Open Design Blog

There's waaaaaay too much to report, so I'll stick to the highlights. However, there were a LOT Of highlights, the best of which was meeting so many people I only know by online nicknames. So, the highlights:

• Winning the Diana Jones Award was a glorious start to the con, and I pretty much floated on that high for the rest of the show. The award now rests safely in my study for the next year (or 6 months, as I'm sharing custody with Jason Morningstar).
  
• I heard some wonderful rumors that perhaps one or two other companies or individuals will attempt an Open Design. I'll be the first to sign up. I think it's an approach that creative folk in the industry could use to do work outside the "studio system" that WotC and most major publishers use, to do niche products and specialized material that might not make sense for a mass audience.
  
• The Green Ronin team was awesome, as expected. I very much enjoyed meeting patrons, KQ subscribers, and folks who had never heard of Open Design. I love being a booth monkey, honestly, and just talking to gamers.
  
• Meeting folks at the panels was great. Thanks to everyone who attended and asked questions about freelancing, about steampunk and publishing and Open Design. I rattled on in my usual style, and shared a few new ideas for the future as well.
  
• Met up with Nicolas Logue, and was happy to hear that his Hellfire Congress mega-event for Pathfinder Society organized play went off well. As I heard it, the White Wolf LARPers had an edge in the scheming/intrigue-heavy scenario. Oh, let's admit it, they owned the RPGA-style players this time out.
  
• Having Ed Greenwood and Steven Schend help carry the new issue of KQ to the booth in the dealer hall. And I was happy to find many other freelancers ready to take on some magazine work; freelancers are really making KQ better every issue (and thanks for the lift, guys!). Meeting a dozen veteran freelancers and new writers who will hopefully query the next wave of great material for the magazine makes me worry less about some of the big features I hope to see soon.
  
• I spent time with novelists and book editors. As you might expect, a very witty crowd where the beer flows like water. I tried to keep up.
  
• The patron playtests of Wrath of the River King + Tales of Zobeck deserve their own writeup, but I was (not surprisingly) very impressed by the way things went. I wish I had more energy for the Saturday game, but by that point I was running on fumes.
  
• Was super-happy to pick up a bunch of indie gamesJohn Wick's pitch for the "anti-D&D" RPG, which he calls Houses of the Blooded, was especially entertaining. Victoriana, A Dirty World, Changeling: the Lost and Tales of the Caliphate also got my attention, but at some point there's really only so much I can carry. Or afford, frankly.
  
• I bought the new Gygax and the Worlds of their Own fiction.
  
• The Fat Ogre Games forest and castle maps/3D standup architecture was amazing. Especially the forest version. They well deserve the ENnie award they won for that one.
  
• The art show was, as always, a complete joy for me. I missed seeing Diesel, but I met Pat Loboyko, the cover artist for #6, as well as Drew Baker who I know from his L5R work and several new faces AND the artist for "The Kingdom of the Ghouls" in Dungeon #70. And found a print of the Monkey King by Vinod Rams that I had to purchase. I hope some of these art connections turn into ongoing relationships for KQ and OD art and covers.

Whew.

I'm delighted to report that Open Design has tied for the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming. My co-winner is Jason Morningstar, for Grey Ranks.

I'm very, very happy about this, of course. Thank you to everyone who has supported Open Design to date. Obviously, I couldn't have done it without you.

I'll be at the big show for the next few days, and very much looking forward to meeting some of you in person. I'll also have some things to show KQ subscribers and patrons at booth 2515, so stop on by.

However, posting will be intermittent at best until next week.

Convention season is here, and with it the very first Kobold Quarterly Annual. You could say that kobolds can't count; we're doing a 5th issue for the quarterly!

The PDF issue has gone out to subscribers, and those lucky folks also get a free copy of the Kobold Death Maze adventure from Super Genius Games.

The Death Maze is a 4th Edition D&D adventure with printable maps for your table and printable minis as well. A pretty great little deathtrap by one of the better adventure publishers out there. (Yes, they are an advertiser with KQ, but really, they're doing good work).

The issue itself is pretty great as well, and includes:

• The Truth about Tieflings by their creator, David “Zeb” Cook
  
• New Blood Magic
  
• Codes of Conduct for Paladins
  
• the Ecology of the Phantom Fungus (laughed at the pitch, but I love the article!)
  
• And an interview with designer Monte Cook!

If, for some reason, your KQ subscription is not current, you can subscribe to the print+PDF or PDF-only version right here and get the issue and the adventure right off the bat.

Please support Open Design in the ENnie Awards! We've been fortunate enough to grab two nominations this year, both of them in the Electronic Book category.

To vote for them (and all the other deserving products that you love), please visit the voting booth today. The voting period ends tomorrow!

