TheRPGSite

Yesterday I left a pretty mysterious blog entry. This was because I was busy working on yet another promotional blog for Lion & Dragon, when suddenly I realized that the entire RPGNow L&D page was GONE.

This when literally a few short hours earlier everything was fine.


So what happened?

Well, it seems that OBS basically screwed us over.

The whole thing was, they claim, some kind of an 'error'. They sold us some bullshit of how 'the system' mistook some prototype page for the real page we'd been using all month, and that now it couldn't be switched back and the old page was lost.
At first they gave us a new page with no pdf option, without our copper status. After some gentle shouting and threats on my part, they restored the copper button.

But now the URL is completely different.  Now Lion & Dragon is found here:

EDIT: The next day, to try to make sure that L&D stays dead after it looked like I was getting it back up, they CHANGED THE URL AGAIN (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?38306-RPGnow-Sabotaged-Lion-amp-Dragon-amp-What-You-Can-do-About-It&p=1017757&viewfull=1#post1017757).
This is the current URL (https://www.rpgnow.com/product/226022/) for L&D as of the last time I wrote here. But see the post linked to in the previous sentence for more updates. Because I wouldn't put it past RPGNow changing it again, especially if in spite of all their sabotage it keeps getting breaking into the top-15 or top-10.

This means that every single one of the HUNDREDS of links I had posted in the past month to the former Lion & Dragon rpgnow product listing will just lead people to a "file not found" section.


(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HWAvPWEs_XU/Wk2GmfFWOsI/AAAAAAAACAg/2m-Sa7w2vvY75_h2f5TpG49FYrFoBdlTwCLcBGAs/s320/rpgnow.png)

This to me was very intentional SABOTAGE. I think the ultimate goal was to get us off the Bestseller list.  As of the moment we were blocked, we had been on the TOP 10 of the Bestseller list from the moment L&D had first launched.
This makes a HUGE difference, because everyone who goes on the RPGnow main page will see it prominently. This is part of why we hit copper status so quickly.

I'm pretty sure that someone over on OBS, still angered about how I opposed censorship measures there (that no doubt some people there were lobbying for) decided to 'punish' me for it, by taking the product out. They had to make it look like an 'accident' because there is NOTHING in L&D that is objectionable to justify them trying to ban it. So whoever did this knew I would come back eventually, but set it up so that I would come back in a totally different URL, and their plan was that then I'd have to start from a zero-sales count (meaning that later they'd be able to pretend in internet arguments that L&D 'wasn't successful') and would lose the momentum to stay on the top 10.


Incredibly, we've already gotten back on the RPGNow sales list by virtue of sales alone, but we're somewhere around 28th place, which is essentially useless.
Before they dropped us from the list we were 20 spots higher and I'm pretty sure that was what was irking some ultra-leftist RPGNow employee.  So they fucked us.

Watch out, it could happen to you too.

(https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y2DRxbYtb4Q/WisEOxhGdwI/AAAAAAAAB5U/pQl3cCE_FisZGZo3NK3Hr5OjhJZO81nywCPcBGAYYCw/s320/Cover-L%2526D-hires.jpg)


What can you do to help?

Well, I'm not telling anyone to boycott OBS. They're not going to try this again. It would make it all too obvious. They restored my copper bestseller status (though now that we know they can fiddle with the numbers who's to say that they won't be secretly keeping me from reaching Silver or higher, or for that matter that games that have reached to high positions like that got a "little help" for being ideologically correct??).   There would be no real point, in any case, from me leaving OBS. That's what whoever did this WANTS.  They wanted me off the bestseller list.

So I say, if you want to help, get me back on.

If you haven't bought Lion & Dragon yet, and were planning to, please do so! Do so at RPGnow if it's possible for you (note: I'm not asking you to do so if it's not, or if it's highly inconvenience, but if it's all the same to you, buy it there).

And if you have already bought L&D (and aren't too inclined to just order a 2nd copy)?? Then what you can do is to share this blog entry, or just the link to L&D's new address on RPGnow, and tell people what happened and help me to make up for one entire month of promotion they RUINED.  Share it on all your social media. And especially if you see anywhere that has a link to L&D's old page, put a correction there, so people know the product still exists and they can buy it.


Thank you to any of you who help. I really appreciate it. And the people who wanted me gone won't appreciate it, and you should revel in that.


As for me, you'll have to excuse me, because I'm going to probably be spending the next several days scouring all my history of posts to replace every single link. Because if these assholes thought I'd quit, they obviously don't know me very well.  They've just gone and made me angry, and lusting for revenge.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Solitario Volcano + Blue Boar

That's pretty petty and sleazy.

On a brighter note, my copy of L&D arrived yesterday in the mail and I thumbed through it; it looks beautiful and I like the choices of typeset and artwork and paper stock that were used. Can't wait until I have time to focus on actually reading it.

Wow that sucks..  

