Webzines, Rights, and Issues

Well, the webzine as I had envisioned it looks like it's a bust simply because I cannot clear the rights with all of the companies, many of which have long since either gone out of business or licensed the rights to someone else. While that is okay as far as I am concerned - it was just one idea of many, but one I really wanted to see come to fruition for all kinds of reasons - it brought up a lot of issues I have with trying to support RPG material and reminds me of why I did it this way to start with.

How do you expect anyone to hear about your game if you don't allow people to talk about it? Producing original material for use with our favorite games is a time-honored tradition within the RPG community. It's something a lot of us do just for fun between gaming sessions to scratch the itch, if nothing else. Reviewing games we're only going to play once just so we can review them is not a time-honored tradition amongst the community, nor something for which I have time. I understand wanting to control what is associated with your IP, but it's gotten out of control.

I have every right to expect a pittance for the time and effort I put into developing these things, regardless of the RPG system you decide to use it with. Not being able to key my material to any game other than D&D means it's going to make it harder for me to write well, and harder for you to use with whatever system you play... unless you play D&D. I doubt it surprises most of you to learn that no one comes here to read gaming content (sadly). If you do, count yourself among the dozen or so people a month who read those posts. I can't really take the time to do that for one person, and I apologize for that but (if you do the math), that's about the size of the audience here.

The webzine is not 100% dead, as there are a handful of things I can try, but it's more likely that I will produce some system agnostic supplements instead of the webzine format I was going for. I'll be slowing down here and not posting every weekday, at least not every week. Once again, it's just not something I have the time to do anymore; the audience is non-existent. I'll still be sharing Buffy and Hero material here and on RPG Geek, just not every day.

At this point, even if I get the go-ahead for some of the games I want to cover, the majority of the 'zine would be pages of OGL and CC rights notices, so let me adjust to the scene and get to know how to do what I want to do the right way, then I'll revisit the idea down the road.

© The Weirding, 2025