View From the Bushes

I thought that today I might talk somewhat about the genesis for the idea of DireKobold.com. I remember going to GenCon when Third Edition was released, and though I suppose that I had heard about the "D20 System" before then (I spent a lot of time on Eric Noah's site before 3E came out), it wasn't until that GenCon that I really got the idea of what the D20 System allowed you to do. Like many people, I thought it might be cool to be a publisher, but this was not necessarily new. I had always been interested in publishing some kind of RPG stuff.

In fact, even before the D20 system, I had gone so far as to consult an IP attorney to see what the legal restrictions were on publishing D&D compatible products. He told me some very interesting things which may eventually be the subject of another "View from the Bushes." Right off the bat, I figured that if someday I did go into publishing, that it would have to be PDF because I really didn't feel like I knew enough about distribution to put out print products. In retrospect, looking at the effort and money I put into DireKobold.com I think it actually might have been easier (certainly quicker) to do print products.

In any event I was reading Dungeon Magazine and I noticed that they had these sidebars with every adventure giving instructions on how to scale the adventure for various levels. This is when I got the idea to put together an online magazine, similar in form and content to Dungeon. The "secret sauce," as it were, was that each adventure would be programmed to automatically scale. In other words, to take all the work a DM would normally do to modify and adventure for his party and do it for him. (To be continued...)

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross