Man-thing
First Post
Taken from the Custom Adventure Livejournal by Wolfgang Baur
With Castle Shadowcrag clearly in the lead for voting, we're just three members (or one patron) away from meeting the commission and heading off into design.
It would be so perfectly fitting for this shadow-plane castle adventure to launch on Halloween, it makes me just about pop.
Will you be the patron who puts us over the threshold? I hope you will; please sign up and become the launch patron for this project.
Castle Shadowcrag
This large castle sourcebook that includes a shadow plane adventure, with a revolution against aristocrats, family madness and a curse that lets the plane of shifting shadows bleed into the castle. Family history and castle lore are interwoven with site exploration and intense combat, as well as new shadow spells. A set of flashback stories-within-a-story allow PCs to witness the castle's murder, bloodshed, and tragedy — and to set things right.
This adventure is heavy on the tragic prince, castle exploration, Gothic tone, bardic knowledge, historic legacy weapons and items, and it also includes a dungeon crawl, partly based on real castle dungeons. It also includes new shadow spells, a Star & Shadow mage, and all the sordid tales of entangled bloodlines.
Weighing in at a minimum of 45,000 words, it will take at least 4 months to write.
Patronage As a Publishing Strategy
I'm returning to an old, old model for writers with this adventure: patronage. In the medieval age and in the Renaissance, patrons were the ones who commissioned artists and writers. There was no such thing as a "publisher". People who wanted books paid someone directly to write them.
The OpenDesign approach applies that strategy to RPG adventures. It's a both a publishing experiment and a design experiment.
What's good about this approach?
Without big corporations or even small publishers standing between a writer and a buyer, Patrons have a much more significant say about the content. The people who commission the text will also choose the title, level, monsters and so forth. They become, effectively, patrons of the arts. I feel all feudal every time I think about it.
And who are you, exactly?
My name is Wolfgang Baur. I've been professionally involved in the RPG field for 15 years, starting at TSR and later at WotC. Here's an partial list of my credits, but I'm best known for things like Frostburn, Planes of Law, the Book of Roguish Luck, Assassin Mountain, "Kingdom of the Ghouls", and many more. I've written about 12 adventures for Dungeon magazine, and used to be its editor.
How many members do you need to get started?
About 50; the first one launched with 49, the second will have about 53 at launch. Since there's no retailer, no publisher, no distributor, and no print costs, even a tiny audience makes it worthwhile to design exclusively for patrons.
What would I get out of this?
You'd get:
* The complete adventure written to your instructions regarding level, monsters, etc. It is delivered as a PDF, and you'll get updates with errata if needed.
* Access to a private set of posts discussing the design.
* You'd be able to both watch and influence the design as it moves ahead, from outline to final form, with polls and comments.
* A series of design essays on topics that patrons choose. Many patrons find these one of their favorite parts of the experience.
* The adventure will not be sold to the public. Patrons of future Open Design projects may get a copy (for a fee), but the total number of copies will always be limited.
http://customadventure.livejournal.com/
Go sign-up. Voting on Monsters has begun today!
With Castle Shadowcrag clearly in the lead for voting, we're just three members (or one patron) away from meeting the commission and heading off into design.
It would be so perfectly fitting for this shadow-plane castle adventure to launch on Halloween, it makes me just about pop.
Will you be the patron who puts us over the threshold? I hope you will; please sign up and become the launch patron for this project.
Castle Shadowcrag
This large castle sourcebook that includes a shadow plane adventure, with a revolution against aristocrats, family madness and a curse that lets the plane of shifting shadows bleed into the castle. Family history and castle lore are interwoven with site exploration and intense combat, as well as new shadow spells. A set of flashback stories-within-a-story allow PCs to witness the castle's murder, bloodshed, and tragedy — and to set things right.
This adventure is heavy on the tragic prince, castle exploration, Gothic tone, bardic knowledge, historic legacy weapons and items, and it also includes a dungeon crawl, partly based on real castle dungeons. It also includes new shadow spells, a Star & Shadow mage, and all the sordid tales of entangled bloodlines.
Weighing in at a minimum of 45,000 words, it will take at least 4 months to write.
Patronage As a Publishing Strategy
I'm returning to an old, old model for writers with this adventure: patronage. In the medieval age and in the Renaissance, patrons were the ones who commissioned artists and writers. There was no such thing as a "publisher". People who wanted books paid someone directly to write them.
The OpenDesign approach applies that strategy to RPG adventures. It's a both a publishing experiment and a design experiment.
What's good about this approach?
Without big corporations or even small publishers standing between a writer and a buyer, Patrons have a much more significant say about the content. The people who commission the text will also choose the title, level, monsters and so forth. They become, effectively, patrons of the arts. I feel all feudal every time I think about it.
And who are you, exactly?
My name is Wolfgang Baur. I've been professionally involved in the RPG field for 15 years, starting at TSR and later at WotC. Here's an partial list of my credits, but I'm best known for things like Frostburn, Planes of Law, the Book of Roguish Luck, Assassin Mountain, "Kingdom of the Ghouls", and many more. I've written about 12 adventures for Dungeon magazine, and used to be its editor.
How many members do you need to get started?
About 50; the first one launched with 49, the second will have about 53 at launch. Since there's no retailer, no publisher, no distributor, and no print costs, even a tiny audience makes it worthwhile to design exclusively for patrons.
What would I get out of this?
You'd get:
* The complete adventure written to your instructions regarding level, monsters, etc. It is delivered as a PDF, and you'll get updates with errata if needed.
* Access to a private set of posts discussing the design.
* You'd be able to both watch and influence the design as it moves ahead, from outline to final form, with polls and comments.
* A series of design essays on topics that patrons choose. Many patrons find these one of their favorite parts of the experience.
* The adventure will not be sold to the public. Patrons of future Open Design projects may get a copy (for a fee), but the total number of copies will always be limited.
http://customadventure.livejournal.com/
Go sign-up. Voting on Monsters has begun today!
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