knasser said, anyone can submit for it, and get something contracted.

What would there be to gain? You suggest that Wizkids R&D costs would drop, but that implies that Wizkids would stop producing, and just become a publisher. That's not what I want - if I wanted a group developed game, I have plenty of options. I want a game that is made by people I trust, playtested, kept consistent, and managed.

[Dayhawk]

While open sourcing has created a fast amount of d20 material. I feel that game balance and quality was ruined.

Its very hard to manage adding new material without making the older material obsolite. But when you have everyone trying to make a buck, you get some of the worst rules, balance issues, and material.

But as a company is it is hard to deny that open source has allowed Wizards of the... wait sorry. Hasboro to make a ton of cash.

Personally I don't want to see WK's do the same thing, but if it came to a choice of open source vs shadow run dying out....

[Kagetenshi]

[Ravor]

Well considering that I hate 99.999% of the crap I've seen put out under DnD's OGL, I'm sure that you can guess how I voted... :cyber:

[tisoz]

I did not see Ain't gonna happen with FanPro's fetish for secrecy.

[ShadowDragon]

I'd like to see something along the lines of DnD's SRD. Keep the basics and a limited amount of detail free, but leave some closed so there's a reason to buy the product beyond altruism for the Wizkids.

[ludomastro]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if WK has any intention provide a license (pay or free) to develop other games based on the existing rules. While I agree with Kagetenshi on the issue of game mechanics not being protected by copyright, I don't have the money needed to fight a corporation in court - even one of the, relatively speaking, small size as SK or Fanpro. Any help would be appreciated.

[knasser]

[Catharz Godfoot]

I doubt FanPro is going to prosecute anyone for making free fan material, and you can see every letter of every book they publish. Sometimes fans even have a say in the contents of an official book. That's basically open source already.

But any truely open version of SR should probably be reverse-engineered using a clean slate or other open system (not D&D20!).

[nezumi]

I like how "open source" it is now. We can make our own equipment, feats and adventures and add them, even modifying the entire system (SR3R), but we have no impact on the world that is Shadowrun (well, not without Fan Pro's seal of approval). I would consider that somewhat open source. I do wish Fan Pro made more space on their site for fan initiatives though, since I find oftentimes the things we make here are excellent additions.

[the_dunner]

[Kyoto Kid]

..I followed the majority on this as well. I agree, the few things that FanPro has produced so far are of much better quality both content and from a physical standpoint (and I'm rough on game rule books).

My only disappointment, and yeah it is a fluff one, is with the the artwork in the Core Book. I look at that "other game's" books and see a lot of really terrific art. Much of the art in the SR4 Core rules looks way too rushed and unfinished. Too bad Squinky hadn't established himself earlier, his work in SRM and on his Character Drawings thread is is far superior to a good portion of the art in the Core rules. Meanwhile, the art in Runner Havens and Street Magic is definitely higher quality. Too bad when they did the reprint of the Core Book they didn't revise the interior art. I for one would purchase a new version of the book if it had better art.

Anyway, back to the topic.

When I go to my FLGS I notice tonnes of stuff for D&D & D20 in general. They have even taken to converting several of my other favourite systems over (Cthulu should feast on their mortal souls for that). I also agree, a lot of the stuff outside WoC's primary line is fairly mediocre.

Yes the wait is a bit annoying, but I too know what FanPro is dealing with. I am afraid that with open sourcing we could end up with the "too many cooks in the kitchen" syndrome so to say. Everyone has their own idea of what they want the SR world to be like, Heck I most certainly have my own ideas. However I choose to keep them within the scope of the campaigns I run. I have done things that are no where near 100% true to canon as I am sure just about everyone who has GMed has. Heck I considered incinerating Royal Hill in the TT from space back in '56 and currently (2061) have a decade long conflict underway in the Balkans that could threaten to escalate into a major regional War.

Would these events mess with the established timeline? Most certainly, which is why they would and should never see the light of day in the accepted SR canon. Imagine if the TT government fell 7 years earlier, what kind of repercussions that would have. What if say, the New Soviet became involved in the Balkan situation, what could that mean for the rest of the NEEC?

This is why I like things the way they are, For Joe or Jane GM over there doesn't need to be concerned about what I have done over here, and vice versa. The rules are a framework, the world presented just one possible setting. How many times to I come across threads that talk about setting an SR campaign in other time periods. The last thing I would like to see at my FLGS is Shadowrun: The Roaring 20s or Shadowrun: 1950 when I am still waiting for Arsenal and Augmented to come out.

