The Throttle...
IF a GSL ever actually materializes I no doubt will be focusing a bit on 4e, depending on how I feel about it after reading the actual rules instead of the voluminous and heated speculations.
Prior to the actual 4e announcement I had a solid amount of product I was working on for Necro that is indeed on pause pending a GSL. At least two 120-220 page products on my end that were basically complete and in need of a second run through of the draft and some solid playtesting.
Remember, at Gen Con 07 the brain trust at Wizards was assuring an open game, hasty aquisition of the rules set, and "d20 friendly changes" to the game to 3rd party publishers. Their own words were something to the effect of "Maybe a little more different than the switch from 3.0 to 3.5 but not as much difference as 2.0 to 3x. That seemed very reassuring, people were happy, and the WOTC end of the convention hall was not bombarded with D20's and sharpened d4 caltrops as had been threatened. Within a month alot of that re-assurance seemed to dissolve. Seven months later I think its pretty obvious that 4e is a completely different dog.
In other words anything that was written with a 3x and prior D&D mindset requires a complete and total revision of encounters, plot, theme, stats, and how an adventure can be run and how an adventure can be published in a 4e friendly environment. Make no mistake, Mr. Mearls first 4e adventure WILL be the standard by which all (or any) GSL 3rd party products are judged for right or wrong.
Short of the concept of the adventure, its thematic elements and the "fantasy flavor text" we are talking a complete re-write from the ground up of any pre existing material. We can all polish and shine that fact up in different ways, but at the end of the day facts are facts. A different game requires different types of adventures, writing, art, production values, and full color poster sized combat encounter maps, plus hidden costs that have yet to be addressed in the 3rd party market until a GSL materializes or is officially canceled.
I'm not gonna bash the model, 4e or WOTC. There is no point in that. It's a different game with the same name. If that works for WOTC more power to them. Hopefully it will work for me as well. If not I've got plenty of other options for my creative writing ventures. I strongly feel that 3rd party companies that really want to make the $money$ in the 4e market (should a GSL materialize) will do so outside of adventure module production with such things as monster books, status beads/cards/markers, city and campaign settings and other sundries that do not involve actually having to
write adventures or rules FOR 4e. At least that would be my guess initially.
Speaking for myself, I write pretty fast. So having 220 pages worth of 3x material available as a finished product every year since 02 hasn't been a problem for me. The thought of totally re-writing some of that stuff however... not something I really relish the thought of delving into at this point.
Things holdin me up for being super excited about 4e:
*Without a GSL why bother worrying about 4e
*What I've seen so far has me wondering if 4e will be "my kind of D&D" as many others have also posted. Indeed 4e takes a lot of air out of a room and the wild speculation coupled with intense emotional "if ya aint for it yer against us" ranting I see has been a big...ok HUGE turn off to me so far.
*I'm sure 4e will be fun, but I just want to wait and see.
Despite all that, I have been
huge busy in the last 7 months working on Castles & Crusades products. I've written for TLG and Necro since I started and love both companies for totally different reasons. They are both great friends of mine and I've been able to put out a lot of stuff with both that I am very pleased with.
So in essence, the 4e announcement and my pause on developing Necro products has allowed me to turn in 6+ products worth of material to Troll Lord Games for Castles & Crusades in the last seven months. (For those of you counting pages thats over 200 pages worth of C&C material).
With a little more push, I can probably have two more products turned over to them by the time 4e tears across the RPG landscape in June. At that time, I can take a breath, look closely at the "actual" 4e and determine if it is worth my time, and if the money is right for me to delve into doing any writing for it.
If not, I can continue to monitor the Pathfinder RPG's progress for
FREE, and see if perhaps the Pathfinder system is something I am more interested in. Quite possibly my other products that would have worked as Necromancer products would be better suited for Erik Mona or a company willing to produce essentially 4th party products for Paizo's 3rd party OGL game.
So yeah. Definitely no writers block here, just waiting on 4e without the obsessive fervor of some of my good friends and collegues.
Peace
Casey
