AMA (Thurs April 30): Wolfgang Baur (Kobold Press, TSR, DUNGEON Magazine, D&D 5E Tyranny of Dragons, Advanced Races Compendium)

[Monkey King]

I'm curious about how the adventures for 5E are produced. Did you guys furnish WotC with a final, completed product, or did they put the finishing touches on it? How much oversight was there?

Hey Morrus, thanks for hosting this!

The 5E adventures are produced as a combination of studio work and WotC oversight. For Kobold Press, we'd do some portion of the work, then we would get feedback from WotC on Realmslore, or story beats, or mechanics. Then we did more of the design, and got feedback from swarms of playtesters. Then we turned over another version for feedback on the art and layout. And so forth. It was iterative, and similar to video game design in the sense of many interested parties all looking to make the best adventure possible.

As you would expect, WotC had final approval on the book, since they're the publisher. Kobold Press did the heavy lifting in design, development, and editing, but Wizards had crucial input and set the direction for what they wanted.

I'm really, really pleased with how it turned out. It shows off the new edition and a somewhat more traditional playstyle than we've seen in a while.

 

[Monkey King]

One of the tenets of the Midgard setting is that it's a dark fantasy setting of deep magic - I hope that I got that right. How do you evoke dark fantasy and deep magic in your games? Why do you feel the distinction is important vs. traditional high fantasy? Finally, any chance of a Kobold's Guide to Dark Fantasy?

Yep, dark fantasy and deep magic is definitely the direction of Midgard (and the Southlands as well, in a different way).

I think of the distinction as mostly a matter of tone. In dark fantasy, there are more fallen kingdoms and lost cities: ruins, decline, decay and evil on the rise. For me, that makes it easier for heroes to shine bright (and also, for them to die a horrible death eaten by a grue). The monsters and villains tend to be organized and sometimes quite open in their malevolent plans for conquest and enslavement. There's less safe harbors. To use a term from Rich Baker, it's more a "points of light" setting than "pools of darkness".

The distinction isn't massive and there's overlap with traditional high fantasy, but I think it leaves more room for horror-tinged adventures. Midgard is, after all, the home of the Empire of the Ghouls, and the Walking Abominations of the Western Wastes, and the Master of Demon Mountain. There's more than 1 source of ultimate evil (in contrast to many high fantasy realms, which posit a primary bad guy).

I would love to write a Kobold Guide to Dark Fantasy. Hmmmmmm.

Thanks for the great questions!

 

[LegendaryGames]

Al-Qadim 4EVAR!

Hi Wolfgang,

Which were your favorite Al-Qadim products?

Jason

 

[Monkey King]

7 Secrets of Kickstarter?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on what makes an appealing Kickstarter for a game product. Do you have any secrets or words of wisdom for other Kickstarter game publishers?

Sure, since I'm running the Advanced Races Compendium Kickstarter right now, of course the topic is on my mind! I've run about 20 crowdfunded projects, and there's a few things that work for me and for Kobold Press.

1) For the basics of planning and creation, plus concrete tips on goals and reaching your audience, go read Monte Cook and Shanna Germain's ebook Kicking It: Successful Crowdfunding (available on DriveThru).
2) Only Kickstart a project you are passionate about. It's a very public way to make a project, and you'll need enthusiasm to carry you through the inevitable gripers, griefers, and snark that comes from doing game design publishing on the internet.
3) Building an audience takes time. Start early, and don't just talk about the funding part of your project. Share as much of what is cool about the project as you can. If you are not comfortable sharing your work, a big public crowdfunding process is going to be super-difficult. You need to be able to communicate why anyone should care, and why anyone should trust you.
4) Start small. I Kickstart hardcover books these days (because I can't afford to do them the traditional way), but I started by crowdfunding a single adventure that was specced at about 32 to 48 pages or so. I just wanted enough money to hire artists and a cartographer, really.
5) Launching a campaign setting as your first project is bold and ambitious and much, much, much less likely to be successful than something smaller that you can deliver in a reasonable time. People want to see a track record before they believe; Kickstarter backers are more skeptical now than they were. Build your reputation one brick at a time (and sneak in a few details of your campaign setting in the adventure! Use the ripples approach to building your world as in the Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding)
6) Your funding goal is a budget. It's not a salary, and it's not play money. People are trusting you to make wise financial decisions to maximize the awesomeness of your Kickstarter. Make sure you know your costs, including the cost of your own time and the costs of editing, art, etc before you launch anything.
7) Don't be dull. Kickstarters are fundraising for a project, but they also have to be entertaining. Show a little humor or dark demonic fury or SOMETHING that shows why your project is fun to back.

