I'm starting a new gaming company -- it'll be sweet!

[Luke_Johnson]

Hi there!

This is a bit of a press release. I think. It’s an announcement, anyway.

I want to let you all know that I (Luke Johnson — http://www.lukejohnson.com/), in cooperation with a Secret Council of Mysterious Elders (SCME), will soon be launching a new d20 company! It’s going to be super awesome. I’m going to be the editor-in-chief, so it’s bound to be cool.

And on a completely unrelated note, I have a question for you all. When you’re shopping around for an adventure to run in your home game (or just to read for fun), what do you look for? Also, is there anything lacking in most published adventures that you’d like to see in them?

Thanks!

 

[Ilium]

Luke: The link in the text of your message is broken (it includes the parenthesis).

To answer your question, I'm always looking for what I need right now. For example, at the moment rather than trying to find the spiffiest, most interesting adventure I can find, I am desperately looking for a 10th-level urban adventure in PDF for my game tomorrow night.

That aside, though, I'd say scalability. Some adventures make an effort at this but others don't. I love it when every encounter has scaling advice included to let me use the adventure for a wider range of levels.

 

[Treebore]

Good maps, cool illustrations of "locations", NPC's with good history/personality ideas written in, neat variations on old ideas, or neat original adventure ideas.

Plus "extra's". Like if you have a blacksmith shop, a suggestion as to how to determine what he has in there, even a percentage chart, something. Just like the cool extra's that used to show up in some of the old modules.

If you have a caravan, throw in a caravan goods chart that is not only useable for that adventure, but could be used by a DM for many other caravan scenarios.

Just neat/cool/good little touches to give some extra depth and utility to the adventure.

If your a Judges Guild fan reread some of their stuff. Look at the little extra's that were frequently thrown in.

 

[Cathix]

Congratulations on your new endeavor, Luke. Best of luck and good fortune to you.

To answer your question, what intrigues me about a gaming product, be it a setting, adventure, rules or racial supplement, is 'cultural' flavor. (It's just my personal thing). I like to see a writer and publisher take an idea beyond the standard fantasy archtype, or give such an archtype sensual realism. That inspires me - and I think because gamers are so naturally adept at creating their own worlds, our job is more often to inspire them than to lead them.

Again, best of luck and I'm looking forward to seeing your products.

 

[Balok the Strange]

Congratulations on the new endeavor!

We've been going now for a little over a year, and things are going well for us; we just got a gold Ennie at GenCon!

As a slightly less n00bie publisher to a slightly more n00bie publisher, let me give you a couple of bywords;

Quality. This is probably the most important one, the one that should take precedence over anything else. Your writing should be well done. The layout, even if it's not spectacular graphically speaking, should be clean and error free; nothing will raise the ire of the public faster than a book riddled with typos! Always doublecheck the math, and then triplecheck it too. Make sure that the art you use does not look too amateurish. Unless you have a lot of cash to invest, getting art will be easier and cheaper if you find fresh new artists who are willing to be taken under your wing and molded into fine illustrators.

Publish or Write. You gotta pick one or the other. Once you start down the path of publishing, it gets much more difficult to actually get any writing in.

Edit. When you edit, don't be afraid to cut or move large swathes of material around. Some writers do very good work that needs only minor touch up work; others have great ideas, but the writing becomes scattered and disorganized requiring a jig-saw puzzle approach of taking it apart and putting it back together in a nicer shape. You can also get the writers to do this themselves, to a degree.

Proof. Even after layout is done, proof the product. Make sure that no spelling errors have crept in and that the layout is sound. And if you miss some (and you will), listen when people tell you about them and then fix them and then upload the revised copy as soon as possible. This alone can impress people (buyers and reviewers alike) and keep them coming back to your storefront to see what else you'll come up with.

And that's about it. Have fun, and don't let anyone pull you down here. This can be a great experience if you're willing to put in the long and painful work for the total lack of remuneration

Good Luck!

 

[Eytan Bernstein]

Congratulations Luke. I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with.

As for adventures, I think there is a lack of epic adventures, primarily because they're hard to write (and tend to be riddled with errors). I'd be really impressed with a well done epic adventure.