Portal:Role-playing games

What do we mean by Role-playing game?

Here, by Role-playing game we mean pen-and-paper table top RPGs and wargames, not computer based role-playing games, which would be classed as software.

Why should we have free content Role-playing games?

It's a good question and here are some of our favourite answers:

• Everybody can make as many copies of the game as they like, to give to their players, friends, to publish or even to sell.
• Everybody can publish whatever changes or modifications to the game they like, including adding their own houserules.
• Everybody can get a copy of the original document so making their own changes and modifications is no problem.
• Everybody can copy material from the game for use in their own games, supplements, player handouts, fan sites, etc.
• Anyone can incorporate rules and content from the game into their own free software programs to create anything from character creation tools to computer roleplaying games.
• With free content, no game need ever go out-of-print. Anyone, including other publishers, can simply pick up the pieces and start republishing the game.
• No more figuring out which parts of a game are "open" or "closed": everything is open!

Free content link for RPGs

• Free RPG Community advocacy group dedicated to free content publishing for roleplaying games.
• WikiRPG - a free content "on-line collaborative project to create both pen and paper role playing engines and game worlds" (probably broken link)
• Icosahedral RPG - a free RPG book with full source-code. Still in progress. OK to collaboate on this project.