Planescape Quarterly Zine

I like the idea of pulling topics from the board, because you're right, there is a lot of really creative and stimulating stuff going on here on a day-to-day basis.

I would also love to give some more love to the Ortho project, that's one of my favourite things, though I've been having a hard time locating the PDFs and other information from it lately :<

One of the "hardships" of DMing Planescape is that it's a setting that was made for an outdated system, and so -- at least in my experience -- a big focus for anyone DMing Planescape on conversions. I feel like if we offered 1 or 2 conversions, be they Faces of Sigil NPCs or creatures or items, in each issue, that would be a big boon.

Also, since (I'm assuming) money isn't involved here, it's OK to have articles about Product Identity creatures, right? Like illithids?

To make sure we're clear on what the votes are for, they aren't so much 'i want this in the 'zine' popularity votes. More like sign-offs on the actual text. It's more: "I think this is polished enough that I wouldn't be embarrassed to see it in print with my name attached." If three people can agree that the text is good for publication, that's a good indication it in fact *is* ready to go live. At the moment for the EP Eye - pretty much anything that gets put into the queue, the editors start looking at to help shape it up for an issue.

The problem with purely forum generated work is that it rarely takes a form that is readable as an article. Someone (often the original poster, but not always) *has* to take the feedback and integrate the responses into a solid readable article. That article consolidation is where we really need to be careful about making sure credit is listed, and that the work doesn't end up sprawling.

The EP Eye does this by leaving comments wide open on articles currently in the edit queue. The editors, other authors, it's open volunteerism so really anyone who feels like it, will go in and post responses, offer suggestions, or further avenues for expanding the article. The author goes back through and edits the original post based on feedback. (Editors go back and edit too, usually just nailing grammar, spelling, and general phrases for non-native language speakers.) Drupal can be set up to track revisions, so we can see each version of the article as it undergoes work.

If we want to use the forums as points for new articles to spin off, we can pretty much replicate the Eye's workflow over here and then as good forum threads come up, ask the original poster to curate the results into an article - or prompt those involved to spin up full articles into the fanzine system.

If we want to use the forums as the central point to do our work from, that's a little trickier but it can be done. IF we do that: We really need to make sure that the idea of updating the original post with new information and that comments are in reference to the central post gets conveyed. Else we're right back to needing to curate information into a central post. It's a radical shift from how forum threads generally operate, so it might be wiser to move the actual article editorial process to a new context just to avoid re-training the audience.

An individual scenario or module or whatnot in the magazine should probably also have a "Pre-Faction War" or "Post-Faction War" stamp. If it's a module that can easily be run either way, the article can contain discussion of how to run said module either way.

Let's see what we get in first. If this runs anything like how the Eye went we'll get tons and TONS of stuff in early for the issue once we make a formal announcement of the work underway, and then have to scramble for art. I wouldn't wed ourselves to a specific selection of articles until probably mid-November.

On the technical end for the workflow: I need a lot of caffine and an hour or two... we're actually very ahead on that end of things simply by using a working system as our base.

On the non technical end, our tasks:

Get us a NAME! Or at least a selection on names from which I can set up a poll for feedback from the masses.

Find us someone who knows InDesign if you can. That's the program used for the Eye and for most professional layout.

Secure some names for artists to recruit to this project once we're a go.

Write up some introduction / recruitment text that we can use to get people to sign up to participate as editors or writers.

Lastly: solidify a style guide, we have to have a guide for the editors to review work. That would be the obvious like, grammar and spelling are standard English. But also includes things like: pick British or American spelling. (I suggest American, despite my sometimes British habits, simply cause Firefox's auto spellcheck picks it up.) Pick standard policy on use of Cant. Pick standard policy on capitalization conventions like Her Serenity. And standard policy on gender specific / non specific terminology. (I'm fond of the nuetral singular they rule.) Also - to Oxford comma or not.

The Gate.

I don't know where this would fit into the workflow, but I'm an enthusiastic and pretty solid copy editor - it sounds as if flow and structure and assorted prose stuff are among the issues hopefully addressed in the open edit queue above, but I'd be happy to take a pass at pieces if there's interest in that.

@atomicb Yes, definitely That's exactly the sort of core work the editor queue will need. I've seen some of the articles in the Eye get hit by an editor who just rearranges the whole thing line by line for flow. It's still recognizable as the authors work but it sounds better.

Oh, another topic suggestion: how to use music effectively in a Planescape game. While music can be used powerfully in any d&d game, the same way it's used in movies and TV to create an atmosphere, I feel like it's more potent and, perhaps, important in a PS game -- you have not only the mood of a scene to consider, but the mood of the plane the characters are on, too. You can use music to influence the PCs's behaviour depending on what plane they're on.

So, what makes a good choice for music? What are some suggestions based on plane? How do people organize their music for use in the game? How do DMs who use music set up their playlists? So on.

I'm going quiet mode for the next few hours (gotta get some work done and get the queue's set up). Don't blow the world up while I'm gone.

Yes, that's the stuff. As it was described I wasn't sure if the queue left it exclusively up to the author to deal with suggestions and critiques. So would there be separate phases for content vs. prose, as far as editing and feedback go?

On the topic of art, I can pump out pencil character illustrations pretty reliably, and have recently been exploring a more ... american cartoon illustration style that I really dig (I should actually scan some stuff, probably. I haven't scanned anything in like 2 months E_E). But, with that said, attempting to take on art that's an actual scene, with backgrounds and character interactions and that stuff, I'm kind of liable to disappear and never get anything done.

I'm thinking that an article or essay on "How to use historical knowledge to make your campaign better" might be worthwhile. I'm not thinking so much about, say, medieval weapons (which gamers usually know a lot about anyway), but things like an understanding of ancient or medieval cultures.

Anetra, this is one of the best things ever:

http://clocktock.tumblr.com/post/745283638

I can try to contribute some artwork, but I make no guarantees that it'll be any good.

Edit: And for the record, I have no problem with anybody using what I've posted up on the boards here for the publication, provided I get the proper credit and whatnot.

Edit2: Just FYI, the below is representative of some of the stuff I've drawn. I usually tend towards landscapes and such, though the characters I've drawn I've had people compare to Dark Crystal or Jim Henson'esque.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/293623_554532492113...

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/294092_554535066953...

Thinking about history and keeping in mind that we're talking about PS, I'd probably be interested in writing something down the line about how broad historical themes can inform your campaign, particularly in terms of giving substance to planars and planar societies. Conditions that promote conflict vs. cooperation, for instance. Sociology on the planes, etc.

Sample article title: 'Elementals: Just a Bunch of Racists or What?'

Ok, probably not that.

New forum at: /forums/planewalker-projects/quarterly-fanzine

And the volunteer links to get users set up with the right permissions, and explain what it is that they're supposed to do can be found in the menu to the left currently labeled 'Fanzine Links'

Yes - go make one. If you like I'll sticky it, but starting out I don't think it'll need to be stickied to stay near the top of the forum list.

Let me know if the links in the Fanzine menu don't make any sense, I'll be glad to give direction and / or update them. I'll rename the menu once we get a name for this project.