Silly us customers for supporting the hobby.
And, as someone who spends $60+ a month on this RPG stuff, this thing turns me off big time on the entire industry. That and I already have too much bloat with rules. The focus should be on adventures, thus the need to look outside of Paizo/official releases.
SM, I hear you. I think someone else also posted, very eloquently, how damaging it is in general to patronage projects to have something like this happen. It makes others gun shy about getting involved in other patronage projects, which is bad. I didn't feel a need to rehash that, as it had all been said. I'm certainly not advocating that its ok to take gamers' money and not put out product. That is, of course, not ok. I was just addressing where I thought the discussion was at now--trying to find a way successfully to get Nick back. I don't think you are silly for supporting the hobby, but then maybe your post wasnt a response to mine. If it was not, then sorry for responding :)
-Clark
It's a good thought, especially because it might just work.
Lou, I respect your hard work on this project, even if it never sees the light of day. As a guy who has been around, I'd be surprised if this is the only thing you've worked on that hasn't found its way to print. God knows I've worked on many, many things that for all sorts of reasons never see the light of day and my work goes unseen. Its a sad truth with just about any collaborative and creative process.
Sometimes those factors are external, like all the work Bill and I and many others (all of whom frankly did more than me) did on Tegel Manor (and a couple other pet JG projects) and then that license ended with Bob's tragic and untimely death. Or when Wizards ended the d20STL which, though they didnt know it, ended my contract with White Wolf, who then sold themselves to a european MMO company that wasn't interested in making my products with me anymore. Or the stuff on the board for 3E when 3.5 hit. Or the stuff I wrote for 4E that never got finished.
Sometimes the factors are internal. All the times I drafted and redrafted Treasure Maps and Lairs that never saw the light of day by my own decision. Or all the work I did on the finale Maze of Z. series, that ended when we severed ties with Rob.
Just about any publisher has a mountain of stuff they worked hard on but never put out.
You always try your best to make it right, though, with the fans and with the people who worked with you.
For instance, I asked Ari Marmell to do a product for me for 4E called the Advanced Player's Guide. He did. He went out on a limb and he did. Which was super cool of him. Then it became clear I wasnt going to publish for 4E. So I literally surrendered that manuscript back to him and hooked him up with another publisher so he could get it out, cause it was cool stuff. And I did it for free. I didnt ask for anything. Or with Greg Vaughan and his Slumbering Tsar series. He wrote that for Necro just as we were hitting the end of 3.5 and things went haywire with Wizards and that ended our relationship with WW (which wasnt even really WW anymore). Greg's stuff was so awesome, and I was out of the game, I just told Greg and Bill to go do it themselves and get it out. I dont get anything for that.
So welcome to the club, Lou (of which you are likely already a member), that elite fraternity of people who have written tons of stuff that fate has dictated will never be seen.
Here's to awesome unpublished manuscripts! The stuff epic legends are made of!
-Clark
Legalistic/business opinions
Thank you for your informed opinion of the legal and business side of this matter Clark. I have been supportive of Nick for years on this project, but this summer I kinda reached a wall. I had said elsewhere that I would wait until the summer was over, but I can see that it really doesn't matter how long I wait. There is no recourse, my two prepaid orders will probably go unfulfilled. I guess I will just write the money off to a bad investment (God knows a much smaller hit than some of my other investments) and get on with things. Who knows? Perhaps one day I'll be pleasantly surprised. Either way, it taught me a valuable lesson about trusting folks with unproven track records in business, even when they are kick-ass designers.
Anyway, thank you for your thoughts. Always good to have an expert chime in.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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(I've been staying out of this, since I don't have a cat in the fight)
Thank you for the background and input, Clark.
I understand the 'lost manuscript' thing, and applaud your 'refunding' work back to the original owners (and, to be honest, applaud the original owners for making the work available.) Development Hell isn't just for movies.
