I’m a bit surprised at the enthusiasm some people show when they are thinking about a gratis, community based megadungeon proposed as an alternative to Dungeon-A-Day. It’s weird, because there was nobody stopping anybody from doing it.
a gratis, community based megadungeon
Amityville Mike has been posting Stonehell piece by piece. Fight On has been publishing Calithena’s community effort *The Darkness Beneath*. Joseph Bloch has been publishing his Castle of the Mad Archmage. Tim Hartin has been publishing his unkeyed dungeon maps on Dragonfoot.
his unkeyed dungeon maps on Dragonfoot
All of this was going on way before Monte Cook decided to try and earn some money with it. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t try. He is probably not going to be stealing from anybody, after all. I think the reason why the efforts I listed above are not *community* based megadungeon efforts is that the job isn’t easy. There needs to be guidance, organization, efforts need to be made. If Cook manages to produce something slick, something cool, more power to him.
Ignoring the argument that we’ll be doing a gratis, community based megadungeon *because* Monte Cook is going to ask for money for a moment, I must say that I *like* the idea. I like Free Software, I like free licenses, I like to give readers *the freedom to read my work, use it, change it, and redistribute it*. Free Culture, ooh yeh! 👌 :D
Yes, *Free Culture is a great book*. Everybody should read it. And you can get it for free, too, if you can bear reading it on a screen. I was not. ;)
Back to the issue at hand, however.
I see people offering to do maps, write stuff, and so on. I also see people donating web space and web design services. That’s cool. Apparantly Cook’s announcement is galvanizing the community. And who doesn’t like the administration of electric shocks every now and then? 😈
the administration of electric shocks
Being the practical kind of guy, I prefer small incremental steps. In software engineering we call that rough consensus and running code. If I were in charge, I’d use my own Campaign Wiki site and use a wiki name like GarySentUs as suggested by Matthew Slepin.
rough consensus and running code
I’ve done it before, for my own take on the two page dungeon levels. You can start small – a map or two. There’s a low barrier to entry. There is no call for submissions, no sending in, no waiting, no secret editing – on a wiki, you add your idea, you edit a typo, save the page, and *BLAM!* instant publishing!! 😄
my own take on the two page dungeon levels
It’s great.
I’d propose the Campaign Wiki site because I know it. I wrote the software. I run the site. I use for [MyCampaigns all my campaigns]. If you take a look at the list of all wikis hosted, you’ll see that some of them are pretty big!
And one last benefit: There is no lock-in. It’s trivial to download all the wiki pages.
#RPG #Publishing #Old School
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I like the wiki idea, but... as an actually old old-schooler, I find the low-contrast brown on brown of the site hideous to look at. I suppose I could override it with Stylish, but that seems like a step too far. Is there any quick way for users or admins to reskin the site?
– Joshua 2009-03-06 20:45 UTC
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Sure. You can write your own CSS. I’ll add some instructions to the Advanced page.
– Alex Schroeder 2009-03-06 21:35 UTC