Interview with Wolfgang Baur of Open Game Design

Courtesy Open Game Design

I recently spoke with Wolfgang Baur of Open Game Design, which has no less than five products up for an ENnie: two entries for Best Electronic Book and three nominations for Kobold Quarterly (KQ), a Dungeons & Dragons print and PDF magazine.

MT: Tell us a little about Open Design.

WB: Open Design is a community-driven company publishing adventures and sourcebooks written by me and patrons who support collaborative adventures. The business model is patronage in the Renaissance style; there's an Open Design FAQ about it because it's not very much like modern corporate publishing or even small press publishing as most people know it.

MT: Open Design has five ENnie nominations this year: two entries nominated for Best Electronic Book and three nominations for your companion magazine and web site, Kobold Quarterly, in the Best Web Site, Best Writing, and Best Aid or Accessory categories. Congratulations!

WB: Five nominations, yowza! It was a very, very pleasant surprise first thing on a Monday morning. Blood of the Gorgon is a dark alchemical adventure complete with blood cult and some seriously dramatic madness, written by Paizo regular and fan favorite Nicolas Logue. Tales of Zobeck, An Adventure Anthology, was written by eight authors including Ed Greenwood. It contains a set of city adventures that explores the default setting of Open Design, a crossroads city called Zobeck. The city has a ghetto full of kobolds, workshops full of clockwork guards, and lot of sin in its black heart. This project also spawned the Zobeck Gazetteer, a city book that makes it easy to add some life to an otherwise dull stop along the road. Kobold Quarterly is a D&D print and PDF magazine featuring a lot of familiar names (Monte Cook, Ed Greenwood, and Skip Williams are frequent contributors) as well as newer faces. The Ecology articles are one of our most popular features.

MT: What sets the adventure apart from the others?

WB: The adventures are distinct because they are designed with a lot of eyes on the text, a lot of play testing, and a lot more brainstorming than a single-author adventure. They are literally shaped by their patrons, who get to watch the process of design and contribute to it. The patronage model means a really close connection between creators and audience, and a discussion of what makes an adventure playable. The process of contributing is what motivates some patrons; others are just delighted that the end result is a much-better-than-usual adventure, with their mark on it.

MT: Is there a particular type of player attracted to Blood of the Gorgon and Tales of Zoebeck?

WB: Classic D&D gamers will love our adventures because of how *playable* they are. Both were produced in limited editions (and Blood is no longer readily available, though we hope to have an "ENnies Edition" of the PDF available in a few days). The adventures tend to run darker and less conventional; last year, for instance, the Six Arabian Nights project was nominated. To that point, no publisher was spending a lot of time on Arabian Nights. Because the projects are chosen by the patrons, a smaller niche is doable --- not every Open Design project needs to be a mass-market concept that goes into Barnes & Noble stores.

MT: Kobold Quarterly made a big splash and continues to do so, as evidenced by the ENnie nominations. What is it about Kobold Quarterly that people like so much?

WB: It's a lot of things, though we often hear "Reminds me of when Dragon was fun to read." Erik Mona of Dragon Magazine called Kobold Quarterly "The spiritual successor to Dragon Magazine" and Ed Greenwood called KQ "What a role-playing magazine should be." We try to live up to that. Perhaps not surprisingly, KQ has gone from a tiny ‘zine to a steady voice in the D&D field in just over two years. It stands apart for the quality of its writing and the fact that it covers D&D 3E *and* 4E, as well as occasional Call of Cthulhu articles.  Kobold Quarterly also offers interviews with famous designers and authors like New York Times bestseller R.A. Salvatore, game design icon Sandy Peterson, and the Wizards of the Coast team that designed 4th Edition D&D.

MT: What kinds of content can a subscriber expect from KQ?

WB: A D&D player of any edition will find inspiration in the pages of Kobold Quarterly: new monsters, 3D maps of lairs, new character classes, interviews with greats like the late lamented Dave Arneson, and more. The emphasis is on material that makes gaming fun for both players and DMs: codes of conduct for paladins, a new 4E "Ecology of the Centaur", a new twist on creating undead, plus new PC races like the Kitsune and Roachlings.  Also, much, much more!

MT: Anything else you'd like to add?

WB: I'm stunned and delighted to see Open Design recognized this way! Sure, we're the small but fierce underdog compared to WotC or Paizo, but...well, maybe experience in the industry does count. :)