Category Archives: Business of Games
Behold, the S.H.A.R.K. Art!
In my article about producing game products with low-to-no art budgets, I said “If you specifically need art of cybernetical-augmented anthropomorphic sharks with stun-gun-equipped mancatcher polearms… chances are you won’t find stock art to meet your needs.”
And, you know, when I wrote it, that was true.
But NOW, Michael McNeill (productionplatform3@gmail.com) has created this:
So, I suddenly feel the need to name the cybershark mancatcher mercenaries.
The best option I came up with was:
S.H.A.R.K.: Synthetic Hybrids Armed to Retrieve or Kill
Of course, there are other options.
Skirmishing Hyperpowered Advanced Recon Killteam
Special Handling Assets: Roving Knights
Strategic High-Value Assault Relief Key-forces
So, enjoy the weird idea… now fully illustrated!
[Normally my Tuesday posts are Patreon-only, in an effort to increase subscription to my Patreon. However, since this was a follow-up to my big Monday post, it felt unfair to paywall this one. But if you feel moved to Join My Patreon, I won’t object. :)]
The Seminar Files 01: Publishing ttRPG Material With Little or Not Art Budget
The Seminar Files is a new branding of an old idea: to provide the kind of information, thoughts, and answers I would once have given during a gaming convention seminar in a more accessible format. Not every creator or potential creator can afford to go to conventions and industry events to attend seminars, and that can create a barrier to entry that disproportionately impacts lower-income creators, creators with disabilities, creators that don’t feel safe in traditional game industry spaces, and creators in physical or social spaces that don’t even hear about game industry events.
Obviously those are serious issues that won’t be solved just by putting up blog posts–which themselves have some issues with limited accessibility–but every tiny step helps, and my hope is that not only will my own Seminar Files help get information to people who wouldn’t ever have a chance to hear me give it in a live seminar, but that it may encourage other veterans of a range of creative endeavors to also strive to make this kind of advice available in alternative formats.
Publishing ttRPG Material With Little or Not Art Budget
One of the hardest parts of being a one-person shop or small press publisher is what to do about art for a project. Many independent creatives have the skills to write and edit themselves, and can either learn to do layout or find someone who will do layout for a few dollars per page. Often elbow grease or a tiny budget can handle all the text and graphic design elements of a small project, keeping the barrier to entry lower the the bottom position of a limbo competition.
But art? Art is tougher. Good art is (quite reasonably) expensive. Few writer/developer/publishers can do their own art (though there absolutely are a few who can). Several low-to-no budget projects in recent months have turned to AI-generated images, but between the US Copyright Office declaring AI-Generated images not being eligible for copyright in a recent case and a number of companies (Chaosium and Paizo, in particular )declaring their community content programs do not allow the use of AI-generated images or text, that solution is less appealing to many of them.
Way before AI generated images or text were realistic options, publishing on a budget and having decent art was a challenge. But the very fact that challenge goes back decades means there are other potential solutions than AI, and I have enough experience with several of them to speak to their pros and cons. Obviously a lot of this advice can apply to projects outside the game industry, but that is where my own expertise lies, and thus is how I have framed this article.
Let’s look at some specific art-on-a-budget strategies.
1. Stock Art
One extremely cost-effective option is to use stock art for your project. There is a ton of very reasonably-priced stock art available at DriveThruRPG, and there are also professional stock art sites such as Adobe Stock Photos, Shutterstock, and Getty Images. Now, some provisos.
First, read the license before you pay for or use any stock art image. That’s simple for the specialty stock art sites, their licensing is normally easy to find well before you sign up (and they usually have better search engines, though they often have less game/speculative fiction-specific images). For DriveThruRPG the licensing is determined by each artist individually, and sometimes you have to search around a bit to find it prior to paying for a piece. If you can’t find the license, contact the publisher and ask for it.
Second, while many sites have policies stating that AI-Generated images must be marked as such, they don’t all have such rules, and even those that do lack a perfect method of detection and enforcement. In many cases a practices eye can pick put AI-generated images, but it isn’t always as easy as looking for characters with a weirdly large number of fingers. If you need to avoid AI-generated art (either for your own ethical guidelines or licensing requirements of the project you’re working on), you may need to seek out stock images from artists with a recognizable name and track records.
Third, really good, cheap stock art is likely to be used by a lot of projects, which can reduce the impact it has when you use it. There’s no perfect solution for tis, but older stock art is less likely to get used for a similar product around the time you release something with it than brand-new art everyone is excited by for the first couple of months its out. Also, some stock art allows you to modify it, which can increase customization. I personally am a big fan of art patreons that produce stock at and take feedback from backers (such as Dean Spencer’s Art Patreon), produce material anyone can use for free (such as Fantasy RPG Cartography by Dyson Logos), or have tiers that let you order specific images which become stock art for everyone after a certain period (such as Jacob Blackmon Illustration). Those require spending some monthly money, of course, but you still get a lot of visual impact per dollar spent.
Fourth, the more unusual the concepts of your project, the harder it is to find stock art that fits it. If you’re writing a cyberpunk setting, or a list of options for fantasy wizards, it’s not hard to find appropriate stock illustrations to match those concepts. But if you specifically need art of cybernetical-augmented anthropomorphic sharks with stun-gun-equipped mancatcher polearms… chances are you won’t find stock art to meet your needs.