(Off topic, how many 'known' lost manuscripts are out there? I remember reading about WEG's Rogue Squadron book, and I think there was a Midnight Sun's boxed set. We can thank WotC for giving us Ivid the undying* at least)
*
I've been thinking about this situation for some time. I even talked with the Legendary Games guys a few months ago about reaching out to Nick as I see Bill has done. Good job, Bill. But it has become clear to me that this whole thing is just too overwhelming for Nick.
Clark, that would be great if Nick did take you up on an opportunity to get this stuff out there. I think it would be a good match. I hope you are able to make contact. I have no dog in this fight, but I would love to see the product come to light, as it sounded very interesting.
Also, wishing you the best with Legendary Games! I'll keep an eye out for your products.
(Off topic, how many 'known' lost manuscripts are out there? I remember reading about WEG's Rogue Squadron book, and I think there was a Midnight Sun's boxed set. We can thank WotC for giving us Ivid the undying* at least)
There was the second mega-adventure for Dragonstar as penned by myself and the crew at Mystic Eye Games back in the day. A shame it failed to launch.
No problem Clark. I wasn't upset with you. This thing with Nick has just really gotten under my skin. I've had bad deals with other small RPG publishers also, but nothing like this. Paizo is definitely the best and most stable/honorable out there.
For myself, I have several shelves of RPG material that should last me a while so I'm cutting back on my purchases.
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No problem Clark. I wasn't upset with you. This thing with Nick has just really gotten under my skin. I've had bad deals with other small RPG publishers also, but nothing like this. Paizo is definitely the best and most stable/honorable out there.
For myself, I have several shelves of RPG material that should last me a while so I'm cutting back on my purchases.
I wouldn't punish everyone for the problems of one. Most 3pp I've dealt with/purchased from are worthy of support. (Not just because they are good people but because they turn out good material.)
No problem Clark. I wasn't upset with you. This thing with Nick has just really gotten under my skin. I've had bad deals with other small RPG publishers also, but nothing like this. Paizo is definitely the best and most stable/honorable out there.
For myself, I have several shelves of RPG material that should last me a while so I'm cutting back on my purchases.
SM, thanks for that. I can understand why it has gotten under your skin. And you are proof of the problem--if it is making you shy away from other patronage projects. So I hear you. And while I agree Paizo is the best of the bunch (they are great, I am a huge Paizo cheerleader as you all know), there are lots of other good ones. You don't need to look much further than our resident kobold Wolfgang Bauer to find another great guy running a great company that has patronage products. And my old partner and good friend Bill with Frog God, again a great guy and very ethical and trustworthy.
I think this situation with Nick is more the exception than the rule. It is a good lesson, as has been said, about smaller publishers. But I think it is important to keep this in mind--this is NOT the d20 glut. The companies here now are different. That d20 boom was filled with a lot of people just trying to cash in, and you could tell (not everyone of course, but a good chunk of them). And people got burned. But the smaller group of publishers today are just different than what we had in the d20 boom. And I presume (I hope I am not wrong) that even those really upset with Nick today will agree that RC sure didn't start as some plan to take money and not deliver product. That makes a difference, I think.
And not to offer this as an excuse, it isn't. But believe me that fans aren't the only ones that get stiffed sometimes. I'm sure there are authors and artists out there who can tell you stories about PUBLISHED products that they have never been properly paid for. That's probably way more common than the project the fan pays for and doesn't get. :) Now, I hate that. I am a huge supporter of authors and artists. I don't like the work for hire model (and in fact Legendary Games doesn't follow that model, my authors and artists retain their rights). But I digress...
Bottom line, SM, its your choice. If this situation cools your interest for other similar projects I understand, but I urge you to look at the many good ones and not throw out the baby with the bathwater, as they say.
SM, I hear you. I think someone else also posted, very eloquently, how damaging it is in general to patronage projects to have something like this happen. It makes others gun shy about getting involved in other patronage projects, which is bad.
-Clark
O I won't be shy about our eventual Kickstarter at all...
We're GOING to have a sample coming out in a month or twoYou're GOING to play/read it (why wouldn't you, it's free)
You're GOING to LOVE it... LOVE
Confidence is a great thing
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I've only pre-ordered from a few companies:
Paizo
Chaosium
Frog God Games
Adamant
Open Design
Paizo and Frog God Games have been pretty experiences that I can't complain about. Sure, I always want it quicker, if not NOW, but I feel safe pre-ordering from these guys that I WILL get the product, and it WILL be approximately on time.
