Licensing works based on Basic Fantasy RPG

[Solomoriah]

I was asked a question about "third party licensing" and am answering it here for everyone to benefit from.

If you are writing an adventure, a game supplement, or any other written work based on Basic Fantasy RPG, then you have basically three options and must choose just one.

If your work is to be part of our project, that is, submitted through our forum and published by me in our usual places, submit it on the forum and we'll attend to everything for you.

If you are creating a work you plan to publish independently, and your work is "derivative," that is, you use any material from our books, you are required to publish your book under the same license, CC BY-SA, and comply with the requirements thereof. You'd have to reproduce our copyright information at a minimum, but you would put your copyright on "top." You might write this as:

My Cool New Adventure Copyright (C) My Name Here. All Rights Reserved.
Based upon the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, 4th Edition, Copyright (C) 2006-2024 Chris Gonnerman. All Rights Reserved.

(followed by text explaining the CC BY-SA license, similar in function to our title page text.)

If you are creating a work you plan to publish independently, and your work is NOT "derivative," that is, you don't include any of our material, you may use whatever license or terms you prefer.

The third option is tricky. You can easily write an adventure for BFRPG that does not include any textual material from our books; indeed, under fair use doctrine you probably can use names and statistics of monsters, etc. pretty directly without infringing our copyright. There isn't a lot of "artistic presentation" in our books that would open the door for infringement. And with the 4th Edition we don't have a "product identity" license because "product identity" is only a real thing under the OGL, so you can fairly freely just say "Compatible with Basic Fantasy RPG" right on the cover. In order to do this third option, you simply avoid copying any substantial text from our books.

I do recommend joining the Project and publishing through us, but it is of course your choice.

If you do not publish through this forum as part of the Basic Fantasy Project, and your work is not available for free, you may only discuss it in the Product Promotion thread here and may not promote it in the Basic Fantasy RPG Facebook group (as commercial products are off topic there).

Also: If you use any version of my "crenelated border" on your cover and don't publish through the Project, I will be cross. Consider that part of my "artistic presentation" and steer clear of it.

[Dimirag]

If your work is to be part of our project, that is, submitted through our forum and published by me in our usual places, submit it on the forum and we'll attend to everything for you.

It may be helpful to name what can be submitted as part of the project (yes, this is on other parts of the forums, but keeping together may be a good thing)

Supplemental Races, Classes, and Rules: Allowed, and they may reach the Showcase if done "right", very rarely such supplements made the Download page.

Adventures: Allowed, these can absolutely reach the Download page and even Print Status, depending on size it may be needed to combine them for such effect.

Settings, Advanced/Companion Games, Zines, Collected Material...: May be submitted but will only remain on the Workshop. Read here for more info about Advanced/Companion materials

New Game or alternative Basic Fantasy Game: Send Solo a PM about what kind of game you want to do and what you want to do with it (selling it, PWYW, free download).

(Solo, if I'm putting something wrong let me know)

[Solomoriah]

Nah, you done good. Thanks!

[coureur_d_bois]

I am not sure how much work that entails, but this topic might be worth a Solomoriah speaks video that simply and concisely breaks down what can and cannot be done with the license, and how to use CC-BY-SA licence specifically for the three cases you mentioned above. It would then be easy to share it with would-be writers and hopefully would put everyone on the same page and avoid scenarios the Gothic Church from happening again.

[toddlyons]

That's a great idea. The FAQ threads are useful, but there are many people who'll never use the website but will watch a video from you.

[Boggo]

I added an extra line disclaiming any authorship on existing BFRPG text in my book (which I've just realised includes some text I wrote hehe)

[targenthan]

I am not sure how much work that entails, but this topic might be worth a Solomoriah speaks video that simply and concisely breaks down what can and cannot be done with the license, and how to use CC-BY-SA licence specifically for the three cases you mentioned above. It would then be easy to share it with would-be writers and hopefully would put everyone on the same page and avoid scenarios the Gothic Church from happening again.

I want to second this approach - thanks Chris and others for making clear as possible the obligations (and choices) creators have in creating content to 'support' BFRPG.

That all this has become necessary is regrettable but probably necessary anyway.

[rudgar]

This is a very clear outline of the three options. Thanks!

[rudgar]

Just a small matter, but I noticed the words "all rights reserved" in part 2.

I'm not a lawyer, but cc has used the terminology "some rights reserved" when describing the creative commons licenses.

[Zarkonn]

What about works of fiction whether it's novelizations or anthologies of short stories?

[Solomoriah]

Fictional works are fine, as long as they also follow the license of whichever book they derive from. I'd recommend avoiding deriving from our OGL-only works.

[Zarkonn]

Thank you for the reply - so basically the middle option - with quite a few accreditations if one were simply going from the Core + some of the awesome supplements. There are a few I found added just the right amount of sprinkles to your The Glain Companion r4. A hint of complexity without the barf of convolution - I really dug your overall stance on those mega-companion books and the way they'd distract from the heart and soul of Basic Fantasy. A campaign companion on the other hand fits nicely in there with some options as one's going through the adventures.