Hey all-

I don't recall what thread I read it in, and it was from a while back, but it was something to the effect of "alot of game designers just really want to write setting, but there's not a market for fantasy atlases, so they end up having to publish a game."

I see alot of truth in that, and I'm at a point where I'm seriously looking at writing and publishing a 'fantasy atlas' for use in RPG play, but without any accompaning RPG stats.*

A couple of simple questions:

Are there any examples of similar products being successful?

Is this indie rpg related enough to merit further Forge discussion as I press along in the project?

*I invision the setting itself as working best under the Savage Worlds rules, but I'm not about to even consider buy a license from Pinnacle until I have actual publishing experience to speak of.  I'm mulling over a free companion d20 PDF, but that's really an extra, and tangential to the primary project, and not the point of this thread.

Minutes after posting, I remembered an answer to question #1:  Kingdoms of Kalamar.  I had the old boxed set.  I don't know what the publishing situation for that was, but it was systemless and seems to have done fairly well for it self.

Let me just give you my two cents, since I'm too currently working on the same type of project (i.e. pure content with no specific rules). I don't know if I can really answer your questions, but I hope this could help.

Are there any examples of similar products being successful?

Is this indie rpg related enough to merit further Forge discussion as I press along in the project?

This is a minor point, but it wouldn't be an "atlas" which is a book of maps (and other visuals) but rather a "gazetteer". If you do a search (e.g., on Amazon) using that name, you'll come up with some prior examples. Indeed, there was a Greyhawk Gazetteer published in the early days of 3E.

Willow, the answer depends heavily on your definition of "success."

Joshua- Very true.  Right now I'm just hoping to get a book published, not lose money, and not have boxes full of unsold books in my basement.  Anything better than that is just a pleasant suprise.

Hi

I think that St John Ross is planning to publish a new edition of Uresia without any game info  (if that's any indication that there is a market for this...). As GM I strongly feel that illustrations can really make a difference with this kind of product. But well, it's merely guessing on my part.

I think, if you discuss certain things as color, adventure hooks, things that will be useful in determining if your setting will go well with a specific setting, you stand a chance of getting some useful help here. Understand that your setting *WILL* contribute to System (System being more than just the game mechanics; Color and theme can have about as much effect on the actual play as the mechanics) and make sure you address that.

Technically, you could count Talislanta as a successful example of this. The original book to be published was The Chronicles of Talislanta, which provided extensive details and maps of the setting, but no game stats or system at all; those were included in the separate Talislanta Handbook. And new material for Talislanta is still being published, so it's successful on some level. Arguably, though, since the Chronicles did have a companion book with game rules and stats, it's not quite what you have in mind.

Hi Willow,

Your answer to Joshua is very important. I think you can see that if you simply wanted to get a big, colorful book into game stores, you could spend many thousands of dollars, promote ferociously to the right target individuals, perhaps see a few on the shelves in the stores, and eventually mulch most of your print run.

Fortunately that's not what you indicated as what you want. So let's look at those goals - (1) make a really good-looking, interesting book, (2) make a bit of money, or at least not lose any ... I'll go out on a limb and say, "in the course of a year." Sound OK?

Historically, most books of this kind published for role-playing have been associated with specific games. The majority of the GURPS line probably qualifies, or to get more fringe-y, the Spherewalker supplement for Everway. I'm getting the idea, though, that you're thinking more about a product that's like the gazetteers published for a lot of fantasy fiction, right? "Atlas of Pern," that sort of thing.

Well. Whether this turns out to be a good seller, I can't say. So far, the only things I've seen reliably produce good return, for this hobby, are small, punchy, well-supported (in the webzine sense, not supplement), and ready-to-play games, sold primarily on-line.

Perhaps there's room for what you're describing. Speaking for myself, I think all the "Atlas of Pern" books are pretty, certainly, and like most fantasy buffs, I like maps with neat stuff on them. So here's what I suggest, most of it in line with what you're talking about already.

1. Book. Definitely a book, and whether there's a companion PDF (with or without rules), that's fine, but there's gotta be a physical book.

2. High-quality. I mean, high-quality, full of instrinsic interest, and not yet another Fantasy Heartbreaker type map. As I see it, most of the atlases that people can't sell, don't sell because they're bogus, not because the market somehow doesn't like them.

3. Some indication of how exactly it can specifically be used by a role-playing group. Even if there are no rules for hitting goblins and surviving poison or whatever, I'm talking about instructions such that I can take this product and actually utilize it during prep and play. If that seems obvious to you ("why would I have to explain that?"), then good! It means you're prepared to write it.

