What is required to list a product as compatible?

I am also very interested in this. Specifically for independent settings/modules.

Last year I wrote a wilderness sandbox adventure, which was built and playtested on ACKs but was released as system neutral - I'd love to do a ACKs edition.

 

You've come to the right place! The creator of this game, "Alex" on the forums, will probably chime in soonish.  

 

In the meantime, I can tell you what I know: an author named Matthew Skail has published some 3rd party content on DrivethruRPG in the form of several custom classes.  I bought a few, and I pulled one up to look at the back. I see that at the tail end of the OGL designation he listed, among other things, copyrights and dates for the core ACKs book and the player's companion.  In addition, after that he has a page dedicated to the ADVENTURER CONQUEROR KING PRODUCT IDENTITY LICENSE Version 1.0 so I'm guessing that's going to be where your bread and butter is.

edit: googling didn't produce an official source but somebody appears to have reproduced the text online: https://campaignwiki.org/wiki/BeremAndBeyond/OGL

When I published Powers of the Mind I made it a point to ask for permission, because it seemed polite. That being said, as I understand it, inclusion of the Product Identity License and fulfilling its requirements are the only legal mandate, and I have been known to require excessive levels of permission for reassurance at times :stuck_out_tongue:

The product identity license doesn’t seem to be on the website anymore (that I can find in 30 seconds), but the logo package page says that the logo package is available on request from support @ autarch.co , so if you want to use that you can mention it (or whatever else you want to mention).

(Of course, I have no actual relation to Autarch and if Alex says something that disagrees with me, then ignore me!)

Hi outlander! We'd be happy to have you do ACKS-compatible product. The link posted earlier (https://campaignwiki.org/wiki/BeremAndBeyond/OGL) has the Product Identity License. It's super-easy to abide by. If you have any questions let me know.

(Ironically I have no idea why that license is there or who is using it, but that's the point of a standardized license, I suppose!)

 

 

 

Would that also apply to ACKS-compatible products outside the tabletop RPG area?

The thing that leaps to mind is a roguelike game - ACKS is immensely procedural and there have even been some experiments with hexes in roguelikes. (The controls are a little awkward but from the look of it, it renders pretty well).

To be clear, I'm not about to rush off and start working on an ACKS-based roguelike; I have way too much stuff on atm. It just struck me while reading this thread.

[quote="chalicier"]

The thing that leaps to mind is a roguelike game - ACKS is immensely procedural and there have even been some experiments with hexes in roguelikes. (The controls are a little awkward but from the look of it, it renders pretty well).

[/quote]

If there's a campaign area generated, with lairs and domains and what-have-you, every time the party moves a hex there's a "turn" (depending on party travel speed I guess), and things can happen - encounters checked, domains make income, etc, blah. That'd be pretty darn cool - an ACKS "campaign engine".

Any game in particular you were thinking of? 

 

/grew up on Rogue, Moria, and one of the many ports of Telengard-style D&D

 

I have been thinking about a procedural computer game for quite some time, but it's not something I've pulled together.

The ACKS compatability license certainly would permit a computer game, but I don't know whether the Open Game License does. I have heard anecdotally that it does not, but I haven't investigated the technicalities. 

[quote="koewn"]

If there's a campaign area generated, with lairs and domains and what-have-you, every time the party moves a hex there's a "turn" (depending on party travel speed I guess), and things can happen - encounters checked, domains make income, etc, blah. That'd be pretty darn cool - an ACKS "campaign engine".

Any game in particular you were thinking of? 

/grew up on Rogue, Moria, and one of the many ports of Telengard-style D&D

[/quote]

No particular root game in mind. This really is just an idle idea. Overland play would suggest Angband/ToME style but tbh I think this would be its own thing.

And yes, that was pretty much what I was thinking too. You could set "policies" while in your stronghold for what your Domain is doing (tax levels, investment, etc) and then go off and wander about the hex map clearing out lairs. The other great thing is that since hexes sub-tessellate cleanly, we could have a "zooming in" mechanic where 6mile terrain hexes cleanly subgenerate smaller-scale outdoor encounters. Then drop to classic square style for interiors.

[quote="Alex"]

The ACKS compatability license certainly would permit a computer game, but I don't know whether the Open Game License does. I have heard anecdotally that it does not, but I haven't investigated the technicalities.  [/quote]

That would be a great shame, given the wealth of classic games based on early D&D mechanics. Notwithstanding Rogue/Hack et al, there's also the old Gold Box games for the Amiga like Pool of Radiance.

My ideal ACKS game would have three distinct layers and modes of play; personal dungeon delving, wilderness exploration, and domain management.

