| Brennan Taylor September 9, 2006 |
| About Brennan Taylor Brennan Taylor is a veteran of the game publishing business as the founder of the small press Galileo Games. His first product, The Legend of Yore, was published in 1996. More recently, he produced the critically acclaimed d20 sci-fi game Bulldogs! Brennan is co-founder of the independent publishers' online game store Indie Press Revolution, a co-operative aimed at giving small publishers a chance outside the current distribution system by emphasizing direct sales to game-players. For more information regarding Brennan Taylor, Galileo Games, and Indie Press Revolution, please visit www.indiepressrevolution.com and www.galileogames.com. |
Post Meeting Write-up
A good time was had by those who attended the SFSNNJ's
September installment of Face The Fiction at the GSP Borders in
Paramus last night. Due to some miscommunication among the
Borders staffers, there was no offical pre-meeting activity last night.
However, promptly at 8:00 pm. Todd Ehrenfels opened the meeting
by briefly previewing the events for the coming week, then
introduced our special guest Brennan Taylor,who brought his wife & 2
young children with him. Brennan began by giving an overview of
what role-playing games are, describing them as a cross between a
game and performance art, or collaborative storytelling, as Kate
Landis put it so eloquently. He stated that he first became
interested in gaming when he was in fifth grade, which was when
Dungeons & Dragons first came out in 1980. Because of the
confusing way the game's book was written, he discovered that he
was playing it wrong! By the time he got to college,he was pursuing
writing game books more seriously. He said that his earliest efforts
were terrible,and that even BULLDOG, which was his first successful
game book, in retrospect could have been better than it was due to
the troubles he had with some of the contracted artists getting their
work to him on time. As a result some of the artwork planned was
not used, and the artists who failed to deliver did not get paid! With
his current game book MORTAL COIL, he only used one artist and it
worked much better. The book was published using print on
demand, which he
indicated was the only way to make money since the market for
gaming books is so small. His budget for MORTAL COIL was
$2,500.00, which he's made back plus a little extra. His day job is
being a designer for a web-based company. He talked a bit about
his company INDIE PRESS
REVOLUTION which acts as a distributor for new and original game
books and other related products. He also talked about
"play-testing", which is the best way to make sure that your games
will work in the marketplace. He mentioned role-playing games for
computers,which he said he wasn't particularly interested in creating
due to the mathematics involved (of course if a company offered
him money to revamp one of his game books for computers, he
would take it to support his family). Many good questions were
asked and the presentation wrapped up around 9:30 p.m.
A good time was had by those who attended the SFSNNJ's
September installment of Face The Fiction at the GSP Borders in
Paramus last night. Due to some miscommunication among the
Borders staffers, there was no offical pre-meeting activity last night.
However, promptly at 8:00 pm. Todd Ehrenfels opened the meeting
by briefly previewing the events for the coming week, then
introduced our special guest Brennan Taylor,who brought his wife & 2
young children with him. Brennan began by giving an overview of
what role-playing games are, describing them as a cross between a
game and performance art, or collaborative storytelling, as Kate
Landis put it so eloquently. He stated that he first became
interested in gaming when he was in fifth grade, which was when
Dungeons & Dragons first came out in 1980. Because of the
confusing way the game's book was written, he discovered that he
was playing it wrong! By the time he got to college,he was pursuing
writing game books more seriously. He said that his earliest efforts
were terrible,and that even BULLDOG, which was his first successful
game book, in retrospect could have been better than it was due to
the troubles he had with some of the contracted artists getting their
work to him on time. As a result some of the artwork planned was
not used, and the artists who failed to deliver did not get paid! With
his current game book MORTAL COIL, he only used one artist and it
worked much better. The book was published using print on
demand, which he
indicated was the only way to make money since the market for
gaming books is so small. His budget for MORTAL COIL was
$2,500.00, which he's made back plus a little extra. His day job is
being a designer for a web-based company. He talked a bit about
his company INDIE PRESS
REVOLUTION which acts as a distributor for new and original game
books and other related products. He also talked about
"play-testing", which is the best way to make sure that your games
will work in the marketplace. He mentioned role-playing games for
computers,which he said he wasn't particularly interested in creating
due to the mathematics involved (of course if a company offered
him money to revamp one of his game books for computers, he
would take it to support his family). Many good questions were
asked and the presentation wrapped up around 9:30 p.m.
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