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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GMSarli" data-source="post: 5064613" data-attributes="member: 87223">Hi everyone!Sorry for the delayed response, but I only came across this thread recently.  Apologies in advance for the long reply, but there are a lot of very good questions that I want to address:I apologize for the initial "sales pitch" having so little information about design goals -- I was afraid that over-describing it would be a turn-off for potential patrons.  Also, since I plan on patrons having a huge amount of influence on the rules (even the most basic ones), I didn't want to sell someone on an idea that ends up being changed or dropped.In retrospect, though, I should have included more detail at the beginning, so I put together a FAQ that covers a variety of design and patronage questions.  Here's the design section:Sorry about the length there, but I didn't want everyone to have to jump over to my site just to see my answers.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />That's one of the biggest questions I had to ask myself about this, but I decided to trust my instincts on the matter and take a chance on this sort of "grass-roots game design" working.Think of it as a step just shy of true "crowd-sourcing" -- patrons will have a lot of input, and they'll even have the chance to submit content for the game (and to be paid for it!), but there's still an experienced gaming professional at the helm to make the tough calls.  (Also, since I worked as a paid message board moderator for so many years on the WotC boards, I'm confident that I can use that experience to keep the discussions productive.)Ultimately, I think this will make the game stronger than it could otherwise be.  No matter how good your designers, you'll never have as many ideas as a whole population of gamers.  (As I point out on the <a href="http://e20system.com" target="_blank">e20 System front page</a>: An individual can have an innovation, but only a population can evolve.)Honestly, if I raise just $10k through this project, it would have fallen far short of what I'm hoping to achieve.  $10k is the smallest amount that I felt I could finish the project with, and it would involve eating a lot of ramen noodles.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Given that I'm hoping for more but $10k is enough to physically finish it, I set that as the initial fund-raising goal -- at that point, I'd feel that I would have at least even odds of raising two or three times this much, through sales after the fact if nothing else.The work I've done so far on the project has been just like this.  Where I diverge is that freelance work is currently my bread-and-butter, so if I were to work on this full-time, that would mean I can't do the work that pays the bills.  So, I set a very modest fund-raising goal that I felt would allow me to just barely scrape by during the period that I'm not doing other jobs.Definitely.  If I scrape by with the bare minimum in fund-raising, art will unfortunately be a lot less extravagant than I'd like -- but, fortunately, I've had lots of artists contact me to volunteer their services.  (Some even said they'd work for free, but I've insisted on paying them something for their hard work -- even if they're just giving "royalty-free rights" to use an existing illustration, they're all going to get paid.)With any luck, though, I'll raise enough before print time that I won't have to skimp on art.This is a legitimate concern, and you're right: It's an ambitious goal that's hard to reach.  However, I think it can be done if you go into the project with this goal in mind from the beginning ... and having a huge number of patrons looking over your shoulder, each with a slightly different favorite genre, it forces you to think about these things.  This grass-roots game design concept is ultimately an experiment to see if this can be done.  If it works, great!  It could help us all rethink the way that games are made.  If not ... well, even if the final game isn't as flexible as we're hoping, at least we learned from the experience.That, too, is a legitimate concern, but for what it's worth, we've attracted a lot of patrons in a very short time.Also, this project is most definitely not a 3rd edition clone -- it really is a complete rethinking and rebuilding from the ground up.  The final result should be at least as different as 4th edition, but taking things in a different direction from our common 3rd edition "ancestor." That's my thinking, too.  I'm hoping that the final product is a substantial improvement on existing alternatives, but obviously that's a very subjective thing.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />If you have any comments or questions, let me know and I'll respond ASAP.  Also, if you have the time, I would appreciate it if you'd drop by <a href="http://gmsarligames.com/forums" target="_blank">our message boards and join the discussion there</a>, even if you're not yet sure that you want to contribute.  Getting everyone in the same room sharing their thoughts will help move the discussion forward and focus our thinking on where we've been and where we want to go.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Thanks for all your input!</blockquote>

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