Indie Publishers, what are you working on for 2023?

[Sacrosanct]

Seems like we spent a lot of time talking about certain small publishers who don't actually create anything. I'd like to talk about those of us who do. I'm very curious to see what other folks are working on, planning on having them released this year. And I'm curious to share how we each tackle our projects as small companies (I'm a one-person show for example). We might have some best practices to share.

For me, last year was pretty busy, especially since I am just one person. I put out my biggest project in Twilight Fables, but also put out Bugbears&Borderlands and released advanced copies of Tomb of Entropy. I'm pretty proud of being able to do all of those in a year.

For 2023, I've already released the official Tomb of Entropy adventure, and I'm 99% done writing "Mirrored Mountain", which takes the classic Endless Quest book, Mountain of Mirrors, and converts it to an adventure. Due to the OGL scandal, I'm also finally releasing my own system. It's so nice to write for a system that you're invested in and love rather than someone else's system (like 5e).

So what about you? Gonna take advantage of the D&D movie success and put out some OGL stuff?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I’m planning on becoming a first time publisher this year, with a supplement for 5e dedicated to shadow folk and shadow realms, and then a larger project that jumps off from the SRD into a 5e variant similar in scope to adventures in middle earth, with new classes, modified versions of existing classes, new and new versions of races, and a full setting.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I’m planning on becoming a first time publisher this year, with a supplement for 5e dedicated to shadow folk and shadow realms, and then a larger project that jumps off from the SRD into a 5e variant similar in scope to adventures in middle earth, with new classes, modified versions of existing classes, new and new versions of races, and a full setting.

congrats! I wish you the best success!

 

[Bedrockgames]

I put out Sons of Lady 87, a wuxia sandbox for our Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate RPG. The PDF is up on Drivethru, the print is available through a link on our website (and should be getting into broader circulation in April).



I am also working on Strange Tales of New England, a modern horror RPG that uses the same core system as our Strange Tales of Songling RPG. I tend to work slowly over a long period, so not sure how long this project is going to take.

I have a couple of other projects in the works as well (which I can describe as they get closer to take off).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

congrats! I wish you the best success!

Thanks! I’m terrified!

The big project is basically a D&D port of my own game, Quest for Chevar. QfC is set primarily in Earth, but features other worlds, and central to the conflicts of the setting is the mysterious world of Chevar.

The product I’m working on, Chevar: Champions of The Ninth Realm, is set in that fantastic world itself, and it’s got a vibe of the Thundercats generation of science fantasy cartoons meets final fantasy and aetherpunk or crystalpunk fiction.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I put out Sons of Lady 87, a wuxia sandbox for our Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate RPG. The PDF is up on Drivethru, the print is available through a link on our website (and should be getting into broader circulation in April).

View attachment 279274

I am also working on Strange Tales of New England, a modern horror RPG that uses the same core system as our Strange Tales of Songling RPG. I tend to work slowly over a long period, so not sure how long this project is going to take.

I have a couple of other projects in the works as well (which I can describe as they get closer to take off).

I absolutely love that cover. I’d ask for the name of the artist, but I don’t want to steal them lol

 

[Sacrosanct]

Thanks! I’m terrified!

The big project is basically a D&D port of my own game, Quest for Chevar. QfC is set primarily in Earth, but features other worlds, and central to the conflicts of the setting is the mysterious world of Chevar.

The product I’m working on, Chevar: Champions of The Ninth Realm, is set in that fantastic world itself, and it’s got a vibe of the Thundercats generation of science fantasy cartoons meets final fantasy and aetherpunk or crystalpunk fiction.

Some advice for those stepping into the creator waters:
Do it because you love it, regardless of anything else
Ignore anyone who criticizes it because there will always be people like that so don’t let it affect you personally.
Don’t get down if it doesn’t take off right away. Not all of us have the following of Mercer or others.
No matter how good you are, always have outside people look it over. The #1 law is the minute you publish it, you’ll see all your errors
Unless it’s a vanity project for you, be humble and willing to leave a favored part on the cutting room floor if your potential customers won’t like it.

Most importantly, you can totally do it. Before we can be good at anything, we have to be ok with being bad at it for a bit. Just keep going.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I absolutely love that cover. I’d ask for the name of the artist, but I don’t want to steal them lol

Thanks. The cover artist is Jackie Musto. She has been doing an unbelievable job on these

 

[Balvennie]

Some advice for those stepping into the creator waters:
Do it because you love it, regardless of anything else
Ignore anyone who criticizes it because there will always be people like that so don’t let it affect you personally.
Don’t get down if it doesn’t take off right away. Not all of us have the following of Mercer or others.
No matter how good you are, always have outside people look it over. The #1 law is the minute you publish it, you’ll see all your errors
Unless it’s a vanity project for you, be humble and willing to leave a favored part on the cutting room floor if your potential customers won’t like it.

Most importantly, you can totally do it. Before we can be good at anything, we have to be ok with being bad at it for a bit. Just keep going.

Man, am I glad I stumbled on this post.

I'm about 32,000 words into an expansion for Spelljammer. I should have the writing wrapped up in the next two weeks. Other than taking the material and putting it into production form, I have very little idea on the best way to get there except for following the standard product development cycle. I have a deep background in digital marketing and web design, but I have no idea what the art design process should look like or cost, or whom to approach about it. I have high confidence in being able to put together the final project, but getting the right look and feel is a big concern.

I'd also love for someone to just take a look and see if anyone would be interested in using any of the ideas in it, or if anyone could give me some pointers on where to go next.

 

[Art Waring]

I am currently in the trenches writing my first major ttrpg, and I am hoping to publish by the end of the year. However, the OGL debacle has set me back in costs and time invested on creating a 5e project that is now being migrated over to our own in house system.

Our game features a heavily customized d20/SGE system, featuring modular options for standard games, solo games, hardcore mode, a classless "normal human" mode for playing a "The Boys" style campaign, and an outstanding amount of customization for characters to choose from.

My game is a biopunk survival horror ttrpg with a unique world and a unique approach to game design. I am waiting until I am closer to release to reveal the playtest, the world, city map, and the pitch

I am a freelance artist (with 23 years experience as a street artist, typographer, & a graphic designer), doing the layout, design, and about half of the art myself including the cover. I have been fortunate enough to work with several other talented artists on the project whom I have a great deal of respect for, including the eminent Rashed Alakroka.

You can keep up to date on new developments for the project on my blog, or you can get early access to playtesting, characters sheets, discount codes for our websites, and concept art available exclusively on my patreon page.

P.S. To avoid any confusion in the future, my projects are 100% made by humans, and absolutely no generative ai tools were used in any of my projects. Period. I regularly work with professional freelance artists that are adversely affected by the advent of gen-ai, and it is no trivial matter to artists who see their livelihoods threatened by big tech corporations motivated solely by greed.

Although another publisher in the thread is using gen-ai tools in their book, that in no way reflects on my project, which has never used any type of ai tools since its creation almost ten years ago. I plan to see my project through to completion without any reliance on a technology that poses significant risks to artists and publishers.

I did have some preview art posted here and a pitch of my game, but due to the lack of any regulations (regarding gen-ai tools) and the lack of any protections for artists and writers on a public forum from having their work (and their intellectual property) scraped without consent, I had to take down my artwork to protect my work. You can currently find all of my artwork (and artwork from the many artists that I work with) on my patreon page.

NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text or images is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.