Open Design Blog

The locations for the KQ and Open Design seminars have changed. Updated information:

Freelancing for Kobold Quarterly
Interested in submitting art or articles to the Kobold Quarterly RPG magazine? Come to this seminar, meet the editor, and learn who, what, when, where and how! Periodicals are a great way to break into the game design world, and KQ is the leading magazine for gamers.
Time: Friday Noon
Location: Embassy Suites
Room Number: Chancellor 3 Coronation II

Steampunk and Open Design
Do you love steampunk, clockworks, warforged, and the gritty adventures that go with it? Come talk to Wolfgang Baur, the designer of the Zobeck steampunk setting of Open Design, and meet patrons of the Open Design community. This event will also serve as the Open Design meetup, and an opportunity for patrons to discuss what they want from upcoming projects. Help shape the release schedule for Open Design in 2008 and 2009!

Time: Saturday 10:00 AM
Location: Embassy Suites
Room Number: Chancellor 3 Consulate

Working In Print
Wolfgang Baur shares the Kobold Quarterly story and talks about the challenges of print. Learn about what it took to get the magazine off the ground and the challenges of running a magazine. Find out what works and what doesn't.
Time: Friday, 2 PM
Location: Westin
Room: Congress 1 & 2

Hope to see you there!

It's official: the 4E D&D project that will launch Open Design's newest product line, the Wrath of the River King, is fully funded.

Thanks to everyone who has supported this one. I'm still working on the licensing, but the design is kicking off on the private site now.

It's the final week of June, and Wrath of the River King is so very close to being commissioned.

The project is a few dollars short, but folks are excited about it and we have already headed into monster discussions. There's a new 4th Edition hag, a new minion, giant frog, a nixie, a new troll posted by patrons for feedback. I've written up a few of my own (a lorelei and a giant frog). Finally, much to my surprise, there's a dragon in this adventure. For a little more detail or for questions, check out the Open Design forums.

And I've been working on an expanded outline, taking the adventure from a small village to the depths of the Feywild, and on a few detours as well.

To see the adventure as it is written, please support the project with a donation directly through PayPal or through KoboldQuarterly.com.

And at first glance, the GSL is absolutely terrible for Kobold Quarterly. I'm not sure it will matter much for Open Design, as the Wrath of the River King will be in a separate product line.

I was hoping for better. Bah.

With the release of the 4E core books, the 4E adventure discussion for Wrath of the River King has heated up a bit. One of the patrons has posted a new monster design over in the KQ forums, and we're talking through some likely encounters.

Unfortunately, though, the project has not yet been commissioned, so there's no way yet to pay for art, maps, and final text. I'm looking for a few more patrons interested in a professional-quality adventure set in the Feywild. Your donation goes directly to the fine mappers, designers, and artists of Open Design. Please sign up today!

There's a quiz about the direction of KQ over on (surprise) the KoboldQuarterly.com site. If you want KQ to support 3E, 4E, Pathfinder, or the white box rules, please go and vote accordingly.

Yes, despite various life-threatening adventures, Kobold Quarterly has reached its first anniversary with the release of issue #5!

This issue is a great one (though I may be biased), because it includes:

• An Exclusive 4th Edition Interview: We asked the designers of the 4th Edition Player’s Handbook for D&D a few pointed questions—and gotten the inside scoop! Andy Collins, James Wyatt, and Rob Heinsoo offer wisdom, wit, and some suggestions for character conversion from 3rd Edition.
  
• A truly creepy Ecology of the Homunculus
  
• improving your improvisation skills from Nicolas Logue, and
  
• the Arch-Devil Jezebel by Paizo’s master of the diabolical, James Jacobs!

Give it a look, won't you? You can pick up a copy from Koboldquarterly.com.

Or you could just subscribe, because there is a year full of adventure ahead.

They said it would never happen. They said the Zobeck book would always lose to flashy new horror/fey/steampunk/Arabian adventures.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Tales of Zobeck are commissioned, and design begins tonight!

While this is good news for patrons, it is bad news for everyone unfortunate enough not to have signed up earlier. The price of patronage will bump up as soon as I have a spare minute to reset it.

I've got two Open Design projects going well with early outlines and polls about 4E and Zobeck, but both need a few more patrons to actually meet the commissioning bar.

