RJ Dalton's page

A few questions.
First, I heard something about a "poison pill" clause that disallows publication of 4E products if you continue to publish 3-3.5E products. Is this true?
Secondly, I heard that Paiso was going to continue realising 3.5E products to support the Pathfinder setting. Is this also true?
Thirdly, supposing the above two are true, does this mean that Paizo has no intention of releasing 4E products?
Personally, I've had the chance to look at all the 4E core rulebooks for a couple of days because of the store I work for and I'm terribly unimpressed with it - in fact, it borders on something akin to disgust. I rather feel like 4E has turned the game I most love (D&D) into the game I most despise (WoW). That aside, I want to know if any companies are going to continue the 3.5E, which, despite a few problems here and there, is the best system I've played yet.

I personally don't like the look of 4E so far. It sounds to me like they've tried to oversimplify everything so that you can get a more general audience, but D&D has a very specific clientel, thanks to a certain social stigma (mutters unintelligibly, but definitely in anger), so no matter how hard you try to market it, it will always have that limited clientel. No matter how far down you dumb it, it will always be the same kinds of people playing the game.

There's one more problem I hadn't counted on coming up so soon.
My project follows 3.5E rules, with a few modifications to suit the flavor of my world, but now WotC is comming out with a 4E version. I already strongly dislike what I've seen of it so far, although I do like their online tools. That, and I don't want to go through and modify everything I've worked on for the past year and a half just because Wizards decided they needed to make us buy all the core rulebooks again, it took two months to transcribe all the statistical details from my notes to my project rough draft and I'm not overly axious to do that again. If WotC makes it possible to still acquire the 3E books, I don't plan on even switching to 4E (really, there wasn't anything wrong with 3E that you couldn't fix with a few small adaptations, nothing demanded a whole new eddition of the game). So, I guess I need to know, are people still going to be interested in 3E for a while?

Well, I call it Gaea project becaues the planet's name is Gaea. There's a backstory for it (there is for just about everything with me), but I won't bore you right now.
My stance on femenism is quite a bit different from most people, as is my stance on just about everything. While I believe that the way many women are treated in this country is abominable, I don't think the problem stems from gender roles, or even from sex, nor do I believe that we have the widespread female oppression that feminists like to talk about. But that's not the point I'm making.

The point is, as you just said, that people don't think about their rights and thus sign them away. I'm probably going to have to go for self-publication, but then I have a marketing problem on my hands. First of all, how do I get my project known? Secondly, how then do I get it into the hands of others for work? I'd like to get it distributed through other channels - specifically through an RPG company - because that way, I have a base for others to write for it. Folklore is created not by an individual, but by a group and if I am to create a fictional folklore, as is my intention, I need to have the input and creativity of people beyond me and my imediate circle of friends. The problem is that copyright laws make this so close to impossible, because publishers wish to control everything so that they can make more money. That's why I'm a member of the Pirate Party. Copyright laws are supposed to protect intelectual property and the rights of its creators, but they are only helping big busineses steal ideas and work for profit. I should not have to worry about my ideas being stolen by busineses and them preventing me from doing what I want with my ideas.

Yerger:
"I honestly have never watched even 1/2 an episode of American Idol, Survivor or any of these so called reality tv shows save for 2 episodes of the 1st season of the Apprentice so that I could be informed when interviewed by the Pensacola News Journal."

Ha! I've got you all beat. I haven't watched TV in six years, except to watch the Babylon 5 DVDs I got as birthday present from a friend of mine. I get my pleasure from small, square paper devices full of printed words (they're called books, you should give them a try some time).

Anyway, the problem I have with copywrite laws is that publishers have no reason - nay, no right - to own intellectual property. They don't create, they merely distribute, sell, market. They're most often people who can't come up with their own ideas, so they make a profit by buying and selling others. In the book field, which is where I do my work, we don't have it quite so bad as others, but in the area of RPGs, video games, and most especially music, people are most royaly screwed. A music artist is lucky if he sees two cents of each CD sale - usually its maybe one cent off of every two or three.
We the helmsman of the creative craft have long screwed ourselves by letting publishers have the rights to our works and it has messed up the whole field of literature and art.
For example, you can't use contemporary allusions anymore. Unless it has been seventy years since the official publication (at which point the copywrite expires), you can't even reference published material in passing. What's most sick about it, is it usualy isn't the creators who will sue you, but the distributors; so not only are you getting up the tailpipe, but you're getting it from someone who really doesn't have any right to give it, except through legal technicalities.
Back in the old days, writers used to reference each other's works all the time and you'd get some really great stuff, because it would create a sort of cultural backdrop for literature. Now, that's lost. I decided to publish the Gaea Project as an RPG world instead of just a series of novels because I saw the OGL as being a better chance to achieve what I wanted out of it, then later decided that I wanted it to go public domain entirely, just so that others could reference my work without fear of lawsuit (of course, that's supposing they want to). I have no problem with people using my ideas, even if they make money off of them, provided they don't try to rob me of my right to write my stories and ideas and make some money off of them for myself. It was never about money - in fact, if it wasn't for the fact that I don't want to have to put up with a job like what I have now (working part time in a warehouse handling shiping and receiving), I wouldn't care feel the need to make any money off my work at all.
Now, I'm just fine with distributors as a whole. They make it easier for writers and artists to get the work known and sold, but I don't think they should have the right to actually buy intellectual rights and to sue people over them. That should be specifically left up to the creators.
Still, I suppose I am wailing over nothing as far as the contest goes. I could just make up something unrelated to my Gaea project. I was just a little dissapointed at first. You can imagine, right? Getting your hopes up and then finding out that it isn't the right time.
Still, I don't like selling my intellectual property, because it gives people some measure of legal control over my work. It's easy to say "F*** you, it's my idea" to a company when there isn't a legally binding contract behind them, and it's much much harder to say it when the judge is staring you down over his desk, with beedy little bloodshot eyes, his gavel hanging in the air, just waiting to come crashing down with a sentence.

