The Great CGL Rumors and Speculation Thread Options

[Tsuul]

I'm sorry to say this (because I know what monsters these things become), but the freelancers need to unionize just to get at least two things changed in the industry.
1) Prompt payment of services - Contracts need an additional layer penalizing late payments, possibly dipping into additional royalty percentages.
2) Independent verification of sales - Writers don't get paid for unaccounted sales. I don't know how the current system is set up, but it seems silly to rely on the word of the guy that going to pay out of his pocket.

If you guys can get those things done without a union, all the better!

[Ancient History]

We're freelancers. Work-for-hire agreements. No royalties. Only flat fees.

[the_dunner]

It is worth noting that not every game company works the same way. Some issue advances, and some contracts are based on royalties. However, keep in mind that most gaming freelancers tend to follow properties that interest them rather than financial motives.

It's also worth pointing out that there are a lot more people who want to write gaming materials than there are opportunities to write. Even if you've got a proven CV.

[Penta]

Agree with AH. Also, unionizing freelancers in any industry...has been tried. Repeatedly.

The AFL-CIO would love to know of a way to pull it off, because they have zero penetration in settings with freelancers and other independent contractors. (Outside of the theater and screen/film acting and the associated professions, which takes a story in itself to explain how that happened)

The reality is that, yes, there's a glut of writers/artists. especially with RPGs.

It is not an exaggeration to say "there are plenty out there". There are.

Hence, unionization would generally fail.

I say this as someone supportive of the unions. The reality is that they will never penetrate the creative enterprises.

[Aaron]

I say this as someone supportive of the unions. The reality is that they will never penetrate the creative enterprises.

With the possible exceptions of the National Writers' Union (UAW 1981) and the Writers' Guild of America, probably among others.

As to compensation agreements, it's true that there are a bunch of types. I took a consulting fee for the game I wrote for Frito-Lay's advertising agency (I forget the name), CGL gives me payment per word, and my contracts with Atlas include an advance and a royalty. For future work, anything might happen (although I've never been paid in chickens), as long as all parties agree.

[Bull]

Heck, of course you count ya old fart! ^^
*looks at your signatures last line*
And another one to go . .

I'm probably one of the longest involved freelancers, and have been for some time. THanks for forgetting about me, AH. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I've never been real prolific in my actual writing, but I started with doing conventions and writing tournament game stuff at the tail end of SR2, started playtesting early in SR3's development, and joined the freelancing team shortly thereafter.

Obviously, I'm sticking with the game and CGL for as long as they'll have me. I love the game too much, and getting paid has always been a secondary concern. A distant second, at that. But I certainly understand those who do walk away, and even agree with them.

I think maybe I have battered wife syndrome (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Bull

[Dwight]

I'm probably one of the longest involved freelancers, and have been for some time. THanks for forgetting about me, AH. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I didn't. Does that make you feel better?

[Bull]

I didn't. Does that make you feel better?

Surprisingly, yes (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

<grin>

[Saint Sithney]

We're freelancers. Work-for-hire agreements. No royalties. Only flat fees.

Why do I imagine these lines delivered by agent Friday of Dragnet...

[Dixie Flatline]

I am sick and tired of that meme. I was sick and tired of that meme five years ago. Variable Target Numbers are dead, because they do not behave as advertised. White Wolf went static target numbers too, and that is not why they collapsed financially and ended up getting purchased in a bankruptcy fire sale by the division of CCP run by Ryan Dancey (the man who had orchestrated their collapsing market share starting in 1998 or so while working for WotC). They collapsed because in the face of a deliberate and coordinated attack on the shelf space and market share by OGL 3e D&D they decided to try to get "new fans" by making a whole new World of Darkness that no one liked.

Oh hell I'd love to discuss this more.

White Wolf shot itself in the foot with a bunch of bullsh*t during the ramp-up to nWOD. They told us it'd be cheaper, when it was more expensive than anything previously (by more than double at initial release. 30 for the blue book and 40 for the core vamp book = 70 bucks to play vampire. It cost 30 to buy the big green book a few months earlier). They said the two books were necessary to give us even *more* setting-specific material, but when you go through each of the core books, they all read the same as oWOD, just with the dice mechanics stripped (as well as any real setting development). They told us they'd be scaling back on the metaplot, instead they gave us an empty setting, save for some thematic elements, and a bunch of mechanics. They gave us hardcover splat books fresh out of the gate that cost 30 bucks or more, instead of the soft cover splats for 20 a pop. I have no problem doing legwork, but for 70 bucks I want a goddamn setting (Dark Heresy is an excellent example where you pay a premium for a setting. The system kind of is crappy, but lord above does the setting make up for it!), not just dice rules. They promised us a streamlined live-action experience, and instead we got essentially a stripped-down tabletop version of the game, where you had to carry a deck of cards around (!) to simulate dice rolls. Yeah, rock-paper-scissors sucked in the old MET games, but they at least didn't require props for mechanics. Oh, and the books were prohibitively expensive.

