The state of Post-OSR content

[The1True]

I actually think it's pretty easy to spot when a product is really based on early edition D&D or a retroclone.

Not always though. Bryce seems to get fooled by mislabeled products all the time. And, as I mentioned, there are a lot of homebrews (like what/why is Blueholme bro?), but there are also a fair amount of 'system neutral' products which deserve varying degrees of disgust. (Writing this as a guy who wrote a version-neutral adventure which I am now sitting on in an act of base cowardice...)

 

[Malrex]

Not always though. Bryce seems to get fooled by mislabeled products all the time. And, as I mentioned, there are a lot of homebrews (like what/why is Blueholme bro?), but there are also a fair amount of 'system neutral' products which deserve varying degrees of disgust. (Writing this as a guy who wrote a version-neutral adventure which I am now sitting on in an act of base cowardice...)

Release it already! RELEASE THE KRAKEN!!! IT MUST FLY!! DO IT!,,,,JUST DO IT!




When you are on your deathbed, are you going to look back, nod your head, and say to yourself, "man, I'm sure glad I didn't publish my adventure..."
Here...study this video @The1True: The1TrueVid4Motivation

 

[Ineffective Voulging]

But drop the system neutral shit.

 

[Beoric]

But drop the system neutral shit.

@The1True, I agree with this. If you pick an edition, everyone who uses the edition is a potential buyer, with perhaps less interest from people who have to convert it. If you are system neutral, then nobody can pick it up and run with it, everybody has to do a conversion before play.

Also, I might be an outlier, but I find it easier to do conversions if team monster has stats to begin with.

 

[Malrex]

@The1True, I agree with this. If you pick an edition, everyone who uses the edition is a potential buyer, with perhaps less interest from people who have to convert it. If you are system neutral, then nobody can pick it up and run with it, everybody has to do a conversion before play.

Also, I might be an outlier, but I find it easier to do conversions if team monster has stats to begin with.

1. If you are trying to make money, then pick an edition.
2. If you are doing it for yourself and for fun, then do whatever the hell you want because there isn't much money in #1.

You will never make everyone happy.

 

[Beoric]

1. If you are trying to make money, then pick an edition.
2. If you are doing it for yourself and for fun, then do whatever the hell you want because there isn't much money in #1.

You will never make everyone happy.

Fair.

 

[The1True]

I didn't want to hijack this conversation with a x-neutral discussion, but I do want to say that I feel there's a difference between system-neutral and edition-neutral. I agree that system-neutral is massively wishy-washy and going to make no one happy. In the case of edition though, as I've said previously, I often run 1 and 2e adventures in 3e campaigns with very little conversion. I think it can be done on the fly despite small hurdles like hp totals and turn-undead rules. The key things that are mostly true across all editions are HD (to hit and Saves can be somewhat reliably be calculated based on this), hp, AC (ascending and descending are fairly easily interchangeable), and damage. I'm making a big bet that a reader that isn't confronted by huge walls of late-edition stat-block mumbo jumbo will be more willing to give the product a chance and make their own alterations on the fly or in prep.

Anyway, you win @Malrex , I'm dropping everything on Monday and finishing the layout as best I can. Probably to bare-minimum dtrpg standards. I might dick around with a couple more AI art pieces (despite prevailing attitudes) to break up the page-spread monotony, and release this poor thing into the wild. I'm sure I'm as sick of it as you all are of hearing about it at this point.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Anyway, you win @Malrex , I'm dropping everything on Monday and finishing the layout as best I can. Probably to bare-minimum dtrpg standards. I might dick around with a couple more AI art pieces (despite prevailing attitudes) to break up the page-spread monotony, and release this poor thing into the wild. I'm sure I'm as sick of it as you all are of hearing about it at this point.

After reading thousands upon thousands of Bryce reviews, let me offer this single piece of unified advice: run an editing pass on that thing first.

 

[Beoric]

I'm making a big bet that a reader that isn't confronted by huge walls of late-edition stat-block mumbo jumbo will be more willing to give the product a chance and make their own alterations on the fly or in prep.

This is probably true for most people.

 

[The1True]

After reading thousands upon thousands of Bryce reviews, let me offer this single piece of unified advice: run an editing pass on that thing first.

A professional very kindly gave it a once over, I then did two more passes, which led to the addition of 40 more pages of material and maps. I very-much need to step the fuck away from this thing. If it doesn't get outright ignored, it's going to get brutalized for all the reasons you've all warned me about repeatedly. Killing myself trying to make it look professional was a fun exercise for an obsessive hobbyist for a little while, but I'm setting myself up for a crippling disappointment.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

A professional very kindly gave it a once over, I then did two more passes, which led to the addition of 40 more pages of material and maps.

Oof, editors are supposed to condense your work and slash pages from your total count, not balloon it by 40 pages! I just meant give it an editing pass for spelling errors and correct cross-indexing and whatnot. That's nuts.

Can I... can I see it?

 

[The1True]

Oof, editors are supposed to condense your work and slash pages from your total count, not balloon it by 40 pages!

The extra pages are 1000% me avoiding finishing the project.

I've found your criticism extremely constructive in the past, but it also usually involved fairly serious changes which I really can't afford anymore. If you want to look at it and nail some spelling and grammar, maybe some continuity errors, that's fine. But, I can't do another major overhaul. I'm adjusting the formatting to dtrpg pdf compliance and inserting the artwork over the next couple of day, afterwhich I will nail down the page references and Table of Contents, at which point it will be frozen in amber.
My baby is all grown up with three useless post-graduate degrees, smoking weed all day rent-free in the basement of my mind. It's time to go get a job and their own apartment. Pretty POD formatting and human artwork can wait for some magical day in the future.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I've found your criticism extremely constructive in the past, but it also usually involved fairly serious changes which I really can't afford anymore. If you want to look at it and nail some spelling and grammar, maybe some continuity errors, that's fine. But, I can't do another major overhaul.

I swear I'll only point out the stuff that can be changed with a single keystroke

 

[Malrex]

Well hopefully @bryce will review it when its out in the wild.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

@1True, is this thing the latest version of Irradiated, or is it something else entirely?

 

[The1True]

It's the latest version of Irradiated. There's enough of Part 2, The Bulls Run, to pump out a second product, but I need to stahp.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

It's the latest version of Irradiated. There's enough of Part 2, The Bulls Run, to pump out a second product, but I need to stahp.

No mate, you need to keep going! That thing's been in the oven for like a decade now, and it's burning. Take it out! Serve it up!

 

[The1True]

I'm done. I'm just checking the OGL, fixing my page references, and then I'll do a quick final layout pass and insert hyperlinks in the PDF. Thanks Shia laBoef

The Bulls Run will have to wait until I: A) Complete the mobile game I've been working on, and B) Get over the inevitable beating (or worse, total apathy) I'm going to get when I release Irradiated.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I've been there with hobbyist publications. The responses I get surprise me though. At the onset of the pandemic I wrote a persistent, long-form campaign for a modular board game that I play a lot. Though free, it only got a few hundred downloads (doesn't help that it's a bit of a niche board game)... but there are still people to this day who message me and ask me questions about it, or who want my permission to make their own versions/sequels, or who tell me about how their group is going through it and really enjoying it. Now admittedly the board game community has less overall vitriol than the TTRPG community (or at least, the parts of it that take things way too seriously), but still, the response may just surprise you in a good way.