Charity Fundraiser - our own setting search!

[TwentyQuestions]

My two cents

I think the idea of running a separate search is an excellent one, both as a gamer and a game-designer.

As a gamer I'm interested not only in seeing the development of the best ideas out there, but also in seeing them in a 'raw' form, the work of their original author, rather than the 'cooked' form that Wizards will publish, which is for better and worse the work of a committee.

As a game-designer I'm excited to have a second chance to have my setting published!

To weigh in on some specific issues that are being discussed:

1) Judges are better than open voting. The judges can be elected by popular vote but IMHO there's no system of Internet polling I'd trust.

2) Although entrants should certainly be allowed to revise their 1-page entries, I don't think anything should be introduced that would *require* them to do so, including adding additional questions or imposing a limit on word count. (It should be self-evident that the best one-pagers are not the longest, nor visa versa).

The arguments I've seen in favor of requiring revisions seem to be either aimed at making this contest distinct from Wizards' or limiting the number of entries/saving the judges work. I think that the charitable nature of the project and the unique emphasis of the EN World community and judges (which should and will include receptivity to unusual settings) will make this contest quite distinct from Wizards'. And having more entries seems like a good thing, not a bad one - I'd be willing to serve as a judge if necessary to put my money where my mouth is!

3) I'd rather see a book with the top 1/3/10 than just the winner, but we could scale back the page differentials - 10 one-pagers, 3 ten-pagers and one 24-page winner would make a nice 64-page book.

4) It's a nice idea to have the winner choose the charity, but it's impractical, both because all details of the project should be publicised before a winner is chosen, and because my ideal book would have 13 contributor/winners.

BTW, I'm another person who learned about these boards thru the setting search, and I've found them invaluable - since I'd been checking the Wizards main page, which *still* reads "Setting Search Results Delayed", I'd still be biting my nails if it weren't for y'all! Thanks for that and everything else I've learned here.

 

[Rune]

Re: My two cents

3) I'd rather see a book with the top 1/3/10 than just the winner, but we could scale back the page differentials - 10 one-pagers, 3 ten-pagers and one 24-page winner would make a nice 64-page book.

The problem with this is that if the winning entry happens to be an already fully-fleshed out setting, 24 pages isn't nearly enough.

It probably isn't enough, anyway.

 

[Rune]

I do them in batches every 3-4 days - I'll be doing a batch tonight/tomorrow.

I didn't respond to this before, but, thanks. That's good to know!

 

[Thimble the Squit]

Agreeing with everyone!

This is a fabulous idea and deserves plenty of support.

Can I suggest that everyone buy a copy when/if it's published? Charitable causes are great but, as someone said, the author should be paid for their time and effort - and I'm all for seeing good causes supported anyway. Has the charity (charities) been named yet, by the way? I don't do anything for the NRA...

I agree with whoever said that the contest should be adjudicated by ENWorld folks rather than open voting on the bulletin boards, if purely out of fairness for everyone concerned.

I'm not terribly bothered about the whole anonimity thing; I think it's nice to know that x, y or z did such-and-such a product and that you chat to him/her regularly across the boards.

Good luck to the winner, and big kudos to Natural20 Press for the idea.

 

[ladyofdragons]

I'm tending towards judges - at least to narrow it down to a small number for voting (like the ENnies), if not for the whole process.

The final book could have (say) 1 large setting, 3 ten-pagers and 10 one-pagers.

One problem I see with this approach is that you're putting the work of 14 different authors in a book, but you're only 'paying' 1 of them. Also if the large setting ends up being 70 or more pages including pictures and maps, that's a big book to add on 40 more pages of extra setting materials.

If this book is being distributed only in PDF format then perhaps you can do two, since the printing cost is eliminated. The rest of the cost of the project is more in electronic distribution costs, which can come out of product sales, and time costs in "beautifying" the setting if necessary in PageMaker or Quark or whatever, if the setting author is unable to do so himself/herself.

Just a thought.

 

[Agnostic Paladin]

I'd rather see a book with the top 1/3/10 than just the winner, but we could scale back the page differentials - 10 one-pagers, 3 ten-pagers and one 24-page winner would make a nice 64-page book.

I think this is a great idea. The compilation-style feels right for a charity book, and people are more likely to find something interesting to them this way. If it should lead to the development of a few of the settings (by N20 or by someone else), so much the better.

 

[kingpaul]

judges

I like the idea of a judging panel...although their load will probably be insane. I assume that if you go this route, the judges' entries would not be allowed in? I don't think I'd mind judging, but I'd like my setting to be at least considered. Oh well.

 

[Chromnos]

Submission deadline?

-C

 

[BluWolf]

I don't think Morrus is even close to announcing the offical opening yet.

I think there are quite a few ducks he needs to get in a row first.

 

[fuindordm]

Multi-setting book, please!

I'm all for this program, and would certainly submit a proposal. I had a lot of fun with the 2 WotC proposals that I sent, and would love to do it again. I'd like to plug for a multi-setting format, however, rather than a single setting book, for the following reasons:

First of all, I'm much more likely to buy a book with several settings full of exciting ideas. I almost never buy fully fleshed-out campaign books, which have too low a ratio of usable ideas to fluff. I think that it's usually GMs who buy setting books, and most of us already have a campaign world. The best books for us are full of interesting ideas that we can place in our own campaigns.

Second, a multi-setting book wouldn't compete directly with the result of WotC's setting search. No one has put out anything like this yet, and I think that it would fill a nice niche in the market. With less competition, the book also has a better chance of making the profits that we would like to send to charity.

Finally, given that most of the people on these boards are not full-time game designers (although perhaps most of us would *like* to be ), asking someone to write 50+ professional pages seems a bit risky. We have jobs, school, families, and other responsibilities, and putting most of the book on the shoulders of one winner may be a bad idea. A book of less-developed settings is more likely to get finished and published quickly, I think.

How about a 128-pager, with the top 8 settings each contributing 10-20 pages? That's enough room
to showcase all the really cool and innovative aspects of each setting, I think, and the book would be full of stuff that everyone can use--interesting twists on the core rules, new races, unusual conflicts, adventure hooks, etc. The page count is small enough that pretty much everyone will have time to write their share, so there's less risk of the winner flaking and holding up production.

We could still judge and vote for number 1, maybe giving a slightly higher share of the profits to the winning entry... 7 settings getting 2% each, for example, and the winner getting 6%.

What do you think?

--Ben Mathiesen