It seems to come up every few months or so: another round of people on social media proclaiming what is wrong with their hobby and how, by God, they're going to do something about it. The problem with that is that none of us own the tabletop RPG hobby outside of the play that happens at our tables, or the games that those of us who are publishers or designers create and publish. No one gets to impose their worldview or morality upon others. I don't want people thinking and gaming like I do, and I certainly don't plan on thinking or gaming like others do at this point in my life (or, really, any other point for that matter).
I spoke with +E. Bryan Rumph on the Dorkland! Roundtable. A new designer with a rules light Noir game called The Coin's Hard Edge. Like a lot of starting publishers in this technological world, he is using the Print on Demand services of Lulu.com to fulfill the printing on his game. I honestly think that this is a smart decision for someone starting out (the first print run of Spirit of the Century was done via PoD after all). We talked a bit about what it is like to be a publisher and designer starting out in gaming right now.
It was a good talk and if you are looking at starting out as an RPG publisher, or have just been thinking about it, Bryan makes some good points in his answers.
As I blogged earlier today (while still asleep I might add), Wizards of the Coast and OneBookShelf/RPGNow/DriveThruRPG unleashed upon the gaming world a new site: dndclassics.com. Using a customized interface for D&D fans, WotC has begun the rollout of classic D&D materials for every edition in PDF form. These are brand new scans: with bookmarks and internal hyperlinking. Of the batch that was in the free reviewer downloads, one PDF stood out for me: Deities & Demigods for AD&D. This book was my one gamer's regret. I had a copy of the first printing (with the Cthulhu Mythos and Elric stuff), but I had to sell it during my college years to help offset the ridiculous price of textbooks.
I've missed that book and it is one of the treasures of gaming, which of course means that it is horribly expensive to try to recover (if someone has a copy that they want to let go of).
The creator of Legacy: War of Ages and the upcoming super-hero RPG Bulletproof Blues, talked with me about his past as a gamer and designer with me on the final Dorkland! Roundtable for 2012. We also talked about his job at OneBookShelf, the owners of DriveThruRPG and RPGNow, and the last 15 minutes or so gives some interesting reveals to OneBookShelf's next gaming-related venture.
Happy New Year, everyone. This will most likely be the last post I make for 2012 (unless something utterly amazing happens suddenly). Next month is 2013, and more importantly it marks the 10th anniversary of the Dorkland! Blog (even though I have been a blogger for slightly longer than that). I am hoping to have some special stuff in the upcoming year, to mark what is a pretty significant anniversary in blogging. I would like to do some giveaways over the next few months, and maybe visit some more conventions than normal to celebrate.
It has been an interesting time. Ten more years, maybe?
I spoke with James Raggi, of Lamentations of the Flame Princess (both the game and the company) about his history as a gamer, getting into game design and some of the differences between gaming "culture" in America and Finland.
Who knew that Finland considered internet access a basic human right? Anyway, there is some good stuff in here. I tried to dig around in some of his influences, both in fiction and in heavy metal music, to get at the root of the whys behind his creation of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess game, as well as his various adventures. His aesthetic is an interesting one, and it gets at the root of the differences between the approach of his game and some of the other retroclones out there.
Another double shot of my baby's love, or in this case Dorkland! Roundtables.
I spoke with George E. Williams (also known as Loki). You may know him from the Planewalker gaming site, or with his work as a freelancer on some cool Pathfinder material. We talked about his gamer origins and some of our favorite ways to prepare and/or eat alligator. This is the point at which I would say "it was a fun talk," but that is starting to become a bit of a cliche in my writeups of these Roundtables. I am enjoying the reveal of the things that make us similar as gamers, but I am finding those bits and pieces that make us unique from each other to be even more interesting to discover.
I think most of you know who Jason Morningstar is, after all Tabletop did do an actual play of his game Fiasco, and there are many, many more people who watch them than me. Up at that link some people play a game of Fiasco (although according to Jason in our interview they do get a few things wrong, but that's OK too), which is interesting to watch. I admit that I've seen Fiasco at some stores around town, but I haven't played it myself. It does look like it could be fun. He also talked about the origins and development of his latest (at the time of this interview and post) game Durance as well.
