darjr
I crit!
MCDM just dropped a patreon post. Arcadia has come to an end.
There’s a bit more.
I've moved to the MCDM+ tier but NGL I'm sad. Excited too for the future.
Hello Patrons! It is I, the Baron Vladimir Harko…wait, no. It is I, Matt Colville! Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all….
Anyway enough with the literary allusions, there’s a ton of stuff happening right now, including Big Changes to this Patreon, and we want to talk to you folks about what we’re planning.
TL;DR; I hope you like MCDM art, writing, design and worldbuilding, because you’re about to get a lot more of it!
The OGL
Unfortunately there’s no real way to explain what we’re doing without explaining What’s Happening In The TTRPG Industry right now and I realize this is pretty tedious but there’s nothing for it. For those of us directly affected by this news, it seems like everyone is talking about it when in fact I suspect most folks in the larger roleplaying community really have no idea that there’s even anything to talk about. So! A brief primer on how we got here, and where “here” is.
For the last 5 (!) years, MCDM has made content for your 5E game. We are able to legally do that because of a license Wizards of the Coast published about 20 years ago called the Open Gaming License (OGL).
OGL 1.0 makes it possible for everyone to make their own content for WotC’s fantasy RPG. I was working at Wizards of the Coast (in a satellite office in LA) when this all started, so I was pretty close to ground zero for what they called the D20 Boom. And then the D20 Glut and, eventually, the D20 Bust. That’s ancient history now, but the point is, lots of companies in the last 20+ years have used the OGL to make their own content for WotC’s game.
Well, Wizards is changing the terms of that license and the new terms are very…challenging. There’s a lot of “advice” floating around online surrounding all of this, but we have our own lawyers who specialize in exactly this stuff and they’re not incredibly enthusiastic about the new terms, and neither are we!
But frankly…we never really thought of ourselves as making DLC for the Seattle Company anyway. We always thought we were making dope stuff for your table. And we still think that way!
We’re really proud of the community we’ve all built here. Getting three high-quality, crunchy articles done every month is not easy! And we intend to continue using this Patreon to supply you with high-quality fantasy (and High Fantasy and maybe Space Fantasy depending on how much of a genre snob you are) content.
But moving forward, we’re going to start rotating in more worldbuilding stuff for Orden and the Timescape. There will not, at first, be any mechanics for these articles: they’ll just be like an ongoing Gazetteer of our multiverse. If you’ve read our books, or watched The Chain of Acheron, or Dusk, we’re gonna give you a LOT more info on all that. Maps! NPCs! More Time Raider lore! Wode Elves, The City of Capital, The Greatest City in This or Any Age!
But that’s later. In the very short term, nothing much is gonna change.
This Patreon, The Short Term
For now, and for at least a few months, nothing’s changing! We got tons of cool 5E articles and art in the pike and we’re excited about all of it. We have content already in development all the way out to July.
But you may notice there’s a new tier, the $8 MCDM+ tier. Moving forward, we’re going to start developing more setting-based content that can be used in any fantasy game, or just be fun to read and inspire ideas.
Anyway enough with the literary allusions, there’s a ton of stuff happening right now, including Big Changes to this Patreon, and we want to talk to you folks about what we’re planning.
TL;DR; I hope you like MCDM art, writing, design and worldbuilding, because you’re about to get a lot more of it!
The OGL
Unfortunately there’s no real way to explain what we’re doing without explaining What’s Happening In The TTRPG Industry right now and I realize this is pretty tedious but there’s nothing for it. For those of us directly affected by this news, it seems like everyone is talking about it when in fact I suspect most folks in the larger roleplaying community really have no idea that there’s even anything to talk about. So! A brief primer on how we got here, and where “here” is.
For the last 5 (!) years, MCDM has made content for your 5E game. We are able to legally do that because of a license Wizards of the Coast published about 20 years ago called the Open Gaming License (OGL).
OGL 1.0 makes it possible for everyone to make their own content for WotC’s fantasy RPG. I was working at Wizards of the Coast (in a satellite office in LA) when this all started, so I was pretty close to ground zero for what they called the D20 Boom. And then the D20 Glut and, eventually, the D20 Bust. That’s ancient history now, but the point is, lots of companies in the last 20+ years have used the OGL to make their own content for WotC’s game.
Well, Wizards is changing the terms of that license and the new terms are very…challenging. There’s a lot of “advice” floating around online surrounding all of this, but we have our own lawyers who specialize in exactly this stuff and they’re not incredibly enthusiastic about the new terms, and neither are we!
But frankly…we never really thought of ourselves as making DLC for the Seattle Company anyway. We always thought we were making dope stuff for your table. And we still think that way!
We’re really proud of the community we’ve all built here. Getting three high-quality, crunchy articles done every month is not easy! And we intend to continue using this Patreon to supply you with high-quality fantasy (and High Fantasy and maybe Space Fantasy depending on how much of a genre snob you are) content.
But moving forward, we’re going to start rotating in more worldbuilding stuff for Orden and the Timescape. There will not, at first, be any mechanics for these articles: they’ll just be like an ongoing Gazetteer of our multiverse. If you’ve read our books, or watched The Chain of Acheron, or Dusk, we’re gonna give you a LOT more info on all that. Maps! NPCs! More Time Raider lore! Wode Elves, The City of Capital, The Greatest City in This or Any Age!
But that’s later. In the very short term, nothing much is gonna change.
This Patreon, The Short Term
For now, and for at least a few months, nothing’s changing! We got tons of cool 5E articles and art in the pike and we’re excited about all of it. We have content already in development all the way out to July.
But you may notice there’s a new tier, the $8 MCDM+ tier. Moving forward, we’re going to start developing more setting-based content that can be used in any fantasy game, or just be fun to read and inspire ideas.
There’s a bit more.
The $10 Tier
This has been the ARCADIA tier for the last two years, but July is the last 5E ARCADIA issue. After that this is just the “MCDM+ But It Costs $10 Tier.” There’s always a few folks who want to show more support, and this is the tier for them
This has been the ARCADIA tier for the last two years, but July is the last 5E ARCADIA issue. After that this is just the “MCDM+ But It Costs $10 Tier.” There’s always a few folks who want to show more support, and this is the tier for them
I've moved to the MCDM+ tier but NGL I'm sad. Excited too for the future.
