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TristramEvans

TristramEvans

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OK, I'm, at least temporarily, gonna step into the shoes of that Jim Swo-oter to drag this project along past the inertia of everyone kinda waiting for everyone else.

We have many editors, which is good.

Next we need a target date for first issue and a submission deadline (with formatting standards I guess)

FORMATTING
I'm going to suggest 11 pt, standardized font that Endless can switch to whatever fonts he needs during Layout (so any common readable font like Times New Roman, Arial, Garamond). Double spaced (this can be adjusted as needed to suit the font chosen for the zine, but it will make submissions easy to read and edit.

USE OF IMAGES OR TRADEMARKS
In articles these need proper citation to APA standards as per Fair Use or public domain/cc
apastyle.apa.org

Style and Grammar Guidelines

APA Style guidelines encourage writers to fully disclose essential information and allow readers to dispense with minor distractions, such as inconsistencies or omissions in punctuation, capitalization, reference citations, and presentation of statistics.
apastyle.apa.org apastyle.apa.org
For adventures, Fair Use doesn't apply, so no trademarked elements and art must be pd, licensed, or owned by the author*

To that end I put forth the following guideline for adventures, as IP concerns were raised before:

If someone wants to do an adventure for a specific gameline, present it as a generic adventure for that genre (so instead of "Lawnmower Man 3: A Shadowrun Adventure" just "A Cyberpunk Adventure", etc). If any cc/copylefted elements are used the author is responsible for attaching the relevant license to their submission.

All images submitted should be in jpg format with correct dimensions and at least 300 DPI.

TARGET DATE
Put this up for a vote, but I think March is feasible, if we make submission deadlines April 1st (one month to submit, one month for editing, revisions and layout).
(plus April Fool's Day as the submission deadline seems very Pub-ish)
 
TristramEvans said:
OK, I'm, at least temporarily, gonna step into the shoes of that Jim Swo-oter to drag this project along past the inertia of everyone kinda waiting for everyone else.
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I had to google who that was. Previous conversations are now making more sense.

TristramEvans said:
TARGET DATE
Put this up for a vote, but I think March is feasible, if we make submission deadlines April 1st (one month to submit, one month for editing, revisions and layout).
(plus April Fool's Day as the submission deadline seems very Pub-ish)
Click to expand...
I think this is a good start. The sight of a horizon is good in any journey, even if it shifts occasionally. I can certainly work to those timescales.

I know an open call was previously mentioned. It might be a good idea to get that out there and ask folks to put their name down along with an idea of what kind of content they might be willing to provide. Just to get an idea of what to expect in advance. A sourcebook project I worked on years ago could have ended up with hundreds of taverns in it because no one knew what other folks were thinking of contributing.
 
Fenris-77 said:
I think the March date is doable. A style guide post that people can reference might be good too. Just the basics of course, but if it's in its own pinned thread it'll be easy to access.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's a good idea. I'll wait for @Endless to chime in regarding any of the layout proposals I made, and in the meantime can gather specific APA quotes that apply.
 
Someone with better chops than me should chime in about what kind of image file guidelines we want. I would say that if a submission that has both words and pictures then those should be submitted separately.
 
300 dpi jpg is what I use for publishing. Easily transferred, compatible, and zipped. bmp and svc causes problems between programs I've found. 300 dpi is minimum resolution needed for printing.
 
The Gauntlet? Is that the name you like?
 
Endless Flight said:
The Gauntlet? Is that the name you like?
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No, Gauntlet is the RPG publishing company that doesTrophy and The Between. I've submitted a bunch of stuff to them in the past and remembered the submission standard.
 
Fenris-77 said:
No, Gauntlet is the RPG publishing company that doesTrophy and The Between. I've submitted a bunch of stuff to them in the past and remembered the submission standard.
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Ahhh!
 
Yeah, I suspect .doc is the best option. Endless is on the layout end so it's really whatever he can work with.
 
Do we have a theme for the first issue? What tone are we going for?

Are items previously published on personal blogs acceptable?
 
spittingimage said:
Do we have a theme for the first issue? What tone are we going for?