Yaar, I be a member of the Pirate Party and I be strongly for copyright reform. Yaar!
What I intend to do with the Gaea project is eventually have it be entirely public domain. What I wish to do will not work if I don't have the ability to make it available to all writers, regardless of who they work for or how they wish to publish and without fear of being sued or of needing to pay me - or any other individual/company - royalties. What I am attempting to do is much the same as Professor Tolkien did, to create a mythology, but on a much grander scale. I wish to create a fictional folklore for the United States, but you see, folklore is shared by all within the folk-community, so if I am to create a folklore for U.S.A. then it must be available to all in the U.S.A. who wish to participate.
But to keep it from becoming like Fearun, which has gone in so many different ways that it no longer has any flavor to it, I need to maintain a certain level of control at first, so that I can firmly establish the themes of Gaea; themes of government oppression vs. freedom of choice, interaction between different cultures, oppression based on gender roles and the growth and potential of people as individuals and as communities.
I do not think my demands are so outragous. After all, Nintendo did the same thing with their first game console; they called it quality assurance and it was what made them the top video game company when all others were collapsing around them.
For this reason, I will not sell my intelectual rights to this project to anyone, though I am willing to make certain other concessions. If worse comes to worse, I could always self-publish and distribute through the internet, but I have absolutely no experience in the field and it will probably never get off the ground if I do.
Guess that throws me out of the contest, but that raises another quesiton. How does one go about contacting publishers with such an idea as this? How likely does it seem that a company would want to pick up some unpublished guy who says "Hey, distribute my work, but I maintain all intelectual control and I am going to eventually make it public domain." On the short-sighted side, there seems no potential to make money, though, in the long run, it has the capacity to make more money than anything else, except that the money will not be conglomerated into one company. I'd be perfectly willing to concede more of the profits than usual to the company in exchange for additional creative control, and would even allow the company to let other writers write for it without paying royalties, provided I am given an outline to review and make comments on before the first draft of book/manual/whatever is written and after it goes public domain, it will be out of my hands forever and none need even send it to me first, but just how attractive is that to publishers? Publishers who are used to buying up everything and lording over all incoming money related to projects, lovingly carressing their glittering prizes like Gollum with his precious?
I have never cared a bit for money (oh, don't get me wrong, money is nice, I kind of need it to live in this world, but I've never wanted much of it), nor am I interested in fame. I have far loftier goals than that. I desire immortality, for my work to still be known and read fifty, one hundred - dare I say - 1000 years after I am dead and gone, for such will mean that I grasped onto an inevitable truth, one in which all cultures and all generations will find meaningful, despite the constant and arbitrary changing of the ages.
Have I overawed and/or bored you yet with my drama? 'Cause I can start quoting Shakespear if you want more.

I have another question.
For the last six months, I have been working on an RPG campaign setting. I've completed the rough draft and just need to edit it and get the artwork done. As I am so close to completion, I've been considering methods of publishing, but I'm largely unheard of and I don't know how to catch people's attention without wierding them out.
When I first saw this contest, I thought it might be my big chance, but now that I've read the rules, I wonder. I could effortlessly fulfill each and every one of the contest entries, but that creates a problem.
If I do, your rules say that any submissions become property of Paizo. That's not so good for me. I don't care about money and I don't care about recognition, but I do care about what I ultimately plan on doing with my Gaea Project. If I am to fulfill the purpose I have for my idea, then it must remain my legal intellectual property, at least for a while. I need to maintain total control over the official works until such time as I have firmly established the "flavor," as you call it, of the world of Gaea. Once I feel certain of that, I plan on opening it up to the public completely.
Now that I've bored you to death, I'll ask my question.
When you state that all submissions become sole property of Paizo Publishing, does that include intellectual property as well as distribution rights? If so, then I am afraid I must decline. If I knew I could trust the company to follow my wishes for the project and not just give me the chance to publish an adventure and then shove me out the door with not but a check to show for it, that would be a different matter entirely, but I don't know Paizo Publishing's business protocol very well and thus am operating under the assumption that you'll do anything you can to make a quick buck, including selling your own grandmother's kidneys to to medical companies, nevermind that she has a rare blood disease that makes them useless for organ transplant.