Open Design is almost in that same category, except the Cthulhu curse struck it with Red Eye of Azathoth. Took a long time to come out, but there were periodic updates, and it did finally come out. And it's freaking amazing. Again, I feel safe pre-ordering from them.
Chaosium...eh. From now on I will only pre-order products that are shown as coming soon on their website. The website tends not to show things that are more than a month or so from release, so you won't get burned. I did order "Pulp Cthulhu" from the Paizo store a few years ago, but it's not been released yet. I kinda doubt it's still in development.
Adamant, I don't really have any pre-order experience short of pre-ordering Warlords of the Apocalypse. Still delayed, but they are providing occasional updates here on the Paizo boards, so I think it will get there eventually. Probably won't ever pre-order from them again. Which is not the same thing as saying I won't buy from them again.
So, out of of five companies that I have pre-order experience with, three I wouldn't hesitate to pre-order from again, one I would wait until the publish date is pretty close, and one I won't pre-order from again. Not too bad.
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Contributor
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Clark said what I said much more eloquently.Well, it was the last threat we had.
It's a good thought, especially because it might just work.Why, Lou? Because he hasn't had enough time to respond? Love your stuff, but I've been taking all my money out of RPG stuff. No more Open Design, Pathfinder, Rite Publishing, etc. There are so many other things to do that money that is set aside for fun.
Nah. Because I just want RC to come out so very, very much.
PS And thank you for the compliment. Warms my cockles! :)
And side note?
I'm about 98% certain Razor Coast was not a patronage project. It was just a preorder project.
-Ben.
Chaosium...eh. From now on I will only pre-order products that are shown as coming soon on their website. The website tends not to show things that are more than a month or so from release, so you won't get burned. I did order "Pulp Cthulhu" from the Paizo store a few years ago, but it's not been released yet. I kinda doubt it's still in development.
OT, I suppose, but I did get an email response from Dustin Wright when I asked about it:
A BRP version is still planned for release. The author has had serious medical problems over the last year or two. We remain hopeful both will make a recovery.
So, yeah - I'm hopeful too...
Creative Director
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Since we're talking about products that never came out... the very first hardcover non-magazine thing I worked on for D&D was the official D&D licensed version of World of Warcraft. It was going to be a big hardcover book that was scheduled to come out about the same time as Wacraft III (the RTS game—this was well before the MMORPG). I wrote about a third of the book, including all the stuff for dwarves, night elves, a sample adventure, the firearm rules, and a lot of spells. I finished and turned it over to WotC's R&D department, they took my words and those of the other 2 or 3 authors, stitched it together, developed it, and edited it.
And then WotC decided to move away from licensed RPGs, and the book never came out.
Having my first book get cancelled like that was pretty depressing, but everyone at WotC was quick to welcome me into the "club" Clark mentioned above—the "you worked on something that for some reason got cancelled." It's too bad—especially seeing where Warcraft is today... having an official D&D version of it would have been VERY interesting... but they did do a few no-art bound copies of the manuscript for internal use. I got one of those as a sort of consolation prize.
Eventually, the manuscript ended up going elsewhere and got published and spawned a relatively successful line of d20 Warcraft books... but that took several years for it all to work out.
Obviously, the exact details with "Razor Coast" are different, but I'm still one of those who's eager to see the final product come out some day. I'd like to echo Clark's comments and say that patience is probably the best solution. It DOES suck that some folks are out some money for the time being, and I wish that wasn't the case... but at this point, patience is probably still the best solution.
(Side note: Chaosium originally announced their huge adventure, "Beyond the Mountains of Madness" in, I believe, 1989 or thereabouts. That product didn't actually come out until 10 years later in 1999. It was a long time to wait, but in that case, the result was one of the best adventures published for any RPG system ever. Worth the wait, in other words. Here's hoping that Razor Coast will be as well, even if it ends up taking a decade or more to finally come out!)