Much has changed about nWOD since it launched, but good lord what a horrid launch. I haven't bought a white wolf book in years, simply because they completely ceased to be interesting to me. They stopped generating ideas and plot hooks and started selling me mechanics. They nerfed werewolves to appease vampire players, and insisted that everything be crossover capable. Changeling was made into... something boring... I heard Mage was excellent but by the time it came out I had burned out on WW. Promethean made me laugh. WW isn't the company it was a few years ago.

Sadly, I can't think of much to make this an on-topic post. If it needs to get deleted for res-ing an old threadjack feel free to.

[Dixie Flatline]

Weirdly enough... as a player of both systems... I drool in glee at the thought of a 4e D&D version of Shadowrun.

It's not the mechanics that matter that much... simpler mechanics wouldn't hurt that bad. It's the stories that matter... as long as the adventures were well written and Shadowrunny, the fact that street sams had at-wills, encounter and daily powers wouldn't phase me a bit.

D&D 4th edition prevents me, flat out, from using my most powerful tool in my GM kit to create tension, stress, and a sense of urgency: Scarcity of resources.

Specifically, you're kewl powerz.

I wrote a fan adventure for 3/3.5 called "The Longest Night" about a party of 5th level characters investigating dire wolves in a town in the hills. Turns out, after tracking down a lot of false leads, the dire wolves actually were learning hunting tactics from werewolves. On the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, the werewolf pack attacks the town in a night-long siege. The party isn't strong enough to take on the pack all at once, and anyway the pack doesn't attack that way, but harries and wears down the defenders and the townfolk throughout the night, using hit and fade tactics. The PCs have a choice then. Try to cover as much of the town as possible (they can't be everywhere though), or concentrate the townfolk to defend them easier and endure a massed attack that they probably can't defend against. Each spell, even the level 0 cantrips, became gold, and when to use each precious spell was of vital importance, because it was impossible to refresh your spells.

I cycled the adventure around and it got really, really good reviews among the gamers I know. It was tense, stressful, even reaching moments of terror. Simply getting as many innocent people to survive felt like an immense reward for the heroes. It remains one of my best written adventures of all time.

For giggles, we adapted and ran it with a new group in 4th ed. None of the tension or stress remained. Sure, your once a days popped and that was it, but you retained something like 80% of your effectiveness and nobody even threatened dropping during the siege. It was a disappointment.

Shadowrun I can only imagine would suffer for such a rules adaptation. It already has the potential to twink way too strongly (I'm beginning to ask "why bother?" with wireless entirely for example), and the removal of most of the limitations on a given character would be... frightening. Imagine if most spells for example didn't even cause any drain rolls at all?

[Bull]

I like D&D 4E for all it's flaws and quirks well enough, but I also tend to treat it more like an extended game of Warhammer QUest or Descent than a true roleplaying game. It's a tactical mini's game that we can roleplay with between combats to advance a greater storyline. Not much different than D&D ever was, it just has a different flavor, and it scratches that itch I still get that's leftover from my Warhammer Fantasy/40K days.

The thought of SR using that system, though, makes me skin crawl. Even worse than the thought of Cancer-Causing Shadowrun D20.

@Dixie: I can think of several ways to push that encounter to make it more difficult, but without knowing the specifics, I can't comment too in depth. And this is the wrong forums to do so anyways (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) But keep in mind that Healing Surges only get you so far in 4E, and it's real easy to run out of those after just a couple encounters, and if you push the players through several of them, they'll be running on fumes, Encounter Powers or no. But D&D 4E generally doesn't seem designed for that kind of scenario. It's designed a bit more to let the PCs be Big Damn Heroes.

Bull

[Dwight]

Please, use the receptacle provided for the proper sorting and warehousing of your hatred.

I expect you to issue yourself a warning, in the interests of evenhanded application of the TOS.





P.S. Posting in Orange, instead of anti-Orange, would have been a bit too much, right? *cough* (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

[Chrysalis]

Proofreaders gets payment i BattleShop credits... after a while... eventually... hopefully...

Yes I get paid in credits. I work both as a sourcebook proofreader and as a missions proofreader. The sad thing is that I heard about all the trouble via this thread and only bumps in the night from any of the other sources.

When I was thinking about this, I have to also say that as a proofreader I get paid pittance working for a gaming company compared with real world costs. It's a great way to start, but a few dollars is in no comparison to being paid a competitive 10 euros a page at 1560 characters a page, which I was paid for to work on any text.

James Wallis, in an interview on OgreCave about closing Hogshead said this:

"On the other hand I've been doing some freelance journalism recently, and that's reminded me that I can earn roughly ten times what I could in gaming for an equivalent amount of effort and words, and I will be working with professionals who are likely to edit my work properly, print it when they say they will, and pay on time.

