New universe idea I've been working on for several years.

[Scott Gibbons]

Couple of things - first, welcome to the wonderful world of Palladium Books!

Answering your question on how the different game settings (Rifts Earth, Wormwood, Phase World, etc.) relate - this is the concept of the "megaverse", or basically multiple universe each existing independent of the others, but connected in that a character can travel back and forth between them through Rifts. You could think of it like the megaverse is a high rise building with an infinite number of floors, with each floor being a different universe or dimension (dimensions are like a non-conventional universe made up of only one "world" or plane of existence - its a somewhat fluid concept). The Rifts are the elevators between the floors.

As for this being the right place to post or not, if you're looking to get anything published by Palladium, imho, it is best to first shoot for getting it in the Rifter. If people have a good reaction to it, then you have a leg to stand on when pitching the full book (or books) to PB. But this is my opinion only, and its been done differently a lot of times.

As for finding a collaborator for writing, ideas, art, etc. - first off art is assigned by Palladium once they have something written that they feel is good enough to publish, so don't spend time worrying about it or thinking it will help you sell your universe to PB. Strength of writing & cool ideas will get you a lot farther. As for finding a co-writer/collaberator on the creation for your work, all I can do is give you encouragement. Many of Palladium's official freelancers are busy with their own projects. There might be people here with the time, skill & work ethic to help you out, but don't wait until you find one. Sounds like you already have a good start - keep at it and if a collaborator is meant to be it'll happen!

[Scott Gibbons]

No problem. I think you're doing the right thing in reaching out.

With regard to PB's taking ownership/control of your creation, there's a lot of hot & heavy feelings on this out there. Some of it is legitimate, and some of it is due to erroneous interpretations of PB's publicly stated position. In a nutshell, if PB decides topurchase your work, then it is legally a "lock, stock & barrel" type deal. For business purposes PB has made the decision that it wants to own outright everything related to anything it publishes (for one, this makes it easier on them when negotiating intellectual property rights when approached by companies like Bruckheimer films). Palladium - and especially Kevin, the owner - catches a lot of flack over this stance, as it is not the only way for an RPG company to run, but in the end that is what PB does and it won't change any time soon. So, if they do publish your universe then yes, you are signing away the rights to your "baby".

Now, that all having been said, a lot of people misinterpret this to mean that "Kevin's gonna steal my work from me! I'll never get to do anything with it ever again! Even if I send it to them and they don't buy it I'll still get screwed because I have to sign their Unsolicited Manuscript agreement before they'll even look at it!" This interpretation is, legally as well as pratically completely false.

First off, PB cannot publish something you wrote unless you get paid for it. You won't get paid for it unless you sign a contract spelling out exactly what you are selling (i.e. - the work as well as the rights to publish it, etc.). Having signed such a contract with PB myself more than once, I can personally testify that the contract is not written like some shady used-car deal; it is straight forward, clear and concise, so you know what you're getting into. And no one can make you sign the contract. Don't like what you see? Don't sign it, and you still retain ownership to your work to publish yourself or through someone else (though anything derived from PB's intellectual property will have to be edited out, of course).

That all legal junk though. More important, to me anyway, is the practical side of things. You can ask any of PB's freelance writers their opinion about how PB much freedom PB gives them in developing further the material that's already been published - many of them are on these boards or RPG.net. I think (again from my own experience) that you'll find that by and large they are all satisfied with the broad freedom PB allows in further development of the worlds & universes they come up with. Kevin is very much a writer, artist, & gamer himself. He started Palladium Books to be able to publish things the way he thought would be fun - he's not going to try to kill other people have the same enjoyment.

Hope that answers your questions & concerns.

[Scott Gibbons]

You might want to take a look at the Robotech game line, as it seems to have some of the game elements you're talking about.

I'll try to post more on some of your other questions later tonight as well (I'm at work now).

[Gamer]

Couple of things - first, welcome to the wonderful world of Palladium Books!

Thank you for the response, and the answers to my questions, I really do appreciate it.

Now concerning the universe in question, obviously I'm not going into any major details, as I have not published anything yet and don't want the ideas stolen before completion (after completion and publication I don't really care, after all you can't copywrite an idea )

I was wanting to use the Palladium rules set as a 'stepping stone' of sorts, there are certain things in them however that simply won't work or make the use of certain skills and technologies either much to complicated or far to simple respectively, its not so much a rewrite, but an attempt to make it slightly unique, for this setting anyways, and to help differentiate it from the other Palladium universes available, while insuring inherent compatibility with the base system, because we all know there are GM's out there who love to mix the different worlds, I for one do enjoy this occasionally, but to a limited extent.

Another question I have however, is the issue of rights ownership, if I create something, I would like to retain at some control over the work, that being said I've done a bit research over the last several days concerning this particular publisher and found that Palladium tends to do the 'never publish something I don't own completely' thing, so how exactly would I be able to retain some creative control over the work, at least in expanding the universe over time, with a system like this?

It's not that I don't inherently distrust people, but building an entire universe from scratch like this tends to make it a little endearing to you, and simply giving it all away to someone else is kinda scary, I mean the main reason I'm approaching those here, is because I simply don't have the resources to publish this on my own, and right now looking for assistance from, hopefully, like minded people is the only thing I can really rely on right now.

I apologize if I've made incorrect assumptions.

~ Carson

Now you know why there was a surge in people publishing it themselves with the creation of print on demand and kickstarter and all that.