Anyone thought about self-publishing?

[Rengate]

And please, no comments like "I'm self-publishing right now"... ;D

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?

[coffee]

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!

[Rengate]

I was definitely thinking new material, like a monster book.

[Finarvyn]

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.

[calithena]

coffee said:

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...

[Rengate]

admin said:

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.

[calithena]

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.

[Rengate]

I hadn't even thought of POD. That might be a perfect idea. I'll PM you with some additional ideas I had.

[Finarvyn]

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.

[foster1941]

admin said:

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.)

[Finarvyn]

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.

[Stonegiant]

My vote would be to keep any new material in the digest size to keep with the other books.

[foster1941]

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

[calithena]

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?

[Finarvyn]

stonegiant said:

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.

[thorswulf]

I like the digest sized booklets, and I really like this idea! The suggestion to layout the book like the other booklets by section is a good idea. It keeps the old school feeling, and quite frankly how else would you lay it out? As far illustrations go, good, bad, amateur or professional, they should be b&w to keep the old school vibe going. I suppose gry tones and shading would be a nice compromise....

Here's an idea. How about a section that finally lets those miniatures nuts (like me) have some decent war game rules? Hell, that is probably another booklet in it's own right! I suppose you could add a fourth section and call it the tactical corner or somesuch thing. What is really nice about getting submissions from everyone is that a section for spells can get filled up very easy, as can monsters. I'm not so sure that a section for booklet 3 would get filled up as fast. I suppose some new rules for alternate civilizations, or city adventures would be handy.

[calithena]

We were thinking about maybe a couple mini-adventures. I'd like some one- or two-line tricks and traps too, myself.

Hey, I like the minis rules thing. I don't know if that's doable but I just thought of a dirt simple cross between Chainmail, WotC D&D minis, and Wargods of Aegyptus that I bet would be pretty fun to play. Off to take some notes...

[calithena]

Rengate and I are doing this.

We're thinking about "Revenant Runes" as a name for the book and "Fantasy74" as a name for the publishing imprint (though didn't someone have a homebrew system by that name?).

Anyway, we may advertise more broadly for submissions later, but I wanted to mention it here first because the idea started here. You can PM them to me or email them to calithena at gmail dot com.

We haven't finalized anything about how it's going to work yet (OGL or no OGL, sell for cost or charge a small amount over, pay for art or solicit volunteers, etc.) - I doubt we'll be able to pay authors anything, but we will give everyone who contributes credit, and I'd be inclined to let people keep rights to their own work (except for our limited right to publish the stuff in RR in perpetuity) so they can re-use it in other books, their own games or house rules, etc.

If you've got some cool material for the World's Oldest Roleplaying Game, send it our way!

[WSmith]

I have hinted else where that I have been working on an OGL OD&D homage. I just never seem to be able to focus enough to get it done. Maybe I will post it, but first I need to remove some of the text (as it is copied and pasted directly from the 3LBs. )

[Finarvyn]

wsmith said:

I have hinted else where that I have been working on an OGL OD&D homage.

This would be most excellent! Let us know as soon as you clean up the language so that it's not direct from the LBBs.

[thorswulf]

I had a thought about a simplified version of wargame rules. I'm not sure if anybody else is familiar with Legions of the Petal Throne, but these had very simple rules that might be able to be tweaked about to work for D&D. Mind you they would have to incorporate PC's as commanders or individuals, and that may add a wrinkle or two.

[Rengate]

So lulu.com is looking like a possibility for publishing this project, although I whole-heartedly agree that this needs to echo the format of the original books and should be as close to "digest-sized" as possible. lulu.com offers a 6x9 format, which is close, but is a bit larger, I believe. If anyone else is aware of a lulu-type publisher that offers a true 5.5 x 8.5 (that is correct, isn't it?) format, please let calithena or myself know.

[jrients]

These places don't do true print on demand, but they have the size you're looking for:

www.bookstandpublishing.com/perfectbound.htm
www.qualitypod.com/pricesheet.htm

[Stonegiant]

I would also like to say that any monsters and spells submitted to this should have the same brevity as the originals do. To me that is definatley the charm of the originals is that so much was left to the DM to decide. 2nd edition was the worst about giving to much info about the monsters.

[danproctor]

wsmith said:

I have hinted else where that I have been working on an OGL OD&D homage. I just never seem to be able to focus enough to get it done. Maybe I will post it, but first I need to remove some of the text (as it is copied and pasted directly from the 3LBs. )

Something I'd like to point out...all text in Labyrinth Lord in open game content. Now I know that there are things in there that do not jive with what you are trying to do, but I bet there is a LOT of text that you could use and easily adapt to creating an "Oldest Fantasy RPG" SRD.

Since I designated all this text OGC, you don't need any further permission from me to use it, and you would certainly have my "blessing" to use it.

But, make VERY sure you have no text in there copied from anyone else's work. Just one overlooked paragraph could spell disaster for anyone publishing this.

Feel free to contact me if you need anything.

[Finarvyn]

Thanks for the reminders, Dan. I think that Labyrinth Lord has some excellent content and might indeed make a great starting-point for making a more 1974-ish OGL game. I keep thinking about starting with OSRIC and trimming from there, but now I'm thinking that LL may be a better fit....

Oh, and welcome to the boards!

[danproctor]

admin said:

I keep thinking about starting with OSRIC and trimming from there, but now I'm thinking that LL may be a better fit....

Oh, and welcome to the boards!

Keep in mind that OSRIC is not open game content, so you'll have to check with PnP to do that.

Thanks, good to be here!

[WSmith]

danproctor said:

Something I'd like to point out...all text in Labyrinth Lord in open game content. Now I know that there are things in there that do not jive with what you are trying to do, but I bet there is a LOT of text that you could use and easily adapt to creating an "Oldest Fantasy RPG" SRD.

Since I designated all this text OGC, you don't need any further permission from me to use it, and you would certainly have my "blessing" to use it.

But, make VERY sure you have no text in there copied from anyone else's work. Just one overlooked paragraph could spell disaster for anyone publishing this.

Feel free to contact me if you need anything.

Thanks, Dan. That is going to be very helpful. I will contact you via email.

[James Maliszewski]

Is this project still going forward? It sounds like something I'd like to support.

[crimhthanthegreat]

I am very much in favor of this project. I think this would be a very wonderful thing!