Topic: Content Creator Program (DTRPG)?

[trechriron]

Has ICE considered a Content Creator Program at DTRPG? Seems pretty generous to the publisher and a great way to allow fans to create/publish stuff for a system they love...

Personally, I am interested in creating setting/adventure material.

[craig]

Has ICE considered a Content Creator Program at DTRPG? Seems pretty generous to the publisher and a great way to allow fans to create/publish stuff for a system they love...

Personally, I am interested in creating setting/adventure material.

Having some kind of official endorsement or license can be nice, but you don't actually need permission to write and publish material for any game system as long as:

 - you don't infringe their copyrights (i.e. don't copy text or images from the rule books)
 - don't claim that your work is an official or endorsed or licensed product when it isn't.

Game mechanics, i.e. the idea and technical details of how to do something, can't be patented or owned by anyone, but the actual text describing the mechanic is covered by copyright law.

You can paraphrase (i.e. write completely in your own words), and you can refer to things owned by other people/companies, completely legally.  Just don't try to copy someone else's stuff without permission or try to pass off someone else's work as your own or claim that your work is some kind of official or endorsed product of that trademark's owner.

Also, remember that trademarks exist not so that companies can claim ownership of particular words and phrases, but to prevent forgery and counterfeiting - i.e. they're for consumer protection, not a "land grab" for the English language.  It's legal to mention or refer to any trademarked term as long as you don't claim or imply that your work has any kind of official licensing or endorsement by the trademark owner.


WOTC pulled a huge con-job with their OGL.   They "gave" people some of the rights they already had, plus some limited rights to re-use some material verbatim from the source books (and the right to use some of their trademarked logos like "d20"), in exchange for agreeing to waive other existing rights (like referring to certain other trademarks - e.g.  "Beholder" or "Carrion Crawler" - that would otherwise be perfectly legal to do).  The OGL doesn't make it obvious that that's the deal being offered, it just encourages the assumption that it's required to do any sort of fan publishing.

Worse, in the process, they convinced people that they actually NEED permission and licensing.  This killed off a lot of homebrew/hobbyist/fan self-publishing, and made people fearful about what they are and are not allowed to do.  IMO this was the main reason why they came up with the OGL in the first place.

Most people would be better off publishing their own stuff as either public domain or using one of the Creative Commons licenses than in shackling themselves with the OGL.


NOTE: ICE started out by making and selling unofficial and unlicensed supplements (Arms Law, then Spell Law) for D&D.  Judges Guild has existed since the 70s making unlicensed, unofficial supplements for various RPGs, as have many other publishers - both commercial and non-profit/hobbyist.

D&D itself and the whole roleplaying hobby started as a mashup of ideas and rules by Gygax and Arneson, both building on the results of a century's wargaming (from the Prussian officer-training game Kriegspiel in the 1800s, but really kickstarted in the English-speaking world by HG Wells' Little Wars in 1913) as published and evolved in dozens of little wargaming zines.

[trechriron]

Well, I want to create stuff FOR HARP. I also would love to see a larger publisher community grow up around it. I feel like that would help increase the buzz for HARP. More adventures, more releases... It could create a positive energy around it.

Also, I get what you're saying, but I wanna help ICE! The content creator program is a great way for ICE to make some money and for fans/new publishers to get their feet wet. You can curate good content and see what chops potential publishers have before issuing a license (if you were so inclined...). Again, the buzz would be good. Having more adventures/settings using HARP would increase the appeal.

I would just limit supplements to adventures and settings (including custom spells, monsters or training packages...). ICE drives the rules, the community creates the buzz!

[Cory Magel]

There's nothing stopping people from proposing publications and being paid by royalties if ICE likes and accepts the proposal.
The Guild Companion online magazine is also a great place to publish content and I'm sure they'd welcome quality submissions.

[Peter R]

There's nothing stopping people from proposing publications and being paid by royalties if ICE likes and accepts the proposal.
The Guild Companion online magazine is also a great place to publish content and I'm sure they'd welcome quality submissions.

