From Homebrew to Design Material

[tylermalan]

So how do people get involved in publishing? I know its kind of a general question, but I'm interested to know how developers get their products out there, and what differentiates a good homebrew element from game design worth publishing.

 

[EditorBFG]

I think the big differences between homebrew stuff and a product are utility and clarity, other than that it's just matter of quality and finding a publisher.

I say utility, as far as is it useful for gamers besides yourself? Obviously, a guide to the customs of a race you made up for your game is useless for other gamers, who don't have that race. A lot of guys want to publish their superhero character and his supporting cast, but what you run into is, who cares? Villains can be products, because people need bad guys to fight, but a superhero isn't a very good product, because people like to make their own hero characters. If you are going to play a superhero someone else made up, why not just play Superman or Batman instead of Captain Homebrew? If your homebrew hero is super interesting, that's great, but who wants a hero more interesting than the PCs hanging out in their neighborhood?

Clarity is just expressing your ideas in an easily communicable way. Laying out a fantasy city so that people know where everything is and how to use it in their game. Part of this is consistency, like not mentioning a mayor in one spot and having the city ruled by a council or whatever. Part of it is being clear with yourself, as to what you are writing. Don't write a book on rangers in non-forest settings and end up writing more about life at sea than marine rangers. This seems to be a problem for a lot of people.

When the writing is done, the other part of clarity is the actual expression of that writing. In pdf or print, things need to be laid out and organized, and how this is done makes all the difference between producing a professional product and looking like a hack. Some people want to form their own companies, others just partner with an existing one to package their work. This makes a lot of sense, as you don't want the first thing you write to have the added disadvantage of being the first thing you ever laid out. It doesn't take a lot of money to become a pdf publisher (as opposed to print) but it takes a lot of know-how.

This is all obvious stuff, but I hope it helps.

 

[Mark CMG]

So how do people get involved in publishing? I know its kind of a general question, but I'm interested to know how developers get their products out there, and what differentiates a good homebrew element from game design worth publishing.

Assuming that you are a writer of some quality, the primary difference is the crossing of T's and dotting of I's. Go to the Paizo publishing site and download their submission guidelines. Those actually constitute just about the minimum of work you would need to do to see something in print. To self-publish, you'll need to look into acquiring skills (either of your own or by hiring someone) as a editor (really can't do this one yourself), layout artist, artist or artistic developer/manager, production designer, marketing department, and sales coordinator (set up your own store or garner an account through an online store, or seek print and distribution channels).

If you wind up working under any licensing agreements, at all, even simple ones like the OGL or Creative Commons, you really need to seek legal counsel, as well.

But, seriously, it behooves anyone thinking about this sort of thing to simply download said submission guidelines and see if they can get just one chapter or section of such a work into the kind of shape it would need to qualify for submission. Most people really don't realize the type of commitment and hard work that entails.

Good luck!

 

[Monkey King]

Magazines and Practice

The best route to sharpening your skills and getting noticed is putting submissions in the inbox at Paizo, and FR and Eberron material might be a way to start (not many people write the WotC settings all that well).

Once you have your first publication credit, you can sometimes leverage that into a project with a small publisher. Or you can follow things like the Design & Development articles at WotC to pick up pointers on mechanics.

Ultimately, though, you need to do more than just make neat mechanics; you must have the writing skills to turn good ideas into compelling prose. The best way to do that is practice, practice, practice.

 

[tylermalan]

Well, it seems like there's a lot of companies and products out there, not all of which are good (obviously). How do people deal with balance issues for the mechanics they create? Lots of playtesting the material? If it takes so much work for this, is there such a thing as a freelance writer or designer?

 

[Mark CMG]

Here's some links along those lines -

http://www.enworld.org/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&f=68

http://forum.rpg.net/forumdisplay.php?f=12

http://www.rpg.net/directory/index.phtml?Show=freelance

http://www.rpgwriter.com/

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Think about what makes your campaign setting different from the other published settings out there. The market is quite saturated, and thus you need to come up with something novel. It's nice if you have developed a homebrew world over the course of a campaign lasting for 10+ years, but if it is a relatively "generic" campaign world in the veins of Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms, odds are that there won't be too much interest in it.

A good exercise would be to write up your campaign setting as for the Great WotC Setting Search of 2002 (the one that resulted in Eberron). Try to answer the following questions on one page:

1. Core Ethos Sentence. [A sentence that describes the core ethos of the world. For example, FORGOTTEN REALMS is a world of sword-and-sorcery adventure, where heroes battle monsters with magic.]

2. Who are the heroes? [Brief description of heroes central to the setting. This need not be a comprehensive list.]

3. What do they do? [What are the main objectives of the heroes, and what steps do they take to achieve those objectives?]

4. Threats, Conflicts, Villains [What is the main danger to the world, and from whom does it come?]

5. Nature of magic [What is the source of magic? How abundant/scarce is it?]

6. What�s new? What�s different? [What makes this setting unique?]

Only use one page for your answers.

And if you can't make readers at least somewhat curious with that single page... then you'll probably need to work harder on your writing and developing skills before attempting to publish your work.