Basically, if any company in the games industry is prepared to pay me a reasonable amount – 'reasonable' by the standards of the real world – then I'll happily design and write games for them. Otherwise I can't let it be any more than a hobby."

Unfortunately, gaming prices are going up because the gaming world has become smaller, the writers have matured (back when 500 dollars was a large amount, now you can barely afford spare parts to your wife's car with that), and overall lifestyle prices in the West have equally risen.

[Bull]

Please, use the receptacle provided for the proper sorting and warehousing of your hatred.

I expect you to issue yourself a warning, in the interests of evenhanded application of the TOS.





P.S. Posting in Orange, instead of anti-Orange, would have been a bit too much, right? *cough* (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

Pretending to be a moderator is grounds for a warning too (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Consider us both warned. I'm sure Redjack is going to yell at me in the morning anyways.

Bull

[Stahlseele]

What did you do now old Bull? ^^

[Cergorach]

When folks start with 'old guard' I think of the folks that did SR1 and the start of SR2. Chances are that if a RPG property survives (and prospers) across multiple decades, you'll see a lot of different folks working on a product. Very few stick with the property from beginning to end, some take breaks (either forced or voluntary). Saying that if freelancers leave, things won't be the same is of course right, but how many freelancers have left (and returned) in the last two decades?

<offtopic>
When I think of SR, I think of the cover art of SR1/2, the concept art for the Yamaha Rapier, the Ares Dragon, and the Eurocar Westwind 2000. I think of a Stuffer Shack™ foodfight. While SR3 was mechanically a lot better then the previous two incarnations, the presentation was already starting to go in a direction I wasn't fond of. SR4 was even worse, I didn't even get so far as to evaluate the mechanical aspects. The same thing happened with D&D 4E, although I have all the books, it didn't capture my imagination. Some folks don't care for things like artwork/layout, I do in my game books.
</offtopic>

If CGL is pulling the books due to 'negotiations' with freelancers, I'm curious why no BT books were pulled. IMHO it's:
1.) The SR freelancers pulled together and made a very compelling argument to CGL (pay us or stop selling, if not face legal action?).
2.) The BT freelancers aren't as cohesive a group (or not yet anyway).
3.) The BT freelancers do get payed on time (maybe BT is doing financially better?).

As for why you get these financial difficulties, folks who start RPG companies usually do so due to to the love for the game (as the freelancers do) and not for the money. Very few RPG owners can handle accounting, especially when your small operation gets large, hiring a good accountant is expensive because that's generally not someone who does it for the love of the game. If your lucky you get someone that knows what (s)he's doing and doesn't cost an arm and a leg, the problem is that often such qualified personnel don't stick around (look at the folks who recently left CGL).

[JM Hardy]

With the possible exceptions of the National Writers' Union (UAW 1981) and the Writers' Guild of America, probably among others.

As to compensation agreements, it's true that there are a bunch of types. I took a consulting fee for the game I wrote for Frito-Lay's advertising agency (I forget the name), CGL gives me payment per word, and my contracts with Atlas include an advance and a royalty. For future work, anything might happen (although I've never been paid in chickens), as long as all parties agree.

I've heard rumors that Aaron would like to be paid in ponies someday.

Jason H.

[Stahlseele]

I've heard rumors that Aaron would like to be paid in ponies someday.

Jason H.

If he has a wife and/or daughter, it's certainly understandable right? ^^

[Cergorach]

I've heard rumors that Aaron would like to be paid in ponies someday.

He is either a front man for the meat industry or has a fetish for "My Little Pony" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Dread Moores]

If CGL is pulling the books due to 'negotiations' with freelancers, I'm curious why no BT books were pulled. IMHO it's:
2.) The BT freelancers aren't as cohesive a group (or not yet anyway).

Judging by some of the posts by BT freelancers that have been deleted from numerous threads on those forums, I'd imagine this isn't so true. They're simply not posting on DS, and the place they are posting is removing or modifying a fair number of posts.

[Catadmin]

Welcome to Dumpshock, Catadmin. I look forward to your work (have we seen any yet?).

Thanks for the welcome. And no, you haven't seen any of my work for SR, though I hope to change that soon. I have, however, helped with editing on Eclipse Phase recently.

[Aaron]

He is either a front man for the meat industry or has a fetish for "My Little Pony" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Nah, I just use "I've always wanted a pony" as a running gag (for me and my friends, anyway) for when some poor service worker asks me if there's anything else I want. Incidentally, as a result I do have a shocking number of ponies in various media, from small toys to artwork to an office chair reupholstered to look like a pony; it's hazard of comedy.

[Catadmin]

If the pony joke works so well for you, Aaron, you should try upgrading. "A winning lottery ticket would be nice."

Let me know if that works for you. @=)

[graywulfe]

If the pony joke works so well for you, Aaron, you should try upgrading. "A winning lottery ticket would be nice."

Let me know if that works for you. @=)

He can't have that. It's my line.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)