Project 15

[doctorscraps]

A bit less than a year ago, my group and I tinkered with the concept of writing out our own RPG book/PDF, a little something we simply referred to as Project 15 (Which may or not be the final name as of this writing). However, many questions arose after some heavy contemplation of picking the project back up where we left off~~
For instance~~
~Is there a form of copyright on dice systems?
~What options are there for putting the game out on the open or free market?
~How much would a person have to spend to have something published?

If I can get these answered, I believe Project 15 can commence.

[Phineas_Rage]

Project 15 sounds like something Chris Hansen would disapprove of greatly.

[Tadanori Oyama]

Yes there are copyrights and legal controls. I believe that they are intellectual properties. That's why there are licensing and third party agreement contracts. Wizard's Open Gaming License has been ungoing revision with the new edition of DnD.

That said, dice themselves are not copywriten so you can use whatever kind you want in your own creation, should you choose to do so as long as you do not infringing on someone else's system.

Your publishing options are many, few are effective. Publishing an actual book can be any degree of difficult, just ask Ross about what he's done to get published as an included author.

As for personal costs, I have no idea. If you publish online it can be free. If you buy webspace to publish something big or host something than that'll run you various rates. Something to the tune of 10 to 30 dollars a month, usually paid up front for six, twelve, or twenty four months so between 75 and 300 dollars.

[clockworkjoe]

wrong wrong wrong

Copyright only prevents the literal word for word copying of a text. You cannot copyright a game and then say 'you must license from me if you ever want to roll a d20 again'

HOWEVER you can patent some types of games and then license it out. However, patents work very differently from copyrights.

Look at the case of Kenzer Company. They've released 4E products without using the WOTC license. http://jhkimrpg.livejournal.com/70484.html

You should still copyright your game, as that gives you protection against someone literally ripping you off - copying your game word for word and selling it.

[Tadanori Oyama]

Well crap I had that ass backwards, didn't I? Thanks Ross.

[clockworkjoe]

The main options for publishing a tabletop rpg are:

Get a publisher - get an existing company to do it. You have to negotiate with them on payment, who retains copyright of the game and so forth.

Pros: You don't have to worry about marketing, printing, layout or distribution!

Con: Less potential revenue for you. Less control over the game. Also, you want to market the game yourself anyway, to boost sales. The ideal situation is that you and the publisher work together to market the game.

Give it away online for free - get some webspace and do it. No money though.

Self publishing - you do everything yourself.

Pros: You control the game and keep the all the revenue yourself.

Cons: You have to do everything or get people to do it for you.

Normally self publishing is considered vanity publishing and looked down on in the publishing world. Self publishing in the RPG industry is not looked down on and many respected writers do it.

When self publishing, you have a few venues for publication. (also check out http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/help.php?section=about )

PDFs - sites like rpgnow.com sell PDFs for a percentage of sales. Don't try to sell PDFs yourself, because setting up a secure merchant website is a pain and sites like rpgnow get a lot more traffic and paying customers than you will.

Offset printing - traditional commercial printing. You go to a printer and print a few hundred or thousand copies of your book. Depending on your options, this will cost a few bucks or more per book printed.

Print on Demand (POD) - go to a site like lulu or createspace and upload your book as a PDF. Then when a customer wants a physical copy of your book, they can order it and the POD company prints 1 copy and mails it to your customer.

Pros and cons
Offset gets you a much better percentage of the sales - a book might cost you 3 dollars to print but you can sell it for 20 bucks. In POD, you might only see 5 dollars of that sale. However, with offset, you have to invest upfront, store the books, worry about mailing and so on.

Some POD companies like Lulu let you offset print as well.

This is just barely scratching the surface of publishing.

Before you get into ANY of this, you need to answer a few questions

What is my goal with this game?

What do I have to do to MAKE it first? - writing, editing, layout, art, playtesting.

How serious am I in terms of investing my time, effort and money into it?

[doctorscraps]

Hmmm...make's the freelancing sector seem that much more compelling.
I'm using the project as a team-building excercise, since our group has become relatively strained, but the way I think it, if we can make it published, that would certainly boost confidence.

[Tadanori Oyama]

Hmmm...make's the freelancing sector seem that much more compelling.
I'm using the project as a team-building excercise, since our group has become relatively strained, but the way I think it, if we can make it published, that would certainly boost confidence.

The process could also shatter you all into a million shards when the word load crushes you.

If your group is having problems than piling responcibilities on them could also lead to increased tension.

[JonHook]

Hmmm...make's the freelancing sector seem that much more compelling.
I'm using the project as a team-building excercise, since our group has become relatively strained, but the way I think it, if we can make it published, that would certainly boost confidence.

The process could also shatter you all into a million shards when the word load crushes you.

If your group is having problems than piling responcibilities on them could also lead to increased tension.

It's not wonder 'ol "Glass Half-Full" Tadanori is about to run a game of a "dark" future.

Come on man, there's gotta be a Mr. Happy Sunshine in you somewhere! 

[clockworkjoe]

here's what I would do

write an outline of the project
divvy up everyone's writing assignment based on the outline
talk to everyone and find out how they feel about copyright ownership and payment - you might want to write a memo stating what you all agree on and have everyone sign it or just say everyone retains copyright on their text. Talk about it now before any work is done.
Write it
playtest it

then comes the tricky part - self publishing is better done if you have experience with the industry. If you're new to this, you are usually better off with a publisher. Layout, legal issues, marketing and distribution are HUGE issues in publishing and each is performed by specialists usually.

You might talk to the indie press revolution people. If they like your game they can probably guide through the process.

I mean, I'd like to give more advice but you could write an entire book on this topic. Several books. I've learned a lot about it and I am still learning stuff.

But the main things are

1. Write the game first.
2. Make sure everyone is on the same level when it comes to copyright, ownership and profit. A single contributor who gets pissed and sues will absolutely fucking KILL a small project like this. Friendships have ended over less. 
3. Tabletop rpgs are a niche industry - very few games make any real money. The average PDF on rpgnow sells like 100 copies at the most. If you want to sell more than that you will have to put a HUGE amount of work in to market and distribute it. Marketing RPGs is a totally different skill than writing or editing.

With the new world primer, the copyright issue is easy because I let everyone keep it and the PDF is free. No profits and they retain ownership over their material. I can't stop the artists from reusing their art and I don't care if they do.

Honestly, if you want to do this for fun, I would release it as a free game. Self publishing for profit only makes sense when there is a single copyright owner (the author) and the author has all the skills necessary to produce and market the game. Greg Stolze can do it. Can you?

I don't want to be a buzzkill or anything because it can be very rewarding. Just go into it with your eyes open.

research: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=17585&it=1&filters=0_2890_0_0
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=51107?affiliate_id=17008
http://www.rpgnow.com/index.php?filters=0_2890_0_0

[Tadanori Oyama]

It's not wonder 'ol "Glass Half-Full" Tadanori is about to run a game of a "dark" future.

Come on man, there's gotta be a Mr. Happy Sunshine in you somewhere! 

Man, three of my last four groups shattered over things I don't even understand. It does not take much to get people fighting and not wanting to be around each other. People argue about the stupidest stuff.

And now it's turned me into a bitter old man. Now get off my lawn! And pull up your pants.