To recover from their massive PR screw-up involving the OGL, Wizards of the Coast swang the completely other direction and released the D&D 5 SRD under the Creative Commons License.
I know much less about this license than I do about the OGL. I am pretty competent in the OGL and have been part of the Open Gaming Foundation since its beginning. So yeah, I have had nearly 23 years of practice with it.
I got my copy of the new Swords & Wizardry Complete Revised via their Kickstarter recently and it looks fantastic. It uses the CC 4.0 By Attribution license. So I thought I'd grab some more Creative Commons books and see how they are made.
Not a bad collection, really.
The Arcanum 30th Anniversary Edition is an update to the venerable Arcanum and Compleat books from the 1980s. I always have had a soft spot in my heart for this series. The 30th Anniversary Edition also does a good job of updating these rules and provides a nice history.
It has been released under the CC BY-SA - Creative Commons Share Alike license. Sadly, Zila Games seems to be either defunct or at least lost their website.
In a move I think surprises no one, Basic Fantasy RPG Core Rules 4thEd from Chris Gonnerman also has gone Creative Commons. This one was also released under the CC BY-SA - Creative Commons Share Alike license.
All three are worthy updates to their original versions. If somewhat thicker.
The rules have not really changed all that much. The presentation of all three is also better, with Swords & Wizardry inching out as the best-looking update.
This might be just what I needed to help get over my creative hump on my High Witchcraft book I have been playing around with for years.
