Open Design Blog

If the current commission were for just a 3E project or just a 4E project, it would already be funded; patrons have supported the work and there's lots of interest. In a perfect world, I would be merrily writing up the outline and taking the first couple of rounds of polls, brainstorming, and feedback by now. The design ship would have sailed.

Unfortunately, that's not the case. While fans of the two editions have some crossover, the "gimme either edition" crowd is a small minority. D&D fandom seems to be a house divided.

And as a result, the next Open Design may take a little longer to commission. To make your choice easier, though, I've removed another option from the running. Court of the Shadow Fey is removed from the voting starting today, and so there's just two competitors left: 3E Tales of Zobeck or the 4E Wrath of the River King. Both will be written when and if their commissions are met. The one that meets the bar first will get a head start, the other will follow along after.

So tell me, who's on first? You can read the project descriptions and donate to your favorite here.

I never quite know which project is going to pull off the upset.

Way back when, I was sure that the Lost City was going to win, and Angels of Our Better Nature, and pretty much every time, I'm wrong. So... I shouldn't be surprised to see that now it's Wrath of the River King, the project that doesn't begin until July and that uses a GSL I haven't seen, that is drawing patron attention. It is just 15 patrons behind Tales of Zobeck, in fact.

And why not the 4E contender? If the Wrath of the River King commission is funded before the Tales of Zobeck/Courts of the Shadow Fey, I will write that one first. The paranoid side of me is convinced that patrons just want to see me flail around with a new format/ruleset/design parameters. "Wrath" would certainly involve a lot of that, as I'll be ramping up in a hurry.

Donate for Tales of Zobeck
Donate for Court of the Shadow Fey
Donate for Wrath of the River King

In other news, I've posted the first design essay for new project (or, if you prefer, another in the continuing series of Blood of the Gorgon design essays). This one is about encounter design, and especially about non-standard encounters. Patrons, give it a look and tell me what you think!

I'm delighted to say that the commission is about halfway met, and that the voting has gone smoothly so far. I also must, regretfully, cut Lords of Lost Arbonesse from the voting, because it is not generating the same level of support as Court of the Shadow Fey and Tales of Zobeck.

Also, note that I've suggested a possible format change to Tales of Zobeck, and Courts of the Shadow Fey has some acquired some interesting Zelaznian overtones. Take a look at the KQ forums for details.

The 4th Edition Wrath of the River King is also available, for those looking to expand their 4E adventure collection.

If you would like to support either Tales of Zobeck or Courts of the Shadow Fey as a patron, now's the time.

Please review the proposals for the project and choose your favorite!

Just a note to say that you can vote for what Zobeck article will appear next in Kobold Quarterly, and make your own suggestions, in this thread.

I'm preparing the commission for the next projects, and I wanted to ask current and former patrons about how much feedback you prefer at the commission stage.

The first Open Design was a head-to-head slugfest of something like 6 proposals, knockout style, until one pitch was the winner and went into the design phase. That was interesting (the vote never goes quite as I suspect), but part of me wanted to get away from the voting.

So the following projects had fewer and fewer proposals to choose from, until in the case of Blood of the Gorgon, there was no voting between projects at all.

However, many patrons have said "I like watching the process, and the proposals all sound good." Plus, I know some patrons feel they want something very particular, and obviously there's disappointment when a certain project isn't commissioned. Heck, I've felt that myself, when the project I was rooting for didn't wind up on top. Fortunately, though, the chosen project has always been interesting from a design perspective. Probably because there haven't been a lot of dud pitches.

As you may suspect from all this, I'm debating whether the Open Design announcement tomorrow will be for one project, or for a choice of two or three. Do you LIKE having the options, or do you find them annoying?

I await the will of the patrons and the public.

Skip Williams, a designer of 3rd Edition D&D and the author of the Ask the Kobold column in KQ, is interviewed by Pulp Gamer. Check it out!

An announcement today that the 4th Edition D&D Game System License will be released on June 6 and will be free of charge. Publishers can release materials starting in October.

This is quite a delay from the original GSL announcement (which offered the license in January and materials shipping in August). OTOH, "free of charge" is a huge plus.

There's additional good news in there about being about to identify a 4E product as D&D compatible with a "version of the D&D logo".

Note what is not released: the terms of the license and the contents of the SRD. More detail.

I did a podcast this morning that should go live next week. In the meantime, I wanted to point out a specifically Blood of the Gorgon related podcast from a little while ago over at The Tome Show. Nicolas Logue spills the whole bloody story on the project in an sort-of-recent podcast there. No idea why I didn't mention it here sooner.

