DragonDroid
First Post
Let me start with the following: If you're one of those who cooked up a quick idea within one week for WoTC's campaign setting contest, you'll vehemently disagree with me. I've also hidden my identity to avoid possible bias, for I want to see how far I go in the contest. Besides, it's too late - they already have my idea.
Okay, I'm one of the many RPGers who (perhaps foolishly) submitted his campaign idea to Wizards of the Coast for possible consideration for a campaign setting. Now, after reading RangerWickett's reason for NOT submitting his idea, I kinda feel that I wish I hadn't sent that idea in the first place, in spite of the rewards that would come.
I created my submitted idea in December of 1996 (it was actually for a video game, then a possible novel), and have constantly revised it for my game idea/novel, then as part of a campaign setting for D&D. Everyone thought that the ideas I used was quite interesting. I was writing three novels based on that world (two are about 50% finished, while the third is just an outline) when I heard about this
At first, I thought that it was great. 120k and a guaranteed job? Hell, as a broke college student, I'm in! But after I sent it last Tuesday, I felt something I have never felt in my life: I might have sold my creative soul. Much of it, anyway, but something I put my heart in during my teen years.
120,000 is a LOT of money: almost three years' worth of good income, in spite of taxes. Unfortunately it is not worth five and a half years of my vision. And it is worse if I only get a mere 20k for NOT being one of those selected. C'mon, 20,000 measly dollars for your RPGing soul? And you can't even use that work for anything you would write anymore! I could get 20K for two good books; if I get that far, odds are I have a good executable idea and can write a pretty good novel after a couple of attempts. And I would have fun with that as well.
I'll admit it: I have not written a single published work of any sort. (I submitted a couple of short stories to a couple of fantasy magazines, but they were all rejected.) So, odds are that my first novel under WoTC, which would 99% of the time be accepted, will bomb terribly. And odds are, they'll hire people to pick up the slack when I could not, for better or for worse. Probably the latter. The other write-for-hire novelists, no matter how good they may be, can't write the book like how I would envision it. For example, if I created a world, then someone like R.A. Salvatore created a deviant character this side of a Drizzt clone and killed much I held dear in that world, I would feel VERY insulted unless the book bombed, or I got the rights to the world back immediately. And I would still not forgive WoTC for twisting what I wrote.
Between what I wrote and what RangerWickett wrote, what do you think?
Okay, I'm one of the many RPGers who (perhaps foolishly) submitted his campaign idea to Wizards of the Coast for possible consideration for a campaign setting. Now, after reading RangerWickett's reason for NOT submitting his idea, I kinda feel that I wish I hadn't sent that idea in the first place, in spite of the rewards that would come.
I created my submitted idea in December of 1996 (it was actually for a video game, then a possible novel), and have constantly revised it for my game idea/novel, then as part of a campaign setting for D&D. Everyone thought that the ideas I used was quite interesting. I was writing three novels based on that world (two are about 50% finished, while the third is just an outline) when I heard about this
At first, I thought that it was great. 120k and a guaranteed job? Hell, as a broke college student, I'm in! But after I sent it last Tuesday, I felt something I have never felt in my life: I might have sold my creative soul. Much of it, anyway, but something I put my heart in during my teen years.
120,000 is a LOT of money: almost three years' worth of good income, in spite of taxes. Unfortunately it is not worth five and a half years of my vision. And it is worse if I only get a mere 20k for NOT being one of those selected. C'mon, 20,000 measly dollars for your RPGing soul? And you can't even use that work for anything you would write anymore! I could get 20K for two good books; if I get that far, odds are I have a good executable idea and can write a pretty good novel after a couple of attempts. And I would have fun with that as well.
I'll admit it: I have not written a single published work of any sort. (I submitted a couple of short stories to a couple of fantasy magazines, but they were all rejected.) So, odds are that my first novel under WoTC, which would 99% of the time be accepted, will bomb terribly. And odds are, they'll hire people to pick up the slack when I could not, for better or for worse. Probably the latter. The other write-for-hire novelists, no matter how good they may be, can't write the book like how I would envision it. For example, if I created a world, then someone like R.A. Salvatore created a deviant character this side of a Drizzt clone and killed much I held dear in that world, I would feel VERY insulted unless the book bombed, or I got the rights to the world back immediately. And I would still not forgive WoTC for twisting what I wrote.
Between what I wrote and what RangerWickett wrote, what do you think?
), I don't think it's fair to say that someone that HONESTLY wants to get published by WotC is a sell out nor does anyone lose their artist integrity by giving up ideas to WotC. Monte Cook and SKR along with a few others have given ideas to WotC. Are they sell outs? Clark Peterson has a good relationship with the WotC reps, and even worked WITH them when they started converting Scott's stuff. I don't think ANYONE would call Clark a sell out. 
