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Upcoming BRP? Stretched too thin?


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I know Deadworld is coming from Seraphim Guard, what about the other titles? Rome, Interplanetary, Fractured Hopes, Mythic Island, Chaos & Catacombs, are they all to be published directly through Chaosium? Can Chaosium handle that publishing load?

Does anyone have any insight into this? Am I being overly worried?

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My gut feeling is that you're being overly worried. :D

Chaosium seem to manage a pretty decent publishing schedule with CoC, plus they have the option of publishing monographs on certain products, which mitigates their risk and (presumably) time to market. I'm not sure whether all the announced products are going to be full-colour, monograph, or what, but personally I'm cheered that Chaosium are showing such an obvious will to support their new product. The one thing I think that is clear is that BRP will live or die based upon the support material - sourcebooks, settings, and scenarios - that comes out immediately after the rulesbook release. You can't afford not to be planning for that.

Remember too that Chaosium haven't committed to releasing all these products all at once on the same day or anything - it's their production pipeline, and they'll doubtless see the light of day "when they're good and ready", or something like. :lol:

Having said all that, I'm hoping we'll see an increased amount of fan activity and fan publications following the rules release - the RPG market these days seems always hungry for regular activity and updates to generate and maintain interest levels, so fanzines, websites, and so on would be a great way to keep the buzz going between releases.

Cheers,

Sarah

"The Worm Within" - the first novel for The Chronicles of Future Earth, coming 2013 from Chaosium, Inc.

Website: http://sarahnewtonwriter.com | Twitter: @SarahJNewton | Facebook: TheChroniclesOfFutureEarth

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Its only going to affect them if no one buys them. I always make it a point to buy as many books that support a game system I like as possible. Especially if its not 3E.

So I own most of WFRP books, all Dark Heresy (even ordered the UK only releases) and so forth.

Its a bit expensive at times, but Id rather shill out money here and there to help keep something I like afloat then to sit back and watch a system die and 3E lord over the world in the guise of 4E.

So Deadworld may not be my exact cup of tea or anything, but I will fork over the cash to support the concept of BRP and Im sure I will find several things in the book that I can use.

However, I tend to not buy adventures.

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I'm not sure whether all the announced products are going to be full-colour, monograph, or what, but personally I'm cheered that Chaosium are showing such an obvious will to support their new product.

I hope we avoid seeing to many of their monographs, unless they start to publish them through Lulu or something. They're cheaply made, not even a color cover, and the shipping makes them unavailable to the European market.

SGL.

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I hope we avoid seeing to many of their monographs, unless they start to publish them through Lulu or something. They're cheaply made, not even a color cover, and the shipping makes them unavailable to the European market.

SGL.

Unless I'm mistaken, Chaosium have switched using a service like Lulu for their monographs. The old back stock are still the prior format, but the newer ones have been at the same quality (printing-wise) as the EZ book.

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Unless I'm mistaken, Chaosium have switched using a service like Lulu for their monographs. The old back stock are still the prior format, but the newer ones have been at the same quality (printing-wise) as the EZ book.

That's actually really good news. All we need now is some kind of European outlet - as Triff says, the shipping from the States is a killer. I wanted to order Dreamlands last week in the April sale - appx $20 for the book, $25 dollars for the shipping. :ohwell:

"The Worm Within" - the first novel for The Chronicles of Future Earth, coming 2013 from Chaosium, Inc.

Website: http://sarahnewtonwriter.com | Twitter: @SarahJNewton | Facebook: TheChroniclesOfFutureEarth

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I bought the "for President 08" monograph (it's considered a monograph, right ?), and the printing is good quality (color cover, character and papaer quality actually better than the usual Chaosium products, good binding; the text layout inside is not so professional however, but it's not the fault of the printer). Is this representative of this new monograph process quality ?

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I know Deadworld is coming from Seraphim Guard, what about the other titles? Rome, Interplanetary, Fractured Hopes, Mythic Island, Chaos & Catacombs, are they all to be published directly through Chaosium? Can Chaosium handle that publishing load?

Does anyone have any insight into this? Am I being overly worried?

Out of everyone on the forum here, I may have the best insight into the situation, so I'll volunteer my opinions. (Though of course, I'm just a freelancer for Chaosium, and am not any sort of official representative.)

Deadworld is of course being handled by someone else, at little effort to anyone from Chaosium other than some contract stuff.

The other five books you mention are all to be published by Chaosium, true.