What else? Oh, I talked to the guys over at Private Sanctuary about KQ and gaming. Episode 28; they've been around a while.

Finally, I'm happy to announce that I'll be writing the next Open Design project. The system is likely to be 3.5E (unless there's a sudden surge of 4E support), and I'll announce the details on May 1.

The first note about Kobold Quarterly #4 has appeared in the wider press at WIRED. The blurb appears in the GamerDad updates, and it made me cackle with glee.

This review, allow me to quote it to you:

"The sole remaining professional roleplaying game magazine, Kobold Quarterly became number one by beheading all of its competitors in spectacular urban swordfights."

I can't top that. If you don't subscribe (and it's just $16!), whyever not?

The next issue has gone to subscribers, with the Ecology of the Cloaker, an angel who has fought her way through Hell, and a mithral dragon.

It includes several articles by Open Design patrons, and some great new feats for fighters, plus drunken fey, gnome variants, cartoons by Stan!, and the Gangs of Zobeck by yours truly with eyebite79. And more, of course. The thing weighs in at 72 pages!

You can pick up a single copy at Paizo or DriveThruRPG, or treat yourself to a subscription for either the PDF or the print+PDF version at koboldquarterly.com. Subscribe before April 18th, and you get a free copy of the Havenmine Gauntlet mini-adventure!

You know, between writing the Blood of the Gorgon, some 4E freelancing, the leadoff for the Crimson Throne, and now, oh, launching a whole new game company, I'm fairly certain that Nicolas Logue is a caffeine-powered robot. There's just no other logical explanation.

And yes, while it is April Fool's Day, the launch of Sinister Games is very serious indeed. The site is super-slick, the first wave of products is super-sweet (including a mini-download on Death Beneath the Waves by yours truly), and he's going in directions that most designers would fear to tread (think dark Gothic cults and horror crossed with nautical and piratical themes) — and he makes them work.

Check it out. Tell the robot I sent ya.

(P.S. Yes, yes, I'm insanely jealous of his sweet site design. Moving on.)

The success of the Kobold Guide to Game Design (Vol. 1) in PDF has prompted a paper edition. This is a digest-sized edition with a clean layout on heavy paper, and yet is slim enough for reading just about anywhere, with essays on game design basics and advanced topics. This particular volume is focused on worldbuilding and adventure design.

You can pick up the print edition of the Guide to Game Design at the Kobold Quarterly store.

As a way to say thanks to everyone who has supported Kobold Quarterly as a subscriber this year, I've given them all a Easter egg: a free adventure from Highmoon Media Productions!

No, it's not a trick, a scam, or a teaser for anything else. No, we are not launching a line of kobold-flavored adventures. No, it's not an epic, but it is fun.

The adventure is called the Havenmine Gauntlet, it is written by Adam "Trans Am" Daigle and naturally, it features kobolds.

Most people will have to pay actual cash dollars to get a copy, but not KQ subscribers! Anyone who becomes a new subscriber from now until April 18th gets a freebie copy too. So, um, why not subscribe? A PDF subscription is just $16 in our worthless American pesos. That's, like, 2 euros or something. And print+PDF subscriptions are likewise a bargain at 33% off the full retail price.

PS. If you are a subscriber and didn't get your copy, let me know your correct email address. A few bounced like bunnies.

Back in the day, long ages past, when Open Design was founded (better known as 2006), I had a problem. And that problem was this: How would I keep patrons entertained while I waited to see if gamers would chip in to fund the project? I mean, I wanted them coming back to the Open Design blog every now and then, because, hey, the project could start up at any time. I was worried that people would wander off because fundraising is inherently boring.

So what to do? I wrote a few things I called design essays, describing some of the tricks of game design that I know and love. And lo and behold, those essays were met with some acclaim. Most designers don't walk around spilling their guts about how they work, but it seemed like the right thing to do for a project called Open Design.

But the essays were transient, freebies, available to patrons only while the real show of designing was waiting in the wings. It was, to stretch a point, the opening band in my mind. When the next project came along, I expected they would no longer be necessary.

As usual, I was wrong. The design essays were popular and I kept at it, one a month or more for each project. WotC picked up a few of them for the Adventure Builder series. A few others were updated as Dungeoncraft. And all the rest are now available in public as well, as the Kobold Guide to Game Design.

The collection of 15 essays includes material by Ed Greenwood, Nicolas Logue, and Keith Baker, and it's a good start for anyone who's looking to design and write professionally, or who wants to bring some new tricks to the screenjockey position at the next weekly game.

Please give it a look, won't you?