I find myself puzzled about how to open up the text of the Quest for Venus (so named by Minerva/Roisin, the quest formerly known as Coronation Quest) so those who might want to run it can see how we did it.

On the one hand, I am a big Creative Commons, Share-Alike kinda guy. Sharing the quest with everyone is my ultimate goal. It was one of the points in moving it off of the technically inferior, locked up yahoo group where the planning started.

On the other hand, I don't want to make it impossible for some crazy masochist in another kingdom to take this work and use it to actually run the quest for his kingdom. If it is wide-open available on the web, then there's no way to make sure the potential questers aren't already familiar with what is required for the quest.

Of course, no re-running of the Quest for Venus will be the same, if only because no other site will have all the same amenities and layout. Nor would the personalities involved as staff be the same. But it is hard for me to imagine any quest team reading the 50 pages we have here and still being able to compete fairly in another running of the Quest for Venus. It is a mystery, after all.

So how should I put it out? Merely as an example, rather than as source material, or held more closely so only potential organizers can access it?

There must be dozens of game worlds from the past 30 years of publishing that languish, out of print and undeveloped for modern gaming.

The first one that comes to my mind is the old Chaosium Questworld planet. This only got one not-very-good suppliment published in 1982, but the work done on the world itself was quite thorough and interesting.

Chaosium can't possibly think they'll ever make money on Questworld again. So why not release the source material under a Creative Commons license and let the world revitalize it?

I recall some heady months in the mid eighties at the VCU Gamesmasters club where we collaborated on a grand design for the history, magic, mythology and biology of the largest continent on Questworld. I may even have some of those notes! Of course, now all those guys who worked on it are spread across the country–some of them at various game companies: Les Brooks, Bill and Jon Bridges, Sam Inabinet, Lee Watts, Ric Strong, and several others. No idea how we could possibly tease loose who owned what idea and put that work back out.

Here's a great site featuring legal, free music and other media.  This sort of stuff will ultimately kill the big labels, because this stuff passes freely and instantly around the world, while their stuff does not.

Perhaps you'll find some pictures or video to use in your game.

Legendary Music!
Terrifying Zombies!
Screaming Girls!
Maybe this could be part of the background for a comedy zombie game.

High Point doesn't have much of a downtown.

The black t-shirt business has more successfully conquered fandom than I ever thought possible.

Many gamers still smell bad.

My players heard me rave about Blindsight by Peter Watts a month ago. Man, is it terrific, awe-inspiring and frightening all at once:

And if the best toys do end up in the hands of those who've never forgotten that life itself is an act of war against intelligent opponents, what does that say about a race whose machines travel between the stars?

Apparently this book is selling so fast and is so hard to find at the moment that the author has released the entire book online as a pdf. But a hard copy is definitely worth having. Dig the author's description:

...it might be best described as a literary first-contact novel exploring the nature and evolutionary significance of consciousness, with space vampires.

But be warned: this does not have a happy feel good ending. Quite the reverse. Still, it addresses some extremely interesting ideas in ways I haven't seen done before. By the way, this is by the same guy mentioned in this post, who wrote or contributed to the amazing Vampire Domestication PowerPoint presentation.
And to tie this all back to gaming, the world described in Blindsight would make an awesome base for the Questworlds science fiction world.

I think I need to get a copy of his first book, Starfish (Rifters Trilogy) The review makes it sound like a science fiction inversion of Seaborn Child.

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