[Mistwalker]

I too voted no.

I like the quality of the work that has been done so far, and like most, and a bit disappointed with the slippage in the release schedule.

I too believe that Fanpro would hire more staff, produce and release more books if their sales went up.
But, I am not too sure how realistic that is. There is still a need for playtesting, revisions, editing, printing. I am not sure that having 2 or 10 more on staff would change the timeline on those issues. The majority of the writting is done by Freelancers. I don't know if there would be enough other Freelancers available to put out more product, even if there was more editing and coordinating staff on hand.

[knasser]

The one thing that I would like to do would be to write some modules for Shadowrun. I have done one on my site and I'm 2/3rds of the way through a new one (the one from the Carnival thread), but if I could make ones to sell, then I would do substantially larger and more professional pieces. I have thought about doing this with D&D which I could do, but I'm currently most interested in Shadowrun so I haven't.

But I think a central control for the rules and source books is necessary, and aside from the atrocious slowness, FanPro have certainly shown themselves as excellent editors, playtesters and writers.

-K.

[Kagetenshi]

[Ancient History]

Open sourcing Shadowrun would be one step shy of open sourcing GURPS.

[knasser]

[Kagetenshi]

I don't think it's unfair to say that the OP has a certain portion of what he's asking for already. What I do have a problem with is the continued use of the term "Open Source" for it. You're accepting a redefinition of the term for the purposes of this discussion, while I'm declining to accept the same in the belief that doing so may result in continued confusion about what "Open Source" really is.

~J

[deek]

I voted fully open-source. In this case, I think the game mechanics and non-fluff writing can be considered the "source". Not the PDFs. I don't want to see FanPro going to all the work of producing the PDFs just to have them given away...not a good business model.

But, if someone wanted to get their hands on the raw rules, game mechanics, no examples, skills, etc, etc...in like a giant text file...that is what I would suppose the source would be.

And just like any open source project, you still have a project team that is coordinating the changes, managing the project and putting out official releases. And just because the source is open, doesn't mean the PDFs or paper books are free...

I think the spirit of open source would help, as there are undoubtedly other people out there with a passion for SR, as well as the time to really put forth a lot of effort. The only real risk is that someone with the time, effort and money ends up producing a better product than the current company...for FanPro, that is a bad thing, but for the customers (all of us that play), its a good thing. It means better quality (as normally only the best quality end result is going to gain the support of the masses), more content (because you have a larger pool of people that can spend time and effort on the game) and a better release schedule (I think that is true because then the maintainers, aka FanPro, can focus their talents on scheduling, deadlines and quality review/control).

Again, I think that FanPro, or only the like-minded individuals, are going to control the fluff, the plots and storylines overall, but there is obviously a lot more to the game than just that, and that is where I think tapping into the community and really letting other people that have passion and professionalism get involved.

I mean, unless someone comes in with a lot more financial backing, I doubt that the publishing of printed materials are going to be done better, although that is the risk that a company would take...can someone take the core rules and mechanics, improve on it (which in reality, everyone would have access to, including FanPro) but then be able to package and sell it better? That's the risk...but unless someone other than FanPro could do the packaging and delivery better, then there really isn't a downside...at least to the players and GMs, IMO.

[Jrayjoker]

I don't want to see a pile of crap similar to the d20 open source stuff we were subjected to. We don't need an open source guide to SR sexuality...

[deek]

Heh...but no one says you have to buy or grab every supplement that some joker puts out...I mean, take a look at linux...you have thousands of different "projects" that are all based off the same core...but yet you only have a handful that have made it into a good business model...

Now I can go out and download RedHat or Suse or whatever big-time distro for free and install it, but I don't get the nicely-printed manuals, the organized CDs and several other perks that money can buy...

But in the end, the customer is served best, because you have a variety of options and different levels of quality and content that cater to your specific needs and desires. FanPro is safe going open source, unless there is someone (or more) out there that can do their job better...which honestly, is how an open market should work...

You might not "need" an SR sexuality guide, but if someone wants to take the time to create one and distribute it, they can...I'd still think that only the non-fluff of something like that would be under open source rules...that any creative content, examples, etc, would still be owned by the creator...

