Project Polyhedral

The team here at Lorecall would like to take the opportunity to announce Project: Polyhedral! Project Polyhedral is the working title of a rules compatible, drop-in, replacement for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. Project Polyhedral is being licensed under Creative Common's CC-BY 4.0 license, to provide maximum flexibility for publishers, storytellers, and others seeking to use the system.

More information can be found here: https://github.com/polyhedralpress/project-polyhedral

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, an effort spearheaded by Ryan Dancey back when he worked with Wizards of the Coast. Dancey 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."

Using Open Source as a model, the OGL in many ways accomplished its goals. However, with recent proposals to change the OGL not only for future versions of D&D but also to revoke the existing license for already published material not only means that the license is becoming less-open, but also is deliberately antagonistic. As a result we want to take the opportunity to create a truly free and open game system—one that is compatible with the current iteration of Dungeons & Dragons in spirit. One that is built by a passionate community following the open source model even more closely than the OGL. We hope that Project Polyhedral can serve not only as a harbor for those seeking to weather out the current storm, but also thrive as the foundation for future critically acclaimed games.

Project Polyhedral Design Philosophy

Project Polyhedral has the following design philosophy that is guiding its development:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

Where are we right now?

Most of Project Polyhedral is a translation from the d20-based system that is at the core of game play mechanics over to a d6 system, many of the core chapters have been written and familiar rules from Dungeons & Dragons have been revised and adapted for Project Polyhedral. Character lineages, heritages, backgrounds, classes, etc. are all still in the works and since Project Polyhedral is more of a generic system we're ensuring that there are options to represent your characters in fantasy, modern, and science fiction terms.

Character advancement is still being explored, as are some other core aspects of the game.

Project Polyhedral is still in its infancy and we expect it to grow over the coming weeks and months.

How does this impact Mistgate?

If licensing Mistgate isn't possible with the existing, or future, versions of the OGL or similar license that supports using Dungeons & Dragons as the core system mechanics behind the Mistgate campaign setting then we can't really publish Mistgate until we have a viable alternative. As such, we've been working on measures that will allow us to continue Mistgate using the premise behind Project Polyhedral. Making this shift means that the focus on Mistgate is temporarily shifted until we have some more clarity.

Sean Quinn and Alkaemic are still aiming to Kickstart Mistgate later this year, regardless of where we find ourselves with Project Polyhedral, the Open Gaming License, and Dungeons & Dragons.

What's Next?

Assuming nothing changes in the on-going saga with the Open Gaming License and D&D, and even if something does, we think that there is merit in having an independent system that is a drop in replacement for Dungeons & Dragons. There are examples of this for earlier editions (OSRIC for the first edition of AD&D) and to a lesser degree current editions (including Kobold Press's recent announcement of Project Black Flag).

For Project Polyhedral, we'd like to see this remain an independent and freely available resource for all players and publishers while maintaining as much compatibility with existing rules in 5th Edition as possible. This will require walking a fine line between existing rules and introducing (or changing) rules to better serve the mechanics in Project Polyhedral.