$20K (or a possible 120K) for your soul?

[Krail Stromquism]

First off, holy crap!

Kamikaze Midget?

that the best f_cking name Ive ever seen in my life!

Look how excited I am! Im cussing like a sailor!

Ok, lets just stop all this nonsense and get down to the bottom of this.

Dragon Droid!

Post a little bit of your writen work. It doesnt have to be stuff from the one page, how about some stuff from the 2 novels you have in the works. People are expending a lot of energy replying to you and for all we know you could have sent your idea in on a napkin written in crayon. So lets see if your worth all this effort!

Im calling you out !

lets see a little bit of that razzmatazz! A little bit of your magic fingers typing away at the keyboard!

Anyway, I find your creation ethic to a bit immature, frankly. Its obvious that your not used to public scrutiny of your artwork. Any painter, writiner or musician has to own up to veiwer. Ultimately they decide what your piece of art is saying and how good it is.

Let alone actually creating something for someone in the business world or freelancing. They will come back and ask you to change a word or a color a 1000 times. Even if it makes the project worse! and even though you wrote a solid piece or had a great design you have to change it. because thats your job.

thats the difference between "creative" work in the busines world and being creative at home.


put your money where your mouth is!

Lets see some Writting, Dragon Droid!

 

[Mouseferatu]

I would estimate the the average full time game writer makes between 40-60K a year. They probably put out about 800-1,000 pages.

Ummm...

Man, I wish your estimates were accurate.

Granted, there are freelance writers more prolific than I am, and I've only been doing this for about 19 months now, but I don't make anywhere near $40K a year. I freelance because it's what I love doing, and because health reasons make it difficult for me to work a set schedule. If my wife and I had to live on my income alone, we'd starve.

That IS the reason why I was so skeptical about the contest. Being a) difficult to get published and b) getting paid better for something easy to get published would make anyone worried, even if it is from a respected company like WoTC. I always feel that they have something within their sleeve, and then what? This sudden announcement worries me. Of course, if I lose, this whole thread ends up moot, unless one of the finalists feels the way I would feel. Maybe I shouldn't have jumped the gun.

Right, because WotC is just aching to screw over everyone who entered the contest, thus alienating a huge portion of their fanbase and developing a reputation that will prevent reputable freelancers from working for them in the future.

And while they're certainly paying a surprising amount, if you really think it's "easy" to publish a campaign world, I suggest you try it. If you're talking self-publication, you're right. Otherwise, I don't think you've really looked into this yet.

 

[DragonDroid]

No more mentions about Lucas or Stephen King or Spielburg or the like. I'll say it again: If I am as successful as them, I will give every single one of you who replied copies of every single WoTC D&D 3e modules (past and future) there is. Got it? Good. I'm sticking with ONE idea and making that into something in several books. I have other ideas, but they pale in comparison of my first major idea (which is why I didn't send THOSE to WoTC - I am sure they will get rejected). And to those who say I'm "immature" and should "grow up", let me see YOUR world in which you have developed for six or so years. I'd LOVE to see it.

To the three with their souls for sale (or sold) :
It would be better if you sold your soul for POGs. Especially Alf POGs. Alf is BACK! In POG form!

Kamikaze Midget (love that name): I already know why my stuff's been rejected. I don't mean to brag, but I know 95% of what there is to the writing market. (The remaining 5% is how to always get stories sold, and I haven't got that through quite yet).

Krail: Sure. In fact, I can put a bit of it online (but I can't give the URL until I'm SURE I've lost - I'm not THAT paranoid). If I changed a slight bit on my world, fine with me, but if something I liked most about the world had to be completely warped to be marketable to their eyes, then forget it! Also, I'm not used to scrutiny of may "art" because almost no one has seen it before.

Mouseferatu: They're not screwing over everyone. They're screwing over only two people (the $20K ones). I'll bet everyone else doesn't care if they do not get past the first round. Including myself. Like I said, if I lose the first round, the whole point is moot. I'll just wait and see.

 

[Nikchick]

Ummm...

Man, I wish your estimates were accurate.

Granted, there are freelance writers more prolific than I am, and I've only been doing this for about 19 months now, but I don't make anywhere near $40K a year. I freelance because it's what I love doing, and because health reasons make it difficult for me to work a set schedule. If my wife and I had to live on my income alone, we'd starve.

Too right, Ari. Fulltime designers at Wizards of the Coast (the best paying fulltime gig out there) were being offered the princely sums of $32,000 starting salary prior to the Hasbro buyout. I don't know what the starting salaries for designers are under the Hasbro regime, but I'd be utterly amazed if they were much different. Instead of $40K-$60K, we're talking $30K-$40K at the best paying gig in gaming. Fulltime freelancers make substantially less than that on average, except for those true professionals of the bunch who keep their schedules full and write all the time. Most people who fulltime freelance have a wage-earning spouse who helps bring the family income up to a reasonable level.

Scott Bennie hit the nail right on the head earlier in this thread.

Nicole

 

[Scribe Ineti]

(The remaining 5% is how to always get stories sold, and I haven't got that through quite yet).

Simple. Practice, practice, practice. Write, submit, repeat. Writing on one idea for 6 years or 10 years or 100 years but never sending it in to anyone to look at will not make you a better writer. If you want to be a one-hit author, more power to you.

They're not screwing over everyone. They're screwing over only two people (the $20K ones).

Please explain how handing someone $20K for 111 pages of work is "screwing over" someone, especially with the understanding that the people who do those 111 pages actually WANT to do it and are okay with WotC owning the rights to those 111 pages.

