As an original purchaser of the Acts of Evil ashcan, you are hereby granted a license to create your own game based on the text of the ashcan. The license is non-revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, and lasts for the duration of your natural lifetime. The license grants you the right to develop and freely or commercially publish your own game derivative of the text of the Acts of Evil ashcan. The license is non-revocable, meaning that I will not revoke your right to use this license. It is non-exclusive, meaning that I am granting it to every original purchaser of the ashcan. It is non-transferable, meaning you can't transfer your rights under this license to someone else or develop a game and sell or license it for publication by someone else. And there are four additional restrictions:

- You may not use any form of the glowing, horned icon from the front cover of the ashcan.
- You may not reproduce my signature (which appears on page 81 of the ashcan).
- You may not use the phrase "Primary Deviance" or the phrase "Acts of Evil" in the titling or subtitling of your game derived from the ashcan.
- You must credit me on the cover, or title page, or copyright page of the game you create using the phrase "Based on a game design by Paul Czege".

Why?

I've been working on Acts of Evil for several years, with the design goal of immersive (whatever that means) play of impossibly powerful and self-absorbed (but not consciously, intentionally evil) characters that has the effect of sometimes producing protagonists from the cast of NPCs. The latter goal of occasional emergent NPC protagonism works in my most recent versions of the rules, and without me having resorted to giving players control of NPCs to make it happen. But the goal of immersive play of powerful and self-absorbed, but not consciously, intentionally evil characters within situations prepped by the GM doesn't. And the years of design work and playtests since I published the ashcan are demonstrating that particular goal to be quite intractable to my efforts. I'm increasingly convinced I have some deep-seated unconscious creative biases keeping me from discovering what the game needs to be.

There's clearly something about the game that a lot of folks find compelling. So I'm granting the license above hoping you who bought the ashcan out of engagement with the idea of the game will create something from it that explodes my unconscious creative biases.

Thanks,

Paul

This is wonderful, Paul. To be clear, can we reproduce the text of the ashcan?

Graham

This is strangely timely, as years after my initial purchase, I finally convinced some people to try playing Acts with Evil with me a couple of days ago (we haven't played yet.  But we will!  Soon!).

Would you be willing to write a bit about changes you've made to the game since the ashcan? 

Graham,

There is no restriction on reproducing the text of the ashcan. Aside from the restricted titling/subtitling phrases you can use as much or as little of the text of the ashcan as you need to make a game that plays to your satisfaction.

Paul

Do you still have some copies of the incomplete edition for sale? I've been waiting for the complete product, and I've been holding back with my purchase of MLWM until its release, for shipping reasons. Since the original edition turns out to be the final, however incomplete, product, I can just as well order both now.

Hey Ignotus,

I hesitate to write about the changes I've made myself because part of my goal with granting the license is to see how others think the game needs to be.

However, the game is very much in my thoughts, and so I probably won't be able to keep entirely silent about my own experiences when I see folks crashing against its design challenges.

Paul

Filip,

I do still have some copies of the ashcan <a href="http://halfmeme.com/evil.html">available.

If you want both My Life with Master and a copy of the Acts of Evil ashcan, I can quote you combined shipping. Email me.

Paul

Paul wrote: I hesitate to write about the changes I've made myself because part of my goal with granting the license is to see how others think the game needs to be.

However, the game is very much in my thoughts, and so I probably won't be able to keep entirely silent about my own experiences when I see folks crashing against its design challenges.

Ignotus wrote:
One quick rules question: what happens when a nobody with agency is promoted to underling?  Do they lose their agency because they have become an occultist?