GMG Kickstarter Adventure Pitch Guidelines
3 months ago
– Sat, Feb 17, 2024 at 11:47:52 AM
For those of you interested in submitting an adventure pitch for possible publication via the Game Master’s Guide Adventure Open Call, here are some things you should know:
HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR ADVENTURE PITCH
To submit your adventure pitch for possible publication, you need to fill out a form on our website.
Filling Out the Form
Follow this link and give us the following information:
· Your backer name.
· The email address associated with your Kickstarter account.
· How you would like your name to appear in the adventure credits. Here you can choose either “Anonymous” or you can enter your name, online moniker, or other name by which you wish to be credited.
· Your adventure’s title.
· Your adventure’s level (as in, what level should the player characters be to play through the adventure). Assume an average party size of four to five PCs.
· The full text of the adventure pitch (200 words maximum).
· Confirm you read the Submission Agreement.
· Confirm you read the Ownership and Rights statement.
When you submit your adventure pitch with this form, you will receive a confirmation email.
Adventure Pitch Creation Guidelines
You can find the full adventure pitch guidelines in this earlier update, but here’s a summary:
· Your adventure pitch must be no more than 200 words long. (This total applies to the “Adventure Pitch” section of the submission form.)
· Your pitch should include general descriptions and ideas, but we won’t be accepting art, drafts, or text from the adventure for your adventure pitches.
· Your adventure can’t be derived from other setting material.
· You will own your concept and pitch entirely; if your pitch is not a winner, it remains 100% yours to do with as you please. If your pitch is accepted, Kobold Press will buy your completed adventure design with an all-rights contract.
Adventure Pitch Example
If we were to submit our Tales of the Valiant adventure, Caverns of the Spore Lord, as an adventure pitch, here is how we would fill out that form. This is purely an example to help guide you in submitting your own pitch. Do not submit the following information into your form.
· Backer Name: Kobold Press
· Backer Email: [email protected]
· Credit As: The Koolest Kobolds
· Adventure’s Title: Caverns of the Spore Lord
· Adventure’s Level: 1st Level
Adventure Pitch:
The people of Hulgig are desperate. The hamlet’s tainted well water is transforming the residents into sporeborn. To make matters worse, the transmogrified villagers are drawn to the nearby cave complex that leads to the subterranean village of Bellgrove.
The mycolid inhabitants of Bellgrove have their own problem: their leader, Enok, fell prey to the same contagion that takes hold of the village above. Before Enok succumbed, they sealed themselves away from their fellow mycolids. Unfortunately, Enok chose the settlement’s fungal garden as their prison and collapsed the adjoining tunnel to secure it. In response to the aggressive sporeborn, the mycolids—who are running dangerously short on food, water, and other supplies—barricaded themselves into their home cavern.
The adventurers must fight their way through the infestation of sporeborn on the surface, then press on through the winding mycolid caverns to discover the source of the infection—before both sides are completely consumed!
· Check!
· Check!
Eligibility
Only backers that successfully pledged at the $29 pledge tier or higher can submit an adventure pitch, and we will accept only one pitch per backer. Pitches submitted by non-backers or backers of lower pledge tiers will be disqualified. Backers submitting more than one pitch will be disqualified.
Submission Process, Deadline, and Announcing Winners
All submitted pitches will be reviewed by a panel of judges, and these judges will narrow down the submissions to the top 3 adventure pitches. All pitches must be submitted via the above form no later than 11:59 pm (PT) on Sunday, February 25th. We will announce the winners (as their Kickstarter names out of respect for their chosen monikers in this space) via a Kickstarter update on March 25th. Winners will be contacted shortly thereafter via the email address they included in their submission.
WHAT HAPPENS IF MY PITCH IS CHOSEN?
If your pitch is chosen, here’s a short summary of what to expect:
1. You will be contracted to write a 10,000 word adventure. Your rough draft must be complete and turned over to us by a date specified in your contract, which will be mid-to-late Summer 2024.
2. As part of your contract, you will also be required to create art briefs for two maps (which must feature in your adventure) and propose a small selection of other art pieces suitable for your adventure. These art briefs must be complete and turned over to us by a date specified in your contract—this date will be earlier than the date your rough draft is due, so you will have to plan your content accordingly.
For context, a 10,000-word Tales of the Valiant adventure:
· Is typically 20-24 pages long after the final art is included and the text is fully laid out.
· Typically includes enough content for two to three sessions of play—roughly 6-9 hours of playable content (assuming an average group of players).
See the Tales of the Valiant adventure Caverns of the Spore Lord for an excellent example of the approximate quantity and quality of adventure text we are looking for.
3. After your rough draft is submitted, a designated member of the Kobold Press editorial team will look at the draft and make notes. You might be expected to revise the adventure based on the feedback from the editorial team.
4. After that, we’ll take it from there. We’ll conduct internal playtests, make the art, give your work a final editing pass, and lay it out.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What if there’s an error when I submit my adventure pitch? Will I be disqualified for re-submitting it?
A: If there is an error when you fill out the form (such as, your browser times out or you accidentally submit the pitch with no body text), and you re-submit your world through the form, we will not automatically disqualify your adventure. The disqualification requirements are here to prevent abuse of the submission guidelines, not make it more difficult for a legitimate backer to submit their pitch.
Q: What are the judges reviewing?
A: The judges review adventure pitches for the following:
· Creativity: Isit unique or interesting?
· Utility: Is this something any GM could pick up and run?
· Clarity of Presentation: Are themes, plot, and challenges clearly communicated?
We chose judges with a wide range of preferences in those categories and judges with varying levels of playing and game mastering experience to give each submission a fair chance. When creating your adventure idea, think of what your fellow game masters would enjoy running and what players would enjoy playing through.
Q: What if my adventure isn’t chosen? Why wasn’t my adventure chosen?
A: You retain all rights to your adventure if it isn’t chosen and published by us. Keep in mind, we typically have hundreds of submissions, and the judges have to narrow that down to only 3 winning submissions. (For perspective, the Kickstarter for Deep Magic Volume 2 had about 900 backer spell submissions!) Unfortunately, that means there is a good chance some wonderful ideas won’t make the final cut. Just because your adventure wasn’t chosen doesn’t mean it was poorly designed.
Please comment below if you have any questions.
