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	Archive through October 05, 2007	25		10/05 02:42pm

Gary, I'd like to see this product, but after other PD sourcebooks for the major empires.

By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Friday, October 05, 2007 - 10:55 am: Edit

I'm very much in favor of something simular to a systems/GM guide book with good adventure seeds. It could include a ready made adventure but include information on the system or better yet on systems in and around the adventure setting.

I honestly doubt I would by just an adventure module by its self. My RPG time is very limited these days.

PHD

By Lee Hanna (Lee) on Friday, October 05, 2007 - 11:18 am: Edit

I might buy an adventure, or a campaign area book with adventure seeds. My RPG prep time is limited, and I always prefer to tinker with someone else's work than to create my own from scratch.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, October 05, 2007 - 02:16 pm: Edit

One of the things about the suggestion I made was that it would also be good reading for those who wish they could play and plan on playing someday... (gee, how many of us fit that bill?) but wouldn't find a fully structured adventure all that enjoyable of a read. A pure adventure book would be something they would buy when they have a play group scheduled but not until then (which might be never for some).

However, a resource book with adventure seeds about the worlds of each race would be something one could sit and read for it's own sake. We've already seen evidence that PDK and PDR have been used for that exact reason. They are both facinating reads useful to all who love the SFU.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Friday, October 05, 2007 - 02:42 pm: Edit

If the powers that be feel that this book will be unprofitable, would this be a PDF possibillity?

adm

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, October 05, 2007 - 04:56 pm: Edit

There isn't much point in spending the manpower and brainpower creating a book that would be unprofitable, so PDF would not be an avenue. If nobody wants it, why do it in the first place? Why not spend the same brainpower doing something more people want?

PDFs have some utility in a few limited cases:

1. Small publishers (mostly d20 RPGs) who cannot get into distribution. Not a problem for us.

2. Products which players want to print multiple copies of, such as SFB SSDs.

3. I can't think of a #3.

I can think of a lot of reasons not to do #1. (You make more profit on paper copies, piracy, stores get pissed off when their customers are buying PDFs from web sites instead of hard copies from the store.)

#2 is a matter we have discussed elsewhere and I do not want to start a discussion about it here.

The only time I could see an unprofitable product being "published" is one you have to do for internal usage anyway (say, an index of SFB SSDs, or a list of ship names), and you might as well take the money from the people (however many or few they may be) who would like to have a copy (in either format).

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, October 05, 2007 - 11:46 pm: Edit

There's definately a lot of room for a GM guide.

How many Referees fell for giving an uber weapon to a player and took it away rather than finding some creative way of getting the player to give it up (like trading it to a time traveling inventor who just happens to have an antidote that can save the PC's sister from a poisonous snake bite that has no known cure in this current timesteam-point) and thus had a player boycote and an argument-feast because the Referee was "trying to make the player lose".

Remember; Madam Lash does things you just can't do in a pub-brawl without getting arrested, simply because the customers say; "Yes, I consent to this".


Referees should also rules that would resolve the old, two guys have the guns drawn and pointing at me. I win the initiative and draw my phaser pistol and blast one and the fire on the other, and similar issues of "loss of reality".
Really the guy should get shot by his second target, even if he's fast enough to get the first but initiative rules don't go into detail on this and thus players just go fire and blast everyone (rather than surrendering or running for cover). So a guide that points Referees in the direction of building his own rules that serve a level of "reality" that suits the Referee, is something that GMs should have at their finger tips.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, October 06, 2007 - 09:26 am: Edit

I think GMs handle such things now using existing rules without any problems (and without any interference from the publisher).

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, October 06, 2007 - 11:47 am: Edit

Yeah, I don't think that PD needs a GM Guide. PD is a system built on existing systems which means most GM have experience and there are already books about how to run adventures for those systems anyway. I'd say 98% of the basics of running a campaign apply to any setting.


SVC: Would you be interested in my original proposal? (Oct 2, 1:18, next archive up)

I think the actual proposal was in another thread. I'll try to find it.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, October 07, 2007 - 01:44 am: Edit

I think good GMs know their way around the system and don't get themselves into problems by keeping their PC/NPC balance in an exspantion that suits the story arc...I think bad GMs start the adventure in a bar.

Some advice would help lousy GMs become good GMs but I'm only one guy.

By Andrew Marrington (Mazza) on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 10:04 am: Edit

This is the first time I've posted on this discussion board - I've so far stuck to the more familiar phpBB Federation Commander forum. I wanted to comment on this topic though so I created an account to do so.

As a Gamesmaster I know I would much prefer books which provide me with setting/source material for my games than adventures. This isn't because I don't like adventure modules - it is just because a large proportion of adventures designed by others to be used generically won't fit into my campaign, will clash with the style of game my players and I prefer, or, in an effort to avoid either of these, will be too generic to be interesting. I like adventure seeds, but I'd prefer these to be packaged with source books rather than be collected with full written adventures in adventure modules.

I do like adventure modules, but I'd prefer to see the Federation book, the Feline Empires book, the Gorn book, and so on. I'd prefer to see a book about interplanetary trade (which would be so useful for a campaign where the players are the crew of a Free Trader or the like), about espionage, about the Early Years or the Andromedan Invasion. Those are the sorts of products I am most looking forward to buying. The best thing about them is that even if I never run a game with them, I'll still enjoy reading about the SFU in them. I think this last point is less true of adventure module books.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 11:16 am: Edit

Andrew: You think like me. I don't really have much interest in adventure books and want to do the empire books. Trust me, the delay in empire books is caused by many things but not by diverting work into adventure books. A few people have said they want to do adventures and have sent some bits and pieces which haven't been looked at and won't be until we get some empire books done. Then, we may try an adventure book just to see if it sells.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 01:33 pm: Edit

I agree. I wasn't looking to do adventure books either. I don't really even want to do adventures. I prefer to just write fiction but to work up character sheets and additional background that follows a story would be fine.

