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[Open Design] New Projects, Offers New “Inner Circle” Tier for Patrons
Patronage model offers participants a chance to launch careers in game design
Kirkland, WA – Following on the success of Sunken Empires, its first sourcebook for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Open Design announced two new Pathfinder RPG projects at PaizoCon 2010: Frozen Empires: Glories of the North and Streets of Zobeck: Tales of Treachery. The award-winning game company also unveiled a new “Inner Circle” tier of its long-standing patronage model, in which customers participate in a product’s creation from the earliest planning stages through publication.
Fury of the Norsemen Unleashed
The Frozen Empires sourcebook will provide new spells, feats and locations to take players to the land of the ice and snow, where fierce barbarians, cunning rangers, reaver dwarves and angelic valkyries do battle beneath the polar auroras. Patrons and designers will brainstorm, critique, and playtest the contents with noted designers such as Wolfgang Baur and Dan Voyce.
The featured locales will be:
Although Frozen Empires will be set in Wolfgang Baur’s World of Zobeck, Midgard, it can easily be adapted for any campaign.
Leave the Paladin At Home
Inspired by criminal fantasy and “caper” stories such as Thieves World, The Black Company, The Garrett Files and Ocean's 11, the six-chapter Streets of Zobeck anthology will explore the gritty side of Wolfgang Baur’s Free City of Zobeck. “All the hard-boiled stuff that larger companies won't touch, from sin to sex to drugs, fencing stolen property, and cruel betrayal…we're going there,” says Baur.
“I don’t even want to know what he’s doing,” says Baur’s wife Shelly.
Patrons of Streets of Zobeck will pitch their proposals for the anthology’s chapters, each one a short adventure with full review. Lead designer Ben McFarland and developer Wolfgang Baur will lead the design, playtest and prep to make players’ next visit to the Free City much more interesting.
Inner Circle for Patrons
Open Design has expanded its long-standing patronage model. The new Inner Circle patron tier is limited to six openings per project, and costs $249 to join. Inner Circle members (called Sponsors) receive benefits that include:
Other benefits (such as artists’ sketchbooks to keep) will be offered on a project-by-project basis. “The Inner Circle patronage tier will give Sponsors something truly unique,” says Baur. “Only five other people in the world will have had the kind of experience you had on a project. The bragging rights alone should be worth it.”
Becoming a Patron
Anyone wishing to become a Patron of Frozen Empires and/or Streets of Zobeck can register at the Kobold Store. They will receive a welcome email and directions to the private forums where design takes place.
About Open Design
Open Design was founded in 2006 by noted roleplaying game designer and former Dragon magazine editor Wolfgang Baur to, as he put it, “create a community of gamers, artists and designers discussing how to have more fun with adventures and how to write better ones.” Open Design pioneered the use of the patronage business model to fund design projects, a model that is now becoming widely adopted by small publishers. Past Open Design participants have included industry luminaries such as Ed Greenwood, David "Zeb" Cook, Jeff Grubb, Nicolas Logue, Richard Pett, Tim Connors and Ari Marmell. The company won the 2008 Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming, and 2008 and 2009 Silver ENnie Awards for Best Electronic Book and Best Accessory, plus a Gold ENnie for Best Writing.
***
-Ben
--
Small but Fierce.
Kobold Quarterly News Minion.
Patronage model offers participants a chance to launch careers in game design
Kirkland, WA – Following on the success of Sunken Empires, its first sourcebook for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Open Design announced two new Pathfinder RPG projects at PaizoCon 2010: Frozen Empires: Glories of the North and Streets of Zobeck: Tales of Treachery. The award-winning game company also unveiled a new “Inner Circle” tier of its long-standing patronage model, in which customers participate in a product’s creation from the earliest planning stages through publication.
Fury of the Norsemen Unleashed
The Frozen Empires sourcebook will provide new spells, feats and locations to take players to the land of the ice and snow, where fierce barbarians, cunning rangers, reaver dwarves and angelic valkyries do battle beneath the polar auroras. Patrons and designers will brainstorm, critique, and playtest the contents with noted designers such as Wolfgang Baur and Dan Voyce.
The featured locales will be:
- Trollheim, ideal for low magic or pseudo-historical campaigns focusing on feuding clans, wars and viking raids.
- Thule, a classic land of monsters, focusing on giants and environmental hazards caused by the elemental clash of fire and ice.
- Hyperborea, a tropical lost world at the northern pole that is best suited to high magic/high level adventures. At patron request, Hyperborea could be written with Lovecraftian overtones, similar in tone to the Hyperborean cycle of Clark Ashton Smith.
Although Frozen Empires will be set in Wolfgang Baur’s World of Zobeck, Midgard, it can easily be adapted for any campaign.
Leave the Paladin At Home
Inspired by criminal fantasy and “caper” stories such as Thieves World, The Black Company, The Garrett Files and Ocean's 11, the six-chapter Streets of Zobeck anthology will explore the gritty side of Wolfgang Baur’s Free City of Zobeck. “All the hard-boiled stuff that larger companies won't touch, from sin to sex to drugs, fencing stolen property, and cruel betrayal…we're going there,” says Baur.
“I don’t even want to know what he’s doing,” says Baur’s wife Shelly.
Patrons of Streets of Zobeck will pitch their proposals for the anthology’s chapters, each one a short adventure with full review. Lead designer Ben McFarland and developer Wolfgang Baur will lead the design, playtest and prep to make players’ next visit to the Free City much more interesting.
Inner Circle for Patrons
Open Design has expanded its long-standing patronage model. The new Inner Circle patron tier is limited to six openings per project, and costs $249 to join. Inner Circle members (called Sponsors) receive benefits that include:
- Direct feedback, evaluation, and coaching on their pitches and proposals from the lead designer and Wolfgang Baur.
- The ability to add one NPC of their choice to adventures such as Streets of Zobeck, or as an example in sourcebooks such as Frozen Empires.
- A game run for them by designer Ben McFarland at GenCon (for Streets of Zobeck Sponsors.)
- Two 30-day guest passes, so Sponsors can bring friends into the project on a temporary basis as observers to the behind-the-scenes process of game design.
- The ability to commission one piece of interior art for the project to their specifications, or get their faces on one of the characters illustrated.
Other benefits (such as artists’ sketchbooks to keep) will be offered on a project-by-project basis. “The Inner Circle patronage tier will give Sponsors something truly unique,” says Baur. “Only five other people in the world will have had the kind of experience you had on a project. The bragging rights alone should be worth it.”
Becoming a Patron
Anyone wishing to become a Patron of Frozen Empires and/or Streets of Zobeck can register at the Kobold Store. They will receive a welcome email and directions to the private forums where design takes place.
About Open Design
Open Design was founded in 2006 by noted roleplaying game designer and former Dragon magazine editor Wolfgang Baur to, as he put it, “create a community of gamers, artists and designers discussing how to have more fun with adventures and how to write better ones.” Open Design pioneered the use of the patronage business model to fund design projects, a model that is now becoming widely adopted by small publishers. Past Open Design participants have included industry luminaries such as Ed Greenwood, David "Zeb" Cook, Jeff Grubb, Nicolas Logue, Richard Pett, Tim Connors and Ari Marmell. The company won the 2008 Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming, and 2008 and 2009 Silver ENnie Awards for Best Electronic Book and Best Accessory, plus a Gold ENnie for Best Writing.
***
-Ben
--
Small but Fierce.
Kobold Quarterly News Minion.
