Dead Horse-March Edition
1d4 Reasons to Run from the Goblins: 1-They smell like Kelvis' Father's Meatloaf 2-Their loincloths are made of human faces 3-They want to play Magic: The Gathering 4-There's 100 of them
It’s mid-March, and I’m way ahead of schedule on all of my work. That’s a lie. I’m super behind.
GUILD: Updates
I wanna talk first about GUILD, and the process of fulfillment as we’re closing in here on the final stretch!
GUILD is in the last inches of proofing after layout! I’m hoping to have it back this or next week, and prepare to buy the proof copies for physical checks, before making our print orders! Expect a digital release of the core rules early May, and that will be followed by the Adventure book and other items behind. The physical fulfillment timeline has been pushed back quite a bit unfortunately, but I’m hoping to have the books in house by the end of May (fingers crossed).
Our adventure book is shaping up really well! We hit a little snag with some deadline stuff, and ended up losing one of the adventures, but Kristen and I are filling that space to ensure we still provide the 6 promised adventures in the book. However, I don’t expect that to take much longer than this week to be ready for edits!
The Dead Horse: Magazine!
This newsletter is called the Dead Horse as per my last entry, however we also decided to put out a submission based magazine with the same title! Each issue will have entries from all sorts of folks, and ranging from actual game-able content like tables or stat blocks, to short fiction entries, essays, photos and art! Submissions are open RIGHT NOW - Guidelines are provided in that link.
Ad space for the Dead Horse is also available! If you’re interested in purchasing an ad spot in the magazine, email me with the Subject Line: DH Ad.
Can’t wait for this—it’s already got some absolute bangers and we’re interviewing Nick from Goblin Archives about Liminal Horror! See you then!
There’s a [1d6] in my bag
Copper Ring coated in grey slime—eerily cold to the touch
A squirming mass of worms. One of them is green.
A husked corn, shimmering yellow, and crisp.
A stag beetle playing a sullen tune on a tiny viola.
12 silver pieces, each with an intentional nick carved in the same place.
A now out of print edition of Smelan’s Nose Encyclopædia for Rynoenthusiasts.
Treating RPG work as Business
I briefly mentioned this on Twitter the other day, and now I’ve finally got the time to sit down and vomit my thoughts on this topic out.
A lot, if not most, of the people I have encountered in the RPG-Sphere treat their work as just a secondary, or passive means of income. Small $ here and there from the occasional itch sale. It’s nice, it’s fun, it’s harmless.
I have nothing to say to those folks. If you enjoy the work you do, and just publish things as a means for some extra spending money—Kudos. You keep doing that.
Get me involved though, or crowdfund a project, or hire editors/layout artists/illustrators and more, and we’re starting to move away from “a little expendable income” - to “business transactions.” And my god do I not see people treat it that way.
To be clear—fuck anyone who tries to shame a person for making a dime—but if you’re taking from others with a promise of a return of service, and don’t provide that service…well I’m gonna say fuck you too.
Especially when its a repeat offender.
There are a few of them out there. I won’t name names because I am not interested in having vitriol and hate-messages thrown at me. But there’s enough people who do this that I’m not targeting an individual with this diatribe.
Here’s the thing that bothers me the most: If you’re hard out for money to pay your bills, and you just can’t make it, doing the RPG work—there’s two options. Figure out a secondary way to supplement your money, or fucking ask for the money.
I’m extremely tired of seeing people say “I couldn’t fulfill X because I had to use the money to pay my car insurance.” How is that your customer’s problem (remember, we moved on to business and away from personal side money here). Your customer is not responsible for your house.
When you take money from your customer, and you spend that money elsewhere, and no longer have the ability to fulfill the service for which you were paid—you have stolen money.
But again I say: fucking ask for money. It’s hard to do, sure, but y’know what’s worse? Being viewed as a scam artist.
When you enter a contract with someone, you are indebted to them what you’ve promised. Unless both parties mutually agree that the contract should be void, than backing out of it for your own benefit is pretty shitty.
This is easy to deal with when it’s just two people though. One person can’t fulfill their end, and the other requests repayment, or cancellation of funds etc. EZPZ.
But when you’re running a crowdfund with 700 backers…you can’t have that conversation with them. And they aren’t responsible for that conversation.
I’m rambling cause this shit pisses me off so I’ll end here. Hope that makes sense even a little. Take this all with a grain of salt, there’s of course exceptions to my rules. Obviously. But speaking from a broad perspective, I don’t think what I’ve said is too groundbreaking—and seriously, your single subjective anecdote isn’t going to change my mind on a mostly objective position.
(Of course, I’m sure Twitter will have a hay-day")
Here’s a little table at the end for fun.
[1d4] Reasons to cancel or drag out your contractual obligations
You died.
Your partner in contract has mutually agreed it’s okay.
You died.
The person you signed a contract with is actually trying to fuck you out of money first.