Indeed, I wonder if that wouldn't be a good idea to do for the Prime Directive section in Captains Log; produce background data from the story. The empire books most definately need to come first.

I wish I could make a career of this. I would if I could.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 11:29 pm: Edit

David Crews, Andrew Harding:

There is an SFB playing Brizbanite on this BBS but I can't remember his name...got any help?


Guru L.K.:

Character sheet for characters in fiction would be useful...it'll let players grab a quick PC and have a back-story to flesh him out with. Might even reduce the number of writters who make a hero who turns out to be superman if the character sheet comes before the story.

By John Rudd (Johnrudd) on Sunday, January 30, 2011 - 05:19 pm: Edit

SVC said:

"PDFs have some utility in a few limited cases:

1. Small publishers (mostly d20 RPGs) who cannot get into distribution. Not a problem for us.

2. Products which players want to print multiple copies of, such as SFB SSDs."


actually, those are reasons #2 and #3. Reason #1 is: publishers (even mainstream ones) who want to attract more purchases by offering the same product at a lower price point, by eliminating hard-copy publishing overhead.

You can lower that overhead _some_ by only doing Print on Demand ... but the overhead is even further reduced by simply eliminating ALL of the print costs, shipping costs, etc.

I often buy PDFs of products as a "get my feet wet" type situation, and then buy the hard copy game for those games that I really want to hold in my hand. Wise content creators price the PDF at "the cost of my work + reasonable profit margin", and then raise the cost of the printed copies to compensate for the printing overhead. That way, no matter whether they sell a PDF, POD, or traditional printed volume, they get the same compensation for themselves ... yet the customer also gets both choice and reasonable prices.

The other reason I tend to buy PDFs (reason #4 for your list): it's easier to keep a large collection of rules in an electronic bookshelf, than to keep them on an physical bookshelf. And, in today's world of electronic viewers that support open document standards (PDF, EPUB, etc.), that's a perfectly reasonable avenue. I find that particularly useful when I'm wanting to have as few physical (core) books on the table as possible, but still have the ability to bring in those other materials as I need them. Typically, I'll own ever supplement of a game in PDF, and then the core books in both PDF and hard-copy. Then I'll do my off-line GM work (developing new adventures, etc.) in front of my computer, using the PDF copies ... and take core books and my iPad to the game session (the iPad being loaded up with the PDFs I'm going to need in-play). Before the iPad, I used a netbook (and before that, an UMPC, and before that, a laptop) for that role.

Anyway, my main point is: the #1 reason for doing PDF is lowering the price point for your customers, while still retaining your compensation and profit. If you go look at rpgnow.com, you'll see many mainstream game publishers who have their works available (new releases, current releases, out of print releases, etc.). And not just RPGs -- they have some card and wargame stuff on there, as well.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, January 30, 2011 - 05:36 pm: Edit

Actually, print on demand doesn't lower the cost at all. It's about the same price per book, PODded one at a time or printed 5000 at a time. Of course, printing 5000 means eventually throwing away what didn't sell and effectively increasing the cost, but that's hard to account for.

Anyway, OLD NEWS John, that was a LONG time ago and we've been selling PDFs for months. GURPS PD went on e23 last week, and PD20M goes on DTRPG next week.

By John Rudd (Johnrudd) on Sunday, January 30, 2011 - 07:06 pm: Edit

POD lowers/eliminates warehousing type costs.

Glad to hear you'll be on DTRPG/RPGnow next week!

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, January 31, 2011 - 11:50 am: Edit

"POD lowers/eliminates warehousing type costs."

Not really, not by enough to notice or matter.

We HAVE a warehouse (we have to because of pre-pod products and non-pod components of post-pod products). One pallet more or less in that warehouse is irrelevant. 90% of the "warehouse type cost" is in getting the product from the stock shelf to the mailman.

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Monday, February 20, 2012 - 07:04 pm: Edit

Our Introduction to the Star Fleet Universe: Prime Directive and Roleplaying is now available from two sites. The price is right, too -- free!

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=99676

http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=ADB8000

Ever wondered just what is the Star Fleet Universe? Want to find out?

This short introduction provides some of the background, "geography," timeline, mysteries, and a quick look at the species inhabiting the Star Fleet Universe. It can also be used as a brief introduction of what is "known" for new players at demos and conventions. Come game with us in the Star Fleet Universe!

By Michael Bennett (Mike) on Monday, February 20, 2012 - 07:39 pm: Edit

Got it, read it, rated it (5!).

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Monday, February 20, 2012 - 07:52 pm: Edit

Jean; perhaps you can get this on Mongooses site?

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Monday, February 20, 2012 - 08:23 pm: Edit

Already there in both the Welcome to the SFU in ACTA and in the Traveller topic.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Monday, February 20, 2012 - 08:47 pm: Edit

Sorry not quite clear on my intent. I was suggesting Mongooses .pdf distribution system.

By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Monday, February 20, 2012 - 08:48 pm: Edit

I think they use DTRPG.

By William F. Hostman (Aramis) on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 06:44 pm: Edit

Mongoose uses DTRPG. They don't have a direct sale option.

Cubicle 7 has direct sales fulfilled by DTRPG.

The biggest sales sites I know of for PDF are DTRPG/RPGNow (Two different interfaces to one system), e23, Indie Press Revolution, and PIGames. Roughly, in that order.

A bunch of publishers do sell PDFs directly - Fiery Dragon comes to mind, as does Burning Wheel HQ, and for that matter, Baen Books.

With ADB stuff going up on both e23 and DTRPG, they're hitting most of the market.