An Idea Regarding BRP Monograph Compilations

[LivingTriskele]

I really want to see BRP fly and one of the ways to accomplish this is to provide supplemental material. I'm working on two Monographs myself and hope to find the time to develop an optional point-buy system with advantages and disadvantages.

About a half a year ago Pyramid Magazine published a small mini-campaign/setting of mine for GURPS (The Kingdom of Innerwall). They purchased the electronic rights to it, though from what I understand I can still publish it in paper form. It's not expansive enough to justify an entire Monograph, but I was thinking it would make a nice addition to a Monograph compilation of mini-campaign/settings.

If I can find a few good writers/artists willing to collaborate, we might be able to throw a quality compilation of BRP mini-settings together. Maybe even support these settings in future Monographs.

Just to put it out there, I don't want to seem like a big-headed snot, but I'm a little particular about the quality of this project.

The details regarding payment could be worked out later, though I imagine it could be determined by word-count and graphics contributions (don't quit your day jobs). Creative rights would be retained by respective authors. We could come up with contracts if need be--my fiancé worked in the legal department of Lucas Films so she could probably help us there, if that's a concern.

This idea is just in the fetal stages--but I think there's potential.

We'd be looking at something with at least 60 pages. I've pasted some info below--

Monograph Submissions

Chaosium monographs are a means for you to present your ideas to a discriminating roleplaying audience. We're looking for more monographs to publish this year.

Chaosium Monograph Submission Guidelines

Chaosium monographs are a means for you to present your ideas to a discriminating role playing audience. Here you find out just what is a monograph and how to submit a monograph to Chaosium.

What is a Monograph?

Monographs are longer works by one or more authors on a single idea or concept. On these products you also fulfill the functions of editor and layout artist. We at Chaosium do little in the way of editorial. We have adopted this idea to provide a way for you to present your role playing background, game, or setting to an exclusive audience of discriminating role players.

We run across many good ideas from potential authors who, for various reasons, lack the time or focus to fully develop those good ideas. We find many of these works compelling and think that you and your peers would enjoy them.

Monographs are digitally reproduced small run publications featuring cardstock covers and tape bindings. Because costs are relatively low, we can explore all manner of publishing possibilities without worrying about printing thousands of books at great expense. The monograph line allows us to test ideas and authors we'd otherwise be hesitant to publish

Monographs need to be at least 60 pages in length to keep things cost-effective. You can estimate that there will be about 700 words per page. The minimum word count for a monograph is therefore 42,000 words. Mongraphs can be longer than this, and we have considered and published works of more than 100,000 words.

We are particularly looking for monographs highlighting the Basic Roleplaying rules, and of course we will also consider monographs for Stormbringer, or Call of Cthulhu!

What Sort of Book?We are interested in four kinds of roleplaying books. A book might blend these approaches, but usually falls into one of the following categories. After each category is an example. The examples are not solicitations.

Books of Scenarios: Scenarios must have intriguing ways of getting the player- characters into the action, and definitely must be interesting enough to keep them playing. BASIC ROLE PLAYING adventures can encompass many genres, and should highlight an interesting or clever feature of the rules.

Background Books: We are particularly interested in treatments of your settings or campaigns in which other BRP players might find delight. Here are bad guy guilds, wizard schools, temples to the gods, space agencies, and other role playing goodies.

Support Books: These would expand or enhance areas of the core rules. Here you might find other magic systems, powers, weapons, and the like. These we will scrutinize for rules compatibility.

Notes on How to Create a MonographWe expect that you will create your monograph using Word or some similar word processing program. We can also accept files from page layout programs such as Quark and InDesign.

Setting up your Document: please use a page that is 8.5 x 11" in dimension (not A4), set up to be facing pages. Use a 2-column format with a .2" gutter (the space between the columns), Use margins of .6" all around with 1.2" for the inside measure. This will ensure that your text does not run into the center binding area of the book.

Fonts: Chaosium has access to many standard and unique fonts. For the body of your text use a font of 10 to 11 points and 2 points of leading (set line spacing to AUTO). For large bodies of text serif faces (Times) tend to be easier to read than sans-serif (Helvetica) fonts. Other than chapter heads, you should have only about 3 levels of headings; more than this confuses the reader. You must own the fonts you use in your work, and you should include copies of the fonts you used (especially if they are decorative or unique). If we cannot solve a font problem we may replace a font with something similar.

About Art

You will place all of the art in your work. All of the art included must be original and used with the permission of the artist. The same holds true of maps and diagrams. Give the artists credit. Do not use third-party software to create your maps, for licensing reasons. For best reproduction art should be black and white with strong areas of light and dark. Avoid using grayscale images; they sometimes do not reproduce well. Bold art helps of offset the grayness of the text on the pages and provides the reader with pleasing areas for the eyes to rest.

Page Numbers: Please include page numbers on every page. Occasionally it is OK to omit page numbers on title pages or on the indicia page. It is simplest if the title page is page 1.

FTP: We can accept submissions uploaded onto our server. We will make arrangements with you individually to enable this option. Otherwise please send us a CD with your work included.

Edited October 24, 2008 by LivingTriskele

[pulpcitizen]

Interesting idea - I am sorry to be so late in responding. Are you still thinking about this?

If this kind of thing were to work you are looking at dividing to monograph flat fee so much that the expense may very not be worth it for any contributor.

that said - putting cost aside - what about a linked ste of settings? The reason I suggest this is that for it feel worthwhile for a consumer they need to feel they can get maximum value out of all material in there.

[LivingTriskele]

Unfortunately I'm too swamped with projects right now to take on anything new... as it is I'm not making enough progress on the monograph I promised to deliver months ago... But a collaborative effort with common theme would be very cool! And the Gods know I'm not in it for the money...