I was thinking of getting the PDF at some stage and it's pretty cheap too.
That and I've been looking for an OSR Medieval fantasy supplement lately.
If this sort of subject comes up in online discussions I take part in, I'll post a link as well.

Hoping you'll sort out these issues..

I purchased the pdf when I usually don't go for them to help out. I also wrote a review on rpgnow

As much as I like you Pundit and wish that OBS didn't have a virtual monopoly on the tabletop RPG market, I really don't think that it's an intentional slight on you nor Lion & Dragon.  I check DriveThruRPG every other day or so, and I noticed a few titles the past month or so either go missing or duplicated.  A few game books advertised as new that clearly weren't, like Blood & Bone.  When I looked into it, I discovered that the products were duplicated, with the originals containing all of the comments and reviews and the new ones with no comments nor reviews but otherwise identical.  If I had to guess, I'd suspect some sort of database corruption going on at OBS, which is worrisome, especially as I noted that it is a virtual monopoly.

Quote from: Dumarest;1017626That's pretty petty and sleazy.

Or more likely, they just fucked up. It happens. OBS like the rest of the industry is made up of enthusiastic amateurs. The 1337 skillzorz aren't quite there.

On the one hand, people are capable of doing almost anything for spite.

On the other hand, as Chirine likes to say, "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by human stupidity."

That's pretty crazy. Good luck. I bet it'll get back up there.

Quote from: Dumarest;1017626That's pretty petty and sleazy.

On a brighter note, my copy of L&D arrived yesterday in the mail and I thumbed through it; it looks beautiful and I like the choices of typeset and artwork and paper stock that were used. Can't wait until I have time to focus on actually reading it.

Thanks!

Quote from: danskmacabre;1017629Wow that sucks..  

I was thinking of getting the PDF at some stage and it's pretty cheap too.
That and I've been looking for an OSR Medieval fantasy supplement lately.
If this sort of subject comes up in online discussions I take part in, I'll post a link as well.

Hoping you'll sort out these issues..

Thanks. Let me know, if you pick it up, what you thought of it.

Quote from: Ulairi;1017631I purchased the pdf when I usually don't go for them to help out. I also wrote a review on rpgnow

I saw that. That's very much appreciated!  These kinds of reviews and ratings on the page where one bought the product help a lot.

Quote from: Celestial;1017646As much as I like you Pundit and wish that OBS didn't have a virtual monopoly on the tabletop RPG market, I really don't think that it's an intentional slight on you nor Lion & Dragon.  I check DriveThruRPG every other day or so, and I noticed a few titles the past month or so either go missing or duplicated.  A few game books advertised as new that clearly weren't, like Blood & Bone.  When I looked into it, I discovered that the products were duplicated, with the originals containing all of the comments and reviews and the new ones with no comments nor reviews but otherwise identical.  If I had to guess, I'd suspect some sort of database corruption going on at OBS, which is worrisome, especially as I noted that it is a virtual monopoly.

That may be so.
Note: I'm NOT calling for a boycott of OBS. I'm not even claiming it was the people in charge of OBS who did this.

But I am saying that in the very best case scenario if we imagine that this really was just some kind of error, they showed gross incompetence in their failure to correct it and wiping me out of the bestseller list, and giving me a new URL that effectively ruins a full month worth of advertising and publicity where I was sharing a URL that now leads NOWHERE.

Instead of calling for their heads though, I'm calling for people to show them just how popular Lion & Dragon is, by going to RPGNow and BUYING stuff there. Make it clear to them, because in the end of the day I think they're mainly a business (and previously let themselves be swayed by the SJW crowd because they feared for their business), that there's way more of US than there are of the SJW crowd, and that unlike the SJW crowd we Actually Buy Stuff so we're the pony to bet on.
Hopefully that will stop them from making this same "error" again.

If I had the funds, I'd get L&D.  But I can't right now, so the updated URL is a godsend that I can replace the old one on my wishlist.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1017663If I had the funds, I'd get L&D.  But I can't right now, so the updated URL is a godsend that I can replace the old one on my wishlist.

That's good too. Also, share the url on your social media, that would help a lot!

As an IT geek, my first assumption regarding these things is always incompetence. But even if that's the case, their mistake still cost you revenue, and demonstrated it's possible for any publisher to permanently lose their #URL.

However, given no other publisher has ever reported this problem, and the fact your new product URL (226021) is the number right before your old one (226022), I don't think it unreasonable to suspect deliberate sabotage.

BTW, there's a thread on #BigPurple about your game which may be worth a look where the original #URL was shared on 2018-01-01 (https://archive.is/l25im#selection-2021.1-2023.55). Coincidence? Also considering some of the posters in that thread, I'm not altogether sure they're aware that you're the one who wrote it.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1017658But I am saying that in the very best case scenario if we imagine that this really was just some kind of error, they showed gross incompetence in their failure to correct it

You are absolutely correct; gross, pants-shittingly utter incompetence.

And after 20some years in IT, my response is "Yeppers."  Dilbert stopped being a comedy and became simply a window approximately 10 years ago.  A tech told my brother that his computer was "tired and had to be allowed to rest."  This was the Best Buy tech support dept.