I envision it like Actraiser, where the mechanics would be totally different on each layer. Personal delving could be done in any of a huge number of ways (turn-based roguelikelike, real-time action RPG like the Souls series, anything in between), wilderness exploration would look as described here with the hexes, except I’d want to see an RTS-style control scheme for the battles on that scale; and domain management would look much like Total War or Civilization (not that those are the same game, but that either style could work).

This is probably an unrealistic dream since it’s basically three games, not one, but I think it’d be awesome :stuck_out_tongue:

That's more-or-less my ideal game.

I've always been fascinated by games that allow you to play at two levels. For instance, X-Com, where you control the overall organization AND play the tactical battles, or Master of Orion 2, where you control the space empire AND fight the tactical battles. ACKS was very much inspired by my love for this sort of gameplay.

Man, Actraiser was an utter obsession of mine in the SNES era. I played it to death. Such a great combination of two genres that were at the time generally thought a million miles apart.

Actraiser (the first, not the second, which inexplicably betrayed the kingdom building portions) is an absolute masterpiece of a game.

I too have a love for games where you get to zoom in/zoom out, but I fear we are in the dark ages of that genre ever since the ultimate hype-fail that was Spore.

If it's any consolation: Dwarf Fortress has an absurdly complex world generation algorithm, and gives you the option to experience a generated world either as a dwarven community attempting to survive in a new colony OR as a lone adventurer going on quests.

The recent No Mans Sky mess has probably done the same for full-3d procedural world games, too. 

And much as with Spore, the problem isn't so much the game itself; in both cases, it's quite fun if you take it purely for what it actually is. The problem is the disappointment due to the massive promises made and the hype.

That said, we have had over a decade of Total War games covering this particular "zooming in" genre as well as the aforementioned masterpiece, Mount & Blade.

oh man, Mount & Blade really is the closest thing to an ACKs game. controlling a single unit, but also having an army fighting around you, pledging fealty to kings, sieging castles, sometimes taking them over.

The core game is a little sparse, but the Florian mod pack makes it pretty solid in terms of stuff to do.

X-Com of both generations (1994 and 2012+) is a masterpiece. It did inspire much of my work, as the whole setup is a goldmine for gaming ideas.

I played the hell out of the original X-Com and its monstrously difficult sequel Terror from the Deep. Countless sleepless nights when I was in junior high school and later while I was home-schooled/self-educated spent on TftD.

I'd imagine that a basic fantasy equivalent of this will involve managing a mercenary unit or ruling over a small domain, then sending parties to clean out dungeons or kick overland monster arse. Both turn-based, of course!

ACKS compatibility license, you say? Hmmm... Now that my Big Project for Autarch is finished and that my own company's (Stellagama Publishing) Big Project is almost finished, third-party products for ACKS might be an avenue Stellagama Publishing will consider very seriously. Probably short supplements like we did for Stars Without Number.

Is there a compatibility logo as well (as some OSR games have)?

Yes, there is a compatability logo! Email me and I'll send it to you.

Thank you Alex and everyone else that replied.

For those that mentioned the idea, I have already written a rogue-like computer game, based on the Dark Dungeons rules (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/149082/Old-School-Computer-Game).  Those rules are sufficiently similar to ACKS that I am thinking of writng an ACKS version - trade and domain management are the next steps for that game.

 

Despite my ambition, I don't want to write the accompanying documentation, so if I implement ACKS, it would be very valuable to me to be ableto say "to understand the rules, buy ACKS!".  :)

Alex - e-mail sent!

outlander78 - WOW! that computer game looks seriously old-school! I must give it a try!

Oddly enough... I was working on a similar concept years and years ago, as a text adventure.

The first layer was the standard text adventure fare; talk with people, interact with objects, and so forth, used in cities to buy gear or get quests, in ruins to solve puzzles, and so forth. It was purely text-adventure; I had even started to add some "long term" puzzles like investments.

The second layer was a rogue-like exploration system, moving around a (randomly generated) mini-map, discovering cities or ruins, and traveling on a macro scale (a 24-mile-hex view, as it were). It consumed resources like food and water, extended the map, encountered random monsters, and allowed you to travel between cities at a "realistic" pace, as opposed to either typing "go north" a million times, or having an eventless "you travel north for 20 miles..." every time.

The third layer was a battle system, which I must admit I put the most time towards. Single or multiple monsters, and one adventurer, though I had planned for the ability to have henchmen that would act on their own unless told to do otherwise ("tell William to attack the ogre" or "tell William to fight anything").

It was never completed, obviously, but this thread reminded me it still exists. One of the hardest parts was coming up with all the monsters, armor, damage, etc.; if I use ACKS rules, I could easily throw in all manner of creatures, attacks, etc. I'm going to have to look into that, some day. Not any time soon, mind you. But some day!