Shadow World Shizzle
Rant about ‘A Certain Young Adult Fantasy Author’.
Alternate origins for Chav powerz.
Tough Justice Tosh
Character Concept Competition
LARP Information
Play by Post Rules
Courtesans Crap
Actual Play
More Actual Play
Origins
Admirers
Kiddywinks
Investments
Advanced Rules
Frothington Road
I have been massively surprised by the success of our 4th Edition product Sickness in Springdale by the incomparable Tracy Hurley. My earlier 4e product Living Constructs didn’t do remotely as well and the comparison between the two and what I’ve seen elsewhere in the, frankly small and unsuccessful third party 4e market suggests to me that it’s a very different market and target audience to 3.5/Pathfinder. This is surprising, because you would think it would be the same people, the same audience essentially and that they would want the same thing.
The GSL is, clearly, bollocks. It’s far too restrictive and guts the capability of third party publishers to produce broader product or riff off the 4e system. On the other hand it apparently applies to all D&D4e derived games, so we’re free to do stuff for Gamma World as well, something I fully intend to do. DDI, along with the relative tightness of control over 4e means that creating things like new character classes, feats, powers etc is pretty much a lost cause, something that was the meat and potatoes of 3.x 3PP.
When it comes to 4e product is seems cheap and simple is the way to go if you want to produce anything with any crunch. That pretty much limits you to monsters and adventures. If you’re after fluff you could create game worlds but there’s little point producing a lot of crunch to go with it. However, if you do something cheap, accessible and useful, it seems that you’re OK, even do pretty well.
Certainly it’s changed my mind about doing a little more with 4e, more 6-Pack adventures, some monster guides and some shiny things for Gamma World – though possibly not face-raping mecha gibbons due to the rules about adult content…
Postmortem Studios 