There is no degree of incompetence that I cannot easily believe.

Whether it was a mistake or deliberate, if they claim they can't give you that same page as far as layout goes, maybe, if it was corrupted.  If they claim they can't give your new product the same url as the old one though, that's a load of crap.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1017665As an IT geek, my first assumption regarding these things is always incompetence. But even if that's the case, their mistake still cost you revenue, and demonstrated it's possible for any publisher to permanently lose their #URL.

However, given no other publisher has ever reported this problem, and the fact your new product URL (226021) is the number right before your old one (226022), I don't think it unreasonable to suspect deliberate sabotage.

BTW, there's a thread on #BigPurple about your game which may be worth a look where the original #URL was shared on 2018-01-01 (https://archive.is/l25im#selection-2021.1-2023.55). Coincidence? Also considering some of the posters in that thread, I'm not altogether sure they're aware that you're the one who wrote it.

Hmm. The thick plottens.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1017625Yesterday I left a pretty mysterious blog entry. This was because I was busy working on yet another promotional blog for Lion & Dragon, when suddenly I realized that the entire RPGNow L&D page was GONE.

This when literally a few short hours earlier everything was fine.


So what happened?

Well, it seems that OBS basically screwed us over.

The whole thing was, they claim, some kind of an 'error'. They sold us some bullshit of how 'the system' mistook some prototype page for the real page we'd been using all month, and that now it couldn't be switched back and the old page was lost.
At first they gave us a new page with no pdf option, without our copper status. After some gentle shouting and threats on my part, they restored the copper button.

Kind of like when Trump gets his Twitter account shutdown by a Democrat intern. SJWs are in everything now.

Hmmm...

Still, another Pundit project to purchase! Yay!

Well, I grabbed it from rpgnow. I had some store credit to use anyway.
Will take a look over the weekend.

Ok, now I realize that I may have no idea what I'm talking about and it's been a looooong time since I've been responsible for keeping a website running.  That said, is it really that hard for them to put in a placeholder at the old address that just points to the new one?

Eh, I shop with OBS a great deal and screw ups are frequent and take many forms. It sucks that it cost revenue but I doubt it was deliberate. If they wanted to shut down the product they could simply refuse to carry it.

I might mention the screwup with Chaosium's material recently. The 'system' applied hefty discounts to their products making them very close to free. The guys were not impressed at all. Could be the underlying software/database is creaking and is no longer fit for purpose.

That is the main problem with OBS. They act dodgy now and then. AND. The site is buggy now and then.
I've seen some of the oddities in my rare visits. But mostly just things showing where they shouldnt, not displaying right, or on rare occasion up and vanishing. And there is no way to tell if it was a bug or malice.

As for Pundits game it does look really suspicious. Were any of your other games affected if you have any up? What were the games you'd ousted from the top? Do any belong to known enemies?

So unfortunately even if it happens to Pundit again there is no way to tell if it is sabotage or bad code.

Quote from: Almost_Useless;1017683Ok, now I realize that I may have no idea what I'm talking about and it's been a looooong time since I've been responsible for keeping a website running.  That said, is it really that hard for them to put in a placeholder at the old address that just points to the new one?

On every web platform currently in use on the planet: literally less time than it took me to type this.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1017693On every web platform currently in use on the planet: literally less time than it took me to type this.

Seriously? Whatever RPGNow is doing it is database driven and the best pages are autogenerated. The solution may not be straightforward and take considerably more time than it took you to type the above.

Likely what happened was a unforeseen glitch that exposed a weakness with their ability to administer the website. And they can't paper this one over because it happened to somebody with a large audience to point out that the emperor has no clothes.

They should have the tools to arbitrary edit the underlying tables in order to fix things like what the Pundit experienced.  And by tools I mean something that knows how the ungodly mass of tables they use relate to each other. Beyond a certain point you can't just go in and hand edit the databases tables to fix stuff.

Is this a common issue that other publishers have experienced? I know others have experienced issues but have they experienced *this* issue?

whatever the cause was, this is why a Monopoly like OBS is a bad idea (especially now that many in the industry have their print set-up through them as well). Games could be lost forever if the publisher no longer has the original files (I am sure most do but I am also sure many see OBS as a secure place to House large files they don't want to store for years on end). I've had my own frustrations with OBS (and talked about it plenty). I think they do need to get their act together because something like this (again regardless of whether someone there did it intentionally or if it was a glitch) could happen to any publisher on the wrong day. Pundit mentioned the bestseller list. That is hugely important and this effectively torpedoed that for him. I had something similar happen to me when they changed the bestseller list algorithmic right as I was releasing a new line (and they told no one---I only noticed because I was paying attention). I get that people like convenience of buying everything in OBS pkace. But they are absolutely a monopoly now, and that means they can act like one.

