Blades in the Dark’s John Harper has provided the rules by which you can write your own Paragon-powered setting, sell it and not invoke attack lawyers.
Paragon is the RPG engine for the Agon, a game that enjoyed a successful second edition Kickstarter last year and was published in partnership with Evil Hat.
The new rules for Paragon usage put Agon at the heart of the ecosystem as third-party games cannot quote from the book, only cite mechanics and references by page numbers.
Your own setting, though, may change and tweak the rules providing you stick to this initial requirement.
Playtests, the name given to these new Paragon-powered games, can be sold for money, made a Pay What You Want or given away for free. Harper writes;
Our goal is for players to use the AGON game book as the primary system document, with playset materials acting as supplementary content to extend the usefulness of the core rules — sort of like DLCs or re-skins for a video game.
An early example, is the cold war sci-fi Chamber which was written by John Harper and a Name Your Own Price RPG download at Itch.io.
The five rules for Paragon usage are;
- You may not reproduce or distribute any material from the AGON RPG book, but you may refer to mechanics and provide references to page numbers as needed.
- You must include the following copyright text in your document: “For use with the PARAGON system, ©2020 John Harper & Sean Nittner. AGON-RPG.COM“
- You may include the PARAGON system logo mark on your document.
- You may charge money for your supplement or offer it for free (or pay what you want).
- You retain ownership of any original material you create, and you assume no ownership of any material in the AGON RPG or other PARAGON system materials.
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