It's More than Just Gaming

Hello folks, welcome.  I don’t normally do Thursday posts but I have an ever increasing stream of content and articles to share with you and I felt it was ok to buck the trend every now and again.  Besides, this is just a short post.  I should say there are affiliate links in this post, which means if you click any of the links to an external site and make a purchase I get a small commission, which helps keep this website running and is much appreciated by me and by the people who say I owe them money (such as my mortgage lender…).

Today I am going to be talking about the Storytellers Vault, which is a companion site for Drive Thru RPG dealing exclusively in World of Darkness Content.  For those of you who are regular readers,  World of Darkness is my favourite roleplay setting, and my Game of Choice is Vampire: The Dark Ages.  None of that is new.  And to be honest, all of the canonical World of Darkness content that you can get at the Storytellers Vault is also available at Drive Thru RPG anyway, so you may ask yourself why I even bothered starting this article.  And the short answer is because the Storytellers Vault has a community content creation portal, with free templates supplied allowing community content.

What does this mean?

This means that anyone who enjoys the Game System and has knowledge of the world, the rules and has a passion for it can create their own PDF sourcebooks, which when they use the templates properly look really professional. Said developers can then place their new PDF sourcebooks for sale on the Storytellers Vault, earning themselves money (minus site fees) from their creations.

Full content creation guidelines, and Storytellers Vault FAQs are HERE

I personally think this is fantastic.  This allows folks who have a creative hobby to apply that hobby and share their creations with the world.  Folks who don’t have the confidence to write a novel might find that a Clanbook or City Sourcebook for Vampire: The Masquerade is not outside their capability.  I love the fact that all the rules systems, all the power systems and all the established NPCs within the world are permissible content for a Storyteller’s Vault creation.  The only caveat is that it is understood by all parties that community content is non-canonical and does not necessarily affect the Metaplot of World of Darkness.

So, why am I interested in this?

I am interested in this for two reasons.  One, I have a couple of Sourcebooks in mind.  A Starter Adventure for the Vampire: The Dark Ages, and a Bloodline for the same.  I am developping the adventure just now and have quite a few notes for the Clanbook.  I’ll be sharing updates here from time to time, and if you are remotely interested you will be able to purchase them (hopefully somepoint next year).

Second of all, I will be doing reviews on community content.  I have a couple in the pipeline from one developper, and you will see them over the next couple of weeks, and it would be my hope that I will be able to provide review for others in the future.  (Unpaid reviews, though hopefully with a review copy of the product as I am not made of money).  The reason for this is to dispel any fears over quality.  There is a nervousness about things which have the label “Fan Fiction” and this is tantamount to the same thing.  I’ll post my thoughts on Fanfiction in a separate, future article – possibly even next week, my purpose for these reviews is so folks get a good idea what they are getting when they are parting with their hard earned cash and giving reassurance they are getting something of equal quality as provided by White Wolf and the Onyx Path.  I have to say, the production quality I have seen thus far has been quite high.  I am looking forward to seeing more.

So, that was my short Thursday post.  Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments as always.  Do you have any examples of companies that not only permit, but encourage community content?  I’d love to hear?  And do you have stuff that you would like reviewed?  I’d love to hear from you too!