New 40k Rules Design Blog - looking for writers

[Atrotos]

Greetings Lounge Members,

I've started a new Blog with a view to consolidating interesting, fun and balanced custom rules and articles on rules design. I'm looking for writers that are willing to volunteer their talent and ideas to help the site grow and gain a following. The ultimate goal will be to regularly release booklets with new unit, unit options and characters with no focus on any individual race. Together I hope we can create a reputation for a quality e-publication that will change how players feel about custom rules even in competitive environments.

See the Lounge that's already started in the Homebrew Boards.
(http://http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?t=5163)

[MVBrandt]

Rules designs, in reply to your first blog post, are usually not well accepted b/c of the inherent e-argument you're going to get from the stupids out there about what is and isn't broken or wrong, from rules basics to codex balance and so on and so forth.

Whatever you go with, it's very possible you'll run into inherent "stupids" critique regardless of route. Applause to the efforts ... if you're ever looking for some other work to glance at, my group has rebalanced many of the codices for Friday night casual play with some success. Happy to share.

[Duke]

MVB is sadly right... However, you should go ahead with it and just tell all the internet dummies to stick it. I look forward to seeing the e-pub.

Duke

[Master Bryss]

The link doesn't work for me, so chances are it's broken.

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?t=5163

That works for me.

Indeed, tell the dummies to stick it. Flak is a key ingredient of the internet anyway, unfortunately.

[Sir Biscuit]

The key to making a site like this work, is to gain some degree of legitimacy.

To start, you'll need a very professional looking site. This site is a good example, if cluttered. Avoid looking like DakkaDakka at all costs.

Second, doing it in blog format is a mistake. Blog's are great for creating a continuous stream of information, but make looking things up very difficult. Better to take a forum approach, with a homepage that has subsections containing various rules. That makes things easy for people, and easy sites are site people like to go to.

You'll also need playtesters. That is, people who you know are GOOD at the game, and can give you valid feedback on how units perform. If you don't have a legitimate approval process, you'll achieve nothing.

It sounds like a great project, but it will take a LOT of time, effort, and yes, money, to get it off the ground. If you can get a good site up, you'll get good designers, but until then you'll continue to get the same response: good luck. And we do mean that. :)

[Big Jim]

I'm more than willing to lend a hand. In my group we use lots of house rules and are even in the process of writing a fandex for my Soul Reapers Chaos Marines. I even made a post on my blog recently about collecting all the Blog links to all the groovy house rules and homebrew stuff out there.

Be forewarned though, there will be a lot of house rule hater noise.

[Atrotos]

The haters? Let them hate! In just the course of a few hours this thread has attracted 4 new people I never knew were involved in custom rules design. If those four could find four more we'd be a quarter of the way there.



@ Sir Biscuit: Very good points. I agree that (perceived) legitimacy is key. However, the end product is not the site but the publication. Wouldn't it be nice if every 3 months or so there was an e-zine out there giving you 10 or so new units complete with background to inspire your own army? If the site picks up we could see a phenomenon where people all over the gaming world are as familiar with Rules Manufactorum creations as they are about Goatboy. BoLS did this for a while but I think their mistake was to release whole army lists rather than individual unit entries that will have less impact on the average 40k game. Their campaign books offered standalone characters but these were too closely tied to the campaign itself making it seem as if one needed to organize a large scale campaign with purpose-built armies in order to use custom characters.

As for the site I agree it will need more than just a blog and it will need money but this will get the ball rolling. Let people come and see what we're working on. I'm looking forward to the direct contact that the critical reader will have with the author via the 'comments' format on the blog. Also I wanted the material to be controllable so a forum is out. A forum encourages disunity of purpose - multiple people working on different projects and never receiving enough attention for their work.

@ Big Jim: I noticed your blog states you playtested your custom rules for 18 months to get it to this stage. Would you be interested in describing this process in an article? It would make a great contribution to the site.

@ MVB: what kind of projects have you worked on? can I find them online?

EDIT: Master Bryss: Thanks for the link fix!

I'd also like to thank everyone for their positive support.

[Polonius]

I think that focusing on things like Apocolypse datasheets would be a great first step. Most players are never going to accept fan made units or lists for competitive play, and for good reason.

[JxKxR]

HELLZ YEAH!!! Do what you do and Ill definitely keep track and test out the fun.

[Big Jim]

Atrotos, I am currently working on such an article, it should be going up on my blog this weekend.

[therealjohnny5]

i would be willing to collaborate, write, and play test. i'll send you a pm...

[warpcrafter]

How custom are you looking to go? Just new units, other stuff to augment the codexes, or changes to the core rules? Every time I even mention unofficial rules as a topic of conversation with the other gamers at my FLGS, they act as if I'd just brought up the one thing that they'd rather die than consider. Good luck with that.

[Madness]

warp, maybe start with small changes, like slightly variated scenarios, and provide a huge narrative for it, you might get someone to get excited enough to try it, and if it's well designed, the hype will keep you going and before you know it, you're playing fistfights inside an ork bar using rules from completely different systems.

[Atrotos]

Everybody has something they wish their codex covered or did better than it currently does - even players who turn their noses up at custom rules. It's about finding out exactly what people think is missing so you can show them that there's nothing stopping them from creating it themselves.

[Atrotos]

First unit entries are up folks.

For all you guys out there that think custom rules just won't work - now's the time to speak up.

Link in the sig.

[modelguyicmt]

Hello, I've got tons o' crap I've been working on for a while now, tons o' crap. I'd like to contribute to your blog, please e-mail me at- [email protected]
Thank you