Early Access: Mysteries on Arcturus Station

Just picked this up. Great gaming ahead.

david l shields jr

Awesome. I'm always curious how this looks behind the scenes. Thanks for sharing your perspective.

Michal

Sure. This has become an area that I'm weirdly specialized in, but I can't say more until publishers announce, but I'll say that I have done this type of thing six times now. First thing is it depends on the Publisher's contract with the original author, if they still retain certain rights or if the publisher owns the full rights. If the publisher doesn't own the rights, then they need to contact the original author (or current rights owner) and secure rights to reprint an update. This can be messy, as in the early days of RPGs rights were all over the place, as no one thought this would be a thing where an adventure comes back in future editions, or even the concept of this industry being around 40+ years later. Chaosium has had to chase down several authors or their estates for their early work being updated and re-published. I know of one old Chaosium adventure that they can't update because no one can locate the original author. Once rights are secured, then the publisher can assign whoever they wish to re-do the adventure. The original author should always get credit, no matter what has changed. With Mongoose I had them specifically credit J. Andrew Keith for the original Arcturus Station adventure. Now with Traveller, Marc Miller owns the rights to everything in Classic Traveller (save for some FASA and other non-GDW stuff). Mongoose evidently (I don't know the specifics) has the right to update and change anything from Classic Traveller to Mongoose Traveller. So when I asked about the rights I was told, "Don't worry. We have permission per our agreement with Marc Miller." With all the adventure update jobs I've done (I really wish I could name specifics here) I was told that I have full control over the changes. I assume that part of that is I walked in as both an experienced game reviewer and author. That's both awesome and scary. Awesome because in addition to being able to correct any issues I had with the original scenario, I can add new things, such as the 10th Suspect in Murder on Arcturus Station). Scary because I don't want to hurt the original by having my changes damage what made the original so good. There's also fan backlash if you change too much, but that just goes with the territory of fandom. I try to keep as much of the original intact as I can, meaning that I only change what I feel is a true improvement. The process I've followed is I first take the original as a full Word Document. That sounds easy, but some of the old modules aren't in Word. I've been sent scans where the PDF tried to read the text, but large portions are just gibberish. Then there's the hard line-breaks after every single line. If the original was a double-column printing, that means I'm deleting a lot of extra line-breaks. I've had to have an open copy of the original scenario beside me just to verify where the real paragraph-breaks are supposed to be. Depending on the adventure length, this has taken me anywhere from 1-3 full day's work just to get the manuscript in a workable form. I wanted to kiss my editor when they sent me one where that was already done. After it's in a workable text format I'll modify all sections where game mechanics appear, updating them to the current edition. Then I'll start moving sections into a better layout format, such as a Dramatis Personae, moving NPC stat blocks to the back, adding a Backstory section, and the large formatting changes. I'll also tighten text to be less wordy or less... technical, I suppose. Some older adventures read a lot like radio instructions, especially early Traveller. Verbiage is changed to the game's current language format, so "Adventurer" or "Hero" is changed to "Traveller" or "Investigator," any gender pronouns for Player or GM are changed from "he" to a neutral "they" or the sentence is reworded so that no pronoun is necessary (that's my preferred method). Older adventures almost always assumed the players would all be male. If you're ever bored, there is a YouTube review some guy did on Mysteries on Arcturus Station where he ranted about my changing of pronouns. I'll also add my own flairs, such as descriptions of smell or other things to help paint scenes. During all this I'm also adding my larger personal changes (such as the new characters, the section on Security Cameras, or the Baronetess's staff). After that, it's playtest to be sure nothing is broken, fix it if it is, then shoot it back to the publisher. After that is waiting. This can take months before the Publisher gets back to me. Eventually, the Publisher sends back edit requests for typos I missed, weird errors, or suggestions. After that they publish. Probably a lot longer of an answer than you wanted, but that's the process I've experienced.

Can you shed some light how does updating/re-releasing of such older adventures work? Especially given that there were some previous authors for this?

Michal

In your review of the original Arcturus Station adventure I remember you commenting how it was disappointing that the party just started off being owed $50k with no explanation of how it happened. When I bought this updated version I was really happy to see you included a prequel of sorts to plug that plot hole. Fantastic job!