There are a few ways you can handle that issue. First, you can just leave the unique elements of your product unillustrated. That’s not ideal, but a good cover combined with a title and description that spells out what’s interesting about your project is often better than no art at all. Secondly, you can find the coolest stock art that interests you, and write a product that is inspired by that art. Yes, this means writing something based on someone else’s ideas rather than your own, but if you do one such project, you can take the money it makes to pay for more custom art for your next, more you-centric product.
2. Public Domain Art
Want an even cheaper than stock art? Well, then it’s time to look at the Public Domain.
(Art by Gustav Doré, now in the public domain)
Public Domain art is available for anyone to use in any way they want. Of course, you need to understand what is and isn’t Public Domain,
For finding Stock Art, I’m a big fan of OldBookIllustrations. It’s a big collection, has a search engine, and provides info about artist and publication for each art piece (if known). The British Library has also released a huge Public Domain collection on Flickr, which for my purposes is less well-organized, but has stuff hard to find elsewhere (including maps).
Public domain art has all the subject-matter and style issues of stock art, but as long as you are sure it’s actually public domain, none of the licensing problems. And while a ton of public domain art is woodblock prints from centuries ago, there is other content out there if you look hard enough. Learning some image editor skills can be a huge help in turning what is available into something you can use, and there are good free image editors out there (I often use Pixlr when I just need to crop or touch up something for a blog post and don’t want to take up the time of my professional graphic designers and their greater skills and more powerful tools).
3. Other Licensed Art
In addition to commercial art and public domain art, there are other ways art gets licensed that makes it viable for commercial use. One big example of this is art released under the Creative Commons License, especially the CC-BY license. Most of the notes about stock art and some about public domain art apply here, but the most important one is to make sure you know which Creative commons license you are dealing with, and that you understand it.
4. Skip the Art
Yes, it’s a well-accepted truism that ttRG products must have art, especially cover art. And I believe an attractive cover is crucial to sales, and good interior art helps break up “walls of text” that can otherwise be daunting and unattractive to many readers.
But you don’t have to use illustrations to accomplish these things.
Raging Swan Press is a great example of a successful company that has attractive, informative, and even eye-catching overs with no illustrations beyond their logo. Obviously you shouldn’t duplicate their trade dress, but being inspired by it to create your own illustration-free cover design is a huge budget-saver, especially when you consider the impact of not paying for cover art over the life of entire product lines.
Similarly, there are things that can break up pages of pure text in the same way art does, without actually being illustrations. Chapter and section headers, charts, tables, sidebars, bullet points, scholar’s margins, and similar treatments of text that’s in any way different than the main prose can help break up the visual monotony of page after page of pure text.
5. Partner With An Artist
I’m going to open this section with a quick anecdote.
In 2014 Adam Daigle and I were guests at Comicpalooza, and we spoke about breaking into the games industry in a panel with easily 1,000 attendees. Most folks were interested in videogames, but there was still some basic stuff we could discuss that was relevant for them. At one point, a person wanting to be a writer for video games mentioned they were having trouble making a good impression because writing for a video game fell flat without art, level design, and programming, and they couldn’t afford to pay people to do those jobs just to make a working example of their writing.
Adam asked if there were any artists who wanted to have a sample video game they could use as part of their resume, and dozens of hands went up. then he asked about level designers, and then programmers, and in every case there were dozens of hands. So, Adam suggested, maybe those people should all get together and form groups, each looking to create a small playable example of their work. When the seminar ended, there were circles of people from different disciplines gathering, talking, exchanging business cards, and picking places to go and talk more right there at the con.
The moral of that story is that there are other people who want to break into the games industry, and some of them have exactly the skills you need to shore up your own weaknesses. They may not have the level of polish you’d prefer, and partnering with people means figuring out (and writing down!) how ownership of the end product works, how everyone gets paid, and how creative input is shared, but those are all solvable issues. Again, compromises are going to be called for, but if you work with other folks at your experience and success level it can both serve as a stepping stone to having the budget you need to hire professionals to match your specific vision, and help make contacts (and friend) that may well be a huge part of your process and success in later years.
6. Decide What You Are Trying To Do
One of the pieces of advice that I don’t think is discussed enough is “Decide what your goal is with your work.” Do you want to be a publisher, one-person or otherwise? Great, then work on finding ways to publish material even if it’s not your magnum opus. In that case, for early projects you may have to find stock or public domain art first, and build products around it.
Do you want to be a professional writer, developer, or editor? Okay, then maybe you don’t need to self-publish at all, or should do so specifically for the goal of proving you can do the work, so you can point at that work when asking publishers to give you a shot. In that case you may not need art at all, since you aren’t trying to get work as an artist or art director. Just make sure your text is as clean as possible, and understand that being a professional paid ttRPG writer working for other publishers is mostly about writing the projects someone else wants to make happen, not getting paid to do the projects you want to make happen.
(And if you DO want to get work as a ttRG artist, by all means see if you can find a writer and publisher who is looking for an art solution and partner up with them for a few projects. Just make sure your ownership and cut of the profits is covered in writing when you do.)
