Free League expands third party license to include more games and more languages

Swedish tabletop RPG publisher Free League has announced an expansion to its open game license, which allows third parties to publish royalty free supplements for some of its original games. Initially introduced to cover supplements for Dragonbane, the studio later widened its remit to include the 2025 sequel RPG, Coriolis: The Great Dark. With this latest addition, game designers can create supplements for Forbidden Lands, Symbaroum, and Coriolis - The Third Horizon. More notable than the increased coverage, the license now supports published material in more languages. This varies from game to game, but as an example: Dragonbane products can currently be published in English, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Italian, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Polish, and Czech.

The licenses themselves are relatively brief two-page documents that appear, at least to my untrained eye, very clear and lacking in over complicated legalese, which is always welcome in a world where you have to agree to a length EULA just to play a video game. Free League also offers the Year Zero Engine Free Tabletop License, enabling the creation of new games based upon the Year Zero Engine Standard Reference Document. Free League co-founder Tomas Härenstam said in a press release, "Roleplaying is a uniquely creative hobby. As publishers of roleplaying games, we know that the real magic happens in the imagination of the players."

At the time of writing, no projects covered by the extended license have been announced, however Free League does maintain lists of community created content for Dragonbane and games using the Year Zero Engine.

One disappointing detail is that the Free League OGL doesn’t prohibit AI-generated content. While the license specifies that the use of AI-generated text or images “must be clearly stated when you offer the Supplement for sale and stated on the front or back cover of the Supplement”, it stops short of a ban. This is in spite of Free League’s own AI policy. Anyone who prefers their games to be created by humans instead of environment-destroying, CSAM-creating machines will need to be vigilant when buying third-party supplements for the games covered by the license.