[knasser]

[deek]

I still think that the one guarantee for open source SR would be more activity as a whole. Not necessarily better quality in each project, but there would be a lot more activity, and I think the overall quality and content levels would be better. Again, you would have the same team members managing the "project" and therefore still picking the stuff they want to add and maintaining the quality levels...you'd just have a lot more people adding creative ideas and helping to filter the content down the line...

It could certainly work and I still stand by that the end user is going to be served best in this type of model.

[Kagetenshi]

[Aristotle]

D&D, while I am quite a fan of the d20 products, is a very different beast (imho) from Shadowrun. I don't think this approach would work at all. I prefer the rules, gadgets, and storyline be kept in house where they can, in theory, be kept balanced.

Now... I would be all for readily available licensing options that would allow established game companies to produce specific product types. (i.e. adventures)

[Adam]

I'd appreciate it if this didn't turn into an "open source" vs. "Open Source" style of debate. I understand that it's a hot-button issue for Open Source supporters, but since there's a whole lot of legal wrangling that would have to go on to get this done anyway, and the actual license is only a small part of that, I think this discussion would be more useful for everyone if it focused on how the process could work, not the nitty-gritty of licenses.

Also, for the sake of guiding the discussion, I think that there is no chance that WizKids would allow a situation where non-approved parties could publish material using the Shadowrun trademarks, except as already outlined by the fan site policy, which prohibits the republishing of copyrighted Shadowrun art and text.

[deek]

[Kagetenshi]

It might be helpful to replace "tautological" with "trivial"—if game mechanics are not protected by copyright, and game mechanics are made public (which they must be, barring something radical like the distribution of a black-box adjudicator with every core rulebook), then the statement that game mechanics can be considered the source results in the conclusion that every published game is open-source, which means that the term doesn't add any meaning and should thus be avoided.

In deference to Adam's request, I'll rest my case on the definition front. I believe that everything that needs to be said on the matter (barring clarification, which granted can be a pretty big need) I've said already, anyway.

~J

[deek]

[Adam]

The actual text of the d20 System was made available under the Open Gaming License, which meant the text itself could be reproduced verbatim, it didn't need to be reworded or have "the serial numbers filed off." Even though game mechanics cannot be protected by copyright, any particular expression of them is.

With regards to d20/OGL, you need to remember that there are two licenses: the d20 License that allows you to use the d20 logo [but you have more restrictions] and the OGL license that is for the text only, but doesn't give you the right to use the d20 System logo.

As always, consult your lawyer. ;-)

[TBRMInsanity]

After reading the posts on this forum and discussing this topic with my friends I came to realize that some OS would be good for SR but not all of it. Tell me what you think of this:

WizKids and Fanpro retain the ability to create rules and rule books, and they create a small board of people that would (for a small fee) give quality products a seal of approval to be used in the SR universe. It would become the ability of any publisher to create mission books, equipment books, and maybe even storyline events (only approved events from Wizkids would be considered official). This sort of action would allow WizKids and FanPro to get back on track with their distribution of SR to the community.

OS has been proven to be a devastating tool in the RPG market (as seen with the OGL). I think that SR needs to follow suit with its own license in order to compete and survive. How many people out there would not buy a product created by a third party, especially if that product was endorsed by WizKids and FanPro?

[Adam]

[Kagetenshi]

[TBRMInsanity]

I think that a fork in the rules would be that great of an idea. The single best thing about the SR rules is its simplicity. D20 rules have needless loopholes that allow munchkin behavior to exist. I would be worried that a fork in the SR rules may lead to this.

[Crakkerjakk]

Dunner, did they open source GURPS? I don't get it... maybe this whole debate is over my head.

[Adam]

GURPS is not Open Source at all. Some third party publishers [that is, not Steve Jackson Games] have been granted a license to publish books using GURPS mechanics and the "Powered by GURPS" logo and trade dress, but this requires an explicit agreement with Steve Jackson Games.

[mfb]

[Kagetenshi]

Yeah, I mean… I'm just not sure how to respond to that. I'm not sure it can be responded to.

~J

[Adam]

I'm assuming that "would" == "wouldn't" ... but either way, I don't think I want to spend time talking about those issues right now. :-)

[Kagetenshi]

Well, no, that part was able to be reconstructed pretty easily—but then there's the issues you mention, but even if you accept that part of the statement there's the question of how it could affect the original product…

Yeah, we'll steer clear.

