So, last night I decided to check back to see what I had written on LJ last year, which was amusing. Switching to my pre-LJ days, I also checked back to 2003, and back in the misty eons lost to time, the entry from 2002, as well.
That last one was interesting. It’s where I decided to give up my prejudices over the format and run Adamant Entertainment as a PDF publishing operation. Looking back, it’s funny to note that I said:
” It is certainly do-able, however, for this to be a nice side-line…”
…and here we are, 3 years later, and not only is it still running, but it’s successful enough to be my full-time gig. All traceable back to that moment when I decided to go ahead with it.
So, what have I got up my sleeve for Adamant in the coming year?
A bunch of stuff, obviously. But I’ll talk about some of the things that I’m most jazzed about:
- First off, Adamant Entertainment products will soon be available in your local game store, instead of just in PDF. RPGNow has initiated a program where they’re repping print versions of top-selling PDF product via the top 4 distributors in the industry, which means that your local store can order them, with the products beginning to ship in February. Adamant Entertainment’s CORSAIR: The Definitive D20 Guide to Ships has been chosen as one of the flagship releases. I’m pretty excited about that. Among other things, it means that I’ll be going to the GAMA Trade Show in Vegas in March, to pimp the product to retailers.
- I just received the final drafts via email last night for a big 2006 release: We’re doing a book called MARS, which can be run as either a D20-Modern-based game, or as a campaign world for standard fantasy D20 (in other words, D&D, but of course we can’t market it like that). It’s set in the ‘Planetary Romance’ genre of Edgar Rice Burroughs, et. al., and was written for Adamant Entertainment by Lizard, the author of the “Iron Lords of Jupiter” mini-game that appeared in Polyhedron magazine. In fact, Wizards of the Coast has given us permission to re-use some of the material that first appeared in that minigame (feats and such). Swords flashing, radium guns blasting, Sky-corsair battling, Martian action. Can’t wait.
- We’re steaming right along with Thrilling Tales, of course. Got some nice plans underway, including a special mp3 podcast featuring an original “radio” adventure serial, in the style of the classic shows of the 30s and 40s! We’re also going to branching the line out a bit….we’re looking at releasing some Lovecraftian horror adventures (they were pulp after all), and my “Heroes of the New Wave” concept of 1980s Neo-pulp (Buckaroo Banzai, Remo Williams, the A-Team, Knightrider, etc.).
- I’ve dusted off my notes for a project that I haven’t touched in about two years or so….but I plan on releasing this in 2006: The Dao of Wuxia will be a supplement on running wuxia fantasy using D20. (Something tells me
might be interested in playtesting this one….)
There’s more, of course (continued support for Northern Crown, some officially-licensed Freeport adventures, the kick-off of our new line of superhero products released under the M&M Superlink license, among other things), but this entry is already way longer than I had intended, so you’ll just have to keep your eyes open for future updates.
Sounds good, amigo–glad it’s continuing to go so well, and that you’ve got so much planned.
Shame that this March will probably be the first time in years that I WON’T make it to GTS, because of Arthur. But we’ll see. Perhaps I will, in which case we’ll have to find a late-night steak-and-eggs again.
MARS could get a boost when Jon Carter of Mars comes out.
Will Dao of Wuxia use D20 Modern? Please keep me posted about the progress on this.
You give us all hope.
I’m going to go write that writer’s group email now.
Also, I love the “Northern Crown” concept. Way cool.
I’m looking forward to MARS. I loved ‘Iron Lords’
To be fair I have not really had the time to take a look at any of the titles from Adamant, although I have wanted to. With the forthcoming release of books on our games store shelves, I will keep an eye out for them.
It will be a stand-alone Open Game License game (i.e. D20, without using the name D20), based on D20 Modern. (In other words, like Conan or Babylon 5 by Mongoose, or Mutants & Masterminds by Green Ronin.
Not related to the topic, but I’ve got to say this:
That icon.
Hot blonde.
Sword.
YUM.
heheheh. THANKS!
Excited about both MARS (Iron Lords was great – have you considered getting Niklas Jannsen, who did the art in Poly, to do more art?) and Wuxia – Ages ago before I got the intarweb I adapted a bunch of adventures from a HKAT book you wrote for my Feng Shui campaign, mainly because they had a lot more legitimate genre flavour than the published adventures I’d seen (I like Robin Laws as much asthe nextman, but Four Bastards was terrible IMO. Will these two see print?
Yes, those products will see print as well. Not sure about immediate distribution, but at the very least, you’ll be able to order the print versions via RPGNow as well as the PDFs.