State of the Company and Upcoming Products

[jolt]

I found the State of the Game to be mostly positive.  My question is how will the work on SC 3.0 affect, if at all, the release of things like the Spellbound series or those things that were supposed to be in the original FC but were left out for latter products.  

My concern is that it seems like every 6 months to a year some new shiny comes along which pushes announced products (like Spellbound) further and further back.  For a book that was supposedly "about 80% done" at least year's GenCon combined with 2+ years of "we're working on it - expect big news soon!" leads me to thing that either a) that was all a big lie or b) the product must be 10000 pages long by now.  

I keep getting told to trust the people at Crafyy but I'm having a harder and harder time doing that.    Not that the new shinies don't necessarily look good but it seems like a 'Robbing Peter to pay Paul' kind of strategy; and I'm stuck being Peter.  What's the point of not giving release dates so as not to disappoint the fanbase when the promises that are being made aren't being kept?


Really frustrated.

[Crafty_Alex]

Since this keeps coming up - we are not, and have not, been talking about products that were not actively being worked on. Spellbound IS being assembled right now - on the schedule, with both of us focused on it, and we know when it's going to drop. It has a deadline. As we mentioned in the State of the Company - if we don't mention it, it's not being worked on. So all that other stuff that was talked about back when we thought it might happen but hadn't fully committed to it may well not be happening if we haven't mentioned it.

My concern is that it seems like every 6 months to a year some new shiny comes along which pushes announced products (like Spellbound) further and further back.  For a book that was supposedly "about 80% done" at least year's GenCon combined with 2+ years of "we're working on it - expect big news soon!" leads me to thing that either a) that was all a big lie or b) the product must be 10000 pages long by now.  

It's your call whether or not you want to believe us. The culture and operations of the company have changed considerably in the last year. So what we've done is not what we're doing. This is exactly why we have not announced any products in the last 12 months that weren't on the schedule for certain. Using Fantasy Craft (or really, any sort of schedule preceding last June) is not a good measuring stick for where we are and how we're doing things now. But we know that our past behavior has done us damage with some folks - that's exactly why we have not announced any product dates.

I keep getting told to trust the people at Crafyy but I'm having a harder and harder time doing that.    Not that the new shinies don't necessarily look good but it seems like a 'Robbing Peter to pay Paul' kind of strategy; and I'm stuck being Peter.  What's the point of not giving release dates so as not to disappoint the fanbase when the promises that are being made aren't being kept?

What have we promised thus far since the release of Spellbound that we have not done? AFAIK, nothing, so I don't think saying that we're breaking promises is a fair characterization. If you don't believe us that Spellbound is what we're working on right now, that's your perogative, but to say it's not coming or is going to be pushed back by 3.0 is incorrect.

[Crafty_Pat]

To be completely fair, Jolt's concerns were valid for a long time. We started the company with big eyes and it took us a long while to figure out exactly what we were capable of and what we weren't. As Alex says, things have changed dramatically behind the scenes over the last 18 months and the company is a different creature now. A lot of projects have gone away or been indefinitely postponed. Farthest Star went with Scott when he left. As of right now we're strictly focused on Fantasy Craft and Spycraft Third/10kB, in that order (as Fantasy Craft is out now and demanding attention). After that we'll be focused on the licenses and beyond, but as always it's got to be one thing at a time.

Spellbound, which sounds like your primary concern - correct me if I'm wrong - has actually been my primary focus for about 3 weeks, as part of my push to get it off my desk until art has to be ordered and editing has to be completed. It's also the last piece of the puzzle that is Fantasy Craft Second Printing, as a few changes being made in Spellbound need to reflect back into the core rulebook. You can see a lot of that progress over in our blog, where I'm posting updates periodically as I reach certain milestones. Rest assured that it will hit this fall as planned.

You also asked about percentages. Allow me to explain a bit there. Way back when Spellbound was a PDF series, Spellbound seemed like it would be easy to accomplish: write core material once and write one classes and a stack of spells for each. As the Spellbound material hit my desk and I dug into edits, however, it quickly became clear that the workload had been drastically underestimated. Though our system shares many components with D&D our methodology is very different and, frankly, the vast majority of their spells, and the underpinning assumptions of their magic system, simply don't work in Fantasy Craft. I knew that the only way to really do this project properly was the way it's currently happening - all at once, allowing changes made in one Discipline or with one chain of spells to propagate across the whole book. The PDF series should have been built all at once, before we announced it, or at least to a point where we knew few if any other changes would be made, but that wasn't immediately evident to the authors at the time.

