Question regarding my planned publishing efforts

urbwar · Post by **urbwar** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 5:05 pm

So I've been reading some comments made on a mailing list for another supers rpg about what people are interested in for products and such.

At this point, I've been gathering art for 2 or 3 projects, which I hope to have in both print and pdf format. However, since it's taking a long time to get all the art I want (mostly due to my finances)< i'm considering a few options in the interim. So I figured I'd solicit some feedback here before making any decisions.

Basically, I'm considering doing a few small pdf releases. Such releases might feature a villain team, a duo that work together, an organization, or in the vein of the Threat Reports for M&M or the Moreau Files for ICONS, 1 or 2 solo villains. These releases would contain all the info on said villains (art, stats, short backgrounds, tactics, story seeds, etc). The purpose for these is to (hopefully) make some income to help pay for more art.

Down the road, when the full length releases come out, anyone who purchases one of these smaller books will get a coupon discount when these villains appear in a larger compilation (so no one would have to pay a second time for a book featuring the villains again), since the plan is to have them all come out in print at some point.

So my question is: Are people interested in that? I know BASHMAN would like to see more support for BASH, and I'd like to get started supporting it (and other rpgs) sooner, rather than later. I've got at least one complete villain team all ready (and a Golden Age one once Ade finishes his next commission for me), with a second that will hopefully be done prior to GenCon.

Looking forward to seeing what people have to say....

kevperrine · Post by **kevperrine** » Wed Jul 27, 2011 1:44 am

Well... my *extensive* "research" tells me that superhero RPG fans want, in my order of preference: (and not counting official licenses)

- Adventures . This is where I see the most interest. I'd either focus on multiple short adventures (12-20 page PDFs) once a month, or a full book of short story hooks, or go big with an "adventure path" (but plan it out and have the individual adventures ALL done before releasing the first).

- Character books or short bios (like M&M's Threat Dossiers). Essentially, "monster manuals" for Supers gaming. Think of anything and everything that could be a "threat" for a supers comic team, and go with that. If I had cash for art, I'd love to be doing M&M's style of 1-2 character/PDFs a week like this. I also not "characters" because I think it's most helpful to have a nice fun character and either make it a villain or leave the bio open to BE a villain. I don't think making any product with a bunch of my heroes or NPCs is helpful to anyone. Literally simply: a threat, a cool concept, a short bio, and a cool image. DONE.

- City/Location Books are helpful. I'd probably go the road that M&M attempted (similar to the Threat Dossiers) with their single location "Atlas" entries. But I could see full cities or world books nicely done. I've been thinking of location books based on common Supers locations needed - such as a book based on Academies and Schools for supers. Have template ideas for half a dozen, etc...

- GM Guides. I could really enjoy doing either a full GM Guide for Supers gaming with many ideas... Or multiple monthly (12-20 page PDFs) of single shorter ideas that could later form the bigger book. I'm talking about general ideas on how-to best Narrate a supers game, neat ideas to help the game run smoothly (physical play pieces or techniques in-game), and even short idea starters for how-to run specific setting types (such as Golden Age, Horror-Supers, or the various "levels" of supers in BASH!)

hope that helps.
-kev-

urbwar · Post by **urbwar** » Wed Jul 27, 2011 3:47 am

Kev,

While I appreciate the response, I'm only planning villain books, so any suggestions not related to that isn't of any use to me, as I don't have any current plans to do anything other than those.

If I wasn't clear on that, I apologize.

kevperrine wrote: - Character books or short bios (like M&M's Threat Dossiers). Essentially, "monster manuals" for Supers gaming. Think of anything and everything that could be a "threat" for a supers comic team, and go with that. If I had cash for art, I'd love to be doing M&M's style of 1-2 character/PDFs a week like this. I also not "characters" because I think it's most helpful to have a nice fun character and either make it a villain or leave the bio open to BE a villain. I don't think making any product with a bunch of my heroes or NPCs is helpful to anyone. Literally simply: a threat, a cool concept, a short bio, and a cool image. DONE.

This is kind of what I was suggesting to get started, though the final goal is a larger release that will be available in both print and pdf. I still believe a large compilation of villains is sell-able, as there are ones being released (like the Enemies books for HERO, or Villainomicon for ICONS). I'm just trying to come up with ideas to put something out now, instead of waiting for all the art to get done, and just releasing the larger compilation

AslanC · Post by **AslanC** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 5:06 pm

Certainly adventures seem to be the #1 WANT for super rpg fans, which is funny since it isn't that way for other genres.