 

[Lizard]

Usual deleted

Riddle me this, Boy Wonder...how would having WOTC toss your campaign into the bland-o-matic and turn it into utter pap fit for Pokemon babies to powergame in (a hypothetical worst case scenario) do anything to prevent <I>you</i> from continuing to run it at your gaming table, add to it, build on it, etc?

I submitted two settings; one was made up for the open call, the other was based on my current campaign. Note I said 'based on'. I stripped out elements that I didn't think would fly in the proposal, and added some material to make it more marketable. In the highly unlikely event its selected, the world it will become will have no bearing on my weekly game or the vision of the world in my mind.

So, let 'em do what they want to it. The REAL "Time of Thin Stars"[1] remains on my hard disk and in my mind; whatever version of it (hypothetically, and improbably) gets published by WOTC is just a shadow of it. They can't touch the real thing.

[1]Not the name it was submitted under, either.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

There are plenty of people out there who have spent decades on their campaign worlds - I'm one of them. My campaign world first was worked on around 1980. Thus far it has garnered me no monetary or popular success. It likely never will. I didn't submit it to the contest, but that's only because I didn't have the time. If I had the time, I'd have gone through all my notes, found the hooks for the world, and sent it in without hesitation. Is that selling out? Well, how about this - I never sold in to the whole nonsensical (in my opinion) view that trying to achieve success via the corporate path was somehow spiritually degrading. Besides, the work we put into our campaign worlds is a hobby; any monetary compensation is pure gravy. If someone who paints minis as a hobby is offered a chance to make money from their hobby, I don't doubt they'd jump at it. If it's more than a hobby to you, then I suggest that spending years writing a book instead of a campaign world is a better route to go. There really isn't a huge market, relatively speaking, for RPG campaign worlds. WotC is the biggest RPG company out there, and they have published a handful of worlds over the past 25+ years.

Anyone who tries to be an artist does so because they want their vision to reach out to others. Nobody creates something that they don't want seen by others. When it comes to campaign worlds, there are, as i said above, few real venues for displaying them. If you're worried about somebody mucking up your vision, then even if you published your world on your own, each person who uses it will interpret it their own way. For that matter, even if you simply use it as the setting for novels you write, the individual reader will always make it their own, and their interpretation of it will always differ from yours. The truly greatest artists were never afraid of that - in fact, many, if not most, would be delighted to find that their work could be interpreted in so many different ways. But, in the end, despite how others might view or change your original vision, the important part is still there - your work reached out and inspired someone enough to take your vision, make it their own, and add to it. Plus, the original vision is still yours - even if not in a business sense, then in a spiritual sense. Which seems to be what you're concerned with.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Most professional authors agree with what I said about ideas.

You really should substantiate this assertion. I've seen so many different claims made by writers about ideas, usually all contradictory, that using the word "most" is probably very inaccurate.

 

[Sodalis]

I dont see what the commotion is all about...

OK_ so you sent in an idea that you have been wrkin on for ten years- and grnated it wins the next four rounds- you have the option of declining the money and taking your ideas back. But know that anything after this stage (afetr submiting 10 page) would be foolish.

if they really like your idea, and you decide after submitting the 10 page that you want it back- well, they have all the information they need from you- the general history and settingo f your world. With that, they can delve into their own creativity (or lease it out) and create a world that is similar to yours- and being different than yours in certain critical ways, they owe you nothing.

As for those that did send in their proposals, Good for you- you are thinking that in a cpaitalist world, an idea is worth a thousand products. A man can work his whole life and make a million little things to sell- and still be poor. but a man with one good idea can make it rich and live comfortably for the rest of his life.

I personally did not submit because i prefer to have a world that i can manipulate- and not have anyone else say how it is.

Like the guy who cretaed Faerun (if there is such a guy). He can no longer go into the maps and say, i want a mountain chain to be here cause some Hill giants would be cool- terrorizing this town... his players would (as per many compaints about Faerun) say"that's not how it is... In all th ebooks I have read- there is no mountain chain there!!"

But if nayone wanted to take the campaign (after playing a few games with me) and submit it with their own creative spin on it- be my guest. I can't prove that it was my idea. heck- I am pretty sure there are a million guys out there that has already thought of a riverfront kingdom with a mountain just of on th eother side where dragons live... to claim exclusive ownership of this is just lame...

and to say that you are selling your soul because you think that they will hack your campaign up is just odd- is the only word I can come up with. You work all your life for a break- and this is it. why not take it?

but I do understand what you are saying. that is a reason why i did not wan to submit mine (not claiming superiority or anything) I just want to have the right and ability to change my world as I see fit...

 

[Dinkeldog]

I'm going to be a little harsh here, but bear with me.

Those of us who didn't submit ideas avoid rejection. If I put my favorite world in and didn't win, it's because someone else was judged to have better ideas. So to an extent I think that we chicken out. Granted, my excuse is timing and not having good internet access, and not even finding that list of questions until I was already home and had two days to go, both of which were tied up with work and family commitments.

It's still just an excuse. I'm out of the game before it even started, and as much as I can say that I'm sure my home campaign would be the best one there it most likely isn't.

Of course, for those of you who submitted your worlds, I think you can rest pretty easy because there are going to be a ton of other submissions as well. Ultimately, your stuff is not likely to be the best thing ever known to gamers.

When that happens, you can console yourself that no one is going to take control of your baby away from you.

Just remember (assuming you're not dismissing me as a jerk) that just because your world doesn't resonate with the WotC types that your world isn't good; it resonates for you and your players.