Quote from: Hermes Serpent;1017687I might mention the screwup with Chaosium's material recently. The 'system' applied hefty discounts to their products making them very close to free. The guys were not impressed at all. Could be the underlying software/database is creaking and is no longer fit for purpose.

Same thing happened to my items - twice.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1017647Or more likely, they just fucked up. It happens. OBS like the rest of the industry is made up of enthusiastic amateurs. The 1337 skillzorz aren't quite there.

If you get paid, you're a professional.  Being amateurish isn't the same as being an amateur.

Pundit - I'm getting the "product not available" when I follow the link in the top post here...

I can search and get this link --> http://www.rpgnow.com/product/226022/Lion--Dragon?term=Lion+%26+Dragon&test_epoch=0

Quote from: estar;1017702Seriously? Whatever RPGNow is doing it is database driven and the best pages are autogenerated. The solution may not be straightforward and take considerably more time than it took you to type the above.

I don't know what they are using or if this is something they've built from scratch, but they need to own their mistake. There are some crap ecommerce systems out there that are still being marketed which like you say, have byzantine and horrible numbers of tables and make them very hard to update or fix. But they aren't impossible to update. They are just expensive to update. I would speculate that doing so is more work than they want to do, and they value their work investment over the work investment of the creators that broker there.

Quote from: Dumarest;1017712If you get paid, you're a professional.

Yeah, that's the definition the Olympic committee used to use. But most people take it as "makes a living from it." A vanishingly small proportion of the people involved in the rpg industry make a living from it. It's pocket money for most, at best.

But they're enthusiastic. Enthusiastic amateurs. And not smart enough to conspire. Now, I know one of Pundit's hobbies is imagining conspiracies, but ordinary old fuckups is enough to explain this. After all, fuckups are a regular and expected part of IT, which each update reduces functionality.

I'm pretty sure OBS is a business that has actual full time employees and not a part time/amateur operation.

I'm sure this is a screw up rather than deliberate (since I really doubt anyone at OBS ever even thinks of the Pundit, much less maliciously), but they shouldn't be excused due to amateurishness, it's basically the only source of RPG PDFs.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1017719Yeah, that's the definition the Olympic committee used to use. But most people take it as "makes a living from it." A vanishingly small proportion of the people involved in the rpg industry make a living from it. It's pocket money for most, at best.

But they're enthusiastic. Enthusiastic amateurs. And not smart enough to conspire. Now, I know one of Pundit's hobbies is imagining conspiracies, but ordinary old fuckups is enough to explain this. After all, fuckups are a regular and expected part of IT, which each update reduces functionality.

Except OBS is making real money off of people producing actual content. And they have a real staff. For example, they assign representatives now to every publisher and those are your contact points when you have complaints. They are the ones making a living off of the smaller RPG companies who earn far less. And while I agree, a fuck up can totally explain this, I think more than a few publishers have that thought when something goes catastrophically wrong at OBS and the timing impacts their revenue in a big way (and part of that is because none of us really knows what goes on there behind the scenes and if the people who are employed are the same people making noise about publishers on forums and stuff----or if they are just people who would rather see one game win over another). I think it is more likely a screw up, but I also don't think it is a crazy thought for Pundit to have in this instance. And I suspect most publishers have had that thought even if they never voice it (if only because we lack information about how the mess-ups occur). But again, whether it is intentional, accidental, or some other cause, the end result for publishers is the same and when these kinds of screw ups happen, a game can die on the vine. Because that top seller list is everything. It is visibility. It drives sales. Pundit is fortunate because he has a large enough voice, that when he asks people to step up and help the book get back onto the list, I am sure it helps. A lot of publishers and writers don't have that, so when OBS messes up, their products just fade form view.

OBS are not enthusiastic amateurs IMO. If they are employing enthusiastic amateurs behind the scenes (which I don't think they are anymore), I do think that would be a recipe for the kind of concern Pundit is raising. Given how much anger there is in the gaming community between different camps of people.

But OBS are making a good deal of money doing what they do.

Why is anyone claiming that OBS is an 'amateur' enterprise.  They're a licensed business according to the U.S. owning several imprints under the name One Bookshelf.  Which makes them accountable for every mistake they make, and should try to repair and improve.

OBS is definitely professional, but with all of the "little" problems that have cropped up between titles disappearing, titles duplicating, prices being reduced without notice to near free, etc., I'd say that their database has major issues.  If they want to continue being a monopoly in the tabletop RPG scene, they need to get their IT in order, and quickly.

Here's hoping that a new company arises to challenge them, but in the meantime I'll double check to make sure I have everything downloaded...

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1017724Why is anyone claiming that OBS is an 'amateur' enterprise.  They're a licensed business according to the U.S. owning several imprints under the name One Bookshelf.  Which makes them accountable for every mistake they make, and should try to repair and improve.

I think its amateur in the context of not highly skilled experienced. Of course, they're accountable and seem to be trying to improve they're not polished to a great degree (ATM, Drivethru is down). Its like a things in the rpg market, practically a garage industry. Look at how badly mismanaged some FLGS could be as an example.

