an Old school city map with CC3

[Richardb]

As long as Gameprinter makes it easy... I'll go with it! As long as the business never gets in the way of making maps! (for me that is, or course he has to work on his business!) Me, I just want to crank out maps. Finished another last month (nice small world, humans are on the decline, forced inot a large river valley in the cold north, with advanced civilizations of other races pushing on all sides), and have a great one in the works now, really working on a true racial melting pot theory, trying to make a world where there is no dominant race, where interbreading has created numerous sub-types, and humans are not a race so much as the ultimate mongrel mix of many other races, and most of the world is emerging from tribal status, with a few powerful empires forming and driving across large swaths of land, disrupting great tribal nations.

I think POD's are a great service by the way, and think that the time will come when the industry comes to differentiate POD (the technology and the ability to reach niche markets) from the vanity press concept (dumping junk on the market with no selectivity based on making money by collecting fees from the author).

It looks to me like Gameprinter has the right idea here. The RPG industry stuggles with the financial side, and the small publishers have to make serious decisions about what material can go to market due to the concerns they have in significant cash outlays for materials that may or may not sell well. Great stuff ends up not getting to market...
A great example was the recent re-emergence of the Judges Guild. Some of the most innovative maps and fun material of the late 70's and 80's came from the Judges Guild. They come back, so a few really great re-do's, but just can't make the financials work well enough to keep the bigger publishing houses interested, because the materials are nichy, or just not publicized enough (which is also expensive). POD provides the way to reach niche audiences that may number in the hundreds, or a few thousand. The financail risk is minimized as costs are incurred only as a function of taking an order, not as a large pre-investment. A traditional publisher would really struggle making a living taking a risk putting out products for which there may be 1,000 buyers or less.

[pyrandon]

Richard, you're dead-on. With POD so many walls are demolished. The problem simply becomes one of marketing what thoughtful, innovative, and passionate authors/artists have already created vs. the financial decisions on whether to produce something in the first place--and marketing, while always challenging, is doable largely using word-of-mouth on the Internet. Great examples (in addition to Judge's Guild) are the indie games produced today: some really great, innovative stuff that would never have seen light of day before POD. Not that I would suggest doing away with big corps (like WOTC), though, for their financial power affords them the ability to create some amazingly high quality stuff (if limited in scope and set to the lowest common consumer).

PS: Cool on the deal with gameprinter! Something to look forward to!

[Richardb]

If only the taint could be removed in POD that is caused by the Publish America's and Xlibris'

I wrote a novel and had it provisionally accepted by a significant publisher about 5 years ago. It went through a lot of hoops, and the owner himself talked to me about the publishing schedule, the things I would need to do after release to promote, the chances that something 'better' could come along and bump me further, and for all of this I should sit tight, be happy, and enjoy the thought of making a couple thousand dollars.

All joking aside, I thanked him and went in search of a high quality POD publisher who I felt was doing some good in the industry (out of australia) and did a small production run with him and let him run with it. Just like any real publisher, he edited, helped me with reworks, etc, and sold the book, and I was happy with the numbers. I let him keep all profits to re-invest in his business. Last I heard he had represented a couple of authors who won awards for best new Ausie writers in some publication or another. That is what POD is all about! Bringing quality materials to the public effieciently, and perhaps to smaller niches that could be served otherwise. And best yet, with australian dollars being cheap at the time, the trade paperback sold for about the same in US dollars as a standard published book!
I have been an avid fan of POD since, and love seeing this technology and business model invade the market. POD in maps should be a market maker, expanding the actual financial boundaries of the traditional market as niche groups seek fresh material, who would not buy the generic stuff. Overall growth in the market, and consumers win by getting more of what they want!

[loydb]

I still have my original City State of the Invincible Overlord maps That one holds up well in comparison! Nice work.

loyd

[RPMiller]

Expect to see two of Richard's worlds being made available at Gamer Printshop we've just started a project together...

He will publish and I'll print, as well as setup graphics, website and marketing.

Shhh... I didn't tell you anything...

Good to hear that my question didn't fall on deaf ears. Best of luck to you and Richard!

As an aside, I mentioned your name to another VTT/mapping person. You may get contacted soon. Hope it proves lucrative.

[Eru]

I really love this map, as well as what I've seen of your other maps. The best part for me is seeing how you get "inside" the culture, life, history, geography, and even daily grind of the world and built from there. Thinking through the reality of the fantasy world is what's fun for me, and the fact you've got a real gift for that comes through in your maps. Thanks for sharing...!

Speaking of which, if you've got worlds that you've created and would like to share, I'd love to help you post them on Eruvian.com. It's a free site, just launched 3 weeks ago, where gamers can use simple web-based forms to publish their homebrewed content, from individual characters to entire campaign settings, in a standardized, searchable and easily navigable online format. In our first three weeks we've had over 100 users register at the site and we've published over 800 pieces of content.

There is also a community rating and review system to provide feedback to the creators and, if the community desires it, plans to take the best of the best content based on those ratings and print publish it starting in 6 to 9 months. This may take the form of POD or short run publishing, whatever seems best, and may be compilations (e.g. 101 Best of the Best Monsters/Races/Spells/Whatever) or actual campaign sourcebooks.

The best part is that Eruvian has a powerful and rather unique system designed to facilitate and encourage collaborative world building. If you want to, you can open your worlds to accept contributions from others - subject to your review and acceptance, of course - and even give ownership of pieces to those that want to flesh them out. A hierarchical ownership structure ensures a shared vision throughout the collaboration while allowing individual creators as much freedom as the setting owner allows.

Our goal is to see if we can get hundreds, possibly thousands, of creative GMs collaborating on fleshing out worlds with unheard of depth and detail. Imagine one of your overland maps, but with maps and descriptions for every city, town, and village - every key building - stats, motives, and bios for every key character, etc., etc., etc. Is it possible to create an entirely new community-driven publishing model? Who knows...but we're going to find out.

Obviously with your prolific creativity, respect for verismilitude, and attention to detail - not to mention raw skill - we'd love to have you take part in this social experiment. Register on Eruvian if you're interested.

Regardless of whether or not you decide to do so, if you'd be willing to permit me to publish your worlds on your behalf please drop me a line at Eru@Eruvian.com. One of the volunteers on the Eruvian team is a professional from the publishing industry who performs editing and uploading of the best and most complete worlds that we come across (a world with over 300 locales should go live within the week). All you'd need to do is send me the documents and point me at the maps and we'd take care of the rest.

Thanks for reading this far...man I can get wordy! Cheers!

[Richardb]

Should be a recent map and materials up on Eruvian.com shortly! Have a few completed maps where I only partially completed the worldbuilding materials before another concept grabbed me... figure that the Eruvia community can help me out!
I think Michael was going to post somthing for me that I put out on his FTP site last night.

[monocules]

Great old school map, did it ever become available?