The Drowning and Falling Report

I wanted to share the specifics of our most recent game, Drowning and Falling, which will hit IPR in about a week.

The genesis of the game was an off-hand comment Andy Kitkowski made over at Story-Games, about how some game wasn't a real RPG because it lacked rules for drowning and falling. There was some good-natured joking, and I suggested an entire game with resolution mechanics slavishly focused on nothing but drowning and falling. A game in which you literally could not have a conflict that did not involve one or both of these hazards. It gnawed at me until I realized that such a game could be really fun, and then I started writing it.

Here's the stuff I think is noteworthy:

First, when I realized it could be a workable project, many other people had already contributed little bits. I decided to open it up under a Creative Commons license and solicit more substantial feedback. At the same time, I made a parallel decision to make Drowning and Falling a benefit project. These two factors meant that contributions were both welcomed and encouraged, with individuals sharing in the service of something useful and good. I feel strongly that this is a positive and repeatable model - if D&F makes back its costs I'll do it again next year. The CC version is here.

I asked Remi Treuer if he'd art direct and he agreed. Remi's a cartoonist with deep hooks in the indie comics community, and he pitched the project to some of the people he had worked with in the past. We got a bunch of pro bono art and it is uniformly fantastic. Jason Turner, the guy who did our cover, just published his first graphic novel. This will be an important selling point - the art makes the game look really great and communicates the spirit of the thing very well. I'm also hoping for some cross-selling in the indie comics community. This sort of partnership will definitely lead to RPG work for these guys if they want it.

The game itself came together rapidly. It was a forum joke in February and you'll be able to buy a polished game at Gen Con. In the interest of expediency, we decided to use the digest-sized format both I and The Mad Irishman, our layout expert, had recently used on The Roach. The final product is a 64 page perfect bound book that was printed at RPI - we lost our main contact Katie, but her replacement proved to be as reliable and honest as she was. RPI's prices have increased, and our cost, with shipping, was $497.24 for an initial print run of 100. We could have reduced this a bit, but I've been so pleased with RPI I didn't want to shop it around. The retail price will be $12 and everything after costs will go to charity. I'm very proud of this!