The problem with the first option is of course that everything has to go through Nicholas and no wants the official publications held up by dozens of small projects. BHanson's Priest King modules was accepted, written and then shelved. The official release will never see the light of day despite all the work in writing it already having been done.

The second option, the GC, means giving your content away for free which many not be a problem or not depending on how you feel. The other problem is that the GC is a bit of a backwater. It gets virtually no traffic so your adventure will get little or no audience. This is a chicken and egg situation I know. If no one publishes to the GC then why would anyone bother going there.

There is a third way...

I publish a monthly fanzine. If you submit it to the fanzine I will pay you. I have paid craggles for his art and BHanson for his content and Kevin gave us the entire first chapter of his book to reprint to drive sales for him. Payment is all on a percentage royalty basis and the payments are made via DTRPG. It [the fanzine] is actually aimed specifically at GMs rather than players because as a paid for pdf it is easier to keep your players away from reading the ending of the adventures. You can check it out on DTRPG. If you want to publish something then don't buy it I will send you a complimentary copy.

I am about to write the 19th issue and you can send anything you want publish to weareallawesome@rolemasterblog.com

[trechriron]

I would sell the heck out of a Content Creator program for HARP. It would keep a stream of releases coming for HARP while people wait for official books to be finished. That creates buzz and buzz creates demand. More players coming into HARP = more sales of core books. People want more settings and adventures. The fans could easily provide...

[Peter R]

I would sell the heck out of a Content Creator program for HARP. It would keep a stream of releases coming for HARP while people wait for official books to be finished. That creates buzz and buzz creates demand. More players coming into HARP = more sales of core books. People want more settings and adventures. The fans could easily provide...

There are a lot of people who feel the same way and we have been raising this for several years now. Interestingly I can see the argument for not creating a community programme for RM more than I can see it for HARP.

Anything community created for RM right now would be for RM2/RMC/RMSS or RMFRP all of which are about to be discontinued. There is no benefit for ICE to promote their dead systems just prior to the release of the new edition. Post release of RMU I can also see them wanting to keep a controlling hand on the quality of new releases. All of that is justified. None of that applies to HARP.

[trechriron]

To wit - publishers have the right to have content removed. If the product is doing well, everyone is getting some profit. Otherwise, it languishes. Again, I would advocate for restricting content to settings and adventures. No need to muddy the waters with additional rules books. My hope would be the exposure on playable adventures would increase core/rule book sales.

[Cory Magel]

The second option, the GC, means giving your content away for free which many not be a problem or not depending on how you feel. The other problem is that the GC is a bit of a backwater. It gets virtually no traffic so your adventure will get little or no audience. This is a chicken and egg situation I know. If no one publishes to the GC then why would anyone bother going there.

There is a third way...

I publish a monthly fanzine. If you submit it to the fanzine I will pay you. I have paid craggles for his art and BHanson for his content and Kevin gave us the entire first chapter of his book to reprint to drive sales for him. Payment is all on a percentage royalty basis and the payments are made via DTRPG. It [the fanzine] is actually aimed specifically at GMs rather than players because as a paid for pdf it is easier to keep your players away from reading the ending of the adventures. You can check it out on DTRPG. If you want to publish something then don't buy it I will send you a complimentary copy.

I am about to write the 19th issue and you can send anything you want publish to weareallawesome@rolemasterblog.com

Might want to ask about this.  Last time I submitted something to the GC I was offered the choice of being paid or retaining the rights to my work.  No offense, but I'd choose the GC given that as it may be backwater but it's less so than yours.

[Nightblade42]

I'm not a HARP player, in fact I know very little about it (beyond the fact that it's another ICE RPG product).  But I agree, adventures & settings drive RPGs (HARP; RM or whatever other system is your flavour of choice).  In the heyday of ICE; MERP, Shadow World & Space Master Imperium modules were a driving force behind much of ICE's success.  Since the troubled times of the late 90's & early 2000's; there has been very little in the way of adventure modules or settings (beyond Terry's continued development of Shadow World & the on-again-off-again HARP setting).  It seems today's ICE is so bent on re-building RM for the new millenium (which it does need a refresh) that they have not put into place a network or community of authors/contributors to create the settings & adventures that are needed to bring the rules to life.  Whether we're talking about RMU or the latest version of HARP; ICE's line of RPGs are severely lacking in the adventures & settings that GM's & players (new & old) need.  Sure, a lot of RM GMs have built their own worlds & adventures - but there are very few that share them (either freely in the Vault or in GC; or for a fair price as adventure modules for purchase).

