Quote from: Xavier Onassiss;832403Mine started out as a home-brewed setting (like so many others) and got published as a 3rd party Hero System science fiction setting. For a project like that, it's not necessarily the sales figures, it's just a place to start. I'm still basically an unknown author at this point.

It sold OK, all things considered. (IOW, not great.) And it got some decent reviews, which led to a license for Savage Worlds. Then I decided to self-publish. Now I'm looking at a system-less version basically so I can do something a bit smaller before tackling a 200 page RPG source book.

Yes, there is some great Hero System stuff out there, I'll have to check out yours.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;832436Don't do it for the money, do it because you love it, and want to share.

I'll take that as encouragement! Sadly my gaming hobby has to compete with income-producing activities and usually comes up short. I admire the dedication of those who actually get things into print.

Quote from: Xavier Onassiss;832199I didn't want to derail the thread on systemless setting books, but I've got this question:

What kind of market is there for new systemless settings?

I'm working on a new edition of Terracide (for Savage Worlds) and I'm going to self-publish. However, I've had a number of industry wonks recommend that I start off with a smaller project. (the SW Terracide book will be approx 200 pages)

So I'm thinking of doing a smaller pre-release with just the setting information; maybe about 64 pages. I just have to wonder if 64 pages of systemless not the same old space opera would be interesting to the RPG community.

I like systemless settings and buy them. However, I tend to buy them for settings that I like, not new ones. So, systemless Glorantha is just background, as is systemless Alternate Earth/Historical Earth. I can use the background and add my own rules.

Would I buy other systemless settings? Sure, if I had enough interest in the setting and wanted background for it.

I can speak only for myself and a few others I've met.

Flying Buffalo/Blade's CityBook series is great stuff, and Grimtooth's Traps for the dungeoneer.

Also, the presence of stats for Rules Set X is not a big deal unless it takes up a lot of space. Lots of Judges Guild, Mayfair, Midkemia Press, Iron Crown, Palladium Books and GURPS Worldbooks come to mind as examples of material that delivered good value even if one used different rules.

On the other hand, I felt a bit shortchanged by a Goodman Games book of 3e D&D scenarios that went so far as to have duplicate big stat blocks (for common orcs, if memory serves) on facing pages. Material for BRP games such as Call of Cthulhu often features fairly big chunks of rules-specific data, and my familiarity and love may skew my view that nonetheless this tends not to be a significant drawback in Chaosium's products.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;832436You want to make 10k in the RPG business?  You start with 20k. ...

Except for the companies that are making money. :-P

You can make money in the business, but you need to be savvy. Just tossing something out there and hoping it sticks will likely net you a handful of supporters at best. It requires energy, a solid marketing campaign (social media!), and a business plan that includes actually a) doing what you say you will b) having more than a release per year and c) putting effort into the quality of your product.

I think Evil Hat, Posthuman Studios, Sine Nomine and Paradigm Concepts are examples of how to do it. If you want to be successful at something, find someone who is and emulate them. Learn from them. In this industry you see people make the same mistakes over and over when they have plenty of examples of both mistakes and successes.

Any business requires research. You CAN become an expert by studying the market (and the top market leaders). Many people don't want to put in that effort.

Otherwise, just share your stuff and enjoy the crafting of RPG stuff for personal fulfillment. :-)

Quote from: trechriron;834365Except for the companies that are making money. :-P

You can make money in the business, but you need to be savvy. Just tossing something out there and hoping it sticks will likely net you a handful of supporters at best. It requires energy, a solid marketing campaign (social media!), and a business plan that includes actually a) doing what you say you will b) having more than a release per year and c) putting effort into the quality of your product.

I think Evil Hat, Posthuman Studios, Sine Nomine and Paradigm Concepts are examples of how to do it. If you want to be successful at something, find someone who is and emulate them. Learn from them. In this industry you see people make the same mistakes over and over when they have plenty of examples of both mistakes and successes.

Any business requires research. You CAN become an expert by studying the market (and the top market leaders). Many people don't want to put in that effort.

