Quote from: I run with scissors;584326I do not per say, but I just see them as reinventing the wheel. For me, I think I want games that have something new to say, if you will, then just restating what has come before.

IRWS

If WOTC ends up reprinting OD&D, and B/X like they did with the AD&D books then you will be right on.

They were developed and published at a time when that seemed like a far-fetched dream. The clones are there to make people can keep enjoying new materials for their old style games no matter what WOTC or another owner of the D&D IP decide to do.

Quote from: I run with scissors;584330It is not, per say, but from Kickstarter's presepctive, they are not a selling tool, but a funding tool. It is a means to get funding from interested parties, and in return they get on the ground floor of a product.

The funder assumes the risk by giving their money to someone, and in return they hopefully get something in return. For a pre-order, the risk is on the supplier. They have to fund the creation, and then hopefully, they get enough preorder to sell more.

IRWS

Right - so people who use kickstarters for their RPG games want to artificially shift risk on to us as opposed to them, just by virtue of what the header on the website is that takes our money.

See, if you said this with clarity on your kickstarter - "there's no critical reason for me to use kickstarter except that I would prefer to quit my job while I write this, I have lower fees per unit this way and also I don't want any legal liability if I flake", few buyer-backers would pledge to it.  Right now, RPGs on kickstarter are raging because buyer-backers still see them as pre-orders and seller-creators do not discourage that feeling because they don't want to throw cold water on their project's hype.  But as more projects fail, and this reasoning of "the risk was on you - I"m just a creative with a dream" is retreated to, the big money days of kickstarter will be over for RPGs.

Whereas if Sellers simply accepted what people saw it for, and put starting the kickstarter at the point in development when all development that was solo, and free except for time spent, was finished, so that chance of failure was vanishingly small, the chance of kicking the golden goose in the ass would go down.

Quote from: EOTB;584340Whereas if Sellers simply accepted what people saw it for, and put starting the kickstarter at the point in development when all development that was solo, and free except for time spent, was finished, so that chance of failure was vanishingly small, the chance of kicking the golden goose in the ass would go down.

We agree.

Of the inventors I know, and I know some, they do not quit their day job to produce the greatest widget known to man kind. It is something they work on in their spare time, and when they feel they have the widget ready, do they seek a means to produce and sell it.

IRWS

A few newbies have cropped up in this thread - so welcome!

Quote from: Benoist;584309Also, regarding ACKS as a supplement versus a full game, I think it's one thing to criticize the principle of it, and indeed, the domain management alone could have been a supplement to Labyrinth Lord, in theory, but all things considered, there is more to ACKS than just the domain management. There are lots of little tweaks, like the reworking of the resolution mechanic with target numbers, that are also worth checking out, and the whole is written in such a fashion as to be extremely clear and ergonomic. It's to put it simply one of the best written games I've these last few years. It is REALLY well done. So having a whole package in a comprehensive, integrated format, instead of a supplement, I can see the logic behind it now, having read the thing.

I too wished people who think about publishing their own versions of the game or house rules would think about that fundamental question before getting to work: is it really worth adding yet-another-game on the OS marketplace, or would it better serve the community by being a supplement a la Majestic Wilderlands instead? I'd like to point to this particular title here, because IMO estar did it right in that category, and I wished more people out there would take that approach.

But at the same time, games like ACKS, or DCC RPG, or AS&SH, really profit from being their own self-contained games and universes. Whether we're talking about reasons having to do with economics running throughout the game, the setting's integrity and the emulation that comes out of its blend with the rules, or some reworking of some fundamental aspect of the simulation, there are some worthy arguments to put on the table to justify building another, different game. I just wish more people actually consciously thought of that before hand, instead of defaulting to publishing their own games.

You know, after a night's sleep I care a lot less this morning.  I think this thread was just a personal flash point for me with the whole "OSR didn't start until 2009" thing.  D&D Blogs don't talk about D&D, and wonder why their traffic is dropping.  There's a new neo-clone a month - Tenkar can't even keep up with them anymore.  I think he's going to have to invent new words to explain why each of them is amazing, great and new.