This kind of evolving process is natural, and the way RPGs should be built, but it doesn't play well with the rapid-fire, immediate snapshot preview process you guys used to see, which is why it was starting to seem like we were lying. We'd hit a point where we'd reach the natural realization that something needed to be done another way (as happened repeatedly with Fantasy Craft), and it gave you guys whiplash because it felt like we were just making decisions willy-nilly. This isn't the case, of course. Alex and I are always making the best calls we can for the company and your game using the information we have at the time, which is rarely complete until, well, something ships.

So now we talk in broad strokes and we don't preview stuff that isn't done, or very, very close to done. We don't talk about projects in development except in very broad terms. We don't give you information that will change.

As I mention in the blog, my best guess is that we're at about 70% done with spells. Now, that's just spells. There's three other chapters to this book, so we're a long ways from pencils down. but the work is getting done, and Spellbound is one of the projects on our active schedule. The Adventure Companion - also on that page, which is really the only place you should be looking for current information about what we're planning to release in the near future - is next on my plate, and that contains three of the settings we developed for the game (Cloak & Dagger, Epoch, and Sunchaser), plus a bunch of other stuff. So you're covered. Fantasy Craft is here to stay, and we're going to make sure it succeeds before we dive into something "new and shiny."

[klofft]

So, I hate to be a jerk about this (and I realize the thread has strayed far away), but since Born of Ashes is not on the In Development pages, it is not presently in development and will not be around this summer as previously mentioned in the recent State of the Company? Just checking.  You seem interested in helping us understand how the process works and I'm just trying to understand.

[Crafty_Pat]

So, I hate to be a jerk about this (and I realize the thread has strayed far away), but since Born of Ashes is not on the In Development pages, it is not presently in development and will not be around this summer as previously mentioned in the recent State of the Company? Just checking.  You seem interested in helping us understand how the process works and I'm just trying to understand.

You're right that the thread has strayed, so I've split these posts out and moved them over to Customer Service. They're about projects across multiple lines anyway.

Born of Ashes and the remaining Saturday Morning Spycraft titles are "in the cracks" projects: work happens on them between bigger, more pressing items. By necessity they have to float a bit, which is why we haven't yet added them on the ID page. I've actually made some important strides recently with the BoA framework that should help considerably when I get back to full-time writing, but I'm not quite confident enough yet to commit beyond the estimate we gave in the SotC.

The SMS titles should hit this summer, though. We have drafts in that are at least 75% done and all the art's done.

[Pheonyx]

My impression lately has been that Spycraft, the game that founded this company in the first place, is slowly becoming the red-headed stepchild of Crafty Games since FantasyCraft took off. Don't get me wrong, I am happy that FantasyCraft is doing well (and I know Pat and Alexx and would never wish them ill will)... but Spycraft needs love, too.

Yes, there is going to be a Third Edition coming, but the only print products the SC line has seen other than redos of the core book (new printings and or pocket editions) since the company launch has been two books which were simply reprints of PDF releases and magazine articles (most of which I already had by purchasing the PDFs). In fact, even the PDF offerings have dropped to a trickle. There have been two PDF releases for Spycraft in the last year.

I got involved with Series Archer way back when because it was something unique, something different, something that wasn't just another D&D fantasy genre ripoff with a new coat of paint. Yeah, the ruleset was based off of D&D (due to the OGL and you were kinda forced into buying the Players Guide to create a character), but it wasn't fantasy. Once 2nd Edition Spycraft came out with the full rules, I sold off the D&D books.

Now, the Spycraft projects that are announced are relegated to "in the cracks" (to quote Patrick), meaning "We'll get to it when we can, but we can't even guarantee when or if they'll come out". The thing is that they also have 10KB, Mistborn and Looking Glass Wars stuff to work on, which will probably push any further Spycraft product even further down in the queue.