Do you just want to publish the one thing you are dying to show the world, make sure it’s true to your vision, and don’t want to turn this into a career or even side-hustle? Well, most likely that means you are a hobbyist, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you want custom art, high-quality layout, and someone else to do the boring parts of developing and editing your text, and aren’t willing to compromise or build a line of other projects to slowly build to a bigger budget, you likely are going to have to pay for it. Like most hobbies, publishing at a professional level primarily for fun and bragging rights takes money.
Even if you aren’t sure what your end-goal is, deciding how you want to proceed initially can help you figure out what low-to-no-budget art strategy to begin with. As your experience grows and your goals shift, you can pivot to projects and plans that better match your evolving needs.
Patreon
This post represents more than two weeks work at my current capacity, so I can only manage them if they earn support. If you want to see more longer, more advice- and industry-focused articles like this, please join my Patreon. Even a few folks throwing in less than the cost of a cup of coffee is a huge sign that I should keep making this type of content. (Speaking of coffee, if you’d prefer you can buy one cup worth of support for me at my Ko-Fi.)
“Batman” is a Brand, Not “a” Character
(This article is not covered by the OGL)
I enjoy a lot of Batman stories. But I am ever-cognizant of an important truth.
Batman is not “a character.” Batman is a brand. This has been true for at least decades, and has likely been true since Detective Comics #32, published August of 1939.
Now, a LOT of characters owned by corporations are brands rather than cohesive individual characters. Maybe even “most” such corporate-owned characters are actually brands. But I’m going to stick with Batman in this essay, both because it’s easiest to cover this concept with a single specific example, and because Batman is one of the Brands I most see fans and even professional writer’s treating as a single, unified character. Analysis of the totality of such characters is best done as an analysis of Brand Management, rather than as analysis of the fictional traits of a single person.
The Batman brand happens to include a lot of characters who are all presented as “the” Batman, who may have the same origin stories and costumes and names and rogues galleries. But a character named “Batman” in a Justice League Comic is not the same character as “Batman” in Detective Comics, or “The Batman” in a live-action movie, or “Batman” in a cartoon about super-pets.
Oh, Warner/DC will often pretend it’s the same character. That’s part of the Brand Identity of the Batman Brand.
But universal questions about a theoretical “Batman,” as if every Bruce Wayne Dark Knight character was part of a single unified characterization, are pointless. You can analyze a specific Batman character, calling out the character within the Batman brand as presented in a specific story with a unified medium and creative team, and analyzing what the expression of the Batman brand was like within it. But discussions about Batman as some kind of consistent entity across even all of one medium (say, comics) is a waste of time. There is no one true ur-Batman we can use as a point of universal comparison.
That’s actually a really freeing truth. The claim “Batman would never do [some specific thing from some specific story]” is pointless. Batman is fictional, his corporate owners are the only ones that can say whether an official Batman(tm)-branded character would do a specific thing, and if it happened in an official source, there’s no debate to be had. “Batman” would do that thing… he just did. But, there is legit criticism space to discuss both “I feel this specific, ongoing Batman-branded character (who happened to be named Batman) is not a good fit for the Batman brand.
Imagine, for example, if McDonalds added floats to their menu, and to kick it off ran a TV commercial where Ronald McDonald lurked in a sewer with a red balloon, and promised children “We all get floats down here!” There’d be no one claiming “Ronald McDonald doesn’t live in a sewer,” because it’s accepted Ronald McDonald is corporate mascot rather than attempt to faithfully portray a specific clown’s life, fictional or otherwise. But there would be a LOT of people pointing out (correctly) that it was VERY “off-brand” for Ronald, and a terrible choice for the McDonald’s corporation.
I picked on Batman for this essay in part becaue discussion of what Batman would or wouldn’t do, or could or couldn’t do, come across my social media a lot. Perhaps more than any other corporate brand that happens to focus on a series of fictional characters. And those debates often seem built on media consumers claiming they understand “the” Batman character, and acting as if they had some ability to veto the inclusion of a Batman element they dislike from the “real” Batman they portray as existing in some combination of media appearances.
Now, if someone wants to discussion their “personal head canon,” I’m all in favor of that. And if they want to discuss what are good or bad specific portrayals of Batman, that’s a reasonable analysis of the Batman Brand, even if not couched in branding terminology. Trying to form some universal singular “correct” view of Batman as a character which anything that violates should be
Not that there’s ever much point to pointing that out to people invested in such arguments. The purpose of this essay is not to call out or shame any specific Batman fan, or even their view of what “Batman” is in modern media. Batman, and his corporate owners and his fans and even his critics, are just useful specific examples to illustrate a different way of viewing some creative endeavors that it’s tempting to see as specific characters (or worlds, or ongoing stories, or game brands, or even the output of specific creators) rather than as a Brand, with all the implications that branding brings as a concept.
Patreon
This blog, and making most of the posts freely available to the general public, is a big part of my personal brand. If you’d like to support that brand, please consider joining my Patreon.
This is What Victory Looks Like
So, WotC has announced they are leaving OGL 1.0a completely alone.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1439-ogl-1-0a-creative-commons
AND releasing the 5.1 SRD under CC.
YOU did this. Congratulations!
There’s a lot to talk about in “Now what” territory, but I’ll get to that later this weekend, after I have had some time to process.
For now, I thank WotC for listening to the fans and industry as a whole. A lot of people said this would never happen. It’s to WotC’s credit that they decided not to keep pushing this.
Patreon. I has it. Come, join the fun, and support this blog.
WotC Cannot Deauthorize the OGL 1.0a, and That Matters
There’s a new OGL draft, 1.2, which WotC has released for discussion.
It still claims WotC has the power to stop people from using the OGL 1.0a by “de-authorizing” it. That’s not a term acknowledged by the OGL 1.0a, and it’s not one with a legal meaning.
WotC is still trying to take away the promises of the OGL 1.0a, and that is 100% unacceptable. (The short version of why is if someone gives you 20 things for you to use however you want, and promise never to take any away, then they say they are taking back 18 of them anyway, it is NOT a victory if they decide to only take 12, or even only take 1. And WotC should be well aware of this.)
First, while some base set of rules is supposedly going to be released on a Creative Commons license, that explicitly does not cover things like Magic Missile and Owlbears. WotC opted to release those concepts under the OGL 1.0a, and did so multiple times over the years. They don’t now get to claim can force you to use a new license rather than follow the old one.
Second, their claim they “have to” to prevent “harmful, discriminatory, or illegal” is spurious at best. If you publish *illegal* content, obviously they have legal options to stop you. As far as “harmful” and “discriminatory” go, a huge part of making something Open is to prevent a corporation from getting to decide what is in good taste.
The license specifically forbids “obscene” material, without defining it. If you decide to include a happy gay owlbear couple, Wotc can say that it’s obscene under OGL 1.2 and cancel your license. That’s not a power they reserved for themselves under 1.0a, and given big corporations’ track records, there’s no guarantee they won’t abuse the power if it is given to them.
Third, they restrict the OGL 1.2 to “any content in the SRD 5.1 (or any subsequent version of the SRD we release under this license) that is not licensed to you under Creative Commons.”
So WotC is claiming you can’t do *anything* with the 3.0. 3.5, and d20 Modern SRDs. They are not part of the CC release. They are not allowed under OGL 1.2. Also, of course, they’re shutting off OGL products built off Open d6, Fate, Fudge, and other game systems released under OGL 1.0a that WotC had absolutely no hand in creating.
So when the survey opens? If you can fill it out without making a D&D Beyond account, do so and tell them this is 100% unacceptable. The only reason to attempt to invalidate the OGL is to steal back rights that were openly and freely given, which WotC has significantly benefited from, and which entire careers were built in reliance on.
That bad faith effort must be refused and fought.
And if you can’t fill the survey without making an account? That’s also a bad faith measure, and will call for strenuous protest to keep this debate in the public.
And ALL of those efforts must focus on the actions of WotC itself, NOT on attacking WotC staff or spreading rumors. At this point, WotC is telling use exactly what they are planning to do, and that’s the ground to fight them on.
Support This Blog
Because I need to encourage people to sign up for my Patreon to pay for the time I take to write the material in this blog, I have taken to making Tuesday and Thursday posts Patreon-exclusive. But the issue of the safe continuance of the OGL 1.0a is too important to paywall my thoughts, so I’m breaking my own rules and making this freely and publicly available.
Obviously, community support is crucial to my making these posts, and is much appreciated. So if you can spare the cost of a cup of coffee each month, please join my Patreon.
Now On Patreon: “In Times of Wars,” The Pros and Cons of Being on the Outside
My Tuesday posts are currently Patreon-exclusive. That’s an intentional carrot to get more people to join my Patreon, and once it’s risen to $1,500/month, I’ll both go back to posting Tuesday posts for free here on my blog as well as on my Patreon, and I’ll make and maintain some article index for my Patreons (the carrot to encourage Patrons to see if their friends want to join).
So when I do Tuesday posts at the moment, I try to give enough information on what it is about and where it’s going that people who read my free blog can decide if they want join up for a few bucks a month to read the end.
I’m doing the reverse, this time. The premise on why and how I can to the following conclusion is the meat of today’s Patreon-exclusive article. The tl;dr I ended with I’m going to post here, for everyone to read if they wish.
TL;DR –
War is messy, and people are going to get hurt. Consider that very carefully before taking the first shot, or joining some brigade.
But not opposing wrongdoing when your best analysis of a situation says it’s coming allows bullies to win.
I don’t believe there’s a perfect answer here.
OGLpocalypse: WotC’s Response To The Public Wrath At Their Bad Faith Is Not NEARLY Enough
I have talked about OGL facts before, but not previously written an opinion piece here on my blog about the bad faith efforts WotC prepared to try to force people to give up the OGL 1.0s, which has driven the creation of tens of thousands of products over 23 years, in favor of a draconian “OGL 1.1” which would bad for anyone who agreed to it.
If you aren’t up to speed on this, check out Linda Codega’s articles here, here, here, and here. They are at the front of this developing story.
So, here’s the big kicker on why today’s official WotC response is unacceptable. A non-starter that even with the tiny concession they want to use to turn down the heat of anger directed at them by the community doesn’t even begin to address the root of the real problem with what they are trying to do. Taken from the very first paragraph of their response today.
“And third, we wanted to ensure that the OGL is for the content creator, the homebrewer, the aspiring designer, our players, and the community—not major corporations to use for their own commercial and promotional purpose.”
No.