Yeah, there's a whole section of OSR that think they started it, and whose goal is now to steer people toward their own new games and away from the original games supported by new product.  I think that's fucked up on many levels - simply by virtue of the appellation the authors apply to themselves, not intrinsically because I don't think the old games should be competed with -  but I'll live.

Bottom line, all my personal expectations for the OSR were met and exceeded with the reprints.  So if we're going to evolve into a heartbreaker-of-the-month club, I don't have to pay any dues to that.

Quote from: EOTB;584340Right - so people who use kickstarters for their RPG games want to artificially shift risk on to us as opposed to them, just by virtue of what the header on the website is that takes our money.

Wow, some thread.

At this point I don't know how Kickstarter justifies its cut. Projects are legally prohibited from characterizing themselves as "investments," so it's not an angel capital introduction service. Backers pay for pre-defined "rewards," so it's not really about running non-profit fund-raising campaigns, either.

And now it's not about pre-orders either. (Maybe they're getting nervous about their obligations to manage retail transactions as others have pointed out.)

The problem I have is that if the project lead has already done the work of getting to the "prototype" (or in our case, a solid draft), you can tell the backers whatever it takes to blow wind up their skirts but it boils down to a pre-order.

You are paying in advance to prove to the manufacturer that sufficient retail demand exists to push the button and actually make the thing. You are pre-ordering.

If this was traditional publishing, those advance orders would determine the size of the print run. In today's Kickstarter, I don't know what they're for.

Quote from: EOTB;584340See, if you said this with clarity on your kickstarter - "there's no critical reason for me to use kickstarter except that I would prefer to quit my job while I write this, I have lower fees per unit this way and also I don't want any legal liability if I flake", few buyer-backers would pledge to it.

Well, of course not. Tell backers they're getting a vicarious thrill of standing close to the creative fire and midwiving something that would otherwise never get a chance to exist in this big wide world, and they'll trample each other to give you the cash. Give them a sound business proposition, and crickets.

Quote from: Benoist;584309or would it better serve the community by being a supplement a la Majestic Wilderlands instead? I'd like to point to this particular title here, because IMO estar did it right in that category, and I wished more people out there would take that approach.

Not to say I wasn't tempted to publish a complete ruleset. I may do so for one reason; so that when go to a convention and sell on the point, or go to a game store and sell my book I have a rulebook to sue the supplement with. To date and for the foreseeable future that hasn't been important enough reason in light of the other things I want to accomplish.

Quote from: EOTB;584351Yeah, there's a whole section of OSR that think they started it, and whose goal is now to steer people toward their own new games and away from the original games supported by new product.

Name names, don't cloud your criticisms in vague insinuations.

Quote from: Benoist;584309I too wished people who think about publishing their own versions of the game or house rules would think about that fundamental question before getting to work: is it really worth adding yet-another-game on the OS marketplace, or would it better serve the community by being a supplement a la Majestic Wilderlands instead? I'd like to point to this particular title here, because IMO estar did it right in that category, and I wished more people out there would take that approach.

Let me talk about Microlite74 for a bit here. When I started to work on Microlite74, Swords & Wizardry either had not been announced or had just been announced, there was no 0e "alike" available and WOTC had just pulled the PDFs. Microlite74 was not ever intended to be for long term play, I assumed it would be used by people who were used to WOTC/"New School" D&D to try old school play using the 3.x rules framework of Microlite20. Heck, Microlite74 1.0 wasn't even fully playtested beyond 3 or 4th level as I assumed people would either lose interest in "old school" play or move on to a more complete old school game by long before they reached mid-level play.

It turned out I was wrong. People liked Microlite74 and kept playing it. Unfortunately, as soon as characters reached mid-level, the M20 system (with high combat bonuses) no longer resembled 0e. A couple of months of system revision and playtesting at higher levels, and Microlite74 1.1 was released. It proved very popular, with about 10K downloads in the first 6 months -- and people were playing it long term, using it for pickup games at cons, etc. This was all in 2008.