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Creative Director
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My favorite "lost" WotC product is probably "City of Sin," which was to be a campaign setting that built off the rules presented in "Book of Vile Darkness" and "Book of Exalted Deeds." It was to be the third Mature Audiences product WotC put out, but blowback from various sources (such as the miscommunications and unfortunate marketing decisions around the "Book of Erotic Fantasy") resulted in "City of Sin" being cancelled at a very late stage in the game before it was sent to the printers...
...but not before it was mentioned in "Savage Species" as an upcoming product!
Both of my first gaming publications (c.1999-2001) went into limbo:
Lindon for MERP-- went away when they lost the license.
and Lands of Tristram for Pendragon (Green Knight, which went under).
It was a rough experience for a newbie. I was up to my neck in grad school at the time and it meant I didn't try to get back in the game of writing until very recently. But it looks like next year you'll see my name on something...
Here's hoping that Razor Coast will be as well, even if it ends up taking a decade or more to finally come out!
Fingers crossed! Thou lets hopes in some 2d4 years less than that :)
Interesting stuff here . . . likely not adding anything new, but feel compelled to write:
1) This thread really dovetails into something the Paizo developers said during the WRITE FOR PAIZO panel at GenCon. Essentially, freelancers occasionally disappear into the void. Nick is likely very busy with X, Y, and Z, and it is unfortunate for those of who liked his stuff that this happened. It all kind of abruptly halted for him . . . did he ever finish Blood of the Gorgon for Open Design?
2) Interesting to hear JJ speak about products that never made it despite the writing. While I've not done 1/1000th the freelance work as some who visit this site, I too have had to stay my tongue as something I poured a lot of work into got shelved because of $$ issues. Happened to me twice . . . once on a PF project and once on a 4e project.
Frustrating when it happens - but, oddly comforting to hear other, larger-scale issues in a similar vein.
3) Back to the matter at hand . . . the thing that really, really bites is I think there was a feeling that Razor Coast was going to be an epic piece of work. From the art, to the story lines, to the early enthusiasm, I felt that Razor Coast was going to be a must see RPG supplement.
1) This thread really dovetails into something the Paizo developers said during the WRITE FOR PAIZO panel at GenCon. Essentially, freelancers occasionally disappear into the void. Nick is likely very busy with X, Y, and Z, and it is unfortunate for those of who liked his stuff that this happened. It all kind of abruptly halted for him . . . did he ever finish Blood of the Gorgon for Open Design?
Yes, I have my copy. I definitely would hate to have Nick's failure to deliver a product make others shy about joining patronage products from Open Design or Rite Publishing. Both of those companies have had a long track record of putting out excellent products. Even when the project lead for a title had to leave Wolfgang hired others to finish it and brought it to market.
I think the problem with Nick (and too many others who have never produced a final product) is he underestimated how much work a publisher does. From editing to layout, there is a lot more to creating a book than simply writing.
1) This thread really dovetails into something the Paizo developers said during the WRITE FOR PAIZO panel at GenCon. Essentially, freelancers occasionally disappear into the void. Nick is likely very busy with X, Y, and Z, and it is unfortunate for those of who liked his stuff that this happened. It all kind of abruptly halted for him . . . did he ever finish Blood of the Gorgon for Open Design?Yes, I have my copy. I definitely would hate to have Nick's failure to deliver a product make others shy about joining patronage products from Open Design or Rite Publishing. Both of those companies have had a long track record of putting out excellent products. Even when the project lead for a title had to leave Wolfgang hired others to finish it and brought it to market.
I think the problem with Nick (and too many others who have never produced a final product) is he underestimated how much work a publisher does. From editing to layout, there is a lot more to creating a book than simply writing.
Cool. Thanks for the correction. Yes, everyone should do an OPEN DESIGN patronage. I've done two and enjoyed both.
