In which I ponder if the idea of a board game SRD or third-party license makes any sense. And if so, what would be required to create a culture of hacking and remixing in the board game industry.
I think there might be a scene in the boardgame community which could have potential to follow the TTRPG community's footsteps when it comes to promote a culture of hacking and remixing - the Print-and-Play one. They are already used to working with easily accessible materials, and the DYI spirit is much more entrenched already than in the rest of the boardgame community.
Very nice discussion of the relevant issues here. I absolutely agree that a 3PL can turn a good game into a great game by building a community around it. I think the biggest issue for board games, as you mention, is the custom components. Imagine Scythe had a 3PL, and you wanted to make a new faction for that game. Well, at minimum you will need to produce a cardboard player mat with the abilities on it, and possibly a custom set of mech minis to go with it. Anything less than that (i.e. just publishing the info and expecting people to use it with the components they have) would not feel like a sellable product. It would feel like fan fiction, similar to what people already post on BGA (as you mention in your footnotes). Or, say you want to publish a new faction/color/boss for Hero Realms. Well, that’s at least a custom deck of cards, which is not a small purchase. Could people do these? Of course. But would this build a community of dozens or hundreds of creators? Probably not.
I think the Hero Realms example is a good one. If there were a third-party content license (again thinking of "Compatible with MÖRK BORG"), presumably someone could run a Kickstarter campaign to fund the cards. Would be a fairly reasonable campaign and might even fund.
Thinking about the Dragon and Lich boss decks, which only have 30-40 cards each, I absolutely believe you could design and Kickstart additional bosses, and people would be back them.
Everything you say is true to an extent, but Scythe is an example of the opposite. The Wind Gambit was a fan expansion for Scythe that Jamey Stegmaier saw and made official.
The same is true for My Little Scythe, Unmatched Adventures, Buttons & Bugs and several other games. It needs a vibrant and engaged community and an open and perceptive publisher, but it can happen.
First of all, I did not know that about the Wind Gambit (which I have played and enjoyed); that is very cool. I would argue, however, that this only supports the argument that it is the production of components that hinders the production of fan content for board games. Only when the publisher of the core game saw, liked, and then bought/signed/contracted the expansion could it get properly made. How many other cool mods are out there that did not get so lucky?
This is a really interesting topic that I think ultimately speaks to the values of homebrewing. Is homebrewing fun? Yes! Is it easily translatable from one home to another? Not usually. Is it lucrative? Definitely no.
Board Game Geek does have a Variants section [Game -> Forums -> Variants] to each board game, like you said in your footnotes. But, unless the creator of the variant only uses sticky notes and D6s, recreating their variant is going to fall apart pretty quickly. Let's put it this way, I'm not buying a 3D printer to play a variant of Escape the Dark Castle that uses a physical catapult [although that's a rad idea], but I'll write the word "KEY" on a sticky note and hide it within the castle rooms to try and find it during exploration in order to escape. It has a lower barrier to entry and updates the rules of the game.
Homebrewing a TTRPG is a lot easier since the majority of the content is imaginary. Nick in the comments here already said this too, but I think it's the decisive factor in separating these two mediums. Board games allow for creativity, but not a lot of imagination. For example, players are not allowed to combine spells in a board game, because the rules don't say that you can. But in a TTRPG, you can absolutely ask your GM to combine spells and see what happens. TTRPGs reward imagination because you, as a player, are helping write the rules of the world as you play. In a board game the rules are predefined and you have to live within an existing world.
Thinking about this, Monopoly is probably the closest thing to a board game SRD out there. There's dozens of versions customized to different locations.
And then there are traditional card game mechanics like trick taking, pairs, and set collecting. While not a true SRD, building a card game around a traditional card game mechanic is sort of SRDish.
Monopoly is a good example of a simple game that could fit the SRD + third-party license model but instead it is all kept in-house at Hasbro (for good monetary reasons). But I could imagine a world in which a "Monopoly" game exists along with a Creator Kit / SRD and license that encourages people to use it as a base system for making new games.
