Anyone thought about self-publishing? « Thread Started on Aug 24, 2007, 4:43pm »
And please, no comments like "I'm self-publishing right now"...
Um, anyway, I was curious if anyone had considered self-publishing some new OD&D material (at least unofficial, compatible material) in actual physical book form. I really liked the OSRIC monster book and I think it would be cool to do something like that in true, digest-sized, parchment-covered, OCE style. I left my job at "that game company" about 3 weeks ago and now I'm free to do stuff like that without anyone wanting a piece of it, so I'm actually considering it. Or maybe we could all pool our ideas and resources to create the first release from "odd74 Press". Any thoughts?
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Re: Anyone thought about self-publishing? « Reply #1 on Aug 24, 2007, 5:08pm »
I've tried two or three times to edit the three brown booklets and Greyhawk into one set of three "Revised Dungeons & Dragons" booklets. But it would have been literally desktop published and strictly for my own use.
Seems to me that actually publishing something like that would seriously violate somebody's copyright.
But as far as original material, I say go for it! I'll probably buy a copy.
I don't have any ideas myself, but I really liked Philotomy's Magic User Special Effects (under Men & Magic). I'm sure there are enough good ideas around here to make up a supplement!
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Re: Anyone thought about self-publishing? « Reply #3 on Aug 24, 2007, 8:27pm »
Just a knee-jerk reaction, perhaps not well thought out:
It seems like perhaps the first step would have to be the creation of some sort of in-print rules system to work under. Part of the problem with OD&D is that it is out of print, so something like OSRIC which was in-print would be a major step in the right direction. What a person (or group) would almost have to do is take the SRD, trim it down, and re-write parts to be open-content yet much closer to OD&D than what is out there at the moment. This would be a major task, but would probably need to happen in order to avoid copyright issues.
Once such a rules system was created, one could then venture into monster books and other new material. Creating new material without an in-print game system just seems like it wouldn't find a big market, and some of the options out there (OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Castles & Crusades, BFRPG, and so on) are "old school" in philosophy but they aren't OD&D.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC playtester (2011) C&C playtester (2003) I'm partly responsible for the S&W WhiteBox Builder of the TrollBridge Master of Mutants; MA since 1976 OD&D Player since 1975
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Re: Anyone thought about self-publishing? « Reply #4 on Aug 24, 2007, 8:51pm »
Quote:
Seems to me that actually publishing something like that would seriously violate somebody's copyright.
Not really, thanks to (a) the OGL and (b) the fact that once you eliminate a few very ERB and Tolkien-specific names everything in OD&D is from classic mythology and/or multiple sources in fantasy literature.
It's really just sweat equity if you want to do OGL OD&D. The interesting thing is, I've actually tried it, and I can't not add or subtract things based on my own interpretations, which is part of why I've never moved the project much towards completion. I always have to make it my own game, which is what the book says to do and all, but...
Re: Anyone thought about self-publishing? « Reply #5 on Aug 24, 2007, 9:20pm »
Quote:
Creating new material without an in-print game system just seems like it wouldn't find a big market, and some of the options out there (OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Castles & Crusades, BFRPG, and so on) are "old school" in philosophy but they aren't OD&D.
What I really had in mind was creating something like Necromicon, Booty and the Beasts, Spellcaster's Bible, the Little Soliders books, etc. It could be a bit generic, but I would want to tie it to OD&D in spirit at least- if that makes any sense.
And to be honest, I really wasn't thinking that it would find a big audience- maybe just the hardcore of the harcore OD&Ders. It probably doesn't make a lot of economic sense to do it, it would just be fun.
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Re: Anyone thought about self-publishing? « Reply #6 on Aug 24, 2007, 9:41pm »
There's really no overhead, in the sense that we can make our own PDFs and then let people buy POD copies from lulu if we want.
I've put stuff on lulu before, I can do text and full page pictures, I could learn layout too I guess.
Rengate, I'd be in on this project with you I think. I guess the big question is how serious do we want to be about art, because the text part is pretty easy for anyone with the knowhow, and I'm sure we'll get lots of contributions.
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Re: Anyone thought about self-publishing? « Reply #8 on Aug 25, 2007, 7:02am »
My vote would be to skimp on the art. Most people into OD&D-style products probably don't care much about art anyway. Heck, look at the brown books and the simple line-art contained therein. Nothing fancy, but enough to convey some enthusiasm and give something visual along the way.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC playtester (2011) C&C playtester (2003) I'm partly responsible for the S&W WhiteBox Builder of the TrollBridge Master of Mutants; MA since 1976 OD&D Player since 1975
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!" - Dave Arneson
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Re: Anyone thought about self-publishing? « Reply #9 on Aug 25, 2007, 12:42pm »
Quote:
My vote would be to skimp on the art. Most people into OD&D-style products probably don't care much about art anyway. Heck, look at the brown books and the simple line-art contained therein. Nothing fancy, but enough to convey some enthusiasm and give something visual along the way.
I dunno. On the one hand the art in OD&D is very simple (and amateurish) but OTOH there's a ton of it -- there are over 40 illustrations in the 3 books (approx. 1 every 3 pages, but they're not spread out that evenly -- sometimes there are 2 on the same page, sometimes there are 5 or 6 pages with nothing) and I believe (though I've never bothered to actually check) that almost every monster in vol. II is illustrated somewhere. Compared to most wargames of the period that had no illustrations whatsoever, this is a lot. Presumably Gygax and Kaye realized that in a game of imagination some visual cues were needed for guidance and inspiration (I wonder how many people took these illustrations literally and had ninja-gnomes and leprechaun-hobbits in their games). So while it's correct to say that OD&D fans are likely to be more forgiving of technical quality (we will accept, and perhaps even prefer, amateurishly enthusiastic line-art drawn by the author and his friends over "professional quality" art) I know that I at least would be a bit disappointed to open a book, especially a book of new monsters, and find no illustrations at all. (That was one of our biggest obstacles with Monsters of Myth, btw == we knew that as a book of monsters we had to have illustrations for as many of them as possible, so there was a mad scramble to find people willing and able to draw the monsters we had created, which added several months to the production process and even so we ended up falling short and had to fill in with a lot of 'generic fantasy' art in the final book.)
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Re: Anyone thought about self-publishing? « Reply #10 on Aug 25, 2007, 3:36pm »
Foster, I stand ... er, sit ... corrected. While I was making comment on the overall line-art quality, I had not really considered the quantity of illustrations in the books.
Men & Magic has 15 illustrations (including the cover) in a 36 page book, which is really like an 18 page book when you unfold it and consider 8.5x11" sheets. Monsters & Treasure has 14 (including the cover) in 40 pages (or 20 sheets). The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures has 18 (with cover and dungeon samples) in 36 pages (18 sheets again). Your count may vary from mine if you have a different printing, or if you count some of the double illustrations (such as amazon and witch) as one illustration (whereas I counted it as two).
So in "modern-day" terns with 8.5x11" books rather than half-sized pamphlets, this amounts to about a 56-page rulebook containing around 47 illustrations. Even if you take away the cover art from the count, and single-count the double illustrations, and don't count the dungeon and castle construction stuff, you're looking at around 40 illustrations in 56 pages. That's really pretty good.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC playtester (2011) C&C playtester (2003) I'm partly responsible for the S&W WhiteBox Builder of the TrollBridge Master of Mutants; MA since 1976 OD&D Player since 1975
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!" - Dave Arneson
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Re: Anyone thought about self-publishing? « Reply #11 on Aug 25, 2007, 4:50pm »
My vote would be to keep any new material in the digest size to keep with the other books.
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Re: Anyone thought about self-publishing? « Reply #12 on Aug 25, 2007, 5:07pm »
I didn't count the covers of the booklets or the dungeon/castle illos on pp. 3, 4, and 21 of vol. III, but I did count double-illos (vol. I, p. 27, vol. III, p. 25) separately, which is how I came up with a total of 41 to your 47
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Re: Anyone thought about self-publishing? « Reply #13 on Aug 25, 2007, 6:41pm »
Rengate and I have been trading IMs...it's looking like the two of us may take this up as a project, though we're still making final decisions...my preference is for taking open submissions (art with your text, please!) but for the two of us to retain editorial control...I'll keep everyone posted on what we come up with.
If we do, what should we call it? "Spawn of Finarvyn"? "Revenant Runes"? Any ideas?
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Re: Anyone thought about self-publishing? « Reply #14 on Aug 25, 2007, 7:05pm »
Quote:
My vote would be to keep any new material in the digest size to keep with the other books.
I second that. If nothing else, the digest size helps to make OD&D distinctive compared to the other editions.
Another thing I would be tempted to do is to divide the book into three distinct sections to mirror the three original books. Perhaps call them "Characters", "Monsters", and "Adventures" or something of the sort.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC playtester (2011) C&C playtester (2003) I'm partly responsible for the S&W WhiteBox Builder of the TrollBridge Master of Mutants; MA since 1976 OD&D Player since 1975
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!" - Dave Arneson
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