Otherwise, just share your stuff and enjoy the crafting of RPG stuff for personal fulfillment. :-)

Well, the real money maker is to not make a physical product.  You can cut a lot of the cost by going PDF only, or Print on Demand.  That quote is from when the only real way to put a gaming product out there was by print.  Now, you have a lot of options not to.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;834412Well, the real money maker is to not make a physical product.  You can cut a lot of the cost by going PDF only, or Print on Demand.  That quote is from when the only real way to put a gaming product out there was by print.  Now, you have a lot of options not to.

Agreed.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;834412Well, the real money maker is to not make a physical product.  You can cut a lot of the cost by going PDF only, or Print on Demand.  That quote is from when the only real way to put a gaming product out there was by print.  Now, you have a lot of options not to.

Hey, somebody discovered my master plan!

Seriously, I agree 100%, and this is exactly what I intend to do.

I hope it works out for you, Xavier.  If it's cool, I'll plunk down some cash for it.

I've got a free preview of chapter 1 available here.

I prefer a settingless system book. Generally I make up my own setting as I find most other people's settings about as interesting as what they ate for breakfast.

However, when a setting is matched to a system designed for it, in the vein of Pendragon or Ghostbusters 1st edition, that's where the real gold is.

Now a sourcebook dealing with a real era or place and geared for use with RPGs I would find useful: Lionheart from Columbia Games springs to mind. Sourcebooks for made-up places do not interest me in the least as I feel no urge to do research on made-up stuff when I can just make up my own instead.

I think there needs to be some differentiation between utterly 'systemless' setting books, and setting books that are geared to play with a certain type of system.

Quote from: RPGPundit;835763I think there needs to be some differentiation between utterly 'systemless' setting books, and setting books that are geared to play with a certain type of system.

I find the latter tends to work a lot better. Truly generic material tends to be flavourless and dull, when it's the flavour I want. So I find that converting material written for a particular system is often a better idea than buying truly generic material.

Quote from: RPGPundit;835763I think there needs to be some differentiation between utterly 'systemless' setting books, and setting books that are geared to play with a certain type of system.

Very much so. The aformentioned Citybooks can be dropped into about any standard fantasy setting. really low and really high fantasy might need a little tweaking.

There's a type of history book that covers this kind of material well too - Jasper Ridley's A Brief History of the Tudor Age or Ian Mortimer's A Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England give a fantastic overview of life in a particular period and place.  Combine with a history of the period and you're good for adventure seeds as well as settings.

Good flavourful art helps a lot too, but may be more expensive than good writing.

For me, systemless books work best with GURPS or RQ or games where you can give a good description of a character with a relatively generic statline - X is a standard diplomat with the following key skills; her bodyguard Y is an experienced soldier with the passion "Hates Z".  Not so much for systems like D20, where much of the flavour is in the mechanics - classes, races, feats and spells, or supers games.

Not to knock mechanic-heavy games (specifically, exception-heavy), they're just increasingly not my thing.

I'm reading through Hellfrost at the moment, and I'll be honest I would/could run it with RQ as quickly and easily as Savage Worlds.  The Bestiary is the most mechanical part of the three core books, and that's basically "loads of undead and cold-themed monsters".  It manages to be flavourful and offers tons of interesting things for the players to do.  I suspect the question is would it have sold as well if it was a systemless book?

The old RQ Cults of Prax/Cults of Terror are kind of inbetweens - they obviously have a ton of crunch, but you can get a fair idea of what's happening just reading the story segments.  But those story segments are well-written and engage you in an alien world of religious mystery and travel in a world where the fantastical oozes out of every word, not your generic "in 2359, Bob led an army to the battle of Bill's Knee".

There are times I'd like more mechanical support for particular aspects - in a game of politic intrigue, you can roleplay out everything, but it may help to have game systems to support contacts and alliances and feuds.

On the subject of art + text - I'd love love LOVE to see an RPGsetting/culture guide in the style of a Dorling Kindersley book