With permission from Atlas, I am hereby launching my Ars Magica Patreon, to support my creation of new ArM5 material. When the open license has happened, this material will be under that license, but until that point it will be exclusive to my patrons.
The first project I am planning is a starter saga, set in the Provençal Tribunal — there are a few more details on the Patreon, but only a few, because I have only just started. The speed of progress will be strongly influenced by how much support I get.
If you aren't familiar with Patreon, the basic idea is that you pay a small monthly amount to a creator, and they create something. I've been running another Patreon for years ( Mimusubi | Creating essays about Shinto | Patreon ), so I am familiar with the technical side.
Thanks to John & Michelle for permission to start charging people before the open license, and to use the Ars Magica images on the Patreon page.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask them here.
"That means that anyone who creates material for Ars Magica will have to release it under the license, allowing other people to sell it or give it away.
This, obviously, creates difficulties for business models. Nothing that relies on selling the product of your creativity after making it will work, because you will always be in competition with free versions of exactly the same work."
Does it really? If so, that's a cold shower on the possible income from releasing products post-open license.
Well, it definitely means that other people can resell the product. However, people with experience of this say that people very often do not bother, and you can make 10c/word on post-creation sales. (For a different line, but not one of the big famous ones.) That is more than almost any RPG company pays.
The people doing it first will find out whether there are viable ways to do it. Obviously, people like me and the other established authors have an advantage, but if we can find a method that works for us, the audience will be used to that idea, and new authors might be able to build their own reputation the same way.
There are a lot of experiments involved in the open licensing, and business models are among them.
Since my income will be divided by 2 once I'm able to work again, I won't be able to contribute much, but willl gladly do so!
Many thanks for doing this
I'm coming back to ArM after some time away, and so I am really pleased to see that you'll be working on new material David so I'm off to scout out your Patreon and bump this back up the forum at the same time.
Just found this and subscribed. Glad to support you David! Now my strategy is to convince both you and Atlas on the financial viability of a new Rome Tribunal book........
Sorry to be late on the Rome thing, but it's doable. One of the other authors is doing some great work on Genoa and the islands.
The problem, for me, in doing it is I'm not across how Islamic magicians work and they matter a lot for the HRE in Sicily . Mark would be a better choice to write it, imo.
There's not a lot in the old book that's salvageable. No offense to the authors, but it was written pre internet and so it spends a lot of time on geography. Also the theme, Corruption, needs some sort of fresh twist Sicily gets two pages. Venice gets two pages. It might be better to break Rome up into parts and do it piecemeal.
I'm currently running a saga in the Roman Tribunal, so I had to update it to 1220, remove all the infernal stuff that made it so cringey, update a lot of stuff to how things are in ArMa5 (like Verdi or Tremere), etc. I'd be happy to share what I did, if it helps anybody, though I'm not sure where...
Edit: Also, happy to help bump this thread, so David's patreon gets more exposure. I just learned of it today!
so I'm off to scout out your Patreon and bump this back up the forum at the same time.