Licensing True20

The good folks at Green Ronin have published the rules for licensing True20 for your gaming projects. It's a royalty-free license that only applies to traditional, pen-and-paper RPG products.

This isn't a big surprise; Green Ronin's been hinting this was the plan for a while. It's kind of a surprise considering Chris Pramas' generally downbeat view of d20's OGL. Still, the thought process behind this is easy to understand. True20 has long been the little game system that could. Green Ronin never intended to publish it separately from the Blue Rose RPG. But the reaction of fans was pretty strong, and that fan-based enthusiasm has just pushed the product far beyond what anybody expected. Players have adopted it as their own in a way folks don't normally react to products, and many of the True20 fanbase feel a strong, personal stake in the system. It's since risen to be one of the more popular branches from the d20 tree, garnering support from outfits like Paizo.

With the bulk of that support being fan-based, and Green Ronin preparing to launch their "Song of Ice and Fire" RPG, an easy to understand and use license is the prefect thing for letting the fans take the bit between their teeth and really run with True20, to see just what sort of legs both the community of fans and the system itself really have. I know a number of smaller RPG publishers, feeling locked out of the launch of 4th edition, are looking to True20 to help fill the gap until they can publish current D&D material again. The new True20 license looks to add fuel to that fire. 2008 could turn out to be the break-out year for the shy little RPG that fans pushed into the limelight.

UPDATE: Mr. Pramas talks more about OGLs and their uses here.