Great question, thanks!

 

[Ashran]

I did not read all the questions so far so sorry if it was asked already (I read only your answers and thanks to take the time in your schedule for such an "interview" )
Any chance of seeing Midgard as a 5th edition setting, or any of your productions at kobold press ? I love the dark fantasy and deep magic feel you managed to pull off with that settings.
I feel the shadow roads were largely inspired by The Wheel of time's Ways in the novels by Robert Jordan, did you read that saga ? (I definitly recommand it)

 

[Monkey King]

Magazines

Do you see any role for print magazines in the future of the hobby? What did your time with Dungeon/Dragon magazine and Kobold Quarterly teach you about running RPG periodicals? Is there any hope for KQ returning?

Thanks, Will, for raising a subject near and dear to me. It's no secret that I love magazines, they got me my start in the RPG business as a freelancer and as a staffer, and yet...

I think there's extremely slim hope of KQ returning. It required about 4 months of my time every year to keep it going, and it stayed in the black, just barely, with declining circulation. Much of what I would have published in KQ now appears on the Kobold Press blog or as PDFs. The Kobold Press design contests are my slush pile these days. I still love to find new writers or new artists to publish.

Now, my time with Dragon/Dungeon and KQ taught me a lot about deadlines, working with freelancers & artists, editing text, writing a headline, and some of the skills required of a publisher. It was an amazing education learning editing, reading a slush pile from industry titans like Kim Mohan and Roger Moore and Barbara Young. I would not trade those magazine years for anything.

With that said, I think the time of the niche RPG magazine is coming to a close. It kills me to admit it, but readers have so many options now, and advertisers do as well. It is supremely hard to break even in magazines, and the returns.... The finances of a magazine are always a disaster.

So let me be clear, print magazines are stressful, difficult, ornery beasts. I love print magazines dearly and subscribe to more than a dozen, but I'm sort of a dying breed in this. I want Gygax Magazine to succeed (and have contributed editing and articles to it), and I love to cheer on and buy fanzines like the Excellent Travelling Volume (issue #2 out now!). I just don't believe that print magazines are a central source of RPG lore anymore: people look elsewhere for their gaming inspiration, surprises, art, essays, new monsters, etc.

Blogs and PDF publishing are strong and wonderful wellsprings of gaming, and I find joy in that. But I miss the age of magazines, and the sense that anything, ANYTHING could be between those covers. I would give a lot for a new set of "Pages from the Mages" in my mailbox. Hell, there's a whole section of spellbooks and spells in Deep Magic that are basically a nod to PftM.

*sigh*

 

[Auriel]

Thank you for taking the time Wolfgang!

I'd like to gauge your feelings on the current publishing trends. Things have changed so much from the old TSR days, but the Kobold yet survives! If you had three tips for unpublished fantasy and/or RPG authors, what would they be? And what do you think are the biggest, starkest differences between publishing now and publishing back then? I'd love to get some perspective from someone who's written, published and edited with some of the best and brightest in the trade.

 

[Desh-Rae-Halra]

Hi Wolfgang,

I was wondering if any unusual Planar races might show up in this Kickstarter. When I look at books that "got it right" for me in terms of Races, Pathfinder supplements like Blood of Angels Blood of Fiends, etc really hit the nail on the head. I say this because they gave lots of variations to the Race itself. This way not all Aasimars got +2 Wis and + 2 Cha, Not all Tieflings got +2 Dex, +2 Int, -2 Cha.
They included numerous types of bloodlines which had different attributions, which I think helped build parties where the entire group could be Tieflings, but not everyone had to have a bad Charisma.
The other section was the variant cosmetic traits, or the charts for alternate racial features.

Can we expect to see this level of detail in the Advanced Races Compendium?

