Upcoming BRP? Stretched too thin?

[Chaot]

I know Deadworld is coming from Seraphim Guard, what about the other titles? Rome, Interplanetary, Fractured Hopes, Mythic Island, Chaos & Catacombs, are they all to be published directly through Chaosium? Can Chaosium handle that publishing load?

Does anyone have any insight into this? Am I being overly worried?

[Shaira]

My gut feeling is that you're being overly worried.

Chaosium seem to manage a pretty decent publishing schedule with CoC, plus they have the option of publishing monographs on certain products, which mitigates their risk and (presumably) time to market. I'm not sure whether all the announced products are going to be full-colour, monograph, or what, but personally I'm cheered that Chaosium are showing such an obvious will to support their new product. The one thing I think that is clear is that BRP will live or die based upon the support material - sourcebooks, settings, and scenarios - that comes out immediately after the rulesbook release. You can't afford not to be planning for that.

Remember too that Chaosium haven't committed to releasing all these products all at once on the same day or anything - it's their production pipeline, and they'll doubtless see the light of day "when they're good and ready", or something like.

Having said all that, I'm hoping we'll see an increased amount of fan activity and fan publications following the rules release - the RPG market these days seems always hungry for regular activity and updates to generate and maintain interest levels, so fanzines, websites, and so on would be a great way to keep the buzz going between releases.

Cheers,

Sarah

[PK Games]

Its only going to affect them if no one buys them. I always make it a point to buy as many books that support a game system I like as possible. Especially if its not 3E.

So I own most of WFRP books, all Dark Heresy (even ordered the UK only releases) and so forth.

Its a bit expensive at times, but Id rather shill out money here and there to help keep something I like afloat then to sit back and watch a system die and 3E lord over the world in the guise of 4E.

So Deadworld may not be my exact cup of tea or anything, but I will fork over the cash to support the concept of BRP and Im sure I will find several things in the book that I can use.

However, I tend to not buy adventures.

[Triff]

Originally Posted by Shaira

I'm not sure whether all the announced products are going to be full-colour, monograph, or what, but personally I'm cheered that Chaosium are showing such an obvious will to support their new product.

I hope we avoid seeing to many of their monographs, unless they start to publish them through Lulu or something. They're cheaply made, not even a color cover, and the shipping makes them unavailable to the European market.

SGL.

[Jason Durall]

Originally Posted by Triff

I hope we avoid seeing to many of their monographs, unless they start to publish them through Lulu or something. They're cheaply made, not even a color cover, and the shipping makes them unavailable to the European market.

SGL.

Unless I'm mistaken, Chaosium have switched using a service like Lulu for their monographs. The old back stock are still the prior format, but the newer ones have been at the same quality (printing-wise) as the EZ book.

[Shaira]

Originally Posted by Jason Durall

Unless I'm mistaken, Chaosium have switched using a service like Lulu for their monographs. The old back stock are still the prior format, but the newer ones have been at the same quality (printing-wise) as the EZ book.

That's actually really good news. All we need now is some kind of European outlet - as Triff says, the shipping from the States is a killer. I wanted to order Dreamlands last week in the April sale - appx $20 for the book, $25 dollars for the shipping.

[remm]

I bought the "for President 08" monograph (it's considered a monograph, right ?), and the printing is good quality (color cover, character and papaer quality actually better than the usual Chaosium products, good binding; the text layout inside is not so professional however, but it's not the fault of the printer). Is this representative of this new monograph process quality ?

[Jason Durall]

Originally Posted by Chaot

I know Deadworld is coming from Seraphim Guard, what about the other titles? Rome, Interplanetary, Fractured Hopes, Mythic Island, Chaos & Catacombs, are they all to be published directly through Chaosium? Can Chaosium handle that publishing load?

Does anyone have any insight into this? Am I being overly worried?

Out of everyone on the forum here, I may have the best insight into the situation, so I'll volunteer my opinions. (Though of course, I'm just a freelancer for Chaosium, and am not any sort of official representative.)

Deadworld is of course being handled by someone else, at little effort to anyone from Chaosium other than some contract stuff.

The other five books you mention are all to be published by Chaosium, true.

I'm not sure if Mystic Island (or is it Iceland?) is a monograph or an actual publication. If it's a mono, it's really only Chaosium's job to print and distribute it.

There are a few other works also in process, but haven't been announced.

Unfortunately, the reality of a freelancer-driven publication schedule is that it's a freelancer-driven publication schedule.

(No offense intended to any freelancers, by the way.)

That means that these books will only be published when they're turned in. Many times in this industry, books are begun and never finished. Freelancers don't always come through with books because of life issues, etc. Sometimes the effort of completing a huge manuscript is just too much. Sometimes manuscripts are abandoned, and depending on what the project is, they need to be passed over to another writer. Sometimes (like with BRP) they're late. Sometimes they're turned in and need massive revisions. Sometimes manuscripts arrive in an unpublishable format and the projects are just killed.

If and when a manuscript does arrive, and is publishable, there's another long process of editing and layout.

Then there's interior and cover art, which basically means that you've got all of the above problems, but with a new freelancer.

So having four or five, or even 10 projects "in development" at the same time doesn't really mean that all of them will create this huge bottleneck at once and overwhelm a smaller publisher.

The reality is that if everything goes according to ideal plans, these listed publications will be coming out over the next year to year and a half, giving plenty of time for production.

Having a slate of support products for BRP covering a variety of genres, with fan buzz, is frankly an ideal situation for Chaosium. It allows them to see what sourcebooks sink or swim, what the market is interested in, and allows the BRP line to grow and be seen as a viable force in the RPG market.

[PK Games]

Hopefully they will release a few generic sourcebooks that are not campaign specific to pad the coffers.

[Trifletraxor]

Originally Posted by Jason Durall

Unless I'm mistaken, Chaosium have switched using a service like Lulu for their monographs. The old back stock are still the prior format, but the newer ones have been at the same quality (printing-wise) as the EZ book.

Extremely good to hear!

SGL.