Pundit,

FYI

The link in your signature for L&D isn't pointing to anything. If you update your sig, that should show up on all your posts.

Yes, OBS has CHANGED THE URL AGAIN.

After they expressly told me it was "impossible" and that I had to change every URL I had to the new one, they changed it again. Coincidentally, I'm sure, after seeing L&D leap up TWELVE SPOTS on the bestseller list in just 24 hours.
Someone decided that L&D hadn't had enough "accidents" apparently.

RPGNow Has Screwed Me Over YET AGAIN, Day 3


So first off, before getting to today's news, I want to thank everyone who helped out so far with trying to get Lion & Dragon back into its top-10 position. Here's the good news: thanks to your efforts, Lion & Dragon jumped up TEN SPOTS on RPGnow's Bestselling list (http://www.rpgnow.com/index.php#) in just one day, from about 28-30th spot, all the way down to 18th! We almost got to be on the top 15!


But I guess that's it. Because today, I wake up to find that OBS has fucked me over yet again.

My tactic was calling out OBS, with the idea that if they kept causing me problems that would make it increasingly obvious that it wasn't accidental.  But it seems they figured out at least one more "accidental" way to completely fuck me.

I woke up this afternoon to find that they'd emailed me, after previously having sworn that "we cannot reverse the process for the links to point to 226022 since that URL is now blocked in our system" (and that's a direct cut-and-paste quote) and SPECIFICALLY INSTRUCTING me that I MUST change all my links to the new url because there was NO WAY they could change the link back, today I find that THEY FUCKING CHANGED THE LINK BACK.

I did no work yesterday because I spent the ENTIRE DAY changing EVERY SINGLE LINK I could find to the new one in a desperate bid to save the status of my product which was dropped from the bestselling top-10 BECAUSE OF THEM.
Now, they went and made goddamn sure that ONCE AGAIN, for the THIRD FUCKING DAY IN A ROW, every single link to L&D GOES NOWHERE.


Note that I did NOT tell them, after their response I quoted above, to change it back. I told them to put a redirect from the old URL to the new one. But they didn't do that. Instead, they restored the old URL and KILLED the new one, so that once again what you get when you go there is:

(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HWAvPWEs_XU/Wk2GmfFWOsI/AAAAAAAACAk/jBXciEpmfpoZz83F1AcMlfy1cl3c0MujwCPcBGAYYCw/s320/rpgnow.png)




So they made damn sure that the new URL, the one I spent ALL yesterday promoting, the one I made it very clear I was promoting, in defiance of OBS fucking with us, the one I changed every L&D link I could find into, apparently leads nowhere.

 This means that either their bungling incompetence has reached Clouseau-esque levels of idiocy, or there's a very intentional forethought of malice here to show other "errors" they can commit to keep isolating us from our potential customers.

I'm waiting to see if we get any kind of response or restitution or just a fucking redirect.

But in the meantime, you'll notice I didn't put up a single link to L&D yet. Why? Because there's no way for me to know what they're going to do next. I can promote the fuck out of a single link, and tomorrow they'll just DECIDE ARBITRARILY TO GET RID OF IT again and I have to repeat all this. On the other hand, me not promoting L&D is, I'm increasingly convinced, exactly what someone at OBS wants. They absolutely want it gone from the Bestseller list, they thought their previous asshole act would have made it happen, but now they saw that it was literally SOARING back up the list, 12 spots in 24 hours, and threatening to break the top-15, so they pulled another fucking trick.

So here's what I'm going to do:

1.  Here are all currently known URLS for Lion & Dragon. At least one of these is likely to not be working at any time:

Try this Lion & Dragon first, (https://www.rpgnow.com/product/226022/) it was the one working at the time of writing

If that link doesn't work, try this one, it was working yesterday (https://www.rpgnow.com/product/226021/), and who knows they may switch it all again

PLEASE promote BOTH these links together, or just share this blog entry. Please buy the game if you were planning to and hadn't done so yet! If you have no interest in the game, please share the links and promote the game to any gamers you know on any social media, but always with both those links for now, or the link to this blog entry so people know just what their game is.


2. If BOTH  links above aren't working, go to RPGnow  (http://www.rpgnow.com/index.php)and do a SEARCH for "Lion Dragon" or for "RPGPundit". Hopefully you'll be able to find it that way if it's there at all.

3. I will continue to post updates here on my blog as events develop. So if all the above fails look at later entries than this one.


Thank you to everyone.  Special thanks to Tenkar's Tavern for their support blog, Jeffro Johnson who did a big job of spreading the news on G+, Sword & Stitchery for making a big positive blog entry calling attention to L&D.  Unfortunately, all the links they shared now go nowhere, again.  And I know it's a lot to ask, but I hope you all and more of you reading this will take up the fight to not the motherfuckers doing this (be it through GROSS NEGLECTFUL INCOMPETENCE or INTENTIONAL MALICE OF FORETHOUGHT) win.


