Why D&D is slowly cutting its own throat.

[philreed]

Aha, I can answer this! Ok, interior art on WLD is extremely sparse - no full-page art, and aside from small maps at the beginning delineating Regions or the occasional helpful diagram, there's nothing. Mind, this is offset by the frankly beautiful full-color maps that come with the book. Wordcount is somewhere over 1 million - that's some small text on those 840 or so pages.

By full-page I didn't mean real full-pages, just equivalent.

And the word count is about twice what I estimated, so even if the pay was $0.02/word the writing costs are roughly the same as my estimate.

 

[philreed]

Jim, does your contract include a royalties clause of any kind?

1. I'm not Jim.

2. I've never worked on RPG products for royalties (my own publishing efforts don't count) but I do have some game designs out there that still pay me royalties.

3. Not many RPG publishers pay royalties.

 

[philreed]

I don't disagree with how hard it is to write in general but in the context of this thread, the question was which is EASIER fluff or crunch. My contention was that the fluff was easier than the crunch. Writing compelling fluff is more natural than writing rules that are compelling to read.

Ah. I missed the "easier" statement. Yes, fluff is easier than crunch. If writing fluff I can write 1,000-2,000 words/hour. Crunch is roughly 250-750 words/hour.

 

[buzz]

Given its close relationship to 3e, it may seem odd that I think d20 Modern is the most enjoyable roleplaying game I've ever played.

I love d20M. I think a big part is that d20M doesn't have all the magic that D&D does. Magic is what complicates things. I'e found d20M much easier to run than D&D (though I still like to run D&D).

This is also why I hate it when people use "d20" as interchangeable fr "D&D" when making criticisms. D&D is it's own beast, and there are plenty of d20 games that don't share its quirks and complications.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Congradulations. You've made the one of the first really intelligent responces to me on this thread, and believe me I appreciate it.

Just because you disagree with a response doesn't make it not intelligent. That's standard Internet nonsense, but more importantly, it's a good way to ensure no one gives you any other response you deem "intelligent."

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The other guys all want a fleshed out, detailed campaign setting that they have to do no work for, they want premade modules, preferably a total campaign that they have to do nothing to, so that they don't need to put any time into prepping beyond reading the material.

Anyone else have this problem?

Moongoose Publishing is certainly hoping so. They'll have three "Complete Campaigns" that give every single bit of non-core content necessary to run a, well, complete campaign from 1-20 (1-30 in the case of the Drow War) out before Labor Day.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

S'mon
Interesting - in UK a court would probably interpret that term to mean that you sold your copyright in the _published_ (or paid-for) work to the publisher; but I think at least some US courts might treat a contract for commissioned work (ie the contract is signed before the work is written) as you being an employee of the publisher for this purpose (there was a case re Playboy on this AIR). It may be even fuzzier than that - I'm not a US lawyer but I teach IP law in the UK & I like to try to understand the current US approach/culture, which seems to have changed a lot since the '80s/early '90s, when publishers generally accepted that freelancers owned their copyright unless they sold it to the publisher.

I am a US attorney. Essentially, you have it right.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If actual attorneys start posting on the Internet, a lot of message boards are in real trouble.

 

[S'mon]

I am a US attorney. Essentially, you have it right.

Thanks Danny.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Better that we post instead of merely lurk...