It was an interesting article.
I never used to pay attention to the authors of adventures back in the old TSR days.
I looked recently over a lot of the old Dark Sun stuff though and saw lots of names on my fave adventures that would peak my interest nowadays.
Hmmm...I agree that the author effects my impression of a product. However, is does seem at times that there is a very select click of authors out there that get continually published and it is overwhelmingly American in flavour.
It's really good that Dungeon magazine offers the community the opportunity to get their work published, even though there are long delays in getting your submissions looked at. But with the advent of the internet, surely your authors can gathered from around the world, adding maybe Germanic, Australian and Asian touches that may enrich our games. Richard Pett (UK) is the only non-American author I know of (and he's very good!) and there may already be more but a proactive search might be what is called for.
Hmmm...I agree that the author effects my impression of a product. However, is does seem at times that there is a very select click of authors out there that get continually published and it is overwhelmingly American in flavour.
It's really good that Dungeon magazine offers the community the opportunity to get their work published, even though there are long delays in getting your submissions looked at. But with the advent of the internet, surely your authors can gathered from around the world, adding maybe Germanic, Australian and Asian touches that may enrich our games. Richard Pett (UK) is the only non-American author I know of (and he's very good!) and there may already be more but a proactive search might be what is called for.
I think one reason for the apparent bias towards American authors is simply that there are likely far more submissions from Americans than anyone else. I may be wrong, of course. But I believe that Dungeon (And Dragon as well) have a longer history of distribution and readership in the US. For all I know, that also may be where the majority of their customers are as well. I am all for anyone, from any country, being published if their material is good.
I'm curious as to how many submissions they receive from non-Americans. From what I understand, even before the internet was a factor, there were several contributing authors from other countries than the US, but someone with a better knowledge of such things could say for sure.
I can't really comment on the article itself as I have not yet read it. I don't keep up with Dungeon as much as many on these forums. I am more of a player than a DM so I try to keep from reading too much in the way of adventures that I may play sometime.
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The largest problem with non American or non UK authors is probably the language barrier. I myself am from belgium and am going to e-mail them my queries, one of the issues I have is making sure that I ommit as many spelling and grammar mistakes as possible but they will probably happen. Dungeon will probably edit a few mistakes but if they have to edit and correct, read retype a whole adventure it is more likely just blown away than accepted. If only there would be a generic language like common in the real world, and if only that could be dutch I'd be a happy duckling ;)
If only there would be a generic language like common in the real world, and if only that could be dutch I'd be a happy duckling ;)
As a Dutch native speaker, I couldn't agree more :-)
If only there would be a generic language like common in the real world, and if only that could be dutch I'd be a happy duckling ;)As a Dutch native speaker, I couldn't agree more :-)
I'm an English speaking American and I agree with this too. I personally have no talent for languages. I've studied Spanish and French, a touch of German as well. But it never sticks, I just can't seem to keep it in my head. I have a lot of respect for the multilingual people out there, especially those who learned later in life (Childhood is apprently the best time to learn languages). The American educational system should really put more emphasis on teaching other languages at an earlier age, but then the problem is which one?
So it looks like, as I suspected, that language is the barrier to submissions from "non-English" speaking countries and therefore this can impact on breaking through as an author of a D&D product.
But isn't there software now that can aid with this? Translators are expensive but software can do it in the blink of an eye. I realise a little time may be needed to mop up the bits that the software couldn't deal with I bet if this facility was available the RPG community would reveal a few gems out there in the non-English speaking world. You don't have to speak English to be a great writer.
The author of a gaming module, book, or article does matter to me. If Monte Cook, Chris Pramas, or Bruce Cordell wrote it, I probably have it. My fiance knows that she's safe buying me anything that has Monte Cook as the author, and he's the only author she recognizes in relation to gaming. So yeah, if I weren't a subscriber already it might matter if you put the author's names on the front of the magazine in the purchasing department. However, the effect seeing the author names on the front of the mag does for me is I glance at the cover to see what this issue is featuring and if I notice an author I like, I put it into my briefcase for quick reading during free time at work or whatever. If it looks like it sucks, I toss it on the kitchen table to read when I get time on my days off.
Tito Leati wasn't a greatly fluent English writer when we started working with him years ago, and just look at him now. :)
--Erik
I am a non-american author too, I am an Israeli and my native languages are Russian and Hebrew.
I learned my English from computer games and fantasy novels, though, so I guess I have just the right vocabulary. :)
well of course intense interest has been piqued and i was wondering, Mr Mona:
which adventures make the "stinker" list? anything non-Gygax or non-Hickman, or is it a bit more specific?
do tell :)
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Oh, off the top of my head I'd have to say just about every American first edition AD&D module published after "Lost Tomb of Martek" is very likely to suck to high heaven. It's pretty clearly an issue of supply and demand. When TSR started releasing modules, they were largely re-editing and sexifying Gygax's old convention demos and tournaments. After they managed to churn through all of those, they started publishing the D&D tournaments of other folks, which resulted in the A series and the C series, among others.
In time, the tournament culture metastesized into the RPGA, which brought in a lot of new voices and produced a large number of new tournaments written by fans. Many of the worst examples of TSR adventures are converted RPGA adventures, a pattern that holds true well into second edition, where tone-inappropriate but no-doubt fun at a convention modules like "Puppets," "Gargoyles," and "Childsplay" were pounded out to fill holes in release schedules that no one really seemed to care too much about filling well.
Going back to first edition, take a look at stuff like "Bane of Llewelyn" and "To Find a King." Some of Mentzer's output (I'm looking at you, "The Needle") didn't quite match his brilliance with the "basic" D&D rules set or on Temple of Elemental Evil. In "The Needle," the PCs go to the moon and meet a moon roc. Lots of stuff like that started creeping into adventures after Gygax departed the company, and achieved its heyday in the first few years of second edition. But it had been incubating since long before then, and it is only the first few years of adventures that are generally free from absolute garbage.
I should note that the official adventures for third edition have escaped this trend, since the new version of the game is very focused on the play experience. There just aren't enough of them out there (which is actually quite good for Dungeon, so I'm not complaining).
--Erik Mona
thanks for the reply!
i'm in total agreement about some of the later efforts in the WG series, apart from being non-Gygax it seemed they weren't even trying to "keep the faith"
now i know why
thanks again!