Fuck you, WotC corporate. You DON’T get to ensure that, and the fact you want to means you still think you can change the rules on how people interact with and use the OGL.
You released SRDs for 3.5, d20 Modern, and 5.1 under OGL 1.0a. That license was NOT released with any restrictions on who could use it, and you know it.
The OGL 1.0a was designed to be something you couldn’t force people away from — could NOT force them to used a changed version of it — and you know it.
The OGL doesn’t allow anyone to make “D&D” products with content you object to, as they can’t even mention the name of your game, much less use its logo, and you know it.
You’ve benefited from the ubiquity of each edition of D&D you released an SRD for, reaped profits as a result, and you know it.
You don’t get to bully or bamboozle people into changes now, because you don’t like what the OGL 1.0a means for your current business plans.
[EDIT]
I feel it would intellectually dishonest not to include this, written 12 or so hours later. I’m not walking back anything I said above, but I have to acknowledge that writing the above happened on the same day I wrote the below.
“The ttRPG industry is small.
One thing that means is that dozens of people asked me to be one shows, consult on the future, or lead on the OGL issue. I have done my best.
But ANOTHER thing it means is I have hurt friends and family-of-choice in the process.
That was never my intent, but some soul-searching tells me I didn’t give that possibility the weight of consideration I should have.
Would I have done things differently? I don’t know, but I should have given it more thought.
Apologies don’t undo harm, but I’m sorry folks.
That said, I need to step back and ponder the current reality very, very carefully.
So, I’m taking the next few days off from any OGL-related news, links, or posts. I’ll wake up Tuesday, and see what I think I need to do for my career, industry… and friends.
ALL my friends.”
Supporting This Blog
Writing the things that appear on this blog, be they game material, worldbuilding, thought experiments, or insight into the game industry, takes time. That time is solely paid for with the support of people who join my Patreon, or buy a cup of funding for me through my Ko-fi. If you find any of my content useful or entertaining, please consider adding your support so I can keep doing this.
Some Facts About the OGL (1.0 and 1.0a)
With the excellent article written by Linda Codega, and the video released by Roll For Combat that brought in a contract lawyer, there is a lot of news about WotC’s (Wizards of the Coast) plans for a “OGL 1.1” and why it is an act of bad faith on the part of WotC if they go forward with it.
So I’m not going over all that again here.
What I DO want to do is present some groundwork for what the OGL is, and isn’t, and what WotC have said about it in the past. This is an editorial by me, based in factual information, and is not itself part of the OGL content on this blog.
1. WotC themselves wrote an FAQ about how the OGL was to be used, back in 2004. This is important, because it shows (for example) that they were of the opinion if they changed the OGL publishers could ignore their new version, and that the OGL could be used for software. Obviously WotC doesn’t host that FAQ anymore, but the Wayback Machine has the original archived for us to all read and draw out own conclusions.
2. There is a huge difference between the OGL and the various SRDs (System Resource Documents). The OGL is not tied to any one game system or product release (see Point 3, below). For example, none of the D&D core rulebooks has ever been released under the OGL. Instead, pared-down versions of the rules for D&D 3.0. 35, D20 Modern, and 5e had SRDs released (and the Psionics handbooks back in 3.x days).
3. The OGL does not just cover products that are designed for use with D&D. For one thing, there are game systems that have been released under the OGL that were not created by WotC, and have no ties to any edition of D&D, including d6 Adventures, Fudge, and Fate.
There are also numerous complete RPGs that are their own things, separate from D&D, including Pathfinder, Starfinder, Mutants & Masterminds, and 13th Age, just to name a few.
4. It’s entirely up to WotC whether or not they release a One D&D SRD. If they don’t, those rules aren’t open. And they could release it under a totally separate license, unrelated to the OGL 1.0a. So, WotC is not under any threat from people using genuinely new rules from One D&D using the existing OGL. (Of course they have said One D&D will be compatible with 5e, so that raises a question if they are *new* rules, and if there aren’t, that might speak to motive on their part.)
5. The OGL does not allow anyone to mention D&D, WotC, the Forgotten Realms, or any other trademarks, or emulate any trade dress. So WotC does not need to worry about the OGL allowing people to associate repugnant material with D&D — all the brands trademarks, characters, and stories, of D&D are off-limits to OGL users, as are many even iconic creatures such as beholders and mind flayers.
6. WotC always knew the OGL would be used by their major competitors to make big profits. The OGL was shared with numerous representatives of various companies before it was made public. I was part of the email chain that was used by Ryan Dancey to do that. And it’s why Sword & Sorcery Studios (a newly-created division of White Wolf, a major ttRPG publisher at the time) was able to put out the Creature Collection in October of 2000, *before* the official 3.0 Monster Manual got published.
7. WotC benefitted from the existence of the OGL. They crafted it, with the knowing intent it would last forever, as part of their D&D relaunch business plan.
But don’t believe me. Believe Keith Strohm (and learn about why you care about his opinion on it in this fireside chat with Peter Adkison, president of WotC when the OGL was created). This is from a comment Keith made on Facebook, and is shared with his permission.
Support My Patreon
The more support I get, the more time I can spend on writing things like this.
If you enjoy any of my articles, please sign up, for as little as the cost of one cup of coffee a month!
