So SimpleQuest, my concise cut-down version of OpenQuest, is ready to go live at drivethrurpg.com as print-on-demand/pdf and is in the process of getting a nice proper shiny print version, with endpapers, ribbons, nicely sewn papers etc. Once backers have their copies, it goes out on general release.

As well as the milestone of getting the book published, it does two immediate things.

  • It’s a reference for short campaigns and convention-style one-shots that I and others will run. It was designed as a very pick-up-and-play implementation of OQ. So I expect those sorts of games to flourish both at home, online and at conventions.
  • For us at D101 Games, a base to add to for OpenQuest Dervied Games. Paul Mitchenter has already said he will use it as a base for his Year of the Four Emperors, an Ancient Roman game. I’ll be moving Skyraiders of the Floating Realms over to it rather than inflict yet another D100 system upon the world.

When I say “us at D101 Games”, I do this deliberately. SimpleQuest is not released under the Creative Commons (my preferred way of making OpenQuest available to others), so you can’t copy and paste great chunks of the book and put them in your product. If you want to do that, go to the OpenQuest SRD. Note there are a few alternative rules (Patrons and the way it handles Social Conflict) that aren’t in the OQ SRD, so don’t be use them. Also, the one magic system hasn’t been released under the CC, but is likely to be at some future point in time when I catch up with stuff. But this is the same as I’ve done in the past with OQ-derived games. Neither The Company (OQ-powered game of Modern Warfare) nor River of Heaven (our sci-fi magnum opus), which both use OpenQuest as a base, were ever released as Open Gaming Content.

In conclusion, the reason why this post is titled “OpenQuest and Derived Games” is I won’t be referring to games that use SQ as their starting points as SQ derived games. They are OpenQuest games. I gave SimpleQuest its own name to make it easier to reference, like its “Swords against the Savage North”, not “OpenQuest Swords and Sorcery”. There aren’t going to be separate OpenQuest, and SimpleQuest branches like there are for Fate Core and Fate Accelerated. It’s all OpenQuest 🙂