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We are one of over 1,500 companies who have signed up as community reviewers of the Open RPG Creative (ORC) License. This will be a system-neutral, truly open license for sharing roleplaying game text and mechanics. To join us, follow the link in this blog post on Paizo.com.
The ORC horde is gathering. Join us!
The Open RPG Creative alliance is led by Paizo, Inc. The license will not be controlled by any game publisher.
Recently, leaked documents allegedly from Wizards of the Coast have called the legal future of the Open Game License 1.0 into question. I have to admit, I’m pretty upset about this. It’s very disruptive to the tabletop RPG industry because our confidence in the license is shaken.
The Tower tarot card from the Rider Waite deck.
Shewstone Publishing affirms our commitment to open gaming and to the open gaming community. The tabletop RPG industry is flourishing in large part because we’re all sharing rules systems instead of hoarding them. Our flagship product, Magonomia, was made possible by Evil Hat Production’s generous decision to publish Fate under open licenses.
We published Magonomia core rules, including all of the original spells, under the Open Gaming License 1.0a (OGL 1.0a) in 2021. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
We no longer regard the OGL 1.0a as an effective open license. The leaked documents point out a fatal weakness in the license language that Shewstone and our lawyer can’t fix.
Effective immediately, future open Shewstone Publishing products will use a trusted open license such as Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA 4.0).
We’re considering relicensing Magonomia under CC BY-SA 4.0 as well. When and how we proceed will depend partly on how the legal situation develops.
We’re in a good position to make a smooth transition to a Creative Commons license, thanks to Evil Hat Productions’ decision to dual license Fate under both OGL and CC BY-SA. Thanks, Evil Hat!
Shewstone Publishing stands in solidarity with the open gaming community. We look forward to continuing to create great things together and to giving back as much as we can.
The Temperance tarot card from the Rider Waite deck.
This is the fourth year of our tradition of year-end update blog posts. I keep expecting them to become boring and they keep failing to meet that expectation. There’s never a dull moment to running a business.
The year started off on a high note because we had just released the print edition of Magonomia® and we thought we were finished. We soon discovered the map of Enchanted England had some inaccuracies that were highly noticeable to customers in the UK. I (Andrew Gronosky, chief cook and bottle-washer) take responsibility for that. The artist who made that map wasn’t a specialist historical cartographer. He did a good job on the task as he understood it. I missed the opportunity to explain the importance of sticking to the historical reference maps I provided. I also missed the opportunity to run the finished map by the real history experts on the freelance team.
Once some UK fans pointed out the errors, they graciously helped me correct them. We got an updated map into both the PDF and print-on-demand versions of the book, and you can download the map itself if you like. Customers who bought a print copy before the map was fixed can write to service@shewstone.com to request an updated copy for the cost of printing and shipping. (We can’t afford to just print and ship new books to everyone, but an at-cost replacement copy is no problem for us.)
What I’ve learned from this is that historical maps of real places require a lot more engagement from the art director than I used to think they did.
Shewstone missed Gen Con 2022 again due to Covid concerns. But our book was there! Magonomia Core Rules was sold on the convention floor from the Indie Press Revolution booth. This marks seven years since the inception of what would become Magonomia in a bar at Gen Con 2015 to actually selling print copies at the convention. Achievement unlocked! Shewstone Publishing has leveled up again. Now we’re a 6th level RPG publisher.
Indie Press Revolution is a great partner. They made this level-up achievement possible. Thanks, Jason!
I have a family member who works for a marketing company, and they tell me social media marketing performance plummeted in 2022. This is across all industries, not just roleplaying games. In 2019 when we crowdfunded Magonomia, Facebook ads are what got us across the finish line. In 2022, we tried some Facebook ads and they didn’t bring in enough sales to pay for themselves. I’ll leave it to pundits to speculate why, but the truth is self-evident: to grow the business, Shewstone needs a new marketing strategy.
What does work reliably is: free products, our retail partnership, convention appearances, and guest appearances on podcasts.
Then there’s Twitter. Shewstone is done with it. Elon Musk made his three strikes against safety and accountability within two weeks of taking over. This is a person whose idea of “free speech” is calling one of the Thai cave rescuers a “pedo guy,” I’m unwilling to participate in a “community” where he sets the standards of propriety.
I deeply appreciate the friendships and collaborations I formed on Twitter, but I’m not looking back. Since I stopped logging in, I feel like a weight has been lifted. This means it was never the place for me. I’ve kept my personal and business accounts open so their handles can’t be taken over by someone else.
If you’re not already following Shewstone, you can find us on Facebook, Mastodon, or our email list.
This year, we returned to Kickstarter with A Bestiary of Enchanted England - 400% funded in November. If you missed it, you’ll have to wait for the retail release in June 2023. We’re not accepting late pledges for this project.
