I seem to be getting adept at accidentally writing games. Now it's a board game that is reminiscent of Blood Bowl, but again has its own flavor and strategy and is a lot less complicated than BB was.
Best of all, the game can interface with S&S or just about any other class-and-level-based fantasy RPG.
The gist of it (sans game mechanics) is posted over at my Wasted Lands blog as "Orcball!" but I'm now calling it Skull-Smasher. I've just put it into playtest. We'll see if it merits selling.
In other news, I'd like to clarify something. It's been brought to my attention that I've referenced all of our different "editions" of S&S without clarifying what the difference was. I've assumed too much knowledge out of the gate, and it's true, I shouldn't do that. So, just to clarify...there's no textual difference between the editions of S&S.
Our strategy (which seems to have worked) was to put S&S out in a bunch of different formats to cater to a number of different tastes. We have the "Old School" edition, which is 3 little brown booklets. We have the "standard" 6x9 edition, and we have the digest-sized "pocket edition."
Unfortunately, when you go into distribution, unless you have a LOT of money to blow on printing, you don't have the option of maintaining all these different formats. So I am forced to choose. That's what the recent blogs have been about.
Truthfully, I probably shouldn't have used "Edition" when titling these, but rather "Format." In any case, the books are the same as far as the text content. There are layout differences and some differences in artwork, but ALL of the text is identical across the editions. So when I talk about re-examining our sales model, I'm just talking about which size formats we're keeping and which we aren't.
Hope that clarifies things somewhat.
Best of all, the game can interface with S&S or just about any other class-and-level-based fantasy RPG.
The gist of it (sans game mechanics) is posted over at my Wasted Lands blog as "Orcball!" but I'm now calling it Skull-Smasher. I've just put it into playtest. We'll see if it merits selling.
In other news, I'd like to clarify something. It's been brought to my attention that I've referenced all of our different "editions" of S&S without clarifying what the difference was. I've assumed too much knowledge out of the gate, and it's true, I shouldn't do that. So, just to clarify...there's no textual difference between the editions of S&S.
Our strategy (which seems to have worked) was to put S&S out in a bunch of different formats to cater to a number of different tastes. We have the "Old School" edition, which is 3 little brown booklets. We have the "standard" 6x9 edition, and we have the digest-sized "pocket edition."
Unfortunately, when you go into distribution, unless you have a LOT of money to blow on printing, you don't have the option of maintaining all these different formats. So I am forced to choose. That's what the recent blogs have been about.
Truthfully, I probably shouldn't have used "Edition" when titling these, but rather "Format." In any case, the books are the same as far as the text content. There are layout differences and some differences in artwork, but ALL of the text is identical across the editions. So when I talk about re-examining our sales model, I'm just talking about which size formats we're keeping and which we aren't.
Hope that clarifies things somewhat.
Completely, and thanks for taking the comment to heart in the right way. I think you nailed it: "Edition" is what was tripping me up. I honestly thought there were subtle differences in the actual content.
ReplyDeleteThe really nice thing is that you're already getting a grip on these things before you venture out wider. I can think of a particular large publisher (not WOTC) whose books would have greatly benefited from having utilized customer feedback early on.
Well, I've been a freelancer for 10 years. I've paid close attention to what various publishers have done right and wrong. I like to think (and hope) that I've learned and continue to learn from those experiences and it'll make Elf Lair all the better.
ReplyDelete