Open Design Blog

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.)