Kickstarter has a new CEO, Everette Taylor, since September 2022. I’m pleased with the signals he’s sending. I will say the creator experience was vastly better than my first campaign in 2019. They answered my email promptly and resolved my issue on the first try.
Shewstone is using Kickstarter primarily as a marketing platform. I no longer expect a Kickstarter campaign will pay for the full costs of developing and producing a game book. The campaign gets Shewstone’s products in front of gamers who are outside our small social media bubble. Kickstarter is social media—its recommendation system is based on matching your interests to those of other backers. Unlike Facebook with its pay-for-reach model, Kickstarter has a financial incentive to amplify a creator’s message. At a time when other social media advertising is collapsing, Kickstarter is looking better every day. Analytics show that 25% of our pledges—$500—came from Kickstarter’s discovery and recommendation systems.
The Bestiary project is turning out great. Our writing team of Ars Magica veterans clearly enjoyed writing this book. They went off the beaten path to research creatures from authentic British foklore that I’ve never seen in another RPG bestiary. During development, the team and I settled on an approach of writing plot hooks for every creature. Even though it’s too late to back the project, do yourself a favor and check out the previews and updates on our Kickstarter page!
For Shewstone’s 6th level class feature, I picked “awesome freelancers.”
Early in 2022, I put out a call on Twitter for freelancers to write adventures for Magonomia. Four freelancers answered the call, nearly doubling the size of the writing for that game line. They’ve all turned in manuscripts. Working with the newcomers has been a delight. I’ve learned and grown from their perspectives, and I think they’ve done outstanding work.
We’ve also recruited three new freelancers for an entire new product line that I’ll announce at the end of this post.
2022 was also a reality check on how many projects I can lead at a time in this part-time gig. A Bestiary of Enchanted England was no joke to manage and edit. There are 34 creatures in this book, each of which has full game statistics to review. Each needs an illustration. This project made me realize, even more than the Core Rules project did, that management is skilled work. I updated my LinkedIn profile to no longer downplay my Shewstone work. This isn’t just a hobby.
I’ve learned I can really keep two RPG projects going at a time alongside my day job and the rest of my life. Anything more than that ends up on a back burner. I have about nine projects in the pipeline. I don’t think they’ll all get finished in 2023. This new and sober view of how much we can get done led me to choose the Temperance tarot card for the header image of this post.
It helps to remind myself that Magonomia Core Rules wasn’t even available in print form until late 2021, and not on store shelves until June 2022. Sales seem to be picking up, though still a long way from the break-even point. The task now is to support the product line with adventures and supplements.
Our top priority is A Bestiary of Enchanted England because we’ve made a commitment to backers to deliver on a certain date (May 2023). We’ll make a lot of noise about it when the retail release comes. It’s on track to be in the Indie Press Revolution booth at Gen Con 2023!
We’re working on a new Quick Start for Magonomia. The current Starter Rules tried to be a self-contained, playable game. The new Quick Start is a leaner product that requires Fate Condensed or Fate Core as a rules reference. It includes an original adventure by Jaclyn Lewis. I can’t commit to a release date yet because I don’t know how long playtesting will take.
We have six other Magonomia adventures that are written and have been playtested in-house at least once. How many make it to DriveThru in 2023 depends mainly on long it takes to organize and complete external playtests.
For years now, I’ve harbored an ambition to apply Shewstone’s love of history and real-world folklore to create a rich, plausible fantasy RPG setting. In fall 2022, I set the plans in motion. Work has begun on the world of Drintera™.
We’re laying the foundations of this project—still assembling the hand-picked creative team. I can tell you this much:
This will be a world with many cultures, not all of them based on European patterns.
Drintera will be system agnostic. That means it’s all “fluff:” lore, history, mysterious legends, unresolved conflicts, adventure seeds, myths, and quests. That’s what a GM needs to help build a truly memorable campaign. Bring your own “crunch” (character classes, powers, and other rules).
There will be a lot more to say about Drintera over the coming months. Right now we’re still laying the foundations: recruiting a handpicked team of history, mythology, and anthropology geeks and building the world from the gods downward. Join us on Facebook, Discord, or Mastodon to follow along and to share your thoughts about what makes a best-in-class fantasy RPG world!
Close-up photo of black and metallic polyhedral dice on a surface that resembles a parchment character sheet.
Shewstone Publishing is holding an invitational playtest of A Bestiary of Enchanted England starting today and running through March 6, 2023.
Kickstarter backers should already have received their copy of the playtest manuscript. No purchase is necessary to participate.
We’re looking for gamers who will read and, preferably, play games using our manuscript and provide written feedback in a structured format. General tabletop roleplaying experience is expected, but you don’t need to be familiar with Magonomia if you’re willing to learn it on your own.
