I was just reading the ask about modifying eureka to have a masquerade and it got me thinking, does the team have any license or interest in licensing for expansions? I tend to think the OGL ended up being kind of a disaster, but I think it would be cool to be able to be able to a) be able to add extra options for settings/groups/etc and b) support y'all with it and c) be able to see a metaphorical stamp of approval that this splat doesn't fuck up the base game
Legally, we own a copyright for Eureka but practically speaking we don’t have an army of lawyers to enforce that and don’t love most copyright laws even if we did. The most serious thing is that like, we ask that nobody that’s not us host any official A.N.I.M. product for download anywhere. (There’s no point in pirating it, you can get it for free on itchio.)
We do allow people to make their own Eureka stuff, and in fact we especially encourage it when it comes to adventure modules. More adventure modules is something Eureka will always need. We even have a semi-formal approval process where we read, consult, and edit on people’s Eureka stuff to make sure it is up to our standard and if it is we will even link to it on our itchio page and in the rulebook itself. We don’t get any profits from this, you keep any money you make, but it still benefits us because having more adventure modules increases the overall playability of Eureka and it lets us play our own game.
(We are actually running a mystery module jam right now.)
This is a lot of extra work for no direct pay though, and that is part of why Trait supplements and stuff like that get much lower priority than adventure modules. I am personally much, much more anal about what is allowed in terms of Traits and stuff. (And I don’t think Eureka even needs any more Traits, a bunch of the existing official Traits have barely even been used.) If anyone wants to do any extra Eureka thing, I urge it to be an adventure module. There is a very comprehensive guide on how to make a good Eureka adventure module in Chapter 5 of the rulebook.
If anyone was interested in doing a, like, alternative setting, like one where there is a VtM-esque “masquerade,” or one where there is still no “masquerade” but monsters are relatively known to science, then actually I recommend that this be part of an adventure module too. Because well, like, there is little point in an alternative setting if there is nothing setting-specific for the PCs to do in this setting.
Such a supplement would introduce itself, explain the differences in setting and subsequently game rules, explain how this would likely affect the types of characters or types of behaviors and attitudes they would have, etc., and then it would give you the adventure module taking place in that alternative setting below that.
If we don’t like your Eureka project, we won’t sue you, we’ll just not acknowledge or promote/approve it. Granted, making Eureka supplements or whatever that go against the design principles, themes, intentions, etc. of Eureka will personally probably really upset me, but it’s not illegal.
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