neorxnawang

Well, what do you know. Am happy to note that my earnings on this project resulted in an unheralded second monograph check that showed up unbidden in today's mail, so its topped 500 in sales, ipso facto. Now I have to choose between brakes for my daughter's car and a trip to Vegas to watch old 80s bands at the Mandalay Bay. What would Scaraband do?

I'm in the middle of an RPG project and need an illustrator to do a couple of illustrations. 1 now, maybe a couple in the future. I had someone in mind but they have flaked out on me. I have some other people in mind but want to see who is out there. This would be a paying work-for-hire gig. If interested, please PM me and direct me to some samples of your work along with your rate for B&W sketch illustration. I am more interested in spooky mood than photorealism, so if your art is kind of "out there" I'd like to see it.

I didn't get my contributor copies of DtD yet because the initial print run sold out and its on backorder. And the one review I've seen rated it higher than AtA. So, yay, I think?

With respect to the original topic, I'm discouraged. Allowing sales on rpgnow was a huge and long overdue step, but the market is so full of games competing for dollars now that I doubt that BRP will ever really get off the ground. You can get a good idea of the size of the market at its best by looking at the downloadable book stats on Chaosium's website and extrapolating. It's not big. Classic Fantasy demonstrated that it is possible (with a lot of work) to use BRP to emulate or fit the more popular gaming niches (maybe any gaming niche), but it requires a huge amount of work for little reward. Call of Cthulhu and similar historical/investigation/character interaction games (a category into which I would put Rome) will always have its fan base and market segment to which it appeals, and BRP is well suited to this: you're walking down previously cleared trails when doing a book like this, and just have to get the background information down and tweak it. The supply side of the market is extremely fractured: Chaosium isn't backing up the money truck to anyone or doing much in the way organizing things, and as is typical in any publishing niche, everyone does their own thing with their own people. It's basically a conglomeration of indie publishers trying to do their own products on a scaffolding of a system that isn't well supported. So I anticipate that the BRP bubble will go the way of most other potentially high-quality efforts of the past that you rarely hear anything about any more: eventually, people inclined to write books and who are good at it will follow the path of least resistance and turn to where the support is. Gloom and doom, that's me. I don't really have a prescritption for the problem, either, beyond a coordinated marketing effort that Chaosium, I don't think, is up to and that the nature of the game publishing industry and its tendency to attract people who want to do their own thing (of which I am supremely guilty) doesn't lend itself to. Of course, if someone wants to prove me wrong and say, "Hey, Moeller, quit your nihilistic prophesizing and join our rebel alliance" or "write a chapter for (such and such)", I'll be happy to be proven wrong.

Not only is it out, but its available, and it appears that whatever demons scrambled the links between it and the doubtlessly worthwhile Mysteries of the Raj have been given six feet of good World soil.

I'm gonna email you a sample copy. It's apparently just about out.

One thing that I am really happy about is how far my mapping and Adobe skills have come. (I used the money from the last one to buy an Adobe suite). No more "les cartes sont affreux", I hope. There's some of the Illustrator pieces I did as interior art up on my publishing Facebook page, search Swefna Cyst.

Status should now be upgraded to submitted, accepted and publication pending....hooray....

And....the download is up. http://basicroleplaying.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=324 If the dratted link won't work, look under Fantasy/Other in the downloads section.

Finished! Submitted proposal to ye powers that be at Chaosium and waiting for them to get back to me. I'm going to post a sample page or two in the downloads section in just a bit. One of the funnier bits, along with the new and improved map of the World. Very spoilery though. Caveat downloader.

Couple other brief comments, reading down. I did keep the "usual" fantasy tropes in the setting, for a couple of reasons. One was to keep it somewhat familiar; the other was to poke fun at them (e.g., The Redoubt). I really poke fun at them in the blowoff scenario (and I get a little more heavy-handed with the sins, as there is a gang of representative demons at issue). Oh, and I really dislike the traditional depictions of Elves as ancient, enlightened do-gooders or tragic subterranean exiles: they fare quite poorly in Dust, to Dust. Wait til you see the backstory behind the "Blessing" of Fallingstar. And I definitely kept it western/generic fantasy culture for a reason. I did not want to be perceived as linking a particular or recognizable culture with a particular vice. You'll see the pains I go to in order to avoid that in Takuk, a polar region that I ended up making about a lost colony rather than indigenouse people. Just didn't want to go anywhere in the same universe as that.

Thanks Penn. As I mentioned on the main forum, Dust to Dust is done and in proofreading. There are three main parts to it (at risk of some spoilers): The Western Isles (land afflicted by sloth): this is written as a campaign arc, and it's "winnable": the PLAYERS can beat the demons here in a fairly major way and re-right society, at least in this area. If they want to pay the price. Takuk: (land affected by gluttony): this is written as a campaign arc, and its "winnable": the "Majestic Plateau" demons don't even know about this place. Takuk has its own set of problems. They can score a major win for humanity here: if they are careful. It's Not A Lie, As Long As You Believe That It's True: This is the showdown scenario where the PLAYERS can (if they decide its a good idea--highly debatable) lift the Abjuration and let the old Gods return (as well as more demons), or otherwise lay some major smack down on the demons. They get handed the keys to the kingdom, and have to decide what (if anything) is smart to do with them. When I submitted AtA, it was going to be 300 pages long, cover all seven lands and all seven deadly sins, and have a beginning scenario (bleak), a turning point scenario (hopeful), some lands where the demons had a stranglehold on society; a few where their grip was not as tight, and a showdown scenario (kick some demonic butt, and wrap up the Hooded One/Fangtooth subplot if necessary). Chaosium asked me to keep it under 200. What got cut/not finished up so as to be included: the two lands where the demons' grip is weakest (The Western Isles and Takuk), and the showdown scenario where the PLAYERS can "win". Or lose really badly. And the adaptation notes and plot seeds to structure a campaign. So this stuff is in Dust, to Dust. Narratively, it works well if you have both: bleak followed by hope. Sigh. Well, there's another 125 pages coming which is more about kicking demons than getting kicked by them. I actually made the last illustration a sunrise (or a sunset, depending on how one looks at it).

An update on Dust, to Dust: I have finished the substance of it. A proof copy is in my lap being reviewed and proofread for typos (it is illustrated, mapped and laid out). I need to fix typos and populate the index, and then it is done-done. I have submitted it to Chaosium as a monograph proposal along with a few proof pages, and am waiting to hear back from the powers that be if they want to throw me the $250 for another 125 page book. (which is how long it turned out to be). The dratted scenario came in around 50, but I'm happy with it. (And if you can't get several somethings out of the scenario, setting or no setting, then I'm going to pack it in). One thing I added from prior reports is 5 pages of adaptation notes and summary plot seeds (about 30 of them). Basically, I tell you exactly how to take Fallingstar, Eglantine, the Western Isles and Takuk (what are those last two? hmmmm), strip off the post-apoc stuff and slap them into a McFantasy world. The Dells and the Majestic Plateau are too setting-tied but the others aren't. Stay tuned.....

Thanks for the heads up, probably sold out of a print run....