Transmedia Call of Cthulhu

C7_CthulhuBritannica_Postcard_01_1000
 
 
Cubicle 7 Entertainment is launching a Kickstarter for their newest release for Call of Cthulhu — a deluxe boxed set detailing London in the 1920s. The Kickstarter will go live on November 12th. The box set will feature a complete guide to London during the period, full-color maps, player hand-outs, adventures, a Keeper’s Guide, and more.

During the run of the Kickstarter, there’s a transmedia game underway as well — Investigator Neve Selcibuc is recovering from some recent unpleasantness by getting some much needed relaxation in London, and she’ll be sending out postcards apprising us of her progress, and asking for our advice on where to go and what to do. The first of the postcards has already been sent, and appears above (Click for a full-sized version). Answer her by emailing neveselcibuc@gmail.com. You can also follow her progress via Twitter:


So come along for the ride — it should be very, very interesting… and check out the London boxed set Kickstarter when it goes live.
 
 

Open or Die

OpenNetworkToday, Margaret Weis Products revealed the language for their Cortex Plus license, which comes in two varieties: one for fans, and one for publishers. This is the end result of MWP’s Kickstarter of the Cortex Plus Hacker’s Guide — a stretch goal of which was described in this update as “an open license for Cortex Plus.” The only problem, however, is that this license isn’t open at all.

In practice, aside from some very odd language (including a requirement that publishers make their product available via DriveThruRPG, a separate company that is not connected to MWP in any way), the license actually more closely resembles the Savage Worlds license from Pinnacle Entertainment Group. (And, to be fair, in earlier updates, MWP said that the license would be similar to Savage Worlds — they only later used the “open” term.)

Monte Cook was one of the designers of 3rd edition D&D (the game which launched the Open Game License), and, once he left Wizards of the Cost, he founded Malhavoc Press which benefitted immensely from the Open Game License. In the past month, he released the licensing terms for his new work, Numenara, which has been the subject of criticism and backlash for, among other things, not being a true Open License.

It honestly stuns me that there are publishers who still have not learned the lesson of D&D 4th Edition. The title of this post may put it a bit dramatically, but the simple fact is this: If your system is not truly Open, you are dooming your game to a niche audience, and willingly giving up market share to systems that ARE open.

4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons wasn’t open — and ended up conceding their position at the top of the tabletop hobby games market to Pathfinder — ironically just a re-titled and tinkered-with version of the previous edition of D&D, which WAS open.

And yet, publishers still cling to the old ideas of their IP and their Brand, ignoring the lessons of the past decade.

Since 2000, a system paired with an open-use license, whether the familiar OGL or more widely-applicable licenses like Creative Commons, has become an expected standard for a majority of gamers — it’s driven the success of FATE, Pathfinder, the entire Old-School Renaissance, etc.

It’s a fairly simple formula:

Open System
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More material released (both fan and professional)
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Wider network for your system
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Larger market share.

At this point, there’s been 13 years for people to see this, and to see the fruits of this model doing great things for designers and companies that have taken advantage of it. But there’s still resistance, even in the face of evidence.

Publishers need to become comfortable with the idea that their systems are not their true IP — the expressions of their systems, through their game settings, are where that concentration should lie. The system itself should be viewed as part of your branding — and the more people you can get hawking your brand, the better your position in the market.

At this point, doing things the old way is telling gamers that you’re fine with a smaller audience. Which tells them that they’re not going to find it as easy to find other people to play with, if they use your system. I’m not sure why any publisher would choose to send that message.
 
 

When Nazis Get Rapey

Back from GenCon — and had a relatively good time. It’s always nice to meet the folks who enjoy your work, and GenCon also serves as a time to socialize with colleagues and friends whom we only see a couple of times a year if we’re lucky. On the professional front, several things came together which have me very excited, and I am finally now an Ennie-Award-winning game designer, having a 1/12th share of the one given to DOCTOR WHO: ADVENTURES IN TIME AND SPACE (11th Doctor Edition) for “Best Family Game.”

But this post isn’t about the good stuff. It’s about the very bad.

Belle and Blade (no, I’m not going to link to their site. I won’t give them the traffic.) is a fairly notorious vendor at GenCon. Officially, they focus on “military interest DVDs” — the booth is filled with copies of The Longest Day, Midway, Saving Private Ryan, The Four Feathers, Zulu, that kind of thing. Of course, if you look a bit closer, you’ll also find such gems as Ilsa, She-Devil of the SS, Red Nights of the Gestapo and Stalag Bitch. The Nazi fetishism continues on the inside of the booth, where you can find Triumph of the Will and T-Shirts emblazoned with each of the SS Division insignias, “Afrika Korps World Tour”, and other such gems. They’ve been an embarrassment to the industry for the years they’ve been exhibiting, but, depressingly, it seems a not-insigifiant part of the gamer audience actually gets into that kind of shit.

So I was not surprised when Valerie Laproye of French games publisher 7ieme Cercle was upset on Thursday night, telling me of the Nazi crap she’d seen in the dealer’s hall.

Then she mentioned the panties.

Wait, what?

I was used to the Nazi-fetish bullshit carried by Belle & Blade, so I was surprised when Valerie listed women’s underwear in the litany of the booth’s product — She said they were carrying black underwear, hung at child-height on the outside of the booth, emblazoned with slogans like “I COULD USE A LITTLE SEXUAL HARASSMENT.” She was quite upset by this — and I was as well. I had thought that admiration of the Nazis was as low as this exhibitor could go. I was wrong.

The next morning, I swung by their booth (1622) before the hall opened, and snapped a couple of pictures:

sexualharassment

In this shot, you can see the “sexual harassment” panties, above a pair that reads “you must be at least this long to ride” (with a picture of a ruler), and another that says “this is why I get my way.” The next shot I took, though, is where things got even worse:

getmedrunk

There, in the center, you see a pair emblazoned with the slogan “Get me drunk …and we’ll see.”

Let that one sink in a bit.

I headed over to security, where I showed the pictures to a friend I have on the staff, who was as pissed off as I was. He promised to escalate it further up the chain.

After that, I heard nothing more — things got very busy for me, and I was unable to head back to the other side of the hall to check up on things. On Twitter, more people started expressing shock and outrage. I mentioned it to several colleagues at the show as well. I know that many of these people filed complaints of their own with GenCon.

On Sunday, I heard several reports from friends that the panties were gone — but I’ve also heard via people on Twitter that they’d been only moved inside the booth, to share shelf space with the Nazi fetish bullshit. So far, there has been no official statement of any kind made by GenCon regarding this issue.

GenCon has vendors guidelines, and a clear policy governing harassment, and women’s panties emblazoned with encouragements of harassment and date-rape would seem to be clear violations of these policies. The silence, especially given that complaints began as early as Friday morning, is concerning.

The message that these products, and any action taken (or untaken) regarding them, sends about our industry is a fairly loud one. I will be keeping my ear to the ground for any news regarding this issue, and will pass along anything I discover. I would request that anyone with any further information please add it to the comments below — and also please send your concerns along to GenCon, letting them know how you feel about this vendor and their products.