There's a community of creative GMs who are regulars on these forums that ICE can tap into to create the adventure & setting materials so that the staff at ICE (& GCP for that matter) can continue to focus on updating the rules.

We just need members of the ICE fanbase community to step up & contribute.  A start would be getting adventures published in GC or sharing adventures in the Vault. 

Nightblade ->--

p.s. Not to be called a hypocrite, I am currently working on a number of adventure & campaign modules for my Nytheun setting using the RM2 ruleset.  As they I complete them, I will be sharing them with the community.

[craig]

Also, I get what you're saying, but I wanna help ICE! The content creator program is a great way for ICE to make some money and for fans/new publishers to get their feet wet. You can curate good content and see what chops potential publishers have before issuing a license (if you were so inclined...). Again, the buzz would be good. Having more adventures/settings using HARP would increase the appeal.

I'd suggest just go ahead and do it but be careful not to infringe ICE's copyrights and trademarks.

Copyrights are easy, just don't copy anything belonging to ICE.  Trademarks are also easy - just put a prominent disclaimer on your title page that your work is unlicensed and unofficial, and explicitly acknowledge that the trademarks belong to ICE (and other respective owners, if any).  BTW, there's no such thing as "Intellectual Property".

If you wait for a license, you'll probably never get one - ICE and especially Nicholas seem far too busy at the moment to even evaluate new proposals, let alone take on more work (and evaluating stuff might seem easy, but it can be very time-consuming work).  Also, I'd personally rather ICE not get distracted from either Something Wicked or the Bestiary. That's totally selfish of me.

Without a content creator program, ICE won't directly benefit from royalties or licensing fees from your work but may benefit indirectly by increased sales.  Increased sales of the rule books would be a far higher source of extra income than any royalties from some adventure modules.

You could even suggest that people who buy HARP books because of your work somehow let ICE know that your unofficial work helped drive some sales.


BTW, the low royalties for a small work in a tiny niche-market are one of the reasons I'm not personally interested in publishing anything for profit, I'd rather give it away under a CC-BY-SA license.  A few cents or a few bucks per month would, to me, be far worse than getting nothing at all - there's no way it could ever make enough to even equal a minimum wage for the hours of writing and editing I put in, so it would turn a pleasant hobby activity into an unpleasant, unprofitable business venture or underpaid work.  Also, this hobby was founded on actively DIY-ing stuff, rather than passive consumption.   I've done a lot of free software development over the last few decades, and I don't see writing text as being any different from writing code, except that it's easier as there are far fewer syntax errors to debug :-)


PS: I just saw Nightblade's post - that's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about.

IMO, other useful things to upload are conversion notes for existing adventures - but you have to be very careful not to copy anything directly from the original.   Just include your conversion notes, ideas for how to handle things that are unusual for RM or HARP (or just different), stats for monsters, NPCs, races, traps, magic items, etc.   I've done this for a few old BECMI modules (B11 mostly done - enough to play with at my table. B2, B12 & X1 partly) - the hardest part is reading through a module thoroughly and making a list of all monsters etc that need to be converted.  BTW, most of the DCC modules already include such a list for each location and dungeon level.   Also, you can't have large groups of any creature no matter how they are in other systems if you intend your players to fight them and survive.  Unlike D&D, numbers really matter in RM & HARP, and a lowly kobold CAN take out a high-level tank fighter with a single lucky blow.

It's not hard to produce very nicely formatted documents in markdown (which is trivially easy to learn - if you can write text, you can write markdown) that look very professional - similar to the common two-column adventure module format.   Even LaTeX isn't too hard to learn and is better if you have very complicated tables.  There are templates for both that are designed for producing RPG content in familiar-looking styles, and both are frequently used in OSR and other DIY publishing and can be used to produce PDF, epub, html and other output formats from the same source files.