4. Sales and distribution ... here's where it gets tricky. Because as you've probably figured out, pumping it to the game stores is a straight path to Ye Olde Mulcher (although don't write them off for later), and no matter what, on-line promotion is the only way to get an RPG product sold to end-users, period. So it looks as if direct on-line sale would be the way to go, along the lines of the Forge-ish model.

Problem - such sales are most powerfully driven by on-line accounts of play. So that means you need to have lots of positive feedback for initial customers, and lots of positive interactions between you and them, for this to work.

Sound risky? It does to me. I print up this gorgeous, high-production, actually meaty book, and then I hope that enough people actually use it in the space of two or three months, so that some of them post about it. And then I hope these posts are good enough so that more people want to buy it ... I dunno, very risky.

My suggested solution: start small. Start with one map, not a world, and really write up those instructions with passion. Make this available as a PDF, and use it yourself, and see whether other people use it and post positively about it. From there, then move on to the book plans.

Best, Ron

I have always felt that one of the greatest flaws with the setting book is the idea that you are asking someone to purchase your own fanfic.  In the end, no matter the setting, they are all fanfics of someone else's game.  When I talk to most of the people in my gaming groups (and, granted, a bit over 50% are paid roleplaying people (artists, layout, design, etc.) in my groups), most of them agree that "world creation" for a game is the "fun bits of being a GM". 

Honestly, I have more fun crafting NPC's on the fly and taking ten seconds to sketch some sort of orientation guide.  I always get annoyed with canned settings and "In the world of X, this is how things work". 

Now, granted, I can't prep a game worth a damn.  I just can't.  I have tried to sit down and design a world and write down copious information about that world and somehow convey that through storyline.  I'm not that guy.  I'm more the seat-of-my-pants style of GM and tend to riff off of what my players respond to... and, largely, setting information tends to be the bane of that style of GMing.

In the end, the only setting information I've ever used would be something along the lines of that "100 adventure ideas" from the D&D book (but not that list, because those are more the "go into the dark hole" variety).  I mean, in my experience, players want to know they are walking on grass/mud/sqamp/swimming and how far it is to a town, rather than giving a damn what the grass/mud/swamp/swimming is actually called by the locals.  I'm sure others feel differently, and that's fine, but I've honestly never encountered a group that cared enough about setting beyond the basics (spaceship, desert, forest, post-apocalyptic city, etc.) to bother with devoting a product to it. 

If that's your thing, and you think there is a market for it, then have-at... I'm just curious what game you tie your setting to.

Dav

My suggested solution: start small. Start with one map, not a world, and really write up those instructions with passion. Make this available as a PDF, and use it yourself, and see whether other people use it and post positively about it. From there, then move on to the book plans.

I mispoke when I said 'Atlas'- 'Gazeteer' is indeed more like it.

Thanks everyone for the feedback.  It's a lot to absorb, so I'm going to have to go back and read it again later.  But I'm intending on focusing on the writing, not the maps.  (The two books on my shelf that I'm stylistically comparing it to the most are the Kingdoms of Kalamar book (Kenzerco), and the World of the Wheel of Time (Tor).)

I have a couple of friends who draw really well, and live in a college town, so I'm hoping to not pay too much for art.

Initial response to the setting ideas over on rpg.net has been good.  The thread's here if you want to take a look: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=264555

And Ron- I'm not going to skip on the 'how to use this for your game' sections.  I think that's sorely missing, even in big settings, like Forgotten Realms.  Just because you have a map and a description of a dozen countries doesn't mean you're going to know what to do with it.

Ron:  What do you mean by setting books not selling because they are 'bogus'?

Hi Willow,

Checking back on that sentence, I said "atlases," (in the sense of gazetteers), not "settings."

Most gazetteer or "check out my hundreds of cool maps and history" books are bogus for the same reason that you and I already agreed about - they are not being presented in an instructional way.

At present, this kind of RPG material is published much in the sense that people can throw stuff at a wall. Some of it is sticky, but no one knows which, and the big shared myth among publisher and customer alike is that what sticks will be pleasing to the eye. The general solution, so far, is to provide the biggest bowl possible, with the prettiest colors, and therefore reinforce the illusion ("this is so sticky! this is gonna be so cool!") rather than provide anything helpful.

At most, such a book touches off sparks of hope - wowww, this would be so cool if it showed up in play. But that's not even inspiration, it's just hope. Reading the book becomes entertaining because the person enjoys the hope ... but that's not actually, concretely getting expressed in play.