Nicolas Logue's Blood of the Gorgon horror adventure has shipped to its patrons.

It's definitely not something WotC would ever publish. And I think players are going to have an absolute blast with it.

Thank you to everyone who supported the project, and thanks to Mr. Logue for all his hard work. It's a standout book.

If you haven't heard already, the ENnie Awards voting booth is now open. Please go and vote for our nominees in the Electronic Book category, and support your favorite nominees across the board!

Mind you, you don't have to vote at all in categories you don't want to; voting in just the categories you care about most and have the most experience with is probably the way to go.

Nicolas Logue is well known for his horror writing, from the Hook Mountain Horror for Pathfinder to the madness that surely awaits us in the Razor Coast. He's got a knack for disturbing and creepy and fantastic villains.

And now he's blown the lid off that, with Blood of the Gorgon. I've literally sent the last updates to typesetting, and it will ship to patrons in a matter of days.

In other words, this is your last chance to pick it up at the insanely low price offered before the limited edition goes into the "available to current patrons only" status. So, if you have any interest in a dark urban mystery that will make your players twitch a little, I heartily recommend supporting Blood of the Gorgon today.

There's a podcast about the Blood of the Gorgon project available over at the Tome Show. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Open Design is very pleased to announce that two of its patron-supported projects have been nominated for ENnie Awards this year. Those two are both nominees in the Electronic Product category (as makes sense for primarily PDF products). They are:

Empire of the Ghouls by Wolfgang Baur
Six Arabian Nights, by Wolfgang Baur, David "Zeb" Cook, Clay Fleischer, Jeff Grubb, and Joshua Stevens

Naturally, I hope you vote for your favorites in this and the other categories, though I fully expect that Monte Cook is going to take the ENnie in this category. For a retired guy, he's quite a juggernaut, and deservedly so.

In the larger scheme of things, it doesn't matter who wins the Electronic Book category. I’m absolutely 100% thrilled to have two nominations in that category, given that Open Design released exactly two products eligible for nomination. It's like we're doing something right....

Congratulations to all the nominees!

The locations for the KQ and Open Design seminars have changed. Updated information:

Freelancing for Kobold Quarterly
Interested in submitting art or articles to the Kobold Quarterly RPG magazine? Come to this seminar, meet the editor, and learn who, what, when, where and how! Periodicals are a great way to break into the game design world, and KQ is the leading magazine for gamers.
Time: Friday Noon
Location: Embassy Suites
Room Number: Chancellor 3 Coronation II

Steampunk and Open Design
Do you love steampunk, clockworks, warforged, and the gritty adventures that go with it? Come talk to Wolfgang Baur, the designer of the Zobeck steampunk setting of Open Design, and meet patrons of the Open Design community. This event will also serve as the Open Design meetup, and an opportunity for patrons to discuss what they want from upcoming projects. Help shape the release schedule for Open Design in 2008 and 2009!

Time: Saturday 10:00 AM
Location: Embassy Suites
Room Number: Chancellor 3 Consulate

Working In Print
Wolfgang Baur shares the Kobold Quarterly story and talks about the challenges of print. Learn about what it took to get the magazine off the ground and the challenges of running a magazine. Find out what works and what doesn't.
Time: Friday, 2 PM
Location: Westin
Room: Congress 1 & 2

Hope to see you there!

It's official: the 4E D&D project that will launch Open Design's newest product line, the Wrath of the River King, is fully funded.

Thanks to everyone who has supported this one. I'm still working on the licensing, but the design is kicking off on the private site now.

It's the final week of June, and Wrath of the River King is so very close to being commissioned.

The project is a few dollars short, but folks are excited about it and we have already headed into monster discussions. There's a new 4th Edition hag, a new minion, giant frog, a nixie, a new troll posted by patrons for feedback. I've written up a few of my own (a lorelei and a giant frog). Finally, much to my surprise, there's a dragon in this adventure. For a little more detail or for questions, check out the Open Design forums.

And I've been working on an expanded outline, taking the adventure from a small village to the depths of the Feywild, and on a few detours as well.

To see the adventure as it is written, please support the project with a donation directly through PayPal or through KoboldQuarterly.com.

And at first glance, the GSL is absolutely terrible for Kobold Quarterly. I'm not sure it will matter much for Open Design, as the Wrath of the River King will be in a separate product line.

I was hoping for better. Bah.

With the release of the 4E core books, the 4E adventure discussion for Wrath of the River King has heated up a bit. One of the patrons has posted a new monster design over in the KQ forums, and we're talking through some likely encounters.

Unfortunately, though, the project has not yet been commissioned, so there's no way yet to pay for art, maps, and final text. I'm looking for a few more patrons interested in a professional-quality adventure set in the Feywild. Your donation goes directly to the fine mappers, designers, and artists of Open Design. Please sign up today!