New Forgotten Realms adventures to be published

[RyanD]

-Ryan, you still have not address the fact that you are making players of the High Level Living City pay to playtest your new venture. I do not think this is fair.

Well, I don't think we're "making" anyone do anything.

Scenarios go into the library for use by sanctioned RPGA events for approximately a year before they'll appear in print for sale. During that time, people who play them have a chance to tell us what they liked and didn't like about them, and we have a chance to make them better.

That's already happened. A tremendous amount of feedback on the scenarios in the library has been used to alter them to make certain aspects more clear, to remove content that was confusing, and to balance encounters better vs. real world play.

I think that the idea that we're getting people to "play to playtest" is a political slogan, but not much of a real-world issue. RPGA players are able to play these scenarios for a year before anyone else will see them. And some of them will never be commercially published, either because they're too short, don't have theme or content that would make much sense outside of the Living City environment, or because there is a competitive product in the same niche.

They're paying to participate in the Living City campaign, and the funds raised are used to offset the costs of operating that campaign. In fact, since we lose money on Living City, we're spending more on the campaign than it brings in. It is subsidized by other parts of OrganizedPlay's operations.

And who is writing the mods Ryan

Some of the scenarios in the Library were written by me, some were written by Scott Magner, and the most recent editions are written by people working with Spellblade Studios, a group of long time LC players and writers who have been awarded a contract to create additional content for the campaign.

I wonder how long before they just go to WoTC and bypass you to write these mods?

You'll note that Wizards of the Coast has no new scenario content scheduled as of today for 2004, and has only published a handful of high-level scenarios for 3rd Edition. It is unlikely that they will, or would become interested in, publishing high level scenarios in the future.

And if they decided to do so, they'd have the same problem that all other publishers have with high level content - finding enough experienced, critical players and DMs to really take the scenarios apart and tell them what needs to be fixed to make them effective challenges for the toughest of the tough. That's the Living City advantage - we have those people, and they give us that information in a process of feedback and improvement.

Ryan

 

[Cleagan ShineyStone]

High level Modules from OP

oops message accidentily got duplicated.

deleting duplicate.

 

[Cleagan ShineyStone]

High level Modules from OP

Speaking from a player perspective in the Living City High Level games.

We don't play to play test nor do we pay to play test. We choose to play in a massively multiplayer role-playing game with the characters that we have played for years. It only costs 1.00 a game. There are 4 High level games each year. This is not allot of money. Trust me if they were more games each year we would pay for them.

If OP can sell the modules that I pay 1.00 to play for 30$ to someone else. FANTASTIC! If this works out really well then maybe we'll get to play more of them.

What brings us back to this game is the community of players and the history/living story that we create. If the rest of the gamming community can benefit from this and OP can become more finically stable then that is great because it will only help us out in the long run.

So as a person that has played in several modules that the people of spell blade have made. I will have to say that they have been well done, and certainly challenging even for those of us who were slightly above EL18. I think that there was an epic level creature in at least 2 of the last 3 modules that I did. (one of them being an EXTREMELY challenging experience with a Force Dragon). We all know going in that death is a likely reality from these games and that only adds to the fun.

The High Level players are for the most part the most experienced players out there. We plan for days or weeks on who must be in our party to maximum success and what actions we can do as a team to ensure victory. Because we have learned that if you can't work together in these modules you wont live. I don't think that there are many high level game products out there that are this intense. Its a lot of fun.

The LC tradition is filled with fantastic stories, heroic actions, evil deeds. I think it is great that other people can experience some of it too. If OP can make some money then that only means there will be more of these things in the future.

House rules. Every game in the world has house rules. Yes LC has a document of special rules. Think about it for a moment. Everything that is a DM's judgment call has to spelled out because there are several hundred different DM's. Every small group of gamers I have ever played with each had their own house rules. Now put several thousands active gamers together and you can see a problem. That is why LC put together a document to outline things that would normally be left to DM's. Which incidentally creates a very uniform testing ground for the modules that you will have the option to buy.

So listen up. Take a look at the modules when they come out. I'll tell you now they were fun to play the first time around. If nothing else it will show you what a good high level adventure should look like.

ps I can only represent myself. I am not a part of OP as a volunteer or on anyother level than a person who enjoys to play in the LC setting.

 

[Sam]

In fact, since we lose money on Living City, we're spending more on the campaign than it brings in. It is subsidized by other parts of OrganizedPlay's operations.

Ryan, I'm not trying to pry into your private business status here, but I'm curious. What other revenue generating business lines does OP have other than Living City?

Thanks for always being so approachable.

 

[Zogg]

I have no idea why you just posted this. I guess you are trying to bump up your post count.

I have three legitimate questions for Mr. Dancy:

I have no idea why you just posted this. I guess you are just trying to bump your legitimate prick count.

 

[RyanD]

Ryan, I'm not trying to pry into your private business status here, but I'm curious. What other revenue generating business lines does OP have other than Living City?

OP also handles the Alderac Entertainment Group's tournament system for Legend of the Five Rings, Warlord, Humaliens and InitialD. We are also operating the tournament system for Fast Forward Entertainment's CrossGen CCG.

We've got a couple of other deals in the works that haven't been announced yet, but I expect to have some public comment by the fall.

Ryan

 

[Henry]

Greymarch and Zogg, not here. E-mail each other if you wish to continue debate, please.

 

[Sam]

OP also handles the Alderac Entertainment Group's tournament system for Legend of the Five Rings, Warlord, Humaliens and InitialD. We are also operating the tournament system for Fast Forward Entertainment's CrossGen CCG.

I obviously wasn't aware that OP was doing that. Good luck with these and other endeavours.