Since we're talking about products that never came out... the very first hardcover non-magazine thing I worked on for D&D was the official D&D licensed version of World of Warcraft. It was going to be a big hardcover book that was scheduled to come out about the same time as Wacraft III (the RTS game—this was well before the MMORPG). I wrote about a third of the book, including all the stuff for dwarves, night elves, a sample adventure, the firearm rules, and a lot of spells. I finished and turned it over to WotC's R&D department, they took my words and those of the other 2 or 3 authors, stitched it together, developed it, and edited it.
And then WotC decided to move away from licensed RPGs, and the book never came out.
Having my first book get cancelled like that was pretty depressing, but everyone at WotC was quick to welcome me into the "club" Clark mentioned above—the "you worked on something that for some reason got cancelled." It's too bad—especially seeing where Warcraft is today... having an official D&D version of it would have been VERY interesting... but they did do a few no-art bound copies of the manuscript for internal use. I got one of those as a sort of consolation prize.
Awesome story, James! Glad you are in the club too :)
Does anyone know if funds collected for a patronage project go into escrow, or have some other similar mechanism to protect them?
I've done a few patronage projects through Kickstarter, and never had a problem with any of them, but the thread does get me thinking in that direction.
>threadjack<
Both Rite and Open Design currently use paypal and then refund the monies if the target isn't hit in 60 days-- because after 60 days, there are fees assessed, and no one gets all their money back. The money stays with the publisher until greenlight is hit, but I don't know how they handle it internally (Steve or Wolfgang would have to say, and I don't know that it's really important how they manage it, only that it is managed). I've seen both of them allow projects to go forward which were partially (~75%) funded, with mixed results.
Kickstarter and Amazon end up taking 10% of the pledged funds with projects there, but they don't take that money from anyone who's pledged it until the project hits 100% (or more) of the target, unlike Indiegogo-- which takes its funds immediately (I do not know if they refund partially funded projects, I've only supported one project there, and it hit greenlight).
I would also clarify-- I don't think I've seen but one Kickstarter patronage RPG project, and that's Scott Gable's upcoming micropatronage for the Sacred Necromancer. Everything else on Kickstarter has been a preorder situation without the patronage experience you would find on Open Design or Rite Publishing-- and I've signed up for 16 Kickstarter RPG projects. Nearly all of them have allowed playtesting opportunities, but none of them have allowed for contributions the way a patronage project at Open Design or Rite does. The closest was Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, which allowed donors to create letters to the Pilgrims, which then became the first supplement for the game. Early Dark involved their playtesters fairly heavily and had forums which could have allowed for a patronage style experience, but they did not pursue the option.
Stealing Cthulhu, on Indiegogo, had several Cthulhu scenarios commissioned as a result of the project, but those were drawn from designers selected by the project lead, not pitched by donors.
I say this because that's an important distinction to make. One shouldn't confuse patronage project with kickstarter. Kickstarter is a vehicle to prefund or preorder a project (RPG or otherwise), but a patronage RPG project means involving your patrons in the creation and design of the final product, which (barring the example I noted) nearly no kickstarter RPG project has done.
/threadjack
-Ben
--
Lead Designer for Streets of Zobeck
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Yes, I have my copy. I definitely would hate to have Nick's failure to deliver a product make others shy about joining patronage products from Open Design or Rite Publishing. Both of those companies have had a long track record of putting out excellent products. Even when the project lead for a title had to leave Wolfgang hired others to finish it and brought it to market.
That has, I believe, happened for Rite as well. :)
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I would also clarify-- I don't think I've seen but one Kickstarter patronage RPG project, and that's Scott Gable's upcoming micropatronage...
Christopher West also funded two of his maps projects through Kickstarter...Mass Transit III and Deep Vistas.
Christopher West also funded two of his maps projects through Kickstarter...Mass Transit III and Deep Vistas.
He did, and I supported Deep Vistas (they're great maps!)-- but they weren't patronage RPG projects. He gave us very specific map choices. We didn't discuss the layout. We didn't talk about the content. We signed on and we got what we got. That's a different animal from a patronage project.
-Ben.
This threads reminds me I need to poke Bad Axe Games about the Patrons of the Monstrous Arts project. Haven't heard anything about it in almost a year, I think. Well, I think they posted a art piece a few months ago, but that's it.