The answer to "why don't board games have SRDs" is simple: SRDs are a bad idea that got incepted into the TTRPG scene as a D&D 3e marketing stunt that took on a life of their own. And because SRD fans are already sold on the idea they tend to ask "how are they good?" or "why are they good?" but rarely reconsider "are they good?". They're not. Without being influenced by the marketing story that SRDs are good, board game people can more easily evaluate the idea on the merits. The board game ecosystem is healthier than the TTRPG world both in terms of game design and economics, why would they want to try to draft off of something worse? In the Forge era people were happy to use the logic of "you can't copyright mechanics" to remix and reuse ideas from other games (like boardgame designers do) and I think it was at least as good if not better than the dynamics of the OGL and SRD eras.
Thanks for the comment! I think it's certainly valid to ask if the concept of "SRD" is a good one or not. You bring up a good point too... if the SRD is only mechanisms (which are not copyrighted) then what is the point of the SRD? Particularly if they then include a license and/or notice that is supposed to be included in derivative works. I have seen a few that are quite close to that. :) The EFF article in the footnotes mentions this.
To work around custom components, I see a lot of use of Tabletop Simulator and PlayingCards.io. Those could be the cheap PDF distribution vector of board games, but they don’t seem to have the market penetration of RPG PDFs. Instead they mostly seem to show up in playtesting and re-creations of the original game.
There are lawyers aiming to write more readable legalese. The search term to use is “plain language drafting”. But “just keep using the same terms and document styles” is AFAICT the easier road, so HARD-TO-READ SCREAMING CAPS still gets used instead of this fancy invention we call “bold text”, and the standard legal doublets and boilerplate language perpetuates itself. IANAL so I can’t speak to the degree to which impenetrable contract language is an intentional artifact often desired by the companies and persons paying lawyers for their work, but that unfortunately would not surprise me, either.
Good call on TIME Stories! An example of a core game that uses "episodes" or, dare I say, "adventures" similar to how a TTRPG might. Not that all board games could/should do this, but I like that as an example. Thanks!
I am much more into boardgames than TTRPGs, but I had not heard of SRDs until you explained it, even though I was (peripherally) involved in one of the best examples of what could be done with one in the boardgame world: Crimson Scales for Gloomhaven.
You could write a whole article on Gloomhaven v Frosthaven and how the forthcoming RPG has (so far) ironically discouraged Frosthaven fan contributions - which is the closest equivalent to utilising SRDs I think?
I’m not sure there’s a need for SRDs as such in boardgames, as the rules are normally comparatively simple.
Digital assets (card templates, key symbols etc) can really help with this and they aren’t often provided, but I think fundamentally it’s down to the different mindsets.
TTRPGs are all about imagination, problem solving and improvising a solution. This obviously lends itself to inventing new settings and games within a guiding framework.
Boardgames, on the other hand, are about following rules. Breaking them is the cardinal sin, to the extent that even simple house rules are often frowned upon. Given these disparate attitudes, it’s easy to see why independent creation is much more prevalent in TTRPGs than boardgames
Thanks for your comment! Good points across the board.
Do you have any links or info on "how the forthcoming RPG has (so far) ironically discouraged Frosthaven fan contributions."? Curious about that, because it seems contrary to most TTRPG fan engagement plans.
I think the Netrunner scene is very relevant here. The official game went out of print ages ago, but the community (look for Null Signal) then started developing (and even printing) compatible cards. They have a core set, a growing roster of sets, and my local FLGS has a regular event for players. They don't copy the art, use nominally different graphic design, a new setting, etc, so legally they're ok.
With every Skeleton Code Machine article, I feel like there's always at least one comment that makes me slap my forehead and wonder how I missed a clear example. Congrats! That is your comment today! :) :) The Android: Netrunner x Null Signal stuff is probably the best example, and I should have (a) researched that a bit more and (b) mentioned it directly in the article. Thank you!
I've been thinking a lot about bringing board game thinking into TTRPGs but I never thought about going the other direction!
I feel like you really got to the core of the difference with the early zines and homebrew culture. RPGs had hacking built into the community from the very beginning. Lots of people homebrewed a few rules for board games but didn't really have a community until more recently. You can see the beginnings of it in Board Game Geek forums, reddit or the print-and-play sites. Not sure if it will get the same traction but I hope it does.
I think there might be a scene in the boardgame community which could have potential to follow the TTRPG community's footsteps when it comes to promote a culture of hacking and remixing - the Print-and-Play one. They are already used to working with easily accessible materials, and the DYI spirit is much more entrenched already than in the rest of the boardgame community.
Good point! I should explore more of the PnP board game world. Sure seems like the DIY aspects would make remixing easier. Thanks!