Also, from the KS $4,000 sounds like a lot to add a race to the book. Can backers have some kind of option to add a race overview (like maybe 2 pages total with an illustration) for something less expensive than some automobiles that I have owned?

Also, considering how much Deep Magic expanded the Spell List for Pathfinder, any chance we could see Kobold Press do something similar for the upcoming Occult Adventures, or even Psionics?

Thank you

~Desh

 

[Monkey King]

I'm a huge fan of Kobold Press's products for 13th Age, especially Deep Magic. I'm currently using the 13th Age edition of the Midgard Beastiary for my game, which has an excellent section on many of the races in the Advanced Race Compendium. However, the 13th Age edition of Deep Magic was so good that I was wondering if you had plans for a 13th Age Advanced Race Guide as well. I know the mechanics are different, but I'd love to see how these new races would adapt to 13th Age's more narratively focused style.

Hey, CubeB, thanks for asking about 13th Age, and I'm glad you like both the Midgard Bestiary and the Deep Magic sourcebook for that system.

I like 13th Age, but I'm far from the biggest 13th Age fan at Kobold Press--that honor goes to Wade Rockett and kobold friend ASH LAW. And I suspect they'd love a crack at an Advanced Races Compendium for 13th Age. If the Advanced Races Compendium for Pathfinder does well (and it is 60% funded after 3 days!), then it is possible that a 13th Age version could happen down the line.

It's not on the schedule right now, though, and our calendar is pretty full into spring of 2016. So no promises on this one.

 

[Monkey King]

I'm very excited for your current Kickstarter project:
(https://www.kickstarter.com/project...mpendium-for-pathfinder-roleplayi/description)

Can you talk for a minute about the races that are unique to the Midgard setting? Will any of those races be features in the Advanced Race Compendium?

Sure! The compendium expands on the Advanced Races series for PC options, including new races, monstrous races, and classic races; 15 races in all with new spells, feats, archetypes, etc.

The more traditional races include the aasimar, gnolls, kobolds, lizardfolk, tieflings, and a few more. The races that come from Midgard originally include:

1) The Ravenfolk, which are somewhat like tengu but changed up for a Norse or Slavic context. They are also called the Huginn, after one of Odin's ravens. Doomcroakers, rogues, and oracles, they're one of my favorites.
2) The Tosculi, or waspfolk. There's not a lot of insectfolk about, but these are somewhat like humanoid versions of the tarantula wasp (which is a nightmarish real species that, you know, eats tarantulas). The tosculi are a hive species, and the PC versions are the outcasts, called the Hiveless. I did a bunch of design and development with these for the Southlands, which ships this summer. They make strong villains and tragic longer heroes.
3) Darakhul: These are intelligent, social ghouls, as found in Midgard campaign setting's Empire of the Ghoul. Playing undead and generally evil PCs is tricky, but possible. They make wonderful, wonderful villains. If I could just run an all-underdark campaign again, they'd definitely be in it.
4) Dragonkin and Gearforged: These are Midgard takes on races found in various forms since forever, so I'm counting them as "half Midgard, half universal." The gearforged are automatons inhabited by human souls, living so long as the rust monsters don't catch them. The dragonkin are serpentine and have some secrets tied to the setting that... Well, dragons can keep a secret, for now. I have a dragonkin story to tell, but it's a stretch goal for the project. (You heard nothing about draconic secrets in this AMA...Nothing...)
5) Shadow Fey: One of my favorites, which are elves devoted to the Shadow Realm and a dark queen. They were the villains of the first campaign arc in Midgard, which was mostly Zobeck at the time. I wanted a race of fey who were snooty, vile, and totally right about being superior to your common human. They're arrogant, but not pure evil--they are sometimes caught doing the right and decent thing. Think of them as the neutral troublemakers in between the drow and the high elves on the alignment chart. The shadow fey have attitude, cool powers over shadow, and yeah, I love this chapter. Hell, I want to play one of the shadow fey.

The book as a whole is setting-neutral; it's not a Midgard supplement, though it includes sidebars and additional lore for the Midgard races.

If we're lucky, we'll also get to do the Trollkin or the Elfmarked or others specific to Midgard, as well as several classic species that gamers will know from Dragonlance or Greyhawk or elsewhere.