With the impending opening of the Basic Fantasy Showcase, I feel the need to write up some guidelines on submissions. Here goes:
How to Create a New Adventure or Supplement
First, you need a good idea. That should go without saying. Write up a first version of your concept and post it in the Workshop, where others can critique it for you. When your submission is
complete, post it to the Showcase (if you have a Showcase account) or contact me (Solomoriah) to let me know that you have a complete work and would like a Showcase account for it. Once I've looked it over, if I feel it is up to snuff, I'll upgrade your forum account to a Showcase account and you'll be able to post it there.
Highly rated Showcase products may be selected by me to be included on the main Downloads page.
If you are creating an adventure, please download the Adventure Template attached to this post and follow the directions inside it to create your adventure. All adventures for the Downloads page (and eventually for printing!) must be in the standard format, and using the Adventure Template styles will make that easy for you.
What Goes Where, and Why
The Workshop is the "wild west" of game material writing and sharing. You can write pretty much whatever you want and post it there, so long as you obey the Rules (see below). This means that you are likely to find unfinished, half-baked, and/or badly conceived ideas there, as well as the sort of excellent works such as you are used to finding on this site.
The Showcase is for recognized authors to post their work. There may be many different "takes" on one or another concept (I'm sure we'll have a number of Rangers, for instance). Showcase products should be
complete; if you are an approved author, please don't submit incomplete works there. "Unfinished" works in the Showcase should be limited to adventures which are
fully playable, but in need of things like artwork, flavor text, and other "fluff" that we all love but don't actually need.
The Downloads page is for official and approved works, which will all be complete.
Official works include the core rules... and pretty much nothing else. All other items on the Downloads page are
approved by me. With respect to rule supplements, there will eventually be only one regular way to do each thing on that page; I'm going to be very picky about what I allow there. This means that some items presently found there will be "demoted" to the Showcase, and that does include some of my items. In fact, some of my own items will be demoted all the way down to the Workshop.
The Rules
To appear on this site in any fashion, a work
must be legitimately free. This means that all text, and all required graphics (such as maps, for example), are Open Game Content. Decorative artwork does not have to follow this rule, but you must have the right to redistribute any artwork you use in your product, and you must be able to explain to me how you have such a right. Of course, any work being shared here must also not be infringing anyone else's copyright.
To appear on the Downloads page, a work
must be in the standard style. We attempt to maintain consistency in look and feel not just for artistic reasons, but because it makes it easier for GMs to pick up any adventure or supplement from the site and use it immediately. Showcase items
should be in the standard style, and if you want an item from the Showcase to make it to the Downloads page, this will be a deal-breaker.
Showcase products
should be complete; Downloads page products
must be complete.
Why am I doing all this?
The current Downloads page has gotten unwieldy, and I wasn't the first to mention that newbies find it hard to choose from among all the different versions of common subclasses. These changes will clean up the Downloads page substantially, making it more friendly to new users.
The new Showcase will hopefully meet the needs of recognized authors to present their works in a way consistent with the Downloads page. It will be a less messy way to view contributed works, focusing on the actual materials rather than the ongoing discussions. The Showcase allows you to link an existing forum thread, such as a Workshop thread, to a product so that you can guide users of your works to the place where you want them to comment.
Basic Fantasy Adventure Template
Basic Fantasy RPG Style Guide