I'll keep all of you posted.


RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Neerup Hawkbill + Image Virginia



UPDATE: Apparently, according to some users on G+, NEITHER of the links above work on a mobile/cellphone.  Can anyone confirm?


UPDATE 2: Apparently this link is the one that works on mobile. If you're on a cellphone use this:
https://www.rpgnow.com/m/product/226022
Note that before, any link worked on a mobile. Now apparently that one does, not the usual one.

I'll also try to keep this link working: http://rpg.deals/liondragon

Quote from: brettmb;1017758I'll also try to keep this link working: http://rpg.deals/liondragon

Thanks, Brett! And sorry that this whole fiasco is causing delays with the release of RPGPundit Presents.

Once is incompetence.

Twice is suspicious.

Thrice is intentional.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1017625This to me was very intentional SABOTAGE. I think the ultimate goal was to get us off the Bestseller list.  As of the moment we were blocked, we had been on the TOP 10 of the Bestseller list from the moment L&D had first launched. This makes a HUGE difference, because everyone who goes on the RPGnow main page will see it prominently. This is part of why we hit copper status so quickly.

James Mathe used to pull BS like this. It's why back in 2004 I stopped doing business with him (and RPGNow) entirely. Ended up costing me thousands, ...by the way, ...in lost sales. I thought things would be different with the new owners whom are working very hard to stay behind the scenes. Did find two still active contacts for OBS and RPGnow, Mike Todd out of Stone Mountain, Georgia currently registers and administers all of the OBS websites, and a management corporation out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Minion Development Corporation. Owned by James Mathe. My understanding is that James sold out or retired not too long ago, however it wouldn't surprise me if he was still in the gaming business. He's about as slimey as they come.


OneBookShelf (OBS) is a digital marketplace for roleplaying games, fiction, comics, and other traditional games. It serves as the home of the online storefronts DriveThruRPG (DTRPG) and RPGNow, and is the exclusive retailer for digital books from publishers like White Wolf and Onyx Path.

OBS was formed in 2006 by a merger of the digital retailers RPGNow and DriveThruRPG; RPGNow was established in 2001 by James Mathe (and was one of the very first dedicated marketplaces for RPG ebooks), and DriveThruRPG was established in 2004 by White Wolf alumni Mike Todd, Chris McDonough and Steve Wieck. Both sites are still used as nominally distinct storefronts following the merger, although the lion's share of traffic and marketing go to DTRPG. Other specialized storefronts were added over the years that followed, including DriveThruFiction, DriveThruComics, DriveThruCards. In 2010, OBS launched its print-on-demand (POD) service, allowing customers to purchase hard copies of an increasing selection of out-of-print or never-in-print books from its back catalog, including many books from White Wolf.

PM me directly if you end up needing their address or contact phone numbers for legal purposes as I have that all archived, and can, also if necessary, pull the legally required annual corporate reports info for Minion to see if James is still active in the business.

Steve a.k.a. Stephan Weick registered Onebookshelf, Inc. in 2017 in Georgia, and I have that contact information as well, if you end up needing, it. Currently stated revenue for OBS is approximately $140,000 a year (This seems a bit low to me), and they have (...at last count? when?) twelve employees. Not sure if this includes the folks up in Wisconsin who are working for them.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1017774Once is incompetence.

Twice is suspicious.

Thrice is intentional.

I would agree, except that my own experience with tech departments suggests that if they have some dysfunctional software setup, then some downstream consequence keeps happening, despite all the assurances that they absolutely fixed it this time is completely reasonable.

More to the point, I think JeremyR has it:

Quote from: JeremyR;1017720I'm sure this is a screw up rather than deliberate (since I really doubt anyone at OBS ever even thinks of the Pundit, much less maliciously)

I'm pretty sure this is true. Most people at Pundy's favorite place to hate have no idea who he is. The idea that anyone at OBS knows, cares, much less would make the effort (and risk the appearance of favoritism)... if not completely unbelievable, is at least less likely in my mind than they just don't know what they are doing and every attempt to get their act together just fails harder.

And don't forget "Dave is gone today so I'll try to fix it" and the next day Dave gets back and says "No, dipshit, THIS is what you should have done."

I've received another email from RPGnow. They were quite apologetic in their tone, trying to be reassuring and promising to work things out and make it up to me. But no actual concrete solution has actually been enacted on their part yet, and I've been told that until the next day when the "tech team" comes back to work no solution will be forthcoming. That means this will be going for FOUR DAYS at least. Also, there's no assurance given that forwarding the other link to the working link will be possible, the claim being that "a redirect of the kind that you were describing would not work due to the particular architecture of our site ".

Those of you who know about this sort of thing: is it actually likely that a redirect would be so hard??