Very nice discussion of the relevant issues here. I absolutely agree that a 3PL can turn a good game into a great game by building a community around it. I think the biggest issue for board games, as you mention, is the custom components. Imagine Scythe had a 3PL, and you wanted to make a new faction for that game. Well, at minimum you will need to produce a cardboard player mat with the abilities on it, and possibly a custom set of mech minis to go with it. Anything less than that (i.e. just publishing the info and expecting people to use it with the components they have) would not feel like a sellable product. It would feel like fan fiction, similar to what people already post on BGA (as you mention in your footnotes). Or, say you want to publish a new faction/color/boss for Hero Realms. Well, that’s at least a custom deck of cards, which is not a small purchase. Could people do these? Of course. But would this build a community of dozens or hundreds of creators? Probably not.
I think the Hero Realms example is a good one. If there were a third-party content license (again thinking of "Compatible with MÖRK BORG"), presumably someone could run a Kickstarter campaign to fund the cards. Would be a fairly reasonable campaign and might even fund.
Thinking about the Dragon and Lich boss decks, which only have 30-40 cards each, I absolutely believe you could design and Kickstart additional bosses, and people would be back them.
The only thing lacking is a Creator Kit and third party license. 😂
Everything you say is true to an extent, but Scythe is an example of the opposite. The Wind Gambit was a fan expansion for Scythe that Jamey Stegmaier saw and made official.
The same is true for My Little Scythe, Unmatched Adventures, Buttons & Bugs and several other games. It needs a vibrant and engaged community and an open and perceptive publisher, but it can happen.
Good examples of fan content being picked up by the publisher! I had forgotten about Buttons & Bugs.
First of all, I did not know that about the Wind Gambit (which I have played and enjoyed); that is very cool. I would argue, however, that this only supports the argument that it is the production of components that hinders the production of fan content for board games. Only when the publisher of the core game saw, liked, and then bought/signed/contracted the expansion could it get properly made. How many other cool mods are out there that did not get so lucky?
This is a really interesting topic that I think ultimately speaks to the values of homebrewing. Is homebrewing fun? Yes! Is it easily translatable from one home to another? Not usually. Is it lucrative? Definitely no.
Board Game Geek does have a Variants section [Game -> Forums -> Variants] to each board game, like you said in your footnotes. But, unless the creator of the variant only uses sticky notes and D6s, recreating their variant is going to fall apart pretty quickly. Let's put it this way, I'm not buying a 3D printer to play a variant of Escape the Dark Castle that uses a physical catapult [although that's a rad idea], but I'll write the word "KEY" on a sticky note and hide it within the castle rooms to try and find it during exploration in order to escape. It has a lower barrier to entry and updates the rules of the game.
Homebrewing a TTRPG is a lot easier since the majority of the content is imaginary. Nick in the comments here already said this too, but I think it's the decisive factor in separating these two mediums. Board games allow for creativity, but not a lot of imagination. For example, players are not allowed to combine spells in a board game, because the rules don't say that you can. But in a TTRPG, you can absolutely ask your GM to combine spells and see what happens. TTRPGs reward imagination because you, as a player, are helping write the rules of the world as you play. In a board game the rules are predefined and you have to live within an existing world.
Awesome article!
Thank you! I think your comment is a good summary of some of the key points, including what a few others have mentioned. I appreciate it!
Thinking about this, Monopoly is probably the closest thing to a board game SRD out there. There's dozens of versions customized to different locations.
And then there are traditional card game mechanics like trick taking, pairs, and set collecting. While not a true SRD, building a card game around a traditional card game mechanic is sort of SRDish.
Monopoly is a good example of a simple game that could fit the SRD + third-party license model but instead it is all kept in-house at Hasbro (for good monetary reasons). But I could imagine a world in which a "Monopoly" game exists along with a Creator Kit / SRD and license that encourages people to use it as a base system for making new games.
The answer to "why don't board games have SRDs" is simple: SRDs are a bad idea that got incepted into the TTRPG scene as a D&D 3e marketing stunt that took on a life of their own. And because SRD fans are already sold on the idea they tend to ask "how are they good?" or "why are they good?" but rarely reconsider "are they good?". They're not. Without being influenced by the marketing story that SRDs are good, board game people can more easily evaluate the idea on the merits. The board game ecosystem is healthier than the TTRPG world both in terms of game design and economics, why would they want to try to draft off of something worse? In the Forge era people were happy to use the logic of "you can't copyright mechanics" to remix and reuse ideas from other games (like boardgame designers do) and I think it was at least as good if not better than the dynamics of the OGL and SRD eras.
