Anthology meets Magazine

[AgentFresh]

The talk over in Space Cowboy's Collective Bargaining about anthology type publishing made me remember an idea I had the other day.

This passage in Ron Edwards' "The Nuked Apple Cart" reinforced the idea as well.

However, this Myth is nothing but a curse and a blight. Every company that has followed it has either failed, or its roleplaying games are financed from some other product. Does anyone want to claim that the current "dominator of the industry," whatever company-of-your-choice, is immune? Is there any hope of success beyond riding the tiger for more than a moment? Exactly two roleplaying games in twenty-five years have managed to latch onto a short-lived teen trend: AD&D in the late 1970s and Vampire in the early 1990s. Trend over? Game over. Especially since now we now know TSR's "reign over the industry" in the 1980s to be a complete mirage. And for everyone else, I ask this: has any roleplaying game ever managed to pay, out of sales profits, for its production and advertising for more than one year?

What if a year is still aiming to high? How about 3 months?

What if you had a quarterly magazine (maybe more of a 'zine depending on production values) that would feature a new game every issue, complete with source material, supplements and articles about it.

For example, Let's I write a game about magazine publishing called "Editors & Ad Space." The focus of the issue would be that complete game (maybe it'd be in the middle, so you could bend the staples up and take it out if need be.) I could also write one or two mini-source or setting books to include.

Now here's where it gets fun. Other writers write about the game, focusing on their strengths. Maybe someone who has worked in the magazine industry writes an article on what it's REALLY like. Another writer has does a page of NPCS or Monsters. Another might analyze the game from a GNS standpoint. Another might write some adventure supplements. Another might do some art based in the world.

You could have regular columns and features. Each issue would introduce a new game (or revised or expanded versions of old games, after a while), but could have a few supplement referring back to earlier games sometimes.

A magazine might give these games a better chance of getting seen/played. Instead of random shots in the dark, they'd be like bullets on an ammo belt being feed into a machine gun...firing one right after another.

Maybe someone is already doing this? Maybe this is a bad idea?

[iago]

What if you had a quarterly magazine (maybe more of a 'zine depending on production values) that would feature a new game every issue, complete with source material, supplements and articles about it.

Polyhedron/Dungeon is doing this right now on a monthly basis -- each month, the Polyhedron half features a new d20 game.  Usually a pretty fun read.

I like how you're expanding the scope of the whole notion, though.

[ethan_greer]

This sounds to me a lot like a collaborative work, where a group of people get together and design a game, with a key difference - in many RPGs, the authors get listed all in the front of the book, whereas with this idea, the individual authors each get their own say on the matter, and it's easy to see who wrote what.  Interesting.

[AgentFresh]

iago:

Polyhedron/Dungeon is doing this right now on a monthly basis -- each month, the Polyhedron half features a new d20 game. Usually a pretty fun read.

Color me clueless. I've been out of the gaming loop for the last few years. I'm in the early stages of crawling back into the hobby.

ethan_greer:

This sounds to me a lot like a collaborative work, where a group of people get together and design a game, with a key difference - in many RPGs, the authors get listed all in the front of the book, whereas with this idea, the individual authors each get their own say on the matter, and it's easy to see who wrote what. Interesting.

Plus, you're not making a game that you have to support and milk for the next 10 years. You're getting a group of folks together, loading the little nipper up and sending it on it's way.

Also, you'd have regular features & columns that would add continuity.

Anyway, if anyone ever gets something like this started, holler.