Thursday, August 4, 2011

LotFP Call for Submissions (Revised!)

Lamentations of the Flame Princess is looking for submissions for its series of fantasy/horror adventure modules for the Weird Fantasy Role-Playing game. Each module will be published as a 32-page, A5-sized book, which averages out to 15,000-20,000 words in length plus maps.

Your first contact with LotFP should be an outline of your proposed adventure. This outline should include:

  • The title of the work
  • A brief synopsis no more than two paragraphs in length
  • A list of the adventure's intended subsections with a brief description of each each subsection which should be no more than one or two lines in length.

Keep in mind that if LotFP is interested in working with you, your submission will undergo a developmental process before it is published. Part of this process involves both editing and, if necessary, making changes to your submission.

Playtesting should be done by you before submitting the final draft. If you do not play your creations you have no business expecting anyone else to do so.

While the core of the system used in the Weird Fantasy Role-Playing game is very familiar and traditional, these adventures are very different in feel and style to that found in scenarios published for other fantasy RPGs!

When writing for Weird Fantasy Role-Playing, your submission should take into account the following elements:

  • Present the adventure as if it takes place during the Early Modern period, roughly between the years 1500 C.E. And 1650 C.E of our own history. You do not need to be a student of geography or history to write a LotFP adventure, but when it comes to cities and nations and cultures, your adventure must be real-world in feel. You are still free to completely invent local areas and should remember that for Weird Fantasy Role-Playing adventures feeling historically accurate is just as good as being accurate.
  • Demi-humans, if used at all, must never be portrayed as being involved with or living within human society. Other humanoid creatures normally standard to other fantasy RPGs should not be used at all.
  • Every monster in the adventure (other than real-life animals) should be an individual and unique creation. They should be used sparingly.
  • Magic items must also be rare and unique, and never part of normal society. Magical items encountered should present the Player Characters complications with the potential for ill rather than as their expected reward or treasure, or as a form of guaranteed power-up. Only if you are charitable should a magical item grant the PCs a positive benefit.
  • NPCs with class and levels should be rare.
  • “Extreme” or “edgy” or “offensive” content is absolutely not required for a LotFP submission, and if used at all it should make sense in the greater context of the adventure.

Be creative, be weird. Only submissions which impress and amaze will be accepted.

All submitted work should be your own original work that you own all rights to, and the work should not have been previously published elsewhere in English.

Your full submission should use the following formatting:

  • .rtf file format
  • Times New Roman 12 point font
  • There should be full line breaks between headers and the following text, and full line breaks between paragraphs with no indentation.
  • All spell names should be capitalized and italicized
  • Saving Throw categories should be capitalized
  • Monetary listings should be without period (5sp and not 5 s.p., for example)
  • NPC and monster statistics should have their own paragraph rather than be into the text.
  • Maps should be submitted in rough form (they will be professionally redone later)

Compensation will be handled in one of two ways, chosen by you:

  • 0,02€ per word (final draft, after editing), paid upon publication. LotFP owns the work outright after payment is made.
  • 35% of profits made from the work, paid every quarter. No money will be paid up front and LotFP will be simply licensing the work and publication rights from you. Both the work and publication rights will revert back to you when the print run is sold out or after five years, whichever comes first.

Full contracts noting the specifics will be sent to you in either case; these two points are merely summaries.

If you have a longer-form project in mind (or even a full game), different arrangements can be made. Get in touch!

Disclaimer: At no point before the signing of a contract is LotFP obligated to publish your adventure or pay you for it. Submitting a work and getting developmental feedback is in no way a guarantee of payment or publication. At the same time, LotFP has no rights to your work until a contract is signed and you can pull your project from LotFP at any time before that.

Submissions, questions, and comments can be sent to lotfp@lotfp.com

Details on Weird Fantasy Role-Playing, including a free PDF of the rules (in art-free format) can be found here.

4 comments:

  1. Are you looking for illustrators as well?

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  2. Is there a deadline for proposed outlines, and should they be emailed directly to you?

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  3. No deadline for proposed outlines, with any luck I'll be releasing things for years to come. :) Outlines should be emailed to me.

    I'm always looking for new artists, email me links to portfolios (please don't attach images in the email...)

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  4. Hey, I've got an idea! Expect an outline submission in the next week or so.

    ReplyDelete