Exalted Monthly Magazine

[Rahod]

So I see more and more about peoples ideas for this or that. I know back in the day there was a magazine for white wolf. Now in this day and age, I feel that we the fans can come together and take our pieces and put them together to make an Exalted Monthly Magazine. I personally don't have the skill set to make a magazine but I figured some people out there had the skill set to put others works together and put them into a monthly PDF which could be pinned on the Forums.

It's just a thought.

[The Unsung Hero]

While I'm a fan of this idea, that requires:

• Someone to gather/seek out content
• Someone to edit/review the content
• Someone to compile the content
• Someone to format the content

And depending on the size this could be 1 or many people dedicating a not-insignificant number of hours every month to such a product (for free, mind you).

So if we have the people willing, of course I'd consume it and praise the person(s) for making it. But I think it's a lot of work.

[Epee102]

What sort of content would such a magazine have?

[Tikor]

I'd be willing to contribute content working with a magazine producer. Homebrew, fanfiction, op-eds. A collaboration where I get to write words, and someone else packages them all pretty.

[Simon Darkstep]

Could be fun. It would require some attention and dedication though.

I'd be glad to jump in with some content, to the extent Real Life allows.


[Edit to add] ... and then I click over ( here ) from another thread, discovering there's a "Storyteller's Vault" now. So yeah, maybe this is a happening.

[Redthorn]

This sounds like something I'd want to contribute to, but I'm afraid I'm a little low on editing experience. I can write and proofread decently enough. I guess you'd need a pool of writers/researchers to keep content flowing. Potential content off the top of my head:

• Fluff & Crunch - a writeup of a location or organisation, QCs, new systems, charms, evocations, artifacts, bestiary entries, conversion of 1e and 2e content etc.
• Community projects - What's going on in the Exalted community this month
• Play aids
• Plot hooks
• Releases and reviews (including fan works, not just official releases)
• Summarisation of the Ask the Devs thread over the last month
• Interviews (?)

[haren]

Might I suggest also some fiction along the lines of the old wiki's Whirling Brush Method. Basically a few pieces of collaborative writing where a person writes some, then another person writes the next chapter or two, and so on?

[Simon Darkstep]

So, just to play Infernal's Advocate - how would this be better than building up a sticky-but-growing list of forum gems?

[Redthorn]

I'd say the difference is the level of collaboration. A sticky list would be more like a single curator (with forumites acting as 'researchers' by finding material) creating a catalogue leading to various individual projects, a bit like the existing useful links and topics thread.

The structure of a magazine means that rather than various different content creators pursuing their own projects sporadically, we could give them motivation to work together on projects they'd be hard-pressed to create on their own. This also potentially means a steady stream of fan content, not that theres any real lack of it. If issues were themed (for instance a Dragon-Blooded issue for WFHW's release month), the talent pool would be contributing DB specific material to a deadline, potentially teaming up with writers/artists/editors/others on an ad-hoc basis to produce an article or page for the next month's issue.

I will admit that the sticky list might have merit, but for me the appeal of the magazine format is the ability to work with other fans on a semi-regular basis to create something I wouldn't be able to make alone.

[Simon Darkstep]

That's a good answer, thanks!

I was just considering how to get the most benefit to the most Storytellers and Players for the effort involved. Fanzines were popular and cool back in the day (I devoured BattleTechnology when I found one!) but I haven't seen a lot of them lately. It seems more like forum and wiki projects, nowadays.

[light-hero]

Totally in support of this idea. But it would need to have some form of structure.

It makes me think of the Ink Monkeys.

It would also like to contribute material.

[Lioness]

Speaking from personal experience (I was an Ezine Editor for a while) a quarterly is much more realistic. I'd like to contribute but I lack the time or inclination to be an editor.

[Arian Dynas]

Well... speaking personally, I'd be willing to contribute as well. I've also edited for Holmguard Press before, so I could take a crack at that, but I'd need some guaruntees that the idea is going to have some follow through before I sign on since I've got a bunch of projects to juggle. And Lioness is right, a quarterly zine is much more realistic in terms of ambition.

[Redthorn]

Glad we have some experienced editors here.

So, having been met with quite a bit of enthusiasm, how do we want to go about this?

My suggestions, bearing in mind I've not done something like this before:

• Recruitment - Editors, proofreaders, artists, writers, other.
  • A thread here and on other community sites (Reddit, GitP, RPGNet etc.) for the purposes of recruitment, with a clear statement of what we'll be doing
  • Contacting fans who have previously made or are actively making extra material for the game, gauging their interest in producing material for a quarterly Exalted magazine
  • We shouldn't worry about having too many of any one type of contributor, as multiple redundancies are useful in a case like this: where we are all essentially volunteers with other obligations that could take priority
• Collaboration
  • We'll need a place for contributors to discuss their ideas, submit their pieces, establish themes for issues and work out who to group up with for the upcoming issue. I would suggest Discord, but there are other options
  • Once we have a pool of content creators assembled, we'll need to discuss what is a feasible size and scope for the magazine and establish a deadline based on that
  • Ideally the pool should be large enough that we can form ad-hoc groups for each issue, with some people able to move between groups if necessary

[Arian Dynas]

Discord has some merits, though via google documents is a good place to share content. That being said, layout is a significant concern. I can maybe help in that regard, using the official Exalted layout pages (with developer and Onyx Path permission of course since this is a bigger sort of deal than "Hey I made this and wanted it to look fancy" kind of homebrew.) but I mostly do it in Word, which some of you are sure to know is a colossal pain for this sort of thing.

And like I said, I'll be happy to write, contribute, even edit if it gets that far, but we should find a way to spread the load. As a freelancer I've got other projects that pay bills that need to come first, and I'm sure there's other people in similar straights, so we'd need to make sure that when working together things are faster, but that the project won't collapse if someone can't meet their commitments.

EDIT: Oh god I've got a stupid, punny name for it. We could call it "Creation Cuarterly"

That being said; I'd figure a good format would be something to the effect of;

• A quarterly editorial about Exalted.
• A "Culture Corner" sort of article discussing some anthropological sort of stuff, like dissecting a deeper theme of a place in Creation.
• An article on some Exalted media that's been getting bigger.
• A review of recent Exalted books.
• A free artifact with evocations.
• Quarterly Adventure Ideas?
• Four or five articles about whatever comes in, like locations, adventures, how to better ST, etc.
• Collected Dev Errata?