Marvel RPG coverIn an interesting postscript to my prior entry about the Storyteller’s Bowl model of publishing, someone is now trying that model out in the tabletop roleplaying game industry. Philip Reed, president of the Ronin Arts publishing company, has pledged to create an open-game-licensed game system called FASERIP (short for “Fighting, Agility, Strength, Endurance, Reason, Intuition, Psyche,” the character attributes it uses), compatible with the old Marvel Super Heroes roleplaying game, in return for $1000 in donations. This game system would only include the core rules, with no extraneous copyrighted or trademarked material, in much the same way as Wizards of the Coast’s Source Reference Documents; it would be released as a free PDF, and subsequently made available in printed form at cost. At the time of this writing, the project website had reached $500 in pledges from 26 donors in its first 24 hours; there is a $10 per donor minimum pledge.

When I emailed Reed to ask what sort of license he would be using, he replied,

I’m still trying to decide which license will be best but it will be completely open for use; I will not be claiming a copyright or trademark on the material.

I want to be sure that the FASERIP system is available for anyone to use in any way that they wish.

He also clarifies in a thread in the LiveJournal Roleplayers community that, though he does not own the rights to the old Marvel RPG, there are legal methods of creating a similar and compatible system, which he intends to use. I do not know whether this is the first Storyteller’s-Bowl-style project offered in the tabletop industry, but it is the first I have run across since I originally wrote my journal entry suggesting that its use in the tabletop game industry might be a good idea.

It may actually be a misnomer to call FASERIP a Storyteller’s Bowl project, as unlike most such works, it is being financed in a single piece. However, the shorter length of this type of work would not lend itself to splitting into chapters. It does have more in common with the Storyteller’s Bowl than the Street Performer Protocol, since donations are taken before the creation of the work, rather than after.

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