I have used maps and gazetteers effectively during play, I know it can be done. You have probably done it too. If your book explains how you did it, and then instructs and inspires others (who to date have been gazing at their RPG splat book maps in hope, but without payoff), then it will be non-bogus.

As I said, I think you and I already agree about this, based on your recent post.

Best, Ron

Okay Willow, having read over your setting info, I have a thought or two.  1) read Ron's Fantasy Heartbreakers article(s)... that, kiddo, is you.  2) This sounds like a plenty-fine campaign to run for some group you have out in your college town, but this is not going to be a start product. 

If you are hellbent on making this setting and trying to sell it, for cash, get a couple of your friends that "draw well" pretty drunk, and extort their lowered inhibitions for art.  Then layout your setting and edit it, and what-have-you... then make it a .pdf and either sell it for a couple of bucks, or give it away and post a "please donate to my world" button.  Either way.  This way, you don't lay out big money, you don't get stuck with unsold inventory, and you don't wonder why no one wanted to play in your Ultimate World.

I know this sounds harsh or mean, but I'm really not trying to be.  I am being deadly serious.

Dav

Now Dav.

All right, there are some serious dangers in this project, and yeah - the linked material is not what I'd recommend as the primary selling point or content for it. But notice what Willow said about goals: not to lose money. We're not talking about the usual "oh God get my game out there on the shelves" that characterizes heartbreakers. I think you're being too alarmist.

Piggy snort-snort capitalism, remember? If Willow really wants to see how this thing sells (and remember, neither you nor I has seen the instructions-part yet), then off to the market it goes, and we shouldn't diss it.

Best, Ron

Willow, sorry to insist, but I think this is important. When provinding content, you have two things : the content (the setting/plot in itself), and the container (how you present things). To provide a different, useful, non bogus content, I believe you have to think over the container as much as the content. How do you present things ? And I believe this is where the forge might be the most useful.

And I also belive the container is the thing that will make your setting a non heartbreaker !!!

Geez Dav, you couldn't find a way to say that constructively without dumping on me and my friends?

Willow, man, I'm not dumping on you... everyone has been there.  I've written TONS of stuff that is FAR worse than anything you could even crackpipedly dream of.  I'm mainly saying that your product is an add-on to an existing game, which means a license fee, and is a very detailed map (geographical, political, agricultural, etc.).  Your market, while not strictly limited to that game's audience, will likely be quite highly focused.  I don't know the popularity of the game you are looking at, but to print, publish, license, edit, and ship your game, you are looking at laying out some good cash.

I'm saying you sidestep that, place it as PDF, add a donate button (that way you avoid license fee, as you aren't selling the item), and voila!  No money down, therefore no money lost, therefore success.

I'm not making fun of you, I make fun of people I know... and those blonde buffy bitches with their dogs and suvs... and, well, just about anyone.  But trust me, I'm not being mean, I'm just very low on the "padding it" idea.

I do, however, 100% think that your product would do better as an electronic distribution medium, complete with zoomable point-and-click maps that get all detailed mapquest-style, rather than as a "traditional" gaming store shelf product. 

Then again, I've been wrong a whole mess of times, so, hell, this is your gig.

Dav

I want to clarify:  I am not intending on releasing this as a licensed product of any kind, Savage Worlds or otherwise.

Anyway, for Dav and Ron, what specifically are you seeing in the setting writeup that's turning you off?  I will admit that the thread over there is more inspirational than presentational, but statements like "this is not going to be a good start product" or "the linked material is not what I'd recommend as the primary selling point or content for it" don't help me any.

Willow wrote:
Anyway, for Dav and Ron, what specifically are you seeing in the setting writeup that's turning you off?  I will admit that the thread over there is more inspirational than presentational, but statements like "this is not going to be a good start product" or "the linked material is not what I'd recommend as the primary selling point or content for it" don't help me any.

Willow:

What Eero said.

I promise I'll give you a better resopnse in a bit, but, in the short, what Eero said.

Dav

Eero wrote:
That's why "the linked material is not what I'd recommend as the primary selling point or content for it". Before you can sell a setting, you have to sell tools for using it. Note that our tools for utilizing settings in roleplaying are primitive, so primitive! What, usually it's the GM reading and internalizing the setting alone before the game starts, and he's supposed to transmit the setting in some meaningful way into a character experience for the players, or something to that tune. Doesn't work, simple as that. Before a really viable setting product can emerge, you need to get conceptually to the next level by delivering your setting in a form that makes it significant.

Euro and the others are saying true things, which I sortof disagree with.

I rarely buy setting books, because they rarely contain enough interesting material. “Interesting material” here means either new mechanics and techniques, or fiction that just grabs me (even gamers buy novels). I don't know (and, I mean, I actually don't know) if relying solely on the fiction for grabbyness is a good idea.