Quote from: RPGPundit;1017799I've received another email from RPGnow. They were quite apologetic in their tone, trying to be reassuring and promising to work things out and make it up to me. But no actual concrete solution has actually been enacted on their part yet, and I've been told that until the next day when the "tech team" comes back to work no solution will be forthcoming. That means this will be going for FOUR DAYS at least. Also, there's no assurance given that forwarding the other link to the working link will be possible, the claim being that "a redirect of the kind that you were describing would not work due to the particular architecture of our site ".

Those of you who know about this sort of thing: is it actually likely that a redirect would be so hard??

Yes.

It because everything you see is auto generated from an underlying database. Speculating beyond that requires understanding the specifics of their IT setup. I can tell from 30 years of software development whatever caused the issue will be blazing obvious in hidensight but a bitch to figure out due the history of their setup. (the merger)

What he said.

There is a reason IT people tend to have bad attitudes.  Shit is complicated and compatible subsystems aren't.

That's good to know guys, thank you for the expert input. It helps give me a reading on how accurate what RPGnow is telling me might be.

UPDATE: Thanks to the help of so many of you, and in spite of everything else, Lion & Dragon  has made it back into the top-15 of RPGnow's Bestseller list!  Thank you so much to everyone who bought the game, and to everyone who's been sharing the link.

This isn't over yet though, so if you were considering getting L&D please go ahead and do so, and if you already have it or weren't planning on getting it but still want to help, please keep sharing the current link to game to your social media! You guys are truly awesome, thank you again.

Quote from: estar;1017800Yes.

It because everything you see is auto generated from an underlying database. Speculating beyond that requires understanding the specifics of their IT setup. I can tell from 30 years of software development whatever caused the issue will be blazing obvious in hidensight but a bitch to figure out due the history of their setup. (the merger)

Yeah, and it usually boils down to some twat has deleted something they should not have and any decent audit log should allow you track down what twat did it and when fairly quickly.

Quote from: waltshumate;1017827Yeah, and it usually boils down to some twat has deleted something they should not have and any decent audit log should allow you track down what twat did it and when fairly quickly.

I suspect there's a twat involved somewhere in all this.

Quote from: waltshumate;1017827Yeah, and it usually boils down to some twat has deleted something they should not have and any decent audit log should allow you track down what twat did it and when fairly quickly.

Maybe, but the eight ball is cloudy because there isn't sufficient information know about the software behind the OBS site. But the good news with the Pundit being visible the way he is, OBS will inch forward on this. Even it is an inch it bettter than ignoreing it.

Sorry to hear about this, Pundie! :confused: It is a mystery... and I welcome our new AI overlords! :p (No, I really don't. Too much experience like this. My brief amateurish IT dabbling feels like being an underappreciated fireman to a tempermental kindergarten.)

Best of luck! :)

This reminds me when I was working timetableing car mechanics. A customer was very angry because of unforeseen complications, he was on the verge of assaulting me physically. Then he finally saw my side when I told him that we have money riding on it too in the form of spare parts and mechanics time, and we are losing money because of the delay.

Why would a company intentionally hurt their sales?! Incompetence is the likely answer, and the fact that they have timetabled their tech guys unprofessionally.

Quote from: Moracai;1017899This reminds me when I was working timetableing car mechanics. A customer was very angry because of unforeseen complications, he was on the verge of assaulting me physically. Then he finally saw my side when I told him that we have money riding on it too in the form of spare parts and mechanics time, and we are losing money because of the delay.

Why would a company intentionally hurt their sales?! Incompetence is the likely answer, and the fact that they have timetabled their tech guys unprofessionally.

This. Anything else, especially the allusion to some sort of weird conspiracy, just doesn't make any sense, especially if this is a big seller. They'd only be hurting their own pocketbook.

Quote from: Moracai;1017899This reminds me when I was working timetableing car mechanics. A customer was very angry because of unforeseen complications, he was on the verge of assaulting me physically. Then he finally saw my side when I told him that we have money riding on it too in the form of spare parts and mechanics time, and we are losing money because of the delay.
.

Writers and publishers are not customers though. I think this is part of what gets lost in these conversations. We make the content that generates revenue for their website. OBS makes a lot of money. Most publishers and writers don't. So we get very protective of what little we are making. We are not buying content from them.  When something goes wrong with an individual product, to OBS it is just one in a long chain of daily released, for the publisher or writer, that represents months of work and money invested. When a publisher gets angry and contacts OBS, they are not like a customer making unreasonable demands for something they paid for, they are in a position where OBS's mistake is costing them money. And I can't emphasize enough, the lack of good communication and transparency is one of the main reasons people end up speculating.

Quote from: JeremyR;1017720I'm sure this is a screw up rather than deliberate (since I really doubt anyone at OBS ever even thinks of the Pundit, much less maliciously), but they shouldn't be excused due to amateurishness, it's basically the only source of RPG PDFs.

Lulu has a good number, I recently bought the Stonehell Dungeon pdfs there.

Quote from: S'mon;1017902Lulu has a good number, I recently bought the Stonehell Dungeon pdfs there.

