Are you interest in writing content that works with, or extends, Project Polyhedral?
If the answer is yes, we'd love to talk with you! Read through this document and browse the Project Polyhedral system. Take a look at the core system design tenets and see if Project Polyhedral is the right fit for you.
What is Project Polyhedral? Project Polyhedral is the working title for a free and open game system that is compatible with modern versions of Dungeons & Dragons, as well as a game system that stands on its own. Project Polyhedral will be licensed and distributed under CC-BY for maximum flexibility for publishers, storytellers, and others seeking to use the system.
The core of Project Polyhedral is not-for-profit and will always be freely accessible to everyone.
Project Polyhedral is a community effort and we are looking for contributors.
The Open Gaming License, or OGL, has been a useful tool to bring new authors, game designers, and developers into the marketplace since its introduction in 2000, the effort was spearheaded by Ryan Dancey who stated in an interview that he thought "there's a very, very strong business case that can be made for the idea of embracing the ideas at the heart of the Open Source movement and finding a place for them in gaming."
The OGL, in many ways, accomplished its goals. However, changes to the OGL for future versions of D&D mean that the license is becoming less-open and as a result we want to take the opportunity to create a truly free, and open game system that is built by a passionate community which can also serve as the basis for their own projects.
Project Polyhedral has the following design philosophy that is guiding its development:
- Create a rules-compatible interface for the first edition of Project Polyhedral that allows it to be (as much as possible) a drop-in replacement with D&D 5th Edition and 5th edition-compatible games.
- Remain free and open by using a permissive, industry-standard, license: the Creative Commons CC-BY license. We want everyone to be able to use Project Polyhedral, remix it, build on top of itm and redistribute it without any barriers. a true, open, game system.
- Modularity by design is at the heart of Project Polyhedral. We're aiming to create a rules-light system which includes the rules you need to play and nothing you don't. Publishers can augment these rules by adding on to them.
How do you get the rules for Project Polyhedral? There are a number of places where you might find the Project Polyhedral rules:
- You will find raw text and other electronic distributions of the core rules here.
- The rules may be reproduced in other materials (electronic, print, etc.).
- In the future we may offer a print-version of the core rules, in association with close partners (this doesn't mean there won't be other print versions).
Project Polyhedral's goal is to be open source, that means that if a game is built on Project Polyhedral's rules there is no "right" or "wrong" version of the game, no authorized or unauthorized versions. Some games may use more or less of the core rules, depending on whether those rules work for them or not.
With that being said, because Project Polyhedral is being designed with modularity in mind we expect most changes to the rules by publishers and storytellers to be additive.
Project Polyhedral releases will be managed as editions (instead of versions) and game designers are encouraged to denote compatibility with a particular edition. Rules should mostly be compatible across all products using the same edition of Project Polyhedral.
In order to keep things compatible and to keep the game system healthy we encourage game designers to use as much of the core rules as possible without making fundamental changes and contribute any game mechanics that they can (i.e. not Intellectual Property) back to the core of the system.