Good morning. It's June 1st and the contest is officially over. No entries, which should come as a shock to no one since I didn't promote it to the general public. There's nothing left to be said about that; readers can disparage me as they please.
The greater point is that I have $1,050, which I'm still perfectly desirous to give away. I can even kick the total up a little higher. I'm looking for ideas. I have a few of my own, which I'll list:
Run a lottery. Limit it to regular users. I have no idea how I'd pick the winner.
Give a rebate to my Patreon supporters. Spread the money around.
Pay editors for my wiki. Support on the wiki has been there, but not exactly in a way that I really need. This could be a motivator for one or two contributors over a short time. Not sure how I'd scale the work.
Use the money to buy air fare to a place in Canada, the United States or Europe. Meet a Patreon supporter. Again, not sure how I'd pick the winner, but total support on Patreon might be a measure. Depending on the destination, it may be possible to meet more than one supporter.
Buy a designer's module and publish it. I have the means to lay out and publish items for free, so I could use the money to promote other designers and artists that way, giving them an up front fee and splitting publication sales.
Any other ideas?
It's your money, do as you like. Any of these ideas seem worthy. Upgrade your computer. Upgrade your daughter's computer. No wrong answers here.
ReplyDeleteI'm disappointed the contest didn't generate any entries, as several readers here have thoughts worth expressing imho. Would it have revolutionized the discussion? No, probably not. But absolutely it would have been worth watching.
I'd be interested to even see what kind of module you'd publish. I always thought if anything the Harn stuff on Lythia.com might be some minor value to you, but I'd be hard pressed to imagine you ever wanted to support something like Anomalous Subsurface Environment. And there's a lot more of the latter than the former.
Yes, perhaps on the module front, Pandred, but I'd look at the practice of funding other people's work as a business expense, with perhaps a tiny sum of money made for others who can't figure out how to publish their own work or don't have a platform to yell from.
ReplyDeleteAs far as it being "my money," yes of course it is. And in this case, I'm looking for a good way to give to someone else. I don't pretend to have every possible idea in the world, so I'm asking others for their ideas. I'm not entirely happy with the ones I've thought of.
I understand you are committed to giving the money away to others, but I feel that, whatever method you choose, it should somehow contribute to your game design. AFAIK, the sum of $1050 came from Patreon support, and they (we) paid so as to see you more comfortably supported while working on your game. [If I'm wrong about the source of the $1050, then I'm wrong and I'll change my position.]
ReplyDeleteSo, "paying wiki editors" is the only thing on the list you've made that seems right to me. One good use for such labor could be a final transfer of pages from the old "tao-dndwiki" blogspot page, to get all your content under one website (even if it's outdated; editors could of course mark with a "From Old Wiki" category.)
Have you considered liquor and blow?
ReplyDeleteI actually am quite disappointed, where's my video narrated by Morgan Freeman and with a backdrop of a real castle?
Talk about an easy win lost.
Lottery sounds like legal overhead. Module could be closer to the original purpose?
What if the meetup was for a fireside talk about what is an adventure and so on? I mean, it would be more like work, but might be interesting. I guess you'd probably write about it if you had a good conversation anyhow.
Maybe I'm too one track mind, and just a meetup for fun could be enough.
If there's a cluster of folks you could even do a meeting if a bunch at some location.
Maxwell,
ReplyDeleteThe money originally came from the Kickstarter, but in the last few months that's drifted out of existence and effectively the money I'm using now is a tax refund. I get what you're saying about the sum coming from Patreon support, but as a writer with a computer, there's only so much power I need to put words together. I recently did replace my computer, so that at present I'm using two - and old one and a new one, the new with a 4-gig ram and plenty of guts. But ... I still mostly work on my own computer, since I prefer windows 7 to windows 11 (the new computer's operating system). They're connected so that I can go back and forth at will.
Let's say, for the moment, that I pay wiki editors. Yes, there would be a benefit in getting the old wiki's stuff on the new. BUT, when people rushed about doing that in early 2020, they slapped the content over without editing, inventing links I didn't want, not adding the links I did want and on the whole, creating an unholy mess of half-done out of date pages on the new wiki. I've been slowly winnowing the bad work out and updating it, but it's a long onerous task and I get run-down. The last thing I want is another four hundred unedited pages being dumped on the new wiki. At least, slowly bringing them across from the old to the new, I'm assured that the old pages are fixed as they're shifted over.