~J

[TBRMInsanity]

[dog_xinu]

There is a big difference between Closed Source, Open Source and the OGL (Open Gaming License). Closed Source is like Microsoft Excel (or Word), Adobe Photoshop, or Windows O/S. If P&P Gaming (Pen and Paper) were Closed Source, you would be be told my the game if you succeed or fail without knowing how things work (like tests are skill + attribute, target numbers 5/6s).

Open Source give you the ability to use the program how you like to and you can modify to suit your needs/wants. P&P games are this way. The rules are given out, and the GMs, can add/remove/modify the rules for themselves. The owner of the game (like FanPRO in this case), regulates the rules/content. The offical stuff. But you can do whatever you want in your own home. Now you cant sell stuff for it unless you have a license to do so. FanPRO doesnt give those out (as far as I know and I have not asked for one so I dont know for 100%).

Now the OGL. Open Gaming License. This is what WoTC did right and did wrong at the same time. They needed it so D&D3.0 would take off like it did. It game the license rights out so third parties can write material for it. This gave to the D20 BOOM. Right after the BOOM there was a BUST. The quality of the game material for D&D overall went down. WoTC produced good material. Some of the other producers did too. But many made less than good books/material. So as a GM you had to be carefull of what material you would let into your games.

Now I wouldnt mind if FanPRO let others produce material for SR4 but do it in a way that they can control the quality. Maybe modules/missions type books.

just my opinion....
dog

[FrankTrollman]

AD&D was a closed source game. The basic game mechanics were given to the Deungeon Master with the Dungeon Master's Guide and the players were explicitly forbidden from looking at those contents or finding out how things worked. The entire premise proved to be implausible, as hackers time and time again cracked the source code by reading the book - and Gygax's bold attempt at creating a closed source gaming system ended in abject failure.

Since then all major games have been written under the assumption that the players and game masters would both have access to the rules and be capable of understanding them. In a literal sense, basically every game written in the last 20 years has been open source.

-Frank

[odinson]

Shadowrun could do an ogl as dnd. I don't know about how other groups played but when we played dnd we only used wizards products. even then we mainly stuck to the three core books because everything else seemed watered down or of a poorer quality. the only non wizards books that i liked were setting books. that was the best part about the ogl, you could play using the same rules in a different setting. the big problem was the rules.

if shadowrun was to go ogl i don't think you would have many 3rd party products for shadowrun. what i could see happening is the sr rules system being implimented for other games. like how they made a stargate d20 game. sr would have been a far better system to handle stargate than d20. same with many of the other games. Shadowrun could even make it so that books couldn't be published with the SR logo, but have some other marking to make it identifiable as the sr system. Personal if there was a third party cyberbook i wouldn't be using it in my sr games once augmentation had been relased. also, judging from how dnd feats are reprinted, if there was good pieces in other books sr could take the 'ware they like out of 3rd party books and placing it in their shadowrun books. that would keep the quality of sr at it's near perfect standards.

[Kagetenshi]

Frank: ignoring the question of whether or not that makes using the term meaningful, your claim rejects the existence of Paranoia. You're going to have to weaken it to have a hope of it being true.

~J

[tisoz]

There have been third party products in the Shadowrun game history. Ka*ge magazine and Shadowland magazine, The Shadowrun Supplemental as well as adventures, settings and characters scattered through game publications. I have only seen a couple Ka*ges, but have heard the content was not that great. I have all the Shadowland mags and the content is erratic - some seems fine and may have even found its way into a later edition, but much of it is questionable, silly and/or unbalancing. TSS is nice, however even they would rely a bit too much on the contributor where the contributor made an honest mistake (such as a typo, or a math error.) Some of the gaming magazine efforts seemed to feature authors who made their NPC (such as a vampire or werewolf) which didn't really conform to the SR rules. Others exploited kinks in the rules.

All in all, you find about the same quality of material on related websites.

Another third party that has been pretty good is the Missions team. The more of them I go through, the more I have appreciated their quality.

[FrankTrollman]

[knasser]

[KarmaInferno]

I'd point out that there is some debate on whether D&D going open-source was actually helpful or harmful in the long run to the parent publisher.

I imagine, though, for a larger publisher, third party groups producing add-ons to their product might be more harmful than for a smaller publisher. There's a reason Microsoft privately hates open source with a passion.