Shewstone Publishing does basic playtesting in-house, but we urgently want outside gamers to give their perspective. Playtesting is extremely valuable and playtest feedback is always carefully considered when presented properly. It will take some thought and effort on your part to give us a playtest report we can use.
Playtesting is unpaid. Every member of each playtest group that submits a usable report will receive a free digital copy of the finished e-book, A Bestiary of Enchanted England. Playtesters will have the option (opt-in) to have their name or nickname listed in the book under “Playtesters” credits.
Whether your group’s report is usable shall be determined at the sole discretion of Shewstone Publishing LLC.
You can enroll at any time, whenever you’re ready. The playtest ends on March 6, 2023 and your feedback must be received by that date to be considered. We expect it will take you at least a few weeks to evaluate the manuscript and produce a usable report.
We want to know about your good experiences: what was fun, exciting, and engaging. This isn’t (just) to make the team feel good. Good gameplay experiences are our product. We want to know what works so we can deliver more like that. Feed the fire of awesomeness!
Please be specific. If the players had a spell that let them win too easily, name the spell and describe how they used it. If one of the creature’s powers had disappointing results when you use it, tell us what you expected as well as what actually happened.
Be kind and polite. The authors are going to read your comments with no filtering. Give your honest opinion but there’s no need to be heated, bitter, or sarcastic. A helpful pattern is to choose a word to describe your reaction, attribute it to yourself (not the product), and describe the circumstances that caused that reaction: “we were frustrated when the players tried several spells and none of them affected the creature” instead of “this creature was frustrating.”
Playtesters are not proofreaders. Please don’t bother to point out grammar mistakes and the like. A professional editor will find and correct these issues later. If there’s something that’s unclear, we’d like to know that.
Playtesters are not sensitivity readers. We aren’t relying on you to make the product inclusive or to spot gaffes. If come across something that bothers you, we want to know. Don’t attempt to guess what might potentially bother others. We have a consultant for that.
Playtesters are not designers. We don’t want you to tell us how to fix the issues you find. The designers will make their own decisions after weighing all the feedback. You can tell us what you were expecting or what outcome you want, but please refrain from specific advice. For example, we don’t want to hear “this creature needs more stress boxes.” We do want to hear “this creature was too easily defeated in physical combat.”
Playtesters are a window on the busy gamemaster trying to use our book to plan and run a great session. They’re an advocate for the customer, helping us make the book easy and fun to read and use.
Designate one person as the playtest coordinator. This person will assemble your feedback into one report and submit it to Shewstone.
The most useful playtest is to plan a one-shot gaming session around a section of the book (one creature, in this case). Use the creature as you would in your normal play style: it doesn’t have to be a combat encounter. You can use homemade characters or you can get pregenerated characters from the Magonomia wik: Pregenerated Characters - Magonomia Wiki
Next most useful is to incorporate the playtest material into your regular campaign.
Less useful is to read the material without playing it, but discuss it and report your consensus.
If all you can manage is to read sections of the book and send us written feedback, that still counts! It’s just less valuable than actual play. We will still give you credit and we’ll take your feedback seriously.
You’re invited to discuss the playtest on our Discord server: https://discord.gg/enMx37wYgB . However, just chatting in Discord does not count as a usable playtest report. You must also send us a written report that meets our content requirements.
Each playtest group should submit ONE written report on or before March 6, 2023. The report can be in any commonly used document format (MS Word, PDF, RTF, ODF, plain text, etc.). It must be written in English but it doesn’t need to be fluent English.
For each creature where you have feedback:
Write the name of the creature as a heading
Which player(s) participated and what characters did they play?
What was your method of testing? (One-shot, used it in your campaign, read it and discussed, etc.)
In one or a few sentences, what happened?
Give details of specific events that went especially well or that failed to go well. The most useful constructive feedback is to say what outcome you wanted or expected, and then state what outcome you got.
For each person in the playtest:
What was their real name?
What name, if any, do they want listed in the playtest credits?
Please send an email to andrew@shewstone.com with the subject line “Bestiary Playtest.”
Include a sentence or two about your group’s knowledge of Magonomia and Fate.
Include the following information for each member of your playtest group:
Real name
Drivethrurpg.com email address (the playtest manuscript will be send as a DriveThru downloand)
Name or nickname as they want it to appear in the “playtester” credits in the book. Write “anonymous” if they don’t want their name to appear.
©2022 Shewstone Publishing LLC. This playtest guide may be modified and redistributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)
Our Kickstarter has funded and unlocked multiple stretch goals! In Magonomia terms, that’s called “success with style!”
If you missed the campaign, the retail release is planned for May 2023. Sorry, we are not accepting late pledges for this campaign.