Can't wait to see what you got sir.

Jukeboxer · Post by **Jukeboxer** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 7:59 pm

So my question is: Are people interested in that?

Personally, I'm not into PDFs. They make good previews and if I like what I see in a PDF, then I'll seek out the hard copy. BASH and Stars Without Number are two games that I checked-out on soft copy and then bought the book.

For BASH or any supers or modern game, I would love to see a folio of locales, such as generic maps/floorplans of public parks, skyscrapers, malls, warehouses, botanical gardens, factories, zoos, public transportation centers, and so forth. These could be plugged-in to most campaigns and provide ready-made environments to stage your own scenes.

Obviously, a detailed villain with fresh art is nice, but the archetypes already provided in BASH UE make it real easy to create new villains. So I agree that adventures are high on the want list too. I'm looking forward to running Vengeance is Nigh and 5 Minutes to Midnight in my homebrew campaign sooner or later.

urbwar · Post by **urbwar** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 10:31 pm

jukeboxer,

Thanks for your feedback. As I'm doing releases for multiple games, not all of them have the distinction that BASH does in having a handy set of archetypes (of course, those archetypes don't cover every type of villain, just the more obvious genre types). I will also point out that there are going to be adventure seeds, so you're not just getting a villain, but story hooks to use for that villain.

I have no current plans on releasing adventures, as I suck at writing them. I see no point on releasing something if I don't feel it is worth charging money for.

urbwar · Post by **urbwar** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 10:34 pm

Aslan,

It depends on the game system though. Players of some supers rpgs aren't as interested in adventures that i've seen, while others are. Since I suck at writing out adventures, it's a moot point, because it's not my forte (and I can't afford to hire someone to do it for me). I'm an improv style gm, so a page of notes is what I use to run adventures with. Attempts at turning said notes into something longer have always failed on my part. That's why I won't be releasing any at this point.

BeardedDork · Post by **BeardedDork** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 11:54 pm

One of the things I love about running supers is how incredibly easy it is for me to wing it. I labor for hours setting up adventures for any other genre, it's amazing that adventures are in such high demand, I may have to look into that.

urbwar · Post by **urbwar** » Fri Jul 29, 2011 12:00 am

BeardedDork wrote:One of the things I love about running supers is how incredibly easy it is for me to wing it. I labor for hours setting up adventures for any other genre, it's amazing that adventures are in such high demand, I may have to look into that.

What's funny is that years ago, when there were less supers games, adventures weren't always in such high demand. Some companies still put out a lot of them (like the ones for MSH, V&V and the early DC game), but other companies found them small sellers. I remember reading somewhere that Hero games didn't release many because they only sold about 20% of their core book, while a book on say, Viper would sell closer to 60%. Of course, this was the 90's, and gamers attitudes have changed (like with many getting older, and having less time to prepare a game).

Upon retrospect to what people are saying here, I might see if I can do something along the lines of the short adventures Vigilance press is doing. Less writing, which is more my forte. As much as I want to, I just can't write something like BASHMAN has done with his 2 books. My writing skills just don't work as well with those. I likely picked the wrong genre to work in because of it, but I still plan on forging ahead regardless

kevperrine · Post by **kevperrine** » Fri Jul 29, 2011 12:31 am

BeardedDork wrote:One of the things I love about running supers is how incredibly easy it is for me to wing it. I labor for hours setting up adventures for any other genre, it's amazing that adventures are in such high demand, I may have to look into that.

My educated guess on WHY alot of supers GameMasters want to see more adventures...... because writing (and running) a superhero story/adventure is NOT the same as any other game. In my estimation, it's almost as difficult (if not the same) as writing mystery stories for games such as Call of Cthulhu.

Writing elements of the things we "know" should be in such stories are not as obvious and easy as creating "encounters" that can be linked together for many fantasy style games.

I know superhero comics like the back of my hand. I grew up reading dozens of titles. I've read the best and worst writers. I've watched the best and worst artists "frame" the stories to tell... But many times I just blank or forget something that should be natural or obvious to the genre, all because for "adventure writing" I'm "trained" in the dozens of D&D modules I've read and such.

