Krug
Newshound
For this instalment of Friday Five, we feature Pencil Pushers Publishing.
Pencil Pushers Publishing is a new gaming company crewed by Steven Russell and Randy Madden.
1. Give us an overview of your product lines.
Pencil Pushers Publishing (3P) only has one product line so this is an easy question. The Last Dominion is the mythological setting for all our adventures and sourcebooks. By mythological I mean that we have spent countless hours pouring over myth, religion, and epic tales and have retold them within the context of the setting to give it a feel of human authenticity while keeping the dream of fantasy and fiction. The setting is teeming with imagery, symbolism, and parables that will help the reader settle in with little effort. The first peek at The Last Dominion setting will be through The Night of Fire adventure series and the Here There Be Monsters sourcebooks; after these, we hope to write a sourcebook on the Marchlands and a few fiction pieces for the setting.
2. Tell us at length about your most recent project (upcoming or just released).
As a GM, I always look forward to monster books. Few gaming supplements evoke the wonder and fear of the unknown as a new bestiary. However, many times these books fail to deliver the goods. Here There Be Monsters is designed to be the monster book that I want. It is a book with exceptional AND functional flavor coupled with evocative mechanics. The flavor of the book is targeted to both DMs and players; after all, what fun is it if only the DM can discover the Kewl secrets? We have a format by which the DM can fairly, easily and conveniently release information into the game for the players. This book will be a living, breathing part of the gaming experience rather than just descriptions and combat stats.
Here There Be Monsters will incorporate designer comments to show the thought process behind monster creation. It presents a wide variety of challenges and creature types to form a solid basis within the setting, which is more than a simple monster fest. If you as a GM have a bad day and you’re running on the fly, you don’t have time to spend 20 minutes reading the monster description to get five good rounds of combat out of the creature. Here There Be Monsters does the work for you with combat tactics recommended by play testers.
We plan to post a teaser shortly that will show how we re-image some of the core creatures into a deadly new mythology. We went back to the roots of creature origins and have brought the creatures into line with The Last Dominion setting and 3.5 – answering odd questions along the way such as "where do minotaurs come from and why is there an entire race of them?"
Finally, we plan to hook the players up with a few 1st - 20th level monstrous racial classes, with cultural backgrounds set in The Last Dominion.
3. What is your main target audience?
3P is making products for people like me! Our target is gamers who want more internal consistency and less hodge-podge from a setting. We want the people who put down a good fantasy novel and wonder why they can't play in games like that? People who want lower magic, believably motivated human-ish enemies, and who feel that gizmos are less important to a story than the story itself. Basically, I have been a vocal advocate of sourcebooks that are not boring to read; with that in mind we will strive to produce supplements that are just as fun to read as they are to use.
4. What is the main thing about your company that makes you most proud?
Doing it right. There is a big temptation in business to rush products, squeeze money, skimp on art, or worse, fling poopy products at the crowd hoping something will stick and make a bucket of money. 3P devotes all of its efforts to producing products that make us personally and professionally proud. Steve and I care more about the quality of the products than pumping each other up to feel good.
My wife pokes fun at me for spending a week reading half-a-dozen books on angels, reading origin myths from three dozen cultures, or reading biographies to come up with a convincing monarchy. However, the attention to detail is something about which I feel very proud. Now if I can get the writing to the level of the research then everything is golden. BTW, for those who want to watch the process (I refer to it as Internet rubbernecking) feel free to visit my thread on the whole process of starting a publishing company and working towards getting product on the market.
5. Where do you see your company one year from now?
We would like to buy D&D from Hasbro…. Well, a man can dream! Seriously, I expect you will see us putting out high quality products that we believe in with a legion of loyal customers who believe in them also. If I get to quit my day job and Randy gets rich along the way, well, that is a bonus. I would be just as happy to supplement my income doing what I love, playing and designing RPGs.
Pencil Pushers Publishiing website is located here.
Pencil Pushers Publishing is a new gaming company crewed by Steven Russell and Randy Madden.
1. Give us an overview of your product lines.
Pencil Pushers Publishing (3P) only has one product line so this is an easy question. The Last Dominion is the mythological setting for all our adventures and sourcebooks. By mythological I mean that we have spent countless hours pouring over myth, religion, and epic tales and have retold them within the context of the setting to give it a feel of human authenticity while keeping the dream of fantasy and fiction. The setting is teeming with imagery, symbolism, and parables that will help the reader settle in with little effort. The first peek at The Last Dominion setting will be through The Night of Fire adventure series and the Here There Be Monsters sourcebooks; after these, we hope to write a sourcebook on the Marchlands and a few fiction pieces for the setting.
2. Tell us at length about your most recent project (upcoming or just released).
As a GM, I always look forward to monster books. Few gaming supplements evoke the wonder and fear of the unknown as a new bestiary. However, many times these books fail to deliver the goods. Here There Be Monsters is designed to be the monster book that I want. It is a book with exceptional AND functional flavor coupled with evocative mechanics. The flavor of the book is targeted to both DMs and players; after all, what fun is it if only the DM can discover the Kewl secrets? We have a format by which the DM can fairly, easily and conveniently release information into the game for the players. This book will be a living, breathing part of the gaming experience rather than just descriptions and combat stats.
Here There Be Monsters will incorporate designer comments to show the thought process behind monster creation. It presents a wide variety of challenges and creature types to form a solid basis within the setting, which is more than a simple monster fest. If you as a GM have a bad day and you’re running on the fly, you don’t have time to spend 20 minutes reading the monster description to get five good rounds of combat out of the creature. Here There Be Monsters does the work for you with combat tactics recommended by play testers.
We plan to post a teaser shortly that will show how we re-image some of the core creatures into a deadly new mythology. We went back to the roots of creature origins and have brought the creatures into line with The Last Dominion setting and 3.5 – answering odd questions along the way such as "where do minotaurs come from and why is there an entire race of them?"
Finally, we plan to hook the players up with a few 1st - 20th level monstrous racial classes, with cultural backgrounds set in The Last Dominion.
3. What is your main target audience?
3P is making products for people like me! Our target is gamers who want more internal consistency and less hodge-podge from a setting. We want the people who put down a good fantasy novel and wonder why they can't play in games like that? People who want lower magic, believably motivated human-ish enemies, and who feel that gizmos are less important to a story than the story itself. Basically, I have been a vocal advocate of sourcebooks that are not boring to read; with that in mind we will strive to produce supplements that are just as fun to read as they are to use.
4. What is the main thing about your company that makes you most proud?
Doing it right. There is a big temptation in business to rush products, squeeze money, skimp on art, or worse, fling poopy products at the crowd hoping something will stick and make a bucket of money. 3P devotes all of its efforts to producing products that make us personally and professionally proud. Steve and I care more about the quality of the products than pumping each other up to feel good.
My wife pokes fun at me for spending a week reading half-a-dozen books on angels, reading origin myths from three dozen cultures, or reading biographies to come up with a convincing monarchy. However, the attention to detail is something about which I feel very proud. Now if I can get the writing to the level of the research then everything is golden. BTW, for those who want to watch the process (I refer to it as Internet rubbernecking) feel free to visit my thread on the whole process of starting a publishing company and working towards getting product on the market.
5. Where do you see your company one year from now?
We would like to buy D&D from Hasbro…. Well, a man can dream! Seriously, I expect you will see us putting out high quality products that we believe in with a legion of loyal customers who believe in them also. If I get to quit my day job and Randy gets rich along the way, well, that is a bonus. I would be just as happy to supplement my income doing what I love, playing and designing RPGs.
Pencil Pushers Publishiing website is located here.
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