What Should Come Next for White Box?

[Mach Front]

For a game to thrive it has to have supplements. So when someone looks up White Box on RPG now it's good for them to see adventures, setting and monster books.

Good point. Into The Unknown (or something in that vein) it is.

[geordie racer]

So I'm curious why do you think things should go in the zine?

I think a setting book is a harder sell to WB/DD fans as they are more likely to homebrew setting material. Also, if the setting material in the zine proves popular (you poll after each issue) then you can pull it together into a book. Saying that, I do agree that someone looking up WB casually may be put off if there is no support material in place. Others prefer the 'one book is all I need' approach - wonder how many copies of Iron Falcon sell compared to Basic Fantasy Roleplay though.

I suppose a bigger reason to do discrete books is that the majority of OSR customers are just readers and collectors rather than active gamers. They'll like the idea of a WB monster book*, a spellbook that looks like a spellbook, a setting book with lush maps, a class compendium, handmade zines, BOXSETS. The people who will buy books for their different covers. Matt Finch knew the truth of this. Early on in S&W I remember him writing that the good thing about OSR products was that you only had to buy one rulebook compared to D&Ds 3 tomes to play the game. I doubt many of FGGs 'Complete' customers just have the rulebook.

* after the S&W Monster book came out, there was brief talk of a WB version and we kinda laughed at the thought of people wanting to buy a stripped down version of the same book. Why would they ? How wrong were we. It would've sold.

[The Wanderer]

I get asked about a White Box monster book the most. A Hex crawl is the second most thing I get asked about and following that is an intro/level 1 adventure.

The intro adventure is being worked on now.

I have the text document for the S&W monster book. I could go through it and change it all to WB.

I'm not worried about selling a setting to old school folks. Cause I could care less about the money. I'm not a writer. I'm a gamer. I want to produce stuff that other gamers want. Not produce something that I think will sell well. Which is why I ask these questions. Tell me what you want next and if enough people say it, I'll try to do it.

I'm just not sure about putting it into a zine. If a zine was all I did then I would have no problem with that, but I'm also trying to grow the fan base for White Box. It sat dormant for too many years, until James Spahn came along. Besides I kind of view the zine as something I will always do in conjunction with a few WB products. But hey, I'm still open to the idea, I just need further convincing

[geordie racer]

Then I'd go with the Hexcrawl Sandbox as it's own book. You can always expand it via the zine.

[foxroe]

When i said "campaign setting" above, I was envisioning something like Geoffrey McKinney's Carcosa (original print) or Robert Conley's Blackmarsh. However, that's probably too ambitious, and as mentioned, probably not as appealing to folks familiar with the "roll your own" mentality of WB.

I think the hexcrawl is probably the best idea. There isn't much in the rules covering wilderness adventure, so it would make for a nice "supplement" if it included tips and rule suggestions for said activities. I'd keep it small: enough hexes to fill a digest sized map, about 6 miles per hex, a town/city to serve as home base for the PC's, terse but evocative hex and geography descriptions, and an example of one hex "zoomed in". Keep it around 32 pages. I would put a dungeon or two on the map as well, but not provide any maps/keys (encourage the readers to brew their own).

Also, if it's kept generic enough, it can be plopped into just about anyone's personal campaign setting: no named NPC's, no names for the city/town, geographical features are referred to as "the Mountains" and "the Sea" and not "Snivblarny Range" and "Evercrest Bay", etc.

[Mach Front]

As well as further echoing the sentiments recently expressed, I'll go ahead and be brutally honest (with myself) that I'd LOVE a WB:FMAG 'monster book'. Further, I'd rather an 'odd' monster book. More Fiend Folio and far less Monster Manual. Ya dig?
Heck, to be quite frank I'd love to see the whole of the FF White Box-ifed.

But, yes, setting/hex crawl. Succinct. Simple. Short and to the point. Flavor country.
I strongly recommend looking at the text of a game like Pits & Perils if you want to see short and simple descriptions of this or that bursting at the seams with flavor.

[The Wanderer]

Okay, let's do the hex setting next. New monsters and small adventures can be placed in it. If anybody wants to contribute content then you can contact me with the heading Hex Crawl. It will be large enough to add what I have already and anything that you folks send plus have empty areas to add things later.

If you submit something keep it short and sweet. I guess I'll check out Pits & Perils. Oh and if you submit something you must be okay with it becoming open content. Imagine making the hex world all open content like Blackmarsh. I can give you a free PDF and at cost POD. I imagine the final price will be similar to the Wizards Scroll.

[foxroe]

Do you/we have a general theme in mind for the hexcrawl? Will it include all terrain types, or just two or three? Standard WB races and monsters? Will you accept wilderness "rules" or tables of random things (weather, hazards/set-backs, etc.)?

I like Mach Front's idea of the FF-inspired monster book, too. Maybe folks can contribute examples to the Wizard's Scroll, then after there are a bunch, a book could be put together down the road?

[The Wanderer]

I have two ideas. One is big, the other is small. The big one would have all terrain and be inspired by Wayne Rossi's OD&D setting PDF. The smaller one would be way smaller, like maybe 60 x 60 miles. I think the big one would work better with lots of contributors. But I doubt we could get enough. So I think doing the smaller one would work better. It could be an intro sandbox.

[The Wanderer]

I don't own the fiend folio so I need to buy it. I think also adding some needed monsters from the S&W monster book would be a good idea. So a combination approach would work best for this I think. But we can table this one for now. We can come back to it after the hex crawl is finished.