So.
My hypothesis is that those great genre elements, the little details that I (we) forget are the things that modern GMs who want to run supers games crave. Sort of "reminders" on the:

"Oh yeah... It's fun to actually DO good villain dialogue! Crap what would he say??!?!!!"
or
"Crap, I forgot about the pedestrians and cops and such on the street dealing with the super fight!"
or
The fact that many supervillain masterminds (or their deathtraps and minions) can't or shouldn't be expected to be BEATEN by fists alone (I love the "victory with violence" idea, but often forget it in planning a supers adventure)... Achillies' Heels and double-crosses and other traditional villain resolutions.

So, I get the feeling that GMs looking to run supers these days are in need of the "advice" of the examples of nicely written supers adventures. Or heck, just dozens of full length adventures to read for ideas or what to do, and what NOT to do.
Not to mention, maybe actually running the adventure in question.

I think super's adventures are the most prone to NEEDING ad-libbing changes because if you (as GM) allow the players the wide possibilities of most superhero comic books... there is NO WAY to plan for every course of event on which the plot could bend or break vs. PC powers, ideas or the combination of both!

EXAMPLE...
You can't plan most simple D&D type "traps" because you have to remember that a powered superhero can and will defeat it with simple "minor" common powers such as FLIGHT (over those dozens of deathpits!) or TELEPORTATION (Wall?!? *BAMF* What wall? hehe) or TELEPATHY ("okay Mr. Masterful... how would YOU defeat your master plan?" *pluck-out-of-his-mind* "Awesome, thanks so much sucker!")

urbwar wrote:Since I suck at writing out adventures, it's a moot point, because it's not my forte (and I can't afford to hire someone to do it for me). I'm an improv style gm, so a page of notes is what I use to run adventures with. Attempts at turning said notes into something longer have always failed on my part. That's why I won't be releasing any at this point.

So, you don't think that taking notes after an "improv" game you've done can lead to writing an adventure? What about asking the player group for ideas on turning *tonight's game* into an adventure to help you?
What about looking at currently published adventures. Write down the "structure" of the layouts (most will have an "intro" section, "how to get the PC-Heroes in", "Chapter 1", etc.... Then just slot YOUR notes in. Consider how other PC-Heroes with other power types would effect your plot as it happened (to cover any holes, as mentioned above - ie. dealing with Flight, etc..) and then giving it an intro narrative. And done!

Just idea hoppin'
-kev-

urbwar · Post by **urbwar** » Fri Jul 29, 2011 12:52 am

kevperrine wrote: So, you don't think that taking notes after an "improv" game you've done can lead to writing an adventure? What about asking the player group for ideas on turning *tonight's game* into an adventure to help you?

Since I've only run these game at an event, there has been no time to ask the players much beyond whether they had a good time. Taking notes after might seem like a good idea, but I concentrated more on writing those AP's (though I didn't do one for the last game I ran, as I felt it didn't go so well due to some * ups on my part)

kevperrine wrote: What about looking at currently published adventures. Write down the "structure" of the layouts (most will have an "intro" section, "how to get the PC-Heroes in", "Chapter 1", etc.... Then just slot YOUR notes in. Consider how other PC-Heroes with other power types would effect your plot as it happened (to cover any holes, as mentioned above - ie. dealing with Flight, etc..) and then giving it an intro narrative. And done!
-

I have read all the ones I own. I have both BASH adventures, as well as every one released to date for ICONS. I have all the old V&V ones, etc, etc. I've tried this, and it didn't work for me. It seems easy on paper, but not everyone can write like that. I'm one of them. Trust me, I've tried writing adventures this way. They come out like crap.

I'm no novice to rpg writing, as I've contributed to a few products, and I have written a source book that sadly never got released. I can write well enough, but writing adventures is just where I fall flat.

Saker · Post by **Saker** » Fri Jul 29, 2011 6:53 am

@urbwar

Living Megapolis has its first issue to be play-tested. You're welcome to run it. I'm looking for more feedback before we publish it for the world.

It's still unfinished. It needs three maps, a bit of content, and some formatting. However, there's enough to run with.

The second issue is 80% done and should be ready to play-test in a week.

Let me know. PM me your email.

cheers

urbwar · Post by **urbwar** » Fri Jul 29, 2011 8:43 am

Saker,

As much as I'd like to help, I don't know when I'll be running a game again. I usually run one shot games for NerdNYC's Recess event, but there likely won't be another one for 2-3 more months, as the last one was in June. I don't have a regular group, so finding people to help me do any playtests is a bit hard

Saker · Post by **Saker** » Fri Jul 29, 2011 9:15 am

no problem.

cheers