The sort of editing I'm searching for would be actual EDITING ... spelling, grammar, adding links, finding decent pictures to go on pages that have no pictures (which seems to require an eye for images, as I want to steal good artwork and not bad) and formatting material on each page according to a style-guide I've been building in my head.
The main question would be, what do I pay and how do I pay it? I can't track anyone's hours, I don't want to spend huge amounts of my time following up every page that's fixed and other forms of quality assurance ... and I don't want to pitch the money at someone whose going to count me a rube and walk off with it. Last thing I need is to be in the same position I am now and financially lighter.
Truth is, I wonder if any amount of money could get on top of the wiki I've planned. The work load is simply impossible. I go at it out of love.
Oddbit,
ReplyDeleteI have liquor and the wind blows, so I'm set.
It's still an issue of who gets met. I have people in Seattle, Chicago, Buffalo, New York, Louisiana, Omaha and Maine, Utrecht, Copenhagen, Madrid and Strasbourg whom I can firmly identify ... I'm not sure if any of those even imagine my meeting them someday, much less making a special journey just for that purpose. I suppose I could go and RUN a game. Never did get much out of running a one-off session, since real payoffs take time to build, but some things are just expected.
I have hopes of going to the Vancouver Fan Expo in Feb 2023, Toronto in July, Pan West, Pan East (they answered my email once to tell me to wait for further news but it's been a month), so I expect I'll be getting around anyway, if things go well. I'm counting on the first Expo to cost out of pocket and for the menu to sell well enough to fund other expos.
I concur on running. Probably better to have a chat over drinks or uno or something.
DeleteSilly suggestion: Buy two or three shelves of mainstream (and oldschool) D&D products to put on a shelf and have a picture taken of you standing (or sitting) in front of them. Instant D&D blogging reputation boost. Everyone knows that to be taken seriously, you need a photo of your immense collection.
ReplyDeleteSerious suggestion: use the money to go to a convention/expo you might not have visited, sell your books to more people. You say the first expo will be out of pocket and hope the menu sales will cover others, but perhaps there will be one that the sales figures won't quite cover? Spreading your books to more people is always good (in my opinion) and hitting another expo gives any nearby readers a chance to show up, if they are in the area. Or, if menu sales don't quite cover the cost of expos, use the money to shore up the losses to go to a few anyway.
Why not just get my picture taken in front of hookers and blow? Same value.
ReplyDeleteWhile I appreciate the sentiment of keeping the money in my pocket, I'm eager to encourage others to step outside their usual comfort zone and take part in the larger picture: that we're all working to become better DMs, not just me. I want to use what resources I have to help that. While not having money really, really sucks, I must tell all of you: as someone who has NOT had money, often, the value of money is not in self-aggrandisement. The value of money is in buying fertiliser and spreading it around, encouraging things to grow.
I'd like to do this. Suggestions towards this would help.
What about another contest? One close to the original idea of a video about how to design adventures for FRPGs, but written instead of video format. Seems like that would lower the entry bar without necessarily reducing the quality of the entries.
ReplyDeleteI must agree with Sterling. A written contest seems more likely to attract entrants than a video one. Everyone can write, at least on the functional level taught by primary education (hopefully); not everyone can do decent video editing. And it must be an order of magnitude more time to create video content than written content, even accounting for high quality of output in both media.
ReplyDeletePut it towards making your own video content? Once upon a time you wanted to interview some individuals about their own games/memorable experiences.
ReplyDeleteStarting an "Authentic Roleplay" channel with something like that sounds like an interesting and fresh approach.
Ugh. I was looking forward to seeing at least SOME entries. Jeez. People just turning down money! What is this world coming to? I would have submitted SOMEthing...if I hadn't already been fingered as a judge of the contest.
ReplyDeleteNo idea what to do with the prize money. Round trip flights to Seattle are going to cost you half that and $500 doesn't go very far in Sea-Town. I do like the idea of using the $$ to encourage folks to leave their comfort zone. Hmm...going to ponder this one...
I hear it from many reliable sources that Seattle is a good place to live without a home, so I don't think I'd need one.
ReplyDelete