The first wave of pitches for Tales of Zobeck has been posted and voted on, and the second wave will be underway next week — if about 10 more patrons show up.
Sign up today and help shape the Zobeck campaign setting!

With the leak of 4E information, the 4th Edition adventure has had new things to discuss. The Wrath of the River King plan is to write an adventure that's not dumbed-down, beginner-level material, but a fully-developed plot arc with new monsters and a glimpse of the Feywild, plus the inside track from 4E playtesters. If you'd like design that challengesr experienced players, this is your project. Please donate and sign up today!

The two projects currently up for patron support are both chugging along, with Tales of Zobeck having a small but not insurmountable lead toward an actual green light, go-sign, kickoff status.

And as usual, I can't resist jumping the design gun a little bit. The outline for the Tales of Zobeck source material has gone to the patrons, and both the senior patrons and writers like Richard Pett, Tim Connors, Jeff Grubb, and others are sharpening up pitches for the Tales anthology. I've got about a dozen already, and only the best will go on to be designed for the project. The patrons will see those and start judging them this weekend — and so can you, if you sign up today.

For Wrath of the River King, the project outline is available to patrons, and there's some discussion as well about level and Shadowfell. The early discussions often set the tone for where an adventure is headed. If you'd like an adventure that's more than just a set of 4E training wheels, and that tries to do something more challenging for experienced players, this is your project. Please donate and sign up today!

I know all the talk has been about the NEXT Open Design, but it's not too late to sign up for Nicolas Logue's Blood of the Gorgon project.

It's in playtest now, so it goes into edits and layout soon. If you'd like to be a patron and secure your copy of the limited edition, please sign up today.

If the current commission were for just a 3E project or just a 4E project, it would already be funded; patrons have supported the work and there's lots of interest. In a perfect world, I would be merrily writing up the outline and taking the first couple of rounds of polls, brainstorming, and feedback by now. The design ship would have sailed.

Unfortunately, that's not the case. While fans of the two editions have some crossover, the "gimme either edition" crowd is a small minority. D&D fandom seems to be a house divided.

And as a result, the next Open Design may take a little longer to commission. To make your choice easier, though, I've removed another option from the running. Court of the Shadow Fey is removed from the voting starting today, and so there's just two competitors left: 3E Tales of Zobeck or the 4E Wrath of the River King. Both will be written when and if their commissions are met. The one that meets the bar first will get a head start, the other will follow along after.

So tell me, who's on first? You can read the project descriptions and donate to your favorite here.

I never quite know which project is going to pull off the upset.

Way back when, I was sure that the Lost City was going to win, and Angels of Our Better Nature, and pretty much every time, I'm wrong. So... I shouldn't be surprised to see that now it's Wrath of the River King, the project that doesn't begin until July and that uses a GSL I haven't seen, that is drawing patron attention. It is just 15 patrons behind Tales of Zobeck, in fact.

And why not the 4E contender? If the Wrath of the River King commission is funded before the Tales of Zobeck/Courts of the Shadow Fey, I will write that one first. The paranoid side of me is convinced that patrons just want to see me flail around with a new format/ruleset/design parameters. "Wrath" would certainly involve a lot of that, as I'll be ramping up in a hurry.

Donate for Tales of Zobeck
Donate for Court of the Shadow Fey
Donate for Wrath of the River King

In other news, I've posted the first design essay for new project (or, if you prefer, another in the continuing series of Blood of the Gorgon design essays). This one is about encounter design, and especially about non-standard encounters. Patrons, give it a look and tell me what you think!

I'm delighted to say that the commission is about halfway met, and that the voting has gone smoothly so far. I also must, regretfully, cut Lords of Lost Arbonesse from the voting, because it is not generating the same level of support as Court of the Shadow Fey and Tales of Zobeck.

Also, note that I've suggested a possible format change to Tales of Zobeck, and Courts of the Shadow Fey has some acquired some interesting Zelaznian overtones. Take a look at the KQ forums for details.

The 4th Edition Wrath of the River King is also available, for those looking to expand their 4E adventure collection.

If you would like to support either Tales of Zobeck or Courts of the Shadow Fey as a patron, now's the time.

Please review the proposals for the project and choose your favorite!

Just a note to say that you can vote for what Zobeck article will appear next in Kobold Quarterly, and make your own suggestions, in this thread.