Troll Lord Games

Wow! Some more old school goodness!

Swords and Wizardry appears to be more of a conversion/update/interpretation of the old, old boxed set/Chainmail rules. Its nicely done. Clearly written, seems easy to understand, and looks like it would be fun to try out, or go back down memory lane if you have played it before.

Knockspell Magazine. I had to look back at the cover, because my mind starting playing tricks on me when I started reading issue one. It wasn't the layout or look, but the content confused me. The confusion was because one part of my mind was telling me, "Your reading a new magazine." while another part was saying, "Isn't this an old issue of Dragon?"

The confusion was a good thing. Plus I liked the names of the contributors I was seeing.

Gabor Lux (Melan)

Akrasia

Some wierdo named Jeff Talanian.
Alan Grohe (Grodog)

James Maliszewski

and of course,

Matt Finch (Mythmere)

Despite bad blood, and despite the fact that Matt still refers to me as a C-tard, as well as all other fans of C&C, I have to say I enjoy the content.

So if you have been interested, and still love reading through your old issues of Dragon upon occasion, I think I can safely say you will be pleased with these items if you check them out.
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The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

My House Rules: http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames

Sounds intriguing, hoss. I'll have to check it out!
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LD's C&C creations - the witch, a half-ogre, skill and 0-level rules

Troll Lord wrote:
Lord D: you understand where I"m coming from.

Knockspell is a great resource. I picked up the first two issues and have had my socks knocked off.

It really does feel like I'm reading the good old days of Dragon.

I simply refuse to even consider the magazines/journals at this point. My disdain has nothing to do with philosophical rationals of chosen game systems though. This is a reaction to lulu and their ridiculous shipping policies when shipping abroad.

I cannot in good conscience support any effort which would give lulu a single dime. Unfortunately a lot of people in the 'retro' movement seem to prefer going through lulu for the realization of having an actual professional looking printed product with little other consideration.

A shame though since the stuff sounds fantastic.

I'd be more supporting of these decisions if other alternatives to get printed products were made available -- even if for a limited time.

Jason Vey (Elf Lair Games) did this with a limited edition collector's set of 'Spellcraft & Sorcery'. The efforts of John Adams (of BHP) as well as James Edward Raggi IV (LofFP) should also be applauded since they refuse to be shackled to lulu!

Long live the independents!

M
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"You face Death itself in the form of... 1d4 Tarrasques!"

Partner to Brave Halfling Publishing
http://www.arcanacreations.com

I forget where I saw it... Lulu is changing pricing on shipping which is a good thing. I'll see if I can scrounge up a link.

From my perspective I know why folks go with Lulu. They're a leader at what they do. Probably the other big POD service in the market space is Amazon's CreateSpace. I'm looking into it but from what I'm seeing so far they don't have as many options for bindings including hardback though there are some pros as well such as ISBN and listing on Amazon.

I can't speak for others but a lot of points are taken into consideration and most of those points lead to Lulu. I'm sure the trolls can attest, a real honest to goodness print run is expensive and miscalculation can quickly spell economic doom especially when starting up or when it's a side endeavor.

Eisenmann wrote:
I forget where I saw it... Lulu is changing pricing on shipping which is a good thing. I'll see if I can scrounge up a link.

From my perspective I know why folks go with Lulu. They're a leader at what they do. Probably the other big POD service in the market space is Amazon's CreateSpace. I'm looking into it but from what I'm seeing so far they don't have as many options for bindings including hardback though there are some pros as well such as ISBN and listing on Amazon.

I can't speak for others but a lot of points are taken into consideration and most of those points lead to Lulu. I'm sure the trolls can attest, a real honest to goodness print run is expensive and miscalculation can quickly spell economic doom especially when starting up or when it's a side endeavor.

I'd be curious about that... all I know is they have been saying that things were changing as far as international shipping and who they were using to ship for a couple of years now with still no changes.

On a different note, I have heard RPG Now! is looking at POD services so maybe we'll have a bit more competition in the future.

M
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"You face Death itself in the form of... 1d4 Tarrasques!"

Partner to Brave Halfling Publishing
http://www.arcanacreations.com

Having POD services though RPGNow would be awesome!
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LD's C&C creations - the witch, a half-ogre, skill and 0-level rules

Troll Lord wrote:
Lord D: you understand where I"m coming from.

Lord Dynel wrote:
Having POD services though RPGNow would be awesome!

If they had that prior to WotC yanking the license on their PDF's I'd probably have been more put off by it. Hell, I'd probably feel a lot different about PDF's.

Dude, if they had PoD back when they had TSR pdfs, I would have been one broke sucka. Fo sho.
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LD's C&C creations - the witch, a half-ogre, skill and 0-level rules

Troll Lord wrote:
Lord D: you understand where I"m coming from.

Lord Dynel wrote:
Dude, if they had PoD back when they had TSR pdfs, I would have been one broke sucka. Fo sho.

It would have been much more convenient, that is for sure. As it is you buy the PDF and DL it, then send the PDF file to printme1, and they mail you your printed copy. The only problem is you may have to send them multiple PDF's to be printed/bound together to meet their minimum page count requirement.
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The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

My House Rules: http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames

OK, I have read through both Knockspells, and I have to say I am very pleased with them. Knockspell #2 was a surprise in that it was many notches "above" issue 1 in content, quality of material, and quality of presentation.

All the random generation tables sure helped me like issue 2 better as well, I love random tables.
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The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

My House Rules: http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames

Treebore wrote:
As it is you buy the PDF and DL it, then send the PDF file to printme1, and they mail you your printed copy. The only problem is you may have to send them multiple PDF's to be printed/bound together to meet their minimum page count requirement.

Am I doing my math right? for Printme1, if you want one copy, you need about 343 pages?
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Lord Frost

Baron of the Pitt
Castles & Crusades Society
The Dungeoneering Dad

Frost wrote:
Am I doing my math right? for Printme1, if you want one copy, you need about 343 pages?

It may be, I think it was actually around 140 pages, though, its been a few months since I last used them.
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The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

My House Rules: http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames