Licensing
So you want to write something that’s compatible with Thirsty Sword Lesbians? That’s wonderful! We’re offering an open license that will let you make and sell your own works that build on the game, under the terms below. We can’t wait to see what neat new things the community creates that are “Powered by Lesbians!”
The Short Version
The legal language of the license is what’s binding, not this explanation, but in short you can use the text of Thirsty Sword Lesbians in creating new RPGs or new supplements for Thirsty Sword Lesbians as long as:
- You give us credit
- You offer the new text that you create under essentially the same license so that others can build on it, too
To avoid confusion, we ask that you not include “Thirsty Sword Lesbians” in your title, though you are welcome to describe your work as compatible with or intended for use with Thirsty Sword Lesbians.
You do not have permission to imply that any of us endorse your work, nor to use the Evil Hat or Gay Spaceship Games logos.
However, scroll down for a nifty “Powered By Lesbians” logo you can use to identify your work as building on Thirsty Sword Lesbians!
License to Use the Text of Thirsty Sword Lesbians
The text of Thirsty Sword Lesbians (not the art) is offered under a CC BY SA 4.0 license, meaning that you are free to distribute the text and to adapt it within the scope of the license, which requires that you give us credit and that you share your adaptations under similar terms. Please credit the author, April Kit Walsh, and the publisher, Evil Hat Productions, LLC. The text of Thirsty Sword Lesbians is additionally offered under a license having the terms of CC BY SA 4.0, except: (1) if the Adapted Material is a literary work (such as an RPG book), then the Adapter’s License need only be applied to the text (not, for instance, illustrations) and (2) you must include this and the following sentence in your licensing terms. The CC BY SA 4.0 license is available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
What’s this ‘additionally offered’ license stuff?
Some people have expressed concern that the sharealike provision in CC licenses could be read to require that the art in a subsequent book be licensed out and not just the text. That’s not the result we want. The extra language beyond just the vanilla CC BY SA 4.0 license is intended to make it clear that when you publish a work like an RPG book or supplement, you only have to offer the text under the open license.
How should a new work credit TSL?
Wherever you put your own copyright info, add the following text (in the same size as your other copyright info):
“This work uses material from theThirsty Sword Lesbians roleplaying game (found at https://swordlesbians.com), designed by April Kit Walsh and published by Evil Hat Productions, LLC, pursuant to the open license available at poweredbylesbians.com.”
How should a new work comply with the sharealike provision?
That’s a question for your lawyer (which we are not), but feel free to use our language as a model:
The text of this work is offered under a CC BY SA 4.0 license, meaning that you are free to distribute the text and to adapt it within the scope of the license, which requires that you give us credit and that you share your adaptations under similar terms. The text of this work is additionally offered under a license having the terms of CC BY SA 4.0, except: (1) if the Adapted Material is a literary work (such as an RPG book), then the Adapter’s License need only be applied to the text (not, for instance, illustrations) and (2) you must include this and the following sentence in your licensing terms. The CC BY SA 4.0 license is available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
License to Use the Powered by Lesbians Logo
You are not required to use the Powered by Lesbians logo, but we give you permission to do so for works that build on Thirsty Sword Lesbians as long as you include the following text:
Thirsty Sword Lesbians™ is a trademark of April Kit Walsh. The Powered by Lesbians Logo is © April Kit Walsh, and is used pursuant to the open licensing terms at http://poweredbylesbians.com