Just did that about 2-3 weeks ago. They said IT IS COMING. For what it's worth . . .
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Addenda to a couple of recent discussions:
I know that WOTC also bought up a whackload of adventures from freelancers during the transition from 3.5 to 4th, theoretically for release as part of the online Dungeon, which have since vanished into the missing sock realm.
And of course, the all-time favourite delayed product for we old fart AD&D types: Coming Soon!! (6 years later) module T2 - The Temple of Elemental Evil :)
Let's not forget the Phlan Web Enhancement for Mysteries of the Moonsea (by Darrin Drader, if memory serves me).
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I thought I was in the Club for a long time.
When TSR published the Wilderness and Dungeoneer Survival Guides, the directors decided to publish a 96-page collection of short adventures that used aspects of the rules. I was one of the freelancers for those projects, and turned in a couple of manuscripts. Got paid. And then ...
A couple of freelancers flaked, and didn't turn in their materials. This was common enough in those days, but this was the turning point for TSR, and management decided to adopt a policy that they would rather pay for people to move to Lake Geneva as hires, rather than deal with several flaky freelancers. Oh, and the current projects had fallen off the schedule, so they were shelved.
It wasn't until last year that I found out that my material had made it into a set of adventures that were packaged with the Survival Guides in a deluxe edition. I would love to find a copy of that.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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Legalistic/business opinions[...] I guess I will just write the money off to a bad investment (God knows a much smaller hit than some of my other investments) and get on with things. Who knows? Perhaps one day I'll be pleasantly surprised.
That is pretty much my take on my Anarchist's GM Cookbook. If i ever see it, good. If not - well, fool me once. Lessons like this come at a price, and this one was relatively affordable for what it taught me.
It wasn't until last year that I found out that my material had made it into a set of adventures that were packaged with the Survival Guides in a deluxe edition. I would love to find a copy of that.
I would check ebay as that's where I got mine. Looks like your name is known in the annals of the Acaeum
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This threads reminds me I need to poke Bad Axe Games about the Patrons of the Monstrous Arts project. Haven't heard anything about it in almost a year, I think. Well, I think they posted a art piece a few months ago, but that's it.
I backed that, and also e20 System Evolved. Both are taking longer than anticipated (seems pretty much par for the course with ambitious RPG products) but I'm sure they'll come out eventually.
e20 was more of a patronage product, with the opportunity for plenty of patron input.
I still mourn the Death Star Sourcebook project Rodney and I completed.
Whoa, I never heard about this one. Was that for RCR or Saga?
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Whoa, I never heard about this one. Was that for RCR or Saga?
I still mourn the Death Star Sourcebook project Rodney and I completed.
RCR. I don't think it was ever announced. It was before Rodney got hired on-staff. It was the last RCR freelance gig I got. It may have been the last RCR project undertaken.
I've heard mention of e20, and heard equal mention of its vaporware status.
It's definitely taken longer than originally proposed, but supposedly, the book is going to print right now - Sarli missed the deadline to get it in before GenCon, but was going to finalize all that once he was back.
It's supposedly "done".
I'm a patron on this, and I must say, that while it would have been cool to have it earlier, any delays on this have been far from an issue, because Gary has been VERY communicative - the longest delay has maybe been a couple of weeks?
We've received updates, and I've never felt that Gary was avoiding the pre-paid/patronage user base.
I still mourn the Death Star Sourcebook project Rodney and I completed.
Never heard of this, but now that I have, I'm sad.
And d20 Spectaculars, though that wasn't quite finished...
I did, however, hear of this, and am horribly sad that we didn't get to see it. Would have been really good to have a nice seamless supers plug-in.
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Well I'm still waiting to see if he ever surfaces, but I have moved on and actually started running a pirate campaign that will look similar to Razor Coast using all the materials I have managed to lay my hands on (such as the Indulgences, maps that have been posted, the initial draft we got sent) and then writing my own stuff into it. Going to take a lot more work than I planned, but at least I get to play the campaign in some form.