(If you were selling just to me, I'd be much more inclined to buy a scrapbook of stuff from that world than a complete annotated history. Something which suggests lots of stuff, but never paints a complete picture. Fragmential life stories of the sort that make us go, “I want to play a character like that!” Half-torn photos of cities, which make us wonder what the rest is like. Pictures of glass-pressed flowers from the highlands region. That sorta thing.)

Eero wrote:
Consider Exalted: WW has been trying to sell us a setting-based game for what, five years, and frankly, it's not working. If WW can't convince us that setting is the miracle drug of roleplaying, then I doubt anybody else can.

Looks like most angles of this have been touched, but I would like to try to bring in the whole train (caboose and all).

Willow, you seem to have a strong idea about a setting. Like Valamir, I believe you need it to have as many "scales" as you can stand to write (and afford to print):
o  World-level information - The Big Map, weather info, broad cultural and historical backgrounds, flora and fauna.
o  Regional information - International conflicts, history of ruling class, trade information.
o  Local color - Major town maps and descriptions of city life, rural points of interest, typical and atypical "personalities."

Notice how, the more I "drilled down" in scale, the more situational elements came into the descriptors? That is what I think folks are hounding for: a setting which is ripe with situations that a GM can hook his characters into.

Also note that situation does NOT necessarily mean "backstory" or "metaplot" or any sort of future history for your world which the GM must try to use in his campaign... or ignore and fight growing incoherence as he uses "later" setting elements in his own story arcs. This is not to say you could speak some to how the setting will evolve (or, better, devise a setting-evolution system that makes it trivially mechanical to track major world changes).

Finally, it is not merely enough to devise a setting ripe with situation if there is no clear means to hang that onto a system of play. You want the game to use "any" system of play, then what you actually have to do is devise a "metasystem" that will let you quantify mechanical aspects of the world in a way that is quickly translatable to the GM and players' system in use. Consider: a TON of setting products want to tell the user about, say, "the wise and generous leader of the Flargenbargen" without giving a GM some kind of quantifier of that wisdom and generosity. Thus, when the players want the leader to, say, loan them some troops to fight off the Florid Fauna Frenzy, the GM has no clue as to where the "rubber meets the road" vis a vis the wisdom of the leader to manage his troops versus the generosity he will show to someone trying to help his people. It all ends up going to fiat.

And THAT's where I think others want to warn/berate your about your ideas: the more the setting relies on a GM "grokking" the pregnancy of situation out of this host of setting details--and, worse, the more the GM must "double grok" specific systemic applications of the "emergent" situations from that detailed setting--the less the GM-as-consumer will feel the value of the product. Hence, the "fun bits of being a GM" comment (Dav): you want to sell/promote a product that could, essentially, offload all the tough decisions to the GM (requiring a lot of reading and analysis to begin to make those decisions) while "freeing" that GM from all the fun decisions!

So...
Do not just make a portrait of a world: make an animation of that world alive, day-to-day, year-to-year, age-to-age. Imbue it with situation and conflict and factionalism and (if you can do so in a way that doesn't make it mandatory for coherence) a future history that evolves from those elements. To use a metaphor: be Tolkien, not Rand-McNally.

Do not just tack on a system from the Open License world; make a straight-forward, simple quantifier system that uses, perhaps, a chart in the back of the book to translate your "generic" quantifiers into the actual mechanics of several popular RPGs. If you recall TSR's old charts for translating, say, a D&D character to Gamma World, you know the type of thing that I mean. And the beauty of such a "metasystem" is that you will not clutter up your setting and situation materials with a bunch of gibberish from existing systems (unlike, say, many module designs which try to embed NPC stats into the narrative text or break it out into sidebar character sheets that one can never find when needed).

In closing, I think you could go for print and electronic deliverable: go with a free PDF (with donation request) and sell a hardbound or perfectbound book using Print-on-demand, with minimal or no profits. Both could be as beautiful as you and your artists can manage: it's all the same, in PDF land. In essence, you have no profit goal (only a no-loss goal) and this is a first product: treat it as a loss-leader. Get your work out there, advertise on game forums and at conventions, and hopefully your NEXT setting product will have an existing fan base that you can begin to charge. Also, I serious recommend you do a search here at The Forge on the concept of "ransom" for a product release. I think it's an ingenious revenue channel, once a designer has an established fan base that likes his or her stuff and wants more.

Hope this helps! I actually believe in setting materials. Too bad so few sci fi settings come out....
David