I am going to be brutally honest here (and the Crafty guys know that I am quite frank and straightforward, so they know there is no offense meant to them)... I haven't bought nor will I buy any FantasyCraft product, not because it is an inferior product (which it isn't), but because I do not care for fantasy RPGs that much. I do not own any D&D books either, so it's not just FantasyCraft products I do not own. I was and always will be interested in Spycraft & 10KB (and also Farthest Star if Scott hadn't left). I want to give my money to this company, but I am not going to buy something that I am not interested in; it'd be akin to buying a Zune player when I want an iPod Touch or buying an iPhone when I want a Motorola Droid.

I will pick up 3rd Edition Spycraft and 10KB when they come out... it will be my first foray into the Mastercraft system, which is kind of sad that for someone who has been here pretty much since the beginning and here longer than 90-95% of the people here, I will be playing catchup because I don't own FantasyCraft. I want to contribute to Crafty's success, but the opportunities for me to do so are becoming fewer and farrther between.

Ashes to ashes,
Pheonyx

[TheAuldGrump]

Heh - a quick correction, tying Spycraft 1 to the D&D Players Handbook had to do with the D20 STL, not the OGL. Spycraft and Master Craft (in all its myriad forms) are still part of the OGL.

Crafty has to deal with what I like to call the 'Too Many Typewriters, Not Enough Monkeys' problem. As a result you have monkeys flinging themselves across the room, hanging from the ceiling fans while they try to type, only to be flung willy nilly to another typewriter. They pause now and again to fling poo here in the forums, then hurl themselves back into the room with the typewriters. Crafty is a small company, and I don't think that it is the only job for any of the Crafty Crue. (Back in the '80s, even folks working for TSR had second jobs.)

And Fantasy Craft is doing well for them, so it has to take center place.

The Auld Grump

[Aldus Vertten]

And Spycraft not having books in paper has more to do with ho the company Was that how it's now. It used to be an eitorial centered around the pdf, and in that format spycraft got a lot of support in the last years. Now they're changing that, and the printed format is gonna be more relevant from now on, so it's a whole new era.


And yes, its a little bit sad that you have yet tested mastercraft, but the good thing is that with the new changes to the company, you're gonna get it with SC, while the earlier plans involved just 10Kb.

[Mister Andersen]

You're also forgetting that World on Fire was a print book

[Crafty_Pat]

Allow me to clarify: Born of Ashes and the SMS titles are "in the cracks" projects. Spycraft Third is NOT, and its supplements won't be either. Also, there's really no chance Born of Ashes and the SMS titles won't come out - it isn't a matter of if but when.

As with most professional endeavors, running a game company is all about priorities. As we've proven in the past you can't just "do everything at once" - in the end, everything suffers. You need to focus on one project at a time, get it up and running, hand off chunks to freelancers as you can, and move on to the next when you're done. Right now we're focusing on the projects that stand to put us in the best possible position to grow, which in turn will let us invest more heavily in new titles, which in turn - you guessed it - will get more books out faster.

We've intentionally set up a scaled release schedule, letting us grow into a wider and wider array of lines and titles, rather than trying to do everything at once. This is why we pushed Third off to next spring and why we settled on next summer for the licenses. It's also why the remaining 2.0 titles are "in the cracks" projects. Best to plan for them realistically and get them out on time and with all the care you've come to expect than shove them into the current queue, ruining the chances of anything getting out. To quote the Indigo Girls, "everything in its own time."

[Sletchman]

Don't know where to put this, but don't want to start a thread for one question:  Will Spellbound have expert / master classes?  You've made some noise about base classes, spells and campaign qualities, but nothing else.  I'm not after anything concrete of course, just a "that's a plan" or "not at this time" sorta response if you can.

[Crafty_Alex]

Don't know where to put this, but don't want to start a thread for one question:  Will Spellbound have expert / master classes?  You've made some noise about base classes, spells and campaign qualities, but nothing else.  I'm not after anything concrete of course, just a "that's a plan" or "not at this time" sorta response if you can.

That's the plan.

[Sletchman]

Much appreciated.

[Sletchman]

Another small question about spellbound - are there any plans to include additional magic item effects in the book?

[Crafty_Alex]

Another small question about spellbound - are there any plans to include additional magic item effects in the book?

No. The book is really focusing on magic and casters (and of course, a grimoire with nearly 900 spells). It is so packed right now we wouldn't have room for new magic item effects anway. Gear for the Ages, our supplement on FC gear, will be the place for new magic item doohickies.