Microlite74 2.0 was designed after Swords & Wizardry was released. Many spells and monsters were rewritten to make them more compatible with S&W. These would make it easier for M74 players to move to S&W if they wanted to and make it easy to use S&W for more complete spell and monster write-ups.  M74 2.0 came out about 8 months after M74's initial release. M74 continued to be far more popular than I had expected. I published two supplements. The first with lots of optional rules and the second with the additional spells, classes, and monsters from the 0e supplements. This was mainly in 2009 (and early 2010).

2010 also saw the publication of Microlite75. This was M74 with most of the house rules I used in 0e in the late 1970s (converted to the M74 "system"). It was mainly for my use as my players preferred M74 to 0e. However, I released it for others to use as well. It was not as popular as M74 -- which was what I expected for the first time.

In 2011, with Microlite74 still popular, I reorganized and rewrote the game into three "versions" of as third edition. Microlite74 Basic emulated 0e brown box/white box. Microlite74 Standard emulated 0e with the supplements, and Microlite74 Extended added my house rules to M74 Standard. A Companion volume with lots of optional rules was also released. Again, thousands of copies were downloaded and people were enjoying the game.

I received a number of requests to provide a S&W version of my house rules. I had trouble understanding why this was needed as M74 and S&W were both versions of 0e, but I was willing to provide S&W supplement with the house rules. However, that wasn't want people wanted. The minute I announced the project, I started getting emails asking me to instead produce a complete S&W variant with my house rules blended into the S&W text. I balked because I thought this would be more work that it was worth and dropped the project when it turned out that the majority of people really did want a complete variant S&W game instead of a supplement.

This year I've been working on a limited to six levels "swords & sorcery" variant of Microlite74. It will be out in a week or two now -- all I have to do is lay it out and make the release PDF. My next project will be a "complete" non-lite version of Microlite74 Extended (codenamed Microlite74 Plus) with complete spell, monster, and treasure descriptions, more beginner-friendly rules text with examples, domain rules, etc.

Some people wonder why I continue to work on Microlite74 games when there are so many alternatives that would work just as well for most people. The answer is simple, I keep publishing them because people want to play them -- and I enjoy working on them. They are all free so it certainly isn't for the money. Occasionally, I hear from people who think I should drop them because there are too many similar games out there, but I don't see that as a problem. And if it is a problem, it's certainly not my problem.

I wonder why RPG companies haven't adopted a system similar to the P500 pre-ordering system pioneered by GMT and used by a number of wargaming companies now.

Pre-orders under that system are a pledge on the part of customers to purchase an item at a discount when it has finished development and is printed and ready to ship.  They are not charged until that happens.

Games are not greenlit for production until they receive a number of pre-orders that will ensure that the company can cover its costs for print run.  Initially, the bar was set at 500 pre-orders (thus the P500 moniker) but it varies now depending on the game.

This does mean that some potentially interesting games languish for years in pre-order hell, and it puts a lot of the onus on designers and developers to promote a game before it makes the cut.

It would cut out KS as a middleman and wouldn't charge customers until the projects are done.

Quote from: estar;584358things I want to accomplish.

Eh? Nothing that comes from gaming is an accomplishment unless you think getting out of bed is an accomplishment. The vocabulary of 'projects' and 'accomplishments' associated with rpgs is self-aggrandising fuckwittery.

Quote from: RandallS;584361Some people wonder why I continue to work on Microlite74 games when there are so many alternatives that would work just as well for most people. The answer is simple, I keep publishing them because people want to play them -- and I enjoy working on them. They are all free so it certainly isn't for the money. Occasionally, I hear from people who think I should drop them because there are too many similar games out there, but I don't see that as a problem. And if it is a problem, it's certainly not my problem.

I think Microlite old-school is a great idea. Carry on, indeed.

Quote from: econobus;584355If this was traditional publishing, those advance orders would determine the size of the print run. In today's Kickstarter, I don't know what they're for.

I know from elsewhere this is confusing for people so let's parse this out in baby steps. Most of these are technical definitions paraphrased. I am not making these up.

INVESTMENT. People pay for a share of the profits if things do well and accept a share of the financial risk if things do bad. Strict disclosure and suitability rules apply.

PATRONAGE. People throw money to show their love. Traditionally no strings are attached, but smart creative will make sure to heed "suggestions." This has the same status as buying your mom a birthday sweater, and in theory extremely wealthy gamers need to worry about "gift tax."

CHARITY. People throw money to make the world better. Strings may or may not be attached. Donations to registered non-profit organizations are worth a tax break.

RETAIL. People pay for a thing. That thing may or may not be ready yet. The manufacturer may or may not use the funds to pay production costs. If the buyer doesn't get the thing as specified, the social contract mandates a refund. If the manufacturer fails to refund the money, bad manufacturer! Of course, the buyer can always laugh it off or blame himself.

KICKSTARTER. People throw money for a thing that doesn't exist yet. If enough do so, the thing supposedly gets made and they get that thing plus any secondary rewards. They do not get a share of the profits. Technically money is being exchanged for a thing, so no "gift tax" or charitable deduction would apply. If you do not get the thing, you apparently deserve a refund, but the rules are vague. Of course, the "backer" can always laugh it off or blame himself for the project lead's failure to deliver.

Why this gets me going is because every time Kickstarter carves liability off itself, it becomes a worse proposition for the backer no matter what his motive for backing the project may be.

If I want to INVEST, I'm cussed. Welcome to all the risk and none of the rewards!

If I want to DONATE, my money can do 15% to 40% more good if it goes to an actual charity instead of these rpg hoboes.

If I want to PATRONIZE, my money can still do 5% to 10% more good if I just write my favorite creative a check.

If I want to BUY...hey! Kickstarter says it's not about buying any more, never mind.

Quote from: _kent_;584363Eh? Nothing that comes from gaming is an accomplishment unless you think getting out of bed is an accomplishment. The vocabulary of 'projects' and 'accomplishments' associated with rpgs is self-aggrandising fuckwittery.

You must be from an alternate timeline with a different english dictionary. The one here says

QuoteNoun:   
1. Something that has been achieved successfully.
2. The successful achievement of a task.

Your criticism is ironic considering your most recent blog post is about your accomplishment in getting the presentation right on your Cavern Below map.

http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2012/08/vectorised-pdf-of-caverns-below-abode.html

Quote from: econobus;584366I know from elsewhere this is confusing for people so let's parse this out in baby steps. Most of these are technical definitions paraphrased. I am not making these up.

INVESTMENT. People pay for a share of the profits if things do well and accept a share of the financial risk if things do bad. Strict disclosure and suitability rules apply.

PATRONAGE. People throw money to show their love. Traditionally no strings are attached, but smart creative will make sure to heed "suggestions." This has the same status as buying your mom a birthday sweater, and in theory extremely wealthy gamers need to worry about "gift tax."

CHARITY. People throw money to make the world better. Strings may or may not be attached. Donations to registered non-profit organizations are worth a tax break.

RETAIL. People pay for a thing. That thing may or may not be ready yet. The manufacturer may or may not use the funds to pay production costs. If the buyer doesn't get the thing as specified, the social contract mandates a refund. If the manufacturer fails to refund the money, bad manufacturer! Of course, the buyer can always laugh it off or blame himself.

KICKSTARTER. People throw money for a thing that doesn't exist yet. If enough do so, the thing supposedly gets made and they get that thing plus any secondary rewards. They do not get a share of the profits. Technically money is being exchanged for a thing, so no "gift tax" or charitable deduction would apply. If you do not get the thing, you apparently deserve a refund, but the rules are vague. Of course, the "backer" can always laugh it off or blame himself for the project lead's failure to deliver.

Why this gets me going is because every time Kickstarter carves liability off itself, it becomes a worse proposition for the backer no matter what his motive for backing the project may be.

If I want to INVEST, I'm cussed. Welcome to all the risk and none of the rewards!

If I want to DONATE, my money can do 15% to 40% more good if it goes to an actual charity instead of these rpg hoboes.

If I want to PATRONIZE, my money can still do 5% to 10% more good if I just write my favorite creative a check.

If I want to BUY...hey! Kickstarter says it's not about buying any more, never mind.

Why are you posting with a different account, samovar? Sockpuppet accounts are not allowed on this board.