Many role playing games have been developed that contain excellent ideas, yet are challenging to play as Story Games.

Often games are adapted by players from experience to make them more suitable for their play. Sometimes players are shocked to discover the way they play differs from the games written rules.

Changes often include simplifying rules, clarifying rule wording, and adding elements invented since the game was originally written.

I often think it would be neat to distribute adopted versions so more people can enjoy the brilliance of the core game concepts.

Yet, distributing a new version of a game comes with challenges. What principles should be followed when creating and distributing an adopted version?

Adoption Principles

These adoption principles are meant to help guide how I adopt games:

Credit

Credit the original author and original work up front. One way to do this is by using the title of the original game and adding "Adoption" to the end. Make sure to visibly include the original game title and author.

Credit the person who wrote up the adoption.

Credit people who helped develop the adoption.

Provide a link to the original game or authors' site if possible so people can support the original author.

Concept

Explain the core concept of the original game and how that has been preserved in the adoption.

Changes

The goal of adoption is to supplement the original game text. The original game text should still be valuable.

Changes should focus on simplifying or better explaining rules. Care should be taken to avoid copying the original text. If the original text is copied, it should be quoted to indicate its origin.

Open

The adoption should be open source.

Adoptions are the work of fans who love the game and want others to also enjoy the game.

I prefer adoptions use the Unlicense so they can in turn be adopted by others without restraint.