A Crazy Idea for the Guild

[The Cartographist]

Redrobes - Couldn't agree more, but I do have one thought.

There is a (perhaps small) market out there for maps-only products, and we (collectively) are really good at maps. I think that we should start at that level.

Stretching the project into actual adventures removes us somewhat from our expertise and into a realm where it is (IMO) much harder to do it really well.

[industrygothica]

I'm still new here, but I'm going to offer my two cents anyway.

I've wanted to get into a project similar to this for a long time. I think that while the focus should remain on the maps themselves, there is always room to flesh things out. I don't believe that fully realized adventures are necessarily the way to go, as you are then limiting yourself to a specific rules system. I do think that detailed descriptions of important places and people, including their histories and motivations, would be an inspiring source for any motivated DM.

In short, the guild provides the fluff, and the DM supplies the crunch.

I really hope all that made sense.

[ravells]

Excellent idea, Tim. Perhaps we should see how Torq's scheme goes? I don't mean to sound negative but it's just in my experience 'big' projects which are carried out by volunteers, usually start with a lot of enthusiasm and fire and then either get mired by a lot of discussion about how to do something (rather than going ahead and doing it) or people lose interest and drift away. Content high projects like these need a project manager with a really sharp vision and contributors who do not take offence if their content is edited by the PM.

[hans_worst]

If you're planning to do this. You should start small. I've worked on several projected based in virtual communities like this. And they all end premature because some members bail out. So if you start it make sure you can finish it alone or with somebody you know really good (in real life preferably). Then when you've ended some small projects with succes you can try bigger ones. People need to see result if you want to keep them on the project.

If you're going to do this. I can do some adventure writing. But not alone, I need to work with some native speakers.

[Robbie]

This very discussion (or one similar to it) has come up numerous times in the community leader discussions...And every time it comes up I start leaning towards it. There's a few problems with it though...

A) I'm not a businessman, just a guy with a hosting plan and bandwidth
B) I'm not a lawyer nor do I have access to one
C) All of the above in regards to international issues since this site caters to everyone

To do this I'd basically end up turning this into a business that will have to pay taxes more than likely, and keep records as well as ensure I have legal protection from disputes over content rights and publishing rights and monetary exchanges.

At this point it sounds great to say hey all, lets make maps and adventures and sell them to the world to make money for the guild...and the very real problem with that is that when you say that you are saying...lets make Robbie some money...which while I am totally flattered that you'd want to do that...I'm pretty sure you wouldn't expect that to continue to be a one-way venture...eventually, if not right frm the start I'm going to have to start paying people for their work so I can publish it and make money off of it...even if the money isn't even profitting me, only helping the site stay afloat, there's still the issue of rights and pay. How long would you guys make maps for me to publish and make money off of? Not long I imagine.

Also there's staffing issues...at this point, Its me running the website side of things...and my community leaders run the community side of things...I'd have to bring in additional site admins, possibly programmers, and of course the aforementioned lawyer, all of which are going to want a cut of the sites proceeds and all of which are going to require tax information and employee or contractee legal processing.

***

Keep in mind...I'm not saying any of the above is impossible...Its just a lot more daunting and involved than saying "lets sell pdf's to help pay for the site". Your hearts are in the right place, and it honors me greatly...

Because of that honor, I'm going to start digging into this...I'm going to start with what I consider my mentor site (CGSociety) and see if I can get in touch with their administration and find out what they had to do to get things rolling...That site basically does exactly what I'd like to do.

Thanks go to you all...I'll keep ya posted

[hans_worst]

If I were you I start looking at your product first. Have you ever created a map pack? or a d20 adventure? d20 is nice, because you can use the rules if you do it right. That's not terrible difficult. I can help you with that.

I think it's a good start to see if we can do it for free. Under a Creative Commons Licence for example. see here for licences

Then if this is succesfull, you can see if there is some money in it.

[Robbie]

Now that I'm all for...definitely.

[helium3]

Excellent idea, Tim. Perhaps we should see how Torq's scheme goes? I don't mean to sound negative but it's just in my experience 'big' projects which are carried out by volunteers, usually start with a lot of enthusiasm and fire and then either get mired by a lot of discussion about how to do something (rather than going ahead and doing it) or people lose interest and drift away. Content high projects like these need a project manager with a really sharp vision and contributors who do not take offence if their content is edited by the PM.

I have had a similar, albeit singular, experience with a community design project. As I saw it, there were two problems that seemed to crop up. The first is a question of maintaining enthusiasm in order to avoid key participant drop out.

The second is a bit more difficult. The most enthusiastic members of a project also seem to have very strong ideas about what the project results look like. So, there can be a lot of potential for conflict between the key producers. In opinion, this is even worse than the slow attrition of the folks that are interested in the concept but not necessarily into producing a lot of results.

I have some ideas about how to deal with both of these, but they're wholely untested.

[Midgardsormr]

I, for one, would be glad to entertain your ideas, especially since the collaborative worldbuilding project is chugging along at a good pace. So do share!

[The Cartographist]

All - I've given this a lot of thought, especially concerning Arcana's concerns. I would propose the following:

Rather than have Arcana worry about any of those things, a third party publisher could produce material with the Cartographer's Guild logo stamped on the front with material provided by the artists from the guild. The third party publisher would handle artists and their compensation including contracting, track all of the accounting, and then provide to Arcana a "licencing fee" to be formally and contractually agreed upon between Arcana and the publisher. Contracts would be signed between each artist and the publisher (in the same way as all work is done in the industry right now) stipulating compensation, copywrite, etc.

I would think that the artist would maintain the copywrite in his name, which would be clearly documented in the product.

For a given product, the compensation split could be:
- 25% to the publisher for putting the whole thing together.
- 25% to Arcana in the form of a "licensing fee".
- 50% to the group of artists who contributed, split proportionally to their contribution.
Although these are numbers just off of my head. Perhaps it could go 20/20/60 or 25/35/40 or some other.

The whole original purpose of this idea was to help defray the costs that Arcana bears in running the website, which, while I don't think are considerable, are real. Likewise, the earnings from such a venture probably wouldn't be huge anyway.

Another positive side-effect of doing this would be more advertising for the guild to continue our growth with new members, etc. And, perhaps there are other areas into which the Guild might want to expand that would also cost money; the decision to embark in something like that would be much easier if there were a ready source of funding.

Anyway, I have looked at a lot of stuff out there, especially stuff that is sold on RPGNow.com, and some of the other sites. The quality of many of the "amatuers" here in the Guild is as strong as some of the stuff that is available commercially. The money is not huge (I don't think that anyone really does any of this stuff for the money), but it is there, and I believe that it could be made to the benefit of all of us.