I'm not sure if I'd upload ONLY to the Vault here, though.  It's great to have a central location for fan-made stuff but it just takes too long for any uploads to get approved.  Probably better to also publish on your own blog or website, and post a link to it on the forum.   Maybe get a stickied thread for such posts (announcements only, not for discussion)

There's some stuff like this in the Vault now, but almost all of it is over a decade old - very little has been added.  I guess that maintaining the Vault here has only a very low priority for ICE staff.

Which is part of the reason why a DIY attitude is essential - don't add to the workload of ICE staff.

[craig]

In the heyday of ICE; MERP, Shadow World & Space Master Imperium modules were a driving force behind much of ICE's success.  Since the troubled times of the late 90's & early 2000's; there has been very little in the way of adventure modules or settings (beyond Terry's continued development of Shadow World & the on-again-off-again HARP setting).  It seems today's ICE is so bent on re-building RM for the new millenium (which it does need a refresh) that they have not put into place a network or community of authors/contributors to create the settings & adventures that are needed to bring the rules to life.

Also, times have changed.  A lot.   Modern technology and the internet in particular have made it MUCH easier to self-publish.  In the old days, publishing houses that had good relationships with the entire supply chain from authors, illustrators, editors to printers and distributors were essential because they were the only way to publish to a mass audience.

Nowadays, that isn't even remotely true.  All it takes now is a text editor or word processor and the ability to write.  If you're doing stuff professionally, you also need proof-readers and editors and artists but for amateur stuff you can skip those and either go without art or use some old public-domain stuff (like old woodcuts or stuff by Henry Justice Ford) if, like me, you can't draw.

[trechriron]

I don't really enjoy the idea of creating something for a company's work without some kind of program, license, etc. It seems dishonest to me. I want to support HARP not hinder ICE. It also defeats the purpose. I want to create specifically for HARP, with compatibility, so it supports the community at large. I would like the opportunity to do that and make some $ for my efforts.

I speak Adobe Creative Suite. :-D

I'm thinking if I produce a quality adventure or setting, I can do better than a few bucks. Most CCPs offer 50% of sales.

I'm currently building a setting and campaign framework for Zweihander. So, I'll see how it goes and report back! :-)

[craig]

I don't really enjoy the idea of creating something for a company's work without some kind of program, license, etc. It seems dishonest to me.

I don't see how it's in any way dishonest, but you have to live up to your own ethical standards - if it makes you uncomfortable then don't do it.

But I wouldn't be holding my breath waiting for a license, or any other overt form of permission.

You could write whatever it is you wanted to write, then when it's finished give the first option to publish to ICE with a short deadline for it to be accepted/rejected.  If they accept it, then make sure there's a deadline on publication (say 6 or 12 months from date of acceptance) otherwise all rights revert to you.  If they don't accept it, then decide whether you want to publish it as an unofficial supplement - as mentioned before, this is completely legal and ethical.

I want to support HARP not hinder ICE. It also defeats the purpose. I want to create specifically for HARP, with compatibility, so it supports the community at large.

Now this I definitely disagree with, and unlike subjective opinions about what "seems dishonest", is something that can be objectively disputed.

Nothing I suggested harms or hinders either ICE or HARP or the community in ANY way.

Nor is it "incompatible" - what makes you say/think that?

"Unofficial" doesn't mean incompatible.  It doesn't mean you can't mention or refer to officially-published rules or spells or monsters or whatever (as long as you don't copy them into your own work).  What "unofficial" means is that you don't falsely claim that your product is an official or licensed work.  That's all - nothing else is different.

I'm thinking if I produce a quality adventure or setting, I can do better than a few bucks. Most CCPs offer 50% of sales.

yeah, well, most bands like to think they'll be superstars raking in millions.   It almost never happens, and on the few occasions it does, most of "their" millions get hoovered up by their agent or re-claimed by the record company via "fancy" accounting schemes and over-priced "expenses".

IMO it's better to do things you love for the fun of it than in the almost-certainly deluded belief you'll get rich out of it , or even make a reasonable living from it.