This was an interesting interview. We talked about a lot of Jason's games, but we also spent time talking about his interest in LARPs (Live Action Roleplaying, just in case there's someone who reads this blog and doesn't know what that means). LARPing is another one of those things that I have never done, but find interesting, so the conversation was of interest to me. I should look into finding some people involved with LARPing for future Roundtables.
So, at the beginning of this post I talk about discovering the differences that we have as gamers. I think that those differences is where the interesting stuff all goes on. Some would have you believe that there is this monoculture of geekiness, or even of gaming, but I think that these interviews start to show something different. Yes, there are points of similarity in us all...many of us entered into gaming through some of the same games, or we have some similar interests, but as time passes those similarities start to drift and become less and less important as we find our own voices. Nothing is as important as finding your own voice, even if others don't like it.
I have fallen terribly behind on posting my Dorkland! Roundtables to my blog. To catch up I am doing a two-fer of Steve Russell and Ben Gerber.
I spoke with Steve Russell of Rite Publishing. Steve's company is a 3PP (third party publisher for those not hip to the lingo) for Paizo's Parthfinder RPG, as well as having an upcoming game using the system from Erick Wujcik's trendsetting Amber Diceless, produced under license from the current rights holders of the game. Steve gave some interesting insights into being a small press games publisher during our talk.
and Ben Gerber, creator of the Troll In The Corner website and the delightful role-playing game for children of all ages, Argyle & Crew. We talked about returning to gaming, and taking that interest in gaming from blogging to design to publishing. Ben also talked about the board game that he is working on, that he hopes to find a larger press board game publisher to pick up from him.
Both were great interviews and gave some interesting perspectives on being a small press publisher.
I spoke with Rafael Chandler, an indie RPG designer and computer game designer on my Dorkland! Roundtable. We talked about his game Dread: The First Book of Pandemonium (with a new edition coming out this Fall), his work in computer games, his first novel and his love of heavy metal music.
It is becoming a bit of a cliche, I think, for me to talk about how fun these interviews are, but there are so many different perspectives and playstyles at work in gaming and it is good to see beyond what you normally do and you normally expect from a game, so that you can see the perspectives of others, what others are doing out there.
I talked with Jacob Wood of Accessible Games about his upcoming game Psi-Punk (currently going through it's Kickstarter). As of the time of this posting, he is at 34% of his goal for his Kickstarter. I like the Fudge system, and I like cyberpunk stuff, so this is a Kickstarter that I endorse and think that you should check out and put your money into.
This is the video of the Roundtable with Jacob:
In addition to talking about his Kickstarter, we had a very interesting and enlightening discussion about issues of accessibility for handicapped people in gaming. Jacob talked about issues that he has with commercial PDFs and the problems that he often has with them in reading software for the blind. I learned some important things about accessibility, I think. Jacob also discusses accessibility issues at his blog and reviews materials on the basis of its accessibility for handicapped gamers. Really, some good stuff.
Like I said at the top of this post, I hope that you check the link to his Kickstarter and show it some love.
About this time last year I wrote a post about publishers rushing games in order to have them for sale at Gen Con, only to have to release a new edition within months because the rush job missed so many errors. The business of RPG publishing sometimes seems to forget the fact that there's more to this than just having something to sell at Gen Con.
The polar opposite of this attitude is the "hobbyist," those who publish because they love games more than they understand how a business really works. A good example of this would be the current (as of the date of this post) Kickstarter being run by Frog God Games for a new edition of their Swords & Wizardry Complete, in hardcover format. They previously released a hardcover edition that was marred by printing errors and poor follow up and customer service. I guess some lessons are difficult to learn.
I do not think there is any nobility in publishing something from the stance of being a hobbyist, so if your responses to this opinion post are based from that mindset don't bother.