As for "every game in the past 20 years has been open source", this is incorrect, and stems from an erroneous understanding about what makes something "open source".

Open Source refers to free and open public publishing and distribution of work, not merely private use and modification. You might have been able to house rule and modify and write for your AD&D game in the privacy of your own homes, but you could not, say, have it printed and distributed in game stores or whatever without potentially running afoul of the law and getting your ass sued off.

TSR back in the day used to be absolutely draconian about getting websites with closed D&D content shut down. It's one of the reasons they got the moniker "T$R".

Open Source is any published content that may be modified and publically redistributed by third parties without specific prior approval or review by the license owner. They set up a license that says, "Hey, as long as you follow these guidelines, you can make stuff based on our product for free and without having to contact us first."

I know this because I used to be a campaign coordinator for a WotC-run convention campaign containing large amounts of closed content. When WotC dropped the campaign from their support, we tried to go independent, and as a result got their lawyers breathing down our necks. We ended up having to strip all the closed content from the campaign and go strictly OGL.

Was an eye-opening experience, to be sure.


-karma

[Blade]

EDIT : Oops, didn't see it has been discussed before. Anyway, I'll leave that here for those interested.

Shadowrun is already partly Open Source.
I mean, you can add and edit content of the game and distribute it freely. There's no game mechanism that you can't access, and the only thing that is kept closed (about released products at least) are plots issues.
You can send your modifications or new things to the main development team and they decide if it should be added to the official SR4 line. If you want to differ from the dev team, you can legally decide to create your own line based on the original SR products but modified by you (and other people) as is done with SR3R.
If you have Fanpro's permission you can even sell your own official Shadowrun books (as shown with local sourcebooks or local additions to books).

For me, that's already a lot of Open-sourceness.

The only big thing you can't get is the WIP of the new books. And I'm not sure it goes against Open-Source (I don't think you have to update the source-code after each modification you make).

[KarmaInferno]

Er, no, not unless Wizkids/FanPro (Or whoever they are now, I can't keep track) changed their licensing somehow recently and I didn't notice.

[knasser]

[KarmaInferno]

[Blade]

Actually, according to The FanPro FAQ, this only apply for the logo. For the rest it's still more or less closed.

It's not possible to publish copyrighted material, but nothing prevents you from publishing your houserules which could be considered as derivative work (but doesn't need to publish any copyrighted material).

So you can have a webpage that says "replace the text p 63 with this" but not a webpage that says "replace 'copyrighted text' p63 with this". (Well, actually you might get away with that if the quoted part is short enough, but that's the general idea).

But I don't see much point in allowing players to publish copyrighted material and modified copyrighted material when modifications can be made without including copyrighted material.

[KarmaInferno]

[knasser]

[Adam]

[Kagetenshi]

I'm still not a lawyer, but that's correct to my knowledge. IIRC having demonstrably not either filed suit or issued a license for known transgressions can reduce your chance of getting punitive damages, or reduce the quantity of those punitive damages awarded if they are, but in situations not involving trademarks it does not render your copyright unenforceable or void.

~J

[KarmaInferno]

You are probably right. My intent of defining "Open Source" and why "virtually all RPGs in the past 20 years" are not, in fact, Open Source still stands, however.


-karma

[Xenith]

Thing is, d20 works well with its version of open source because it is generic enough to easy adapt to any setting... if you can stand its crunchiness.

Shadowrun is specific to its setting and makes no compromise about how its rules fit its setting. Shadowrun would not work in an open source manner like d20. Many other systems can, such as Tristat, Heroes, Alternity, GURPS, and a good number of others. Shadowrun is a set world with its own direction. Shadowrun's charm is its quality over quantity.

[tisoz]

[TBRMInsanity]

When it comes to open source in any industry we need to look at the business pros and cons.
PROS:
* It will increase the amount of SR product out there (more publishers = more content)
* It can generate more money for WizKids and FanPro in the terms of official licenced products (plus more content = more money)
* It will increase the size of the SR community (more content = more people that can play)

CONS:
* There most likely be a decrease in the quality of some products (non-Wizkids/FanPro publishers)
* WizKids/FanPro will lose some of their creative control over SR (but creative control does not equal content control, just the right on being the sole creative distributer)
* There may be a decrease in the SR community (the "sell out" factor = pissed off players)


In all I think it would be a good move if managed properly by WizKids/FanPro.