Root of the Problem (A Pathfinder 1e Mini-Adventure)
I recently applied for a full-time, remote, full-benefits, game writing position at Foundry. (One thing I have learned in this industry is that you need to keep up with changing needs and markets.) While I didn’t make the final cut, I did get far enough along to do a timed writing test. I was given instructions at 10am by email, and had to return my work by noon. The test called for an adventure in any game system I wished, that included a missing druid as part of the plot and at minimum one encounter that included investigation, one that included talking to an NPC, and one that was potentially a fight. The main prompt was “The wilderness surrounding a remote town has become perilous. Wildlife that previously avoided contact with humans is now overcome with some form of madness or disease, attacking townsfolk with reckless ferocity. A local druid and longtime protector of the region has gone missing. The protagonists are tasked with investigating the nature of this affliction and resolving it, if possible.”
Obviously, with just two hours for a complete adventure I just managed a “first draft” level of manuscript. But I thought people might be interested in what a produced. So, with Foundry’s express permission, here is “Root of the Problem,” a Pathfinder 1st -edition Mini-Adventure for 3-4 characters of 1st level. By Owen K.C. Stephens.
(Art by Chaotic Design Studio, and not part of the original writing test)
Adventure Background
The Crosstimbers are a dense and ancient forest, filled with towering evergreen trees that rise up to 300 feet tall, smaller trees that grow in clumps so tight that their limbs cross and weave together to form natural platforms, and dense, thorny underbrush that is often impassable to anything larger than a rabbit. They are also the site of an ancient battle thousands of years ago, between a powerful necromancer queen and a court of faeries. Though relics of this battle are mostly buried deep beneath the roots and moss of the forest, their influence can sometimes reach up to the surface level.
One such ancient power is the Grave of Lord Vaugir, also known as the Baron of Stakes. A powerful wight warrior who served the necromancer queen, Vaugir had a particular hatred of vampires (even those who were theoretically his allies), and carried a number of wooden stakes he used to both unsure those he killed would not raise as vampires naturally, and to destroy any vampire he could successfully accuse of treachery to their queen. Lord Vaugir was slain by a group of faerie Swan Knights, and buried in a stone tomb hundreds of feet below the surface. While Vaugir himself remains trapped in the tomb, a few roots of one redwood have cracked one corner of his burial vault, and been tainted by his undead powers.
This influence has not gone unnoticed, as the dwarven druid Ferron Ironbark has long known one of the Crosstimber’s mighty trees was fighting some dread infection. Ironbark has monitored the tree for decades, doing his best to heal and nurture it in the hopes it would overcome what ailment was attacking it. However, at the last new moon, the necromantic energy finally took control of one of the redwood’s roots right at the surface becoming the Grave Root and, when Ferron came to visit it, it impaled him through the heart. Ferron’s apprentice, a brownie named Rumpleridge, managed to drag Ferron back to the druid’s grove, and has watched over the body to ensure it won’t rise as some form of undead.
The Grave Root still does not control more than one short length of the redwood it is attached to. It cannot free itself, and cannot, yet, taint the entire massive tree it’s attached to. However, it can reach a spring adjacent to where the redwood grows, and has been tainting that water for a month now. The spring is a common watering hole for native fauna, which are also being tainted by the Grave Root’s power. This makes them ravenously hungry and much more aggressive than usual, but also causes them to work together and not attack one another regardless of the natural instincts.
Not far from Ferron’s grove is the town of Highmoss-On-The-Hill (often just referred to as “Highmoss”), a walled settlement just outside the Crosstimbers. The people of Highmoss have long been on good terms with Ferron, and work to maintain a sustainable relationship with the Crosstimbers. They gather herbs and wild mushrooms, hunt only as much food as they can eat, drag out dead timber for their own use, and make sure any foray into the forest is able to come home before nightfall. While an occasional attack by minor monsters or wild animals is not unknown, in the past month anyone who stays in the Crosstimbers for more than 2-3 hours has suffered an attack by wolves, wolverines, a bear, or even packs of apparently-rabid squirrels. No one has seen Ferron (and the town is unaware he has died), and in recent days some townsfolk have been attacked within sight of Highmoss’s walls, not even within the Crosstimbers.
The Town Council has decided someone must venture into the Crosstimbers are travel to Ferron’s Grove, a 6-hour trip down a well-known path, and speak to the druid. This group should confer with Ferron, determine what is going on, and if possible assist him in fixing it. The more experienced hunters in town who would normally undertake such a missing are missing or too injured from wildlife attacks to attempt it, so the PCs have been chosen to do so. It is the height of summer, and daylight lasts 15 hours from sunup to sundown. If the PCs hurry it is hoped they can enter the Crosstimbers at dawn, consult with Ferron, solve the issue, and return before sundown.
Random Encounters
Wandering around the Crosstimbers is genuinely much more dangerous than usual, and there’s a chance the PCs may encounter some of the fauna that has been affected by the water tainted by the Grave Root. Until the water source is cleaned, for each hour the PCs are exploring the Crosstimbers there is a 20% chance of the PCs being confronted by one of following random
encounters. That chance doubles at night, and is halved if the PCs have been confronted by an
encounter in the past hour.
[Insert CR ½-1 random animal encounters here]
The Dead Hunter
The trail is marred by the smell of blood and signs of a vicious fight. Torn leather and cloth are scattered about, and a few tufts of black fur sit matted in old pools of blood.