[Peter R]

Might want to ask about this.  Last time I submitted something to the GC I was offered the choice of being paid or retaining the rights to my work.  No offense, but I'd choose the GC given that as it may be backwater but it's less so than yours.

You may have been a special case as you were publishing additional material to the Channeling Companion. The offer of payment is certainly not normal.

No offense is taken. No one has to choose between one or the other. Right now the fanzine sold 22 copies in October, I don't think today will change that figure. It is most certainly 'niche'. The flip side of that is that every issue sells more copies than the previous issue (except issue 4 which was a bit special) so it is a growing resource. Comparing something that is unofficial and you have to pay for against something that is official and free then the paid product would have to be quite exceptional. On the other hand the fanzine puts the Rolemaster name on the homepage of DTRPG and RPGNow every single month, the GC doesn't.

[Peter R]

I don't really enjoy the idea of creating something for a company's work without some kind of program, license, etc. It seems dishonest to me. I want to support HARP not hinder ICE. It also defeats the purpose. I want to create specifically for HARP, with compatibility, so it supports the community at large. I would like the opportunity to do that and make some $ for my efforts.

I speak Adobe Creative Suite. :-D

I'm thinking if I produce a quality adventure or setting, I can do better than a few bucks. Most CCPs offer 50% of sales.

I'm currently building a setting and campaign framework for Zweihander. So, I'll see how it goes and report back! :-)

To be realistic the HARP core rules has sold less that 500 copies (but more than 250). How many of those are just sat on shelves, or hard disks, and never got played we will never know but roleplayers love to collect games. The companions such as CoM and ML have sold less than 100 copies each. (figures estimated from OBS metal badges)

I would suggest that there are probably something like 100 playing groups using HARP. How many of them actually buy adventures rather than writing their own we cannot know but the official HARP A Wedding At Axebridge has sold less than 25 copies on DTRPG and that has a pdf price point of just $5.

If you out sold Axebridge at the same price point then you are looking at making less than $90.

This is Craig's point that he would rather make it a labour of love than spend 100hrs working for $0.90 an hour and growing to resent it.

[Cory Magel]

Right now the fanzine sold 22 copies in October, I don't think today will change that figure. It is most certainly 'niche'. The flip side of that is that every issue sells more copies than the previous issue (except issue 4 which was a bit special) so it is a growing resource.

I don't think we're talking about the same thing.  No one 'buys' The Guild Companion.  It's a free ezine. http://www.guildcompanion.com/

[Peter R]

Right now the fanzine sold 22 copies in October, I don't think today will change that figure. It is most certainly 'niche'. The flip side of that is that every issue sells more copies than the previous issue (except issue 4 which was a bit special) so it is a growing resource.

I don't think we're talking about the same thing.  No one 'buys' The Guild Companion.  It's a free ezine. http://www.guildcompanion.com/

You are correct I wasn't talking about the GC. I was talking about the fanzine.

[Peter R]

Copyrights are easy, just don't copy anything belonging to ICE.  Trademarks are also easy - just put a prominent disclaimer on your title page that your work is unlicensed and unofficial, and explicitly acknowledge that the trademarks belong to ICE (and other respective owners, if any).  BTW, there's no such thing as "Intellectual Property".

ICE is a UK company and protected under UK law. https://www.gov.uk/intellectual-property-an-overview IP does exist under UK law.

[craig]

ICE is a UK company and protected under UK law. https://www.gov.uk/intellectual-property-an-overview IP does exist under UK law.

No, that's just a web page page making the same mistake (or deliberate propaganda tactic) of conflating multiple unrelated laws - laws that it specifically refers to and links to.  It takes a lot more than just publishing something to make it a law, it has to pass through both houses of parliament to start with.

The fact that a 50-year propaganda campaign has been largely successful in manipulating how people think about particular things doesn't in any way negate the fact that it is just a propaganda campaign.  In fact, that's even more reason to resist it and point out that it's counterfactual, that its purpose is to make everyone falsely believe that they don't have certain rights, that they actually need permission to do things that they have a natural right to do, and that ideas & words & concepts - even particular colours - can actually be owned.