Thanks for the comment! I think it's certainly valid to ask if the concept of "SRD" is a good one or not. You bring up a good point too... if the SRD is only mechanisms (which are not copyrighted) then what is the point of the SRD? Particularly if they then include a license and/or notice that is supposed to be included in derivative works. I have seen a few that are quite close to that. :) The EFF article in the footnotes mentions this.
To work around custom components, I see a lot of use of Tabletop Simulator and PlayingCards.io. Those could be the cheap PDF distribution vector of board games, but they don’t seem to have the market penetration of RPG PDFs. Instead they mostly seem to show up in playtesting and re-creations of the original game.
There are lawyers aiming to write more readable legalese. The search term to use is “plain language drafting”. But “just keep using the same terms and document styles” is AFAICT the easier road, so HARD-TO-READ SCREAMING CAPS still gets used instead of this fancy invention we call “bold text”, and the standard legal doublets and boilerplate language perpetuates itself. IANAL so I can’t speak to the degree to which impenetrable contract language is an intentional artifact often desired by the companies and persons paying lawyers for their work, but that unfortunately would not surprise me, either.
For short examples in software licensing of what a plain-language license looks like vs an alternative, compare the more traditional https://spdx.org/licenses/BSD-2-Clause-Patent.html against the plain-language https://blueoakcouncil.org/license/1.0.0
That Blue Oak Council license is definitely the style I prefer! :)
TIME Stories is like a board game SRD and while there are official "episodes" that can be purchased there are a lot of free fan made ones.
Arkham Horror: The Card Game, also has complete re-themes of the game. I have printed and cut out complete games but never actually played them.
Good call on TIME Stories! An example of a core game that uses "episodes" or, dare I say, "adventures" similar to how a TTRPG might. Not that all board games could/should do this, but I like that as an example. Thanks!
A really interesting article, in many ways.
I am much more into boardgames than TTRPGs, but I had not heard of SRDs until you explained it, even though I was (peripherally) involved in one of the best examples of what could be done with one in the boardgame world: Crimson Scales for Gloomhaven.
You could write a whole article on Gloomhaven v Frosthaven and how the forthcoming RPG has (so far) ironically discouraged Frosthaven fan contributions - which is the closest equivalent to utilising SRDs I think?
I’m not sure there’s a need for SRDs as such in boardgames, as the rules are normally comparatively simple.
Digital assets (card templates, key symbols etc) can really help with this and they aren’t often provided, but I think fundamentally it’s down to the different mindsets.
TTRPGs are all about imagination, problem solving and improvising a solution. This obviously lends itself to inventing new settings and games within a guiding framework.
Boardgames, on the other hand, are about following rules. Breaking them is the cardinal sin, to the extent that even simple house rules are often frowned upon. Given these disparate attitudes, it’s easy to see why independent creation is much more prevalent in TTRPGs than boardgames
Thanks for your comment! Good points across the board.
Do you have any links or info on "how the forthcoming RPG has (so far) ironically discouraged Frosthaven fan contributions."? Curious about that, because it seems contrary to most TTRPG fan engagement plans.
I think the Netrunner scene is very relevant here. The official game went out of print ages ago, but the community (look for Null Signal) then started developing (and even printing) compatible cards. They have a core set, a growing roster of sets, and my local FLGS has a regular event for players. They don't copy the art, use nominally different graphic design, a new setting, etc, so legally they're ok.
With every Skeleton Code Machine article, I feel like there's always at least one comment that makes me slap my forehead and wonder how I missed a clear example. Congrats! That is your comment today! :) :) The Android: Netrunner x Null Signal stuff is probably the best example, and I should have (a) researched that a bit more and (b) mentioned it directly in the article. Thank you!
I've been thinking a lot about bringing board game thinking into TTRPGs but I never thought about going the other direction!
I feel like you really got to the core of the difference with the early zines and homebrew culture. RPGs had hacking built into the community from the very beginning. Lots of people homebrewed a few rules for board games but didn't really have a community until more recently. You can see the beginnings of it in Board Game Geek forums, reddit or the print-and-play sites. Not sure if it will get the same traction but I hope it does.