Are items previously published on personal blogs acceptable?
Click to expand...

the theme of the first issue is just "git r done". Or Spring, since that's hopefully when it comes out.

I don;t see any reason stuff from personal blogs couldn't be repurposed, though they should state "previously published @" in the credits
 
Lofgeornost said:
View attachment 77080

Just kidding (mainly). I'm not likely to submit anything much anyway, so my burning hatred for APA style is beside the point.
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APA is the format that shall not be named. I hates it my precious, I hates it. Parenthetical citations can kiss my ass. I'm a dyed in the wool MLA man.
 
I don't actually think we need to go as far as a style guide for this project. Even editorials aren't being written to academic standards, so whatever.
 
The standard is for formatting, and if we are going to have ANY citations, yes, they need to follow a standard.

I suggest MLA since APA is apparently contentious
 
I don't actually care, and APA is the one that the most people are familiar with. I'd probably recommend that despite my personal distaste.
 
TristramEvans said:
To that end I put forth the following guideline for adventures, as IP concerns were raised before:

If someone wants to do an adventure for a specific gameline, present it as a generic adventure for that genre (so instead of "Lawnmower Man 3: A Shadowrun Adventure" just "A Cyberpunk Adventure", etc). If any cc/copylefted elements are used the author is responsible for attaching the relevant license to their submission.
Click to expand...
Does this mean that adventures should not include stat blocks, etc., as these tend to be specific to a given game? Or can one get around this by using phrases like 'for D100 systems' or something similar?
 
Lofgeornost said:
Does this mean that adventures should not include stat blocks, etc., as these tend to be specific to a given game? Or can one get around this by using phrases like 'for D100 systems' or something similar?
Click to expand...

statblocks simply have to be formatted differently, unless the author is using a license. You are allowed by law to say that it is "compatible with (system x)" unless you use the OGL.
 
TristramEvans said:
If someone wants to do an adventure for a specific gameline, present it as a generic adventure for that genre (so instead of "Lawnmower Man 3: A Shadowrun Adventure" just "A Cyberpunk Adventure", etc). If any cc/copylefted elements are used the author is responsible for attaching the relevant license to their submission.
Click to expand...

Might be worth contacting some of the smaller retro-clone publishers to see if they would have any objection mentioning them by name. Some, like Cepheus Engine and Basic Fantasy, might welcome any additional exposure to their products.
 
@endless - I'm going to do a WHFRP-style mutation table for OSR play. What would be the best way to format that (for your purposes)? Basically it's going be a d66 table with perhaps a few sub tables.
 
Fenris-77 said:
@endless - I'm going to do a WHFRP-style mutation table for OSR play. What would be the best way to format that (for your purposes)? Basically it's going be a d66 table with perhaps a few sub tables.
Click to expand...
I once had the idea of making a d666 table for mutations, but didn't follow through.
 
Fenris-77 said:
@endless - I'm going to do a WHFRP-style mutation table for OSR play. What would be the best way to format that (for your purposes)? Basically it's going be a d66 table with perhaps a few sub tables.
Click to expand...
I was wondering something similar; I have a possible submission that would involve 2 tables: 10 x10 and 6 x10.
 
Bizarre idea for a recurring feature in the 'zine: an advice column written by 'Maggie McZineface'. Sort of like 'Dear Abby' if you remember that far back.

Actually, since a fair number of threads on the Pub tend to take that format anyway--somebody notes a problem and asks for advice--the column could just be a kind of distillation of the wisdom presented there.

Now just to find somebody to write it.
 
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Lofgeornost said:
Bizarre idea for a recurring feature in the 'zine: an advice column written by 'Maggie McZineface'. Sort of like 'Dear Abby' if you remember that far back.

Actually, since a fair number of threads on the Pub tend to take that format anyway--somebody notes a problem and asks for advice--the column could just be a kind of distillation of the wisdom presented there.

Now just to find somebody to write it.
Click to expand...

Who would pay for what they can get free on the forum?
 
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