Lulu exists and RPGs have a presence there, but most people are making well over 90% of their PDF revenue from OBS. And I am seeing a surge in people doing their print services through OBS as well. You have options if you don't like OBS. But they are not economically viable for most companies at this point (believe me, if they were I would have a presence there). There are obvious exceptions to this. WoTC doesn't need OBS, and Paizo doesn't either. I don't have an exclusive agreement with OBS though, so I am able to put my PDFs on other sites.

Quote from: Moracai;1017899This reminds me when I was working timetableing car mechanics. A customer was very angry because of unforeseen complications, he was on the verge of assaulting me physically. Then he finally saw my side when I told him that we have money riding on it too in the form of spare parts and mechanics time, and we are losing money because of the delay.

Why would a company intentionally hurt their sales?! Incompetence is the likely answer, and the fact that they have timetabled their tech guys unprofessionally.

Never ever ever underestimate spitefulness to be trumped by money. People have willfilly taken huge losses just to spite someone else or cost them money. This happens like clockwork in Hollywood for example.

And the more likely someone thinks they can get away with it the more likely they will be to do it. And the loss of revenue from screwing with someones game on OBS is small compared to the gains they get from everything else. so if they want to they can and not really lose much.

Which leads back to my point before. If there was another incident then there is no way of telling if its malice, mishandling or bug because the site IS buggy.

Quote from: Omega;1017905Never ever ever underestimate spitefulness to be trumped by money. People have willfilly taken huge losses just to spite someone else or cost them money.

Is that a subtle Howard Thompson reference? Also, I think you meant "money to be trumped by spite," no?

Quote from: Moracai;1017899Why would a company intentionally hurt their sales?! Incompetence is the likely answer, and the fact that they have timetabled their tech guys unprofessionally.

Well, Marvel comics intentionally hurt their sales.

But I don't think that's what happened here. This isn't "a company hurting their sales" this may be "a rogue employee not giving a shit about their company's sales in their pursuit for revenge".

Quote from: cranebump;1017900This. Anything else, especially the allusion to some sort of weird conspiracy, just doesn't make any sense, especially if this is a big seller. They'd only be hurting their own pocketbook.

Right, because corporate employees, especially employees working for what is probably a really shitty wage for a small nerd company, never ever do anything that would hurt the company's bottom line.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1017918Right, because corporate employees, especially employees working for what is probably a really shitty wage for a small nerd company, never ever do anything that would hurt the company's bottom line.

Right. Like make you a specific and intentional target, because you are just that important, Jason Bourne.:-/

Quote from: cranebump;1017920Right. Like make you a specific and intentional target, because you are just that important, Jason Bourne.:-/

Important enough that some of the SJW-assholes of the OSR came along to cheer the sabotage; like James Young and human-garbage David Black.

Lion&Dragon/RPGnow Fiasco Conclusion & Some Reasons To Buy It Now!

In short, if someone was responsible for trying to sabotage Lion & Dragon (https://www.rpgnow.com/product/226022/) on RPGnow, they're probably kicking themselves right now.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, over the last 4 days either through massive incompetence or intentional malice by some disgruntled employee, Lion & Dragon had been effectively rendered unreachable not once but TWICE, just as it was celebrating a month on the top-10 list, which it of course lost as no one could find the book anymore.

(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HWAvPWEs_XU/Wk2GmfFWOsI/AAAAAAAACAk/jBXciEpmfpoZz83F1AcMlfy1cl3c0MujwCPcBGAYYCw/s320/rpgnow.png)



First, all the good news; and basically, this is all about YOU. Against ALL odds, and in spite of essentially losing all its viable links TWICE in the last 4 days, Lion & Dragon has made it back into the top 15! As of this writing, thanks to all the people who came forward and purchased the game, it went from being way down at #30 and dropping, all the way up to currently #13 and rising on the bestseller list for RPGnow.

I want to thank all the people who have stepped up and helped spread the word. The ones who bought the game obviously, but also the ones who made the effort to share the links to the new L&D URL (https://www.rpgnow.com/product/226022/) and telling other people about what had happened.


So, we may now be finally at the end of all this. Maybe.
Today I got another email from RPGnow, a fairly curt and formal one. All it said was (again I quote) "After talking with my tech team it seems the forwarding is not something our site can be set up to do", meaning that I'll have to try to find any of the non-working links and replace them with current links myself.
However, they did also make a promise to me that "I can assure you that the current link will not be changed and should be considered stable from here on out so please feel free to use the current link for any future promotion".

OK, RPGnow, I'll have to trust you on that one, after you previously told me to change all the links and then summarily altered the URL.

As for any other kind of compensation for what happened? They stated that they'd only speak with my publisher about that. That's fine, it's obviously dismissive but fine, because I trust Dominique Crouzet will take the right tactic.
And more importantly, really, because what I'm focused on is something they already said they can't or won't do for me, which is to restore the position of my book. Only YOU GUYS can help me with that.

(https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y2DRxbYtb4Q/WisEOxhGdwI/AAAAAAAAB5U/pQl3cCE_FisZGZo