This is the location where a Highmoss senior hunter, Apaxus Longshank, was attacked and killed by a pack of black wolves tainted by the spring next to the Grave Root. His body was dragged off the trail when they ate him, and a DC 10 Survival check to track or DC 15 Perception check to spot signs of the drag marks can locate him.
Examining the body show bite marks that can be identified as wolves, but the more significant clues are on Longshank’s own weapons. He fought with a masterwork handaxe and shortsword, which are still clutched in what’s left of his hands. They are bloody from the fight, but the blood is streaked with dark, oily slime. A DC 10 Knowledge (religion) check reveals this is necroplasm, a material sometimes used in place of blood by undead creatures. Finding it mixed with actual blood suggests the attacking wolves had been tainted by undead energy, but not yet true undead.
The Grove of Ferron Ironbark
The dense canopy of leaves and branches above break open, and light shines down to reveals a small, neat grove just off the path. There is a round hut with neatly fitted stone walls, a low, wide wooden door, and a roof apparently made of interwoven tree leaves and needles. A firepit sits in the middle of the clearing, with a wooden framework holding a small iron cauldron and
kettle side-by-side above it, but there is no fire now.
To one side of the clearing a neat pile of rocks has been build in an elongated dome roughly five feet long and three feet high. Laying next to it is a short humanoid, no taller than a human’s knee, with a bulbous head topped with a pointed felt cap.
This is the grove of Ferron Ironbark, but now it is his burial place. The brownie Rumpleridge build a stone cairn for his teacher and friend Ferron, and guards it all day and night. Rumpleridge won’t notice or acknowledge the PCs unless they call out to him, and even then, he’s slow to realize who they are or what they want. But eventually his enormous tear-streaked eyes will focus on them, and he’ll answer their questions as best he can. Rumpleridge wants to honor his teacher’s alliance with Highmoss, but is unwilling to leave the cairn for any reason. He plans to stay here through the summer and fall, and only come winter will he consider moving on.
Rumpleridge knows the general backstory of the Crosstimbers, but not the details of Lord Vaugir’s tomb or creeping influence. He does know Ferron was convinced some ancient, deeply buried evil was tainting a specific redwood an hour from the grove, at a major watering hole, and that a root from that tree impaled the druid. He gets tearful when he admits he saw the event,
and that it took all his strength and cunning to drag Ferron back home, and bury him.
Rumpleridge knows animals are going rogue, and can confirm that behavior began when Ferron was killed. It doesn’t occur to Rumpleridge that the Grave Root is infecting the nearby watering hole, but he does mention the infected redwood is “By the main watering hole in this section of woods,” and if a PC asks if the watering hole could be the source of the problem, Rumpleridge agrees the animals becoming vicious are all ones that would periodically drink there. As Ferron had been checking on the tainted redwood for decades, there is a well-worn path leading from the clearing here to the watering hole.
If attacked or pushed too hard to render aid, Rumpleridge will use his brownie powers to harass and confuse the PCs, but he won’t risk harming them. If he must, he flees into the Crosstimbers, and only returns to the cairn after the PCs have left.
The Grave Root
A large pond sits in a low point in the forest, a short outcropping of rocks surrounding it to the north and west, and the roots of a mighty redwood bordering it to the south and east. The surface of the pond’s water seems oily and black, with dark swirls spinning within it though there seems to be no breeze or current to cause the movement. At the southern edge of the pond, one root among the masses is darker, wetter, and more gnarled than the others, it’s 10-15 foot length pulsing slightly. The tip of the root moves, dipping itself into the pool to release a black ooze that joins the oily darkness covering all the water. The root then curls up, rising like a wooden tentacle, and sways back and forth.
The Grave Root uses the stats for a Draugir (HP 19, Bestiary 2), but with the following changes.
It has 15 feet of reach. It is immobile. It can fire a hunk of its own rotting bark as a target as a ranged attack that uses its slam attack, but has a range increment of 20 feet.
If the Grave Root notices the PCs, it immediately attacks. If destroyed, it breaks down into rotting mulch, and the oily blackness begins to clear from the water (taking 2-3 hours to be fully gone). If a PC drinks the water before it is clear, they are immediately confused and affected by the rage spell for 1d10 minutes.
The oily material on the pond is necroplasm, and PCs who found Longshank’s body can identify it as the same as was in the blood on his weapons. Without the Grave root, the water will run clear within hours, and the tainted animals return to normal within a few days.
Continuing the Adventure
Dealing with the Grave Root eliminated the immediate problem, but the risk presented by Lord Vaugir’s tomb remains. Striking up a friendship with Rumpleridge can help explore the region and safely travel further into the Crosstimbers. Seeking a senior member of the faerie court that claims rulership over the forest may reveal the true nature of the evils buried beneath it, and
lead to finding and dealing with Lord Vaugir, and other threats like him.
Supported by Patreon!
All my articles are possible due to support from my patrons, and many are suggested by those patrons! If you want to encourage more micro-adventures or PF1 content, or just stick some money in a tip jar, check out my Patreon!
Developer Basics: The Art Brief
I got asked by William Patrick Peña about Art Briefs on Twitter today, and I realized it’s a topic I’ve never talked about much. It falls in the same kind of category as my “Writing Basics” line of articles for ttRPG creators…except writers aren’t normally asked to write art briefs for their work. There are exceptions of course (ranging from one-person shops to small groups that want to divide the workload to companies that just do things differently), but in my experience most often an art brief is created by a developer, art director, graphic designer, publisher, producer, or content editor (depending a lot on how work is divided and what titles are used for what roles within a company).
So I’m calling this a “Developer Basics” article, though I’m still tagging it as Writing Basics in the blog categories and tags.
I don’t have a LOT of advice on this topic – it really is an area where doing is the best form of learning. But I do have a few, so here they are.
First, the what.
An art brief, also sometimes called an art order, art description, or graphics order, is a written description of non-text elements needed for a book. This is very likely to include the cover art, and interior illustrations of various sizes (often broken down as full-page, half-page, quarter-page, and spot art… but not always).
Second, WHOEVER you are doing art briefs for, ask how they write them, see if you can get some examples, and follow their lead. This may be as specific as format (I have done art orders in Word, Google Docs, Excel, Discord, Asana, Slack, Basecamp, and even a few forms of proprietary software designed specifically to receive art briefs). There may be rules about the budget, where are can come from (which is often handled by an art director rather than a developer… but not always), how much you can fit into a size of art (such as requiring quarter-pagers to be just a single figure with absolutely no background, or spot art to only be a single object such as one piece of equipment, or one distant shot of a simple building like a tower). There may be rules about orientation (landscape vs portrait, specific proportions, the need for a border that can potentially be cut or obscured, and so on). No one will thank you for deviating from a publisher’s format without prior approval.
Third, be aware an art brief may or may not include map sketches. While almost no one expects a writer or developer to be able to create a print-ready quality map (although some incredibly talents devs, myself very much not included, are capable of doing so), professional cartographers won’t put *anything* on a map unless it is clearly marked. If you want wrecked cars in a street, they need to be on the sketch and be clearly marked what they are. If you want them to be different types of cars, you need to say so. Trap doors, wood vs stone textures, rugs, chairs — it all needs to be clearly marked on a map sketch.
The timing of an art brief can also vary wildly by company. Some want art briefs done before writing is even finished on a manuscript, because art can take a lot of time to get in, and the publisher wants time for revisions. Others prefer for the final layout to be done or near-done, so it’s easy to see what pages need art, and what size and shape they need.
Be aware that not every artist has English as a first language, Avoid idioms and euphemisms if possible. These aren’t always obvious. I was once shown a piece of art that came from an art brief for a “man-eating tree.” It was a man, sitting in a forest, with a fork and knife, eating a tree.
Think about how posture, accessories, and form may impact the shape and space of a piece of art. A single figure in a quarter-page illustration of a woman with a rapier may seem simple enough, but if the woman is doing a drop-thrust with a rapier at full extension, she’s going to take up a lot more room.
Keep track in a written, searchable format of choices about gender representation, ethnicity, body type, age, and other factors. It’s up to you to decide if you want all your men to be heroic warriors and all your women to be scantily-dressed seductress witches (don’t do that, by the way), but it’s super-easy to not notice a trend unless you have these factors written down. And if you ever think you might have to fight for a decision that’s important to you, being able to point out that out of 27 character illos in a book you only made one obese, bespectacled, and bald can be useful ammunition.
Be aware that artists will generally default to what they are asked for most often if you don’t specify otherwise. If you don’t specify an ethnicity, they’ll be Caucasian. If you say they should be “brown,” they’ll be tan Caucasians. If you don’t specify body type, they’ll be fit and attractive. And if you don’t call out in the strongest terms that a woman should be illustrated with “no skin showing other than on her face, neck, and hands,” (and yes, I evolved that exact language to combat this trend), there’s a really good chance all women will be sexualized, with exposed cleavage and bare thighs.
Art references can help. If I want an estoc, specifically, I need to send the artist a visual example or link to the same. If you want a man to have strong African features and natural hair with a fade, you need to be clear on what that looks like.
Also, if you are doing any hairstyles outside your own personal experience, research them. A lot of hair styles mean something to the cultures they come from. Don’t assign them without some idea what statement you are making to people you are now representing in art.
Similarly, keep track of and think about the message your art sends. If all goblins are barefoot and have bones in their hair, you are presenting them as both uncivilized, and tied to racist caricatures of African natives. Don’t do that. Also, don’t pick an ethnicity or culture and make them exclusive to the visual style of your villains and evil cults. Yes, this is a lot of things to keep in mind while trying to describe the visuals for a imaginary world. but representation matters, normalization matters, and the message you are sending in visual form to people in different groups?
It matters.
Supported by Patreon!
All my articles are possible due to support from my patrons, and many are suggested by those patrons! If you want to encourage more writing basics articles, or just stick some money in a tip jar, check out my Patreon!
ADDED CONTENT!
The following are art brief tips by veteran developer AND artist, Stan!
Art Brief Tips:
• Come up with a CONCEPT for the piece rather than trying to imagine exactly what it should look like.
• A piece of art is a snapshot of a single moment, not a flowing scene of actions and results.
• Keep the description as short as possible. A sentence or two if possible.
• Include only the details that are NECESSARY. The artist can’t tell the difference between a key element and a “colorful addition.”
Owen K.C. Stephens 