I'm not sure if Mystic Island (or is it Iceland?) is a monograph or an actual publication. If it's a mono, it's really only Chaosium's job to print and distribute it.

There are a few other works also in process, but haven't been announced.

Unfortunately, the reality of a freelancer-driven publication schedule is that it's a freelancer-driven publication schedule.

(No offense intended to any freelancers, by the way.)

That means that these books will only be published when they're turned in. Many times in this industry, books are begun and never finished. Freelancers don't always come through with books because of life issues, etc. Sometimes the effort of completing a huge manuscript is just too much. Sometimes manuscripts are abandoned, and depending on what the project is, they need to be passed over to another writer. Sometimes (like with BRP) they're late. Sometimes they're turned in and need massive revisions. Sometimes manuscripts arrive in an unpublishable format and the projects are just killed.

If and when a manuscript does arrive, and is publishable, there's another long process of editing and layout.

Then there's interior and cover art, which basically means that you've got all of the above problems, but with a new freelancer.

So having four or five, or even 10 projects "in development" at the same time doesn't really mean that all of them will create this huge bottleneck at once and overwhelm a smaller publisher.

The reality is that if everything goes according to ideal plans, these listed publications will be coming out over the next year to year and a half, giving plenty of time for production.

Having a slate of support products for BRP covering a variety of genres, with fan buzz, is frankly an ideal situation for Chaosium. It allows them to see what sourcebooks sink or swim, what the market is interested in, and allows the BRP line to grow and be seen as a viable force in the RPG market.

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Unless I'm mistaken, Chaosium have switched using a service like Lulu for their monographs. The old back stock are still the prior format, but the newer ones have been at the same quality (printing-wise) as the EZ book.

Extremely good to hear! :happy:

SGL.

Ef plest master, this mighty fine grub!
b1.gif 116/420. High Priest.

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Is this representative of this new monograph process quality ?

Yeah, I think so. I only have one perfect bound monogram, 'Gods of Law.' Looks fantastic due to the lay out work (gonna have to look at the book to give a proper citing).

Oops, I see this was already answered. Leaving the above to show the love to GoL.

Thanks for your thoughts on this Jason, and yeah, I was probably being alarmist.

There are a few other works also in process, but haven't been announced.

So I keep hearing.. grrr... :D

Having a slate of support products for BRP covering a variety of genres, with fan buzz, is frankly an ideal situation for Chaosium.

See, now I'm wondering about the other side. Are there enough books being generated to support BRP? I really hadn't considered that some of these announcements were slated for monographs.

I've met quite a few long term Chaosium fans that weren't even aware that the monograph channel existed. I know others who won't buy a monograph unless they've had a chance to look at it themselves, because of the price and the variability in quality. Then there are our friends outside of the states who face exorbitant prices if they don't bundle a large amount of orders together.

We really need to work on some reviews for these monographs. Since they're not on the shelves, they're only going to reach a certain percentage of the gamer population. Those that are aware of the monographs in passing are going to be reticent about paying for an expensive book sight unseen. Reviews could potentially mitigate the situation.

Bah! I'm being more negative than I want to be. BRP has a bright future right now. They're publishing an incredible book that I've wanted for at least ten years. There is a large amount of fan support behind them.

I guess it's just been a rough day. ;)

70/420

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So does anyone know what the situation is with for profit self publishing IE: the cheap PDF market?

Is it possible to publish PDFs using BRP or will it be necessary to publish works like this using GORE?

BRP isn't an open system, so you'd need a license if you wanted to publish something officially compatible with BRP.

I don't know what Chaosium's terms for licensing are, but it doesn't hurt to contact Dustin and ask.

If you want to publish something unofficially compatible with BRP, then you would probably want to use MRQ or an MRQ-derivation.

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If you want to publish something unofficially compatible with BRP, then you would probably want to use MRQ or an MRQ-derivation.

MRQ compatible with BRP? Surely not! Easy to convert, perhaps... ;)

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Yeah, I think so. I only have one perfect bound monogram, 'Gods of Law.' Looks fantastic due to the lay out work (gonna have to look at the book to give a proper citing).

Yes, you are right. Although the covers remain so-so, the old monographs are indeed easy to distinguish from the new ones (which are indicated as perfect bound, and have red on the cover). So I can confirm they're great quality, I won't fear buying them in the future (if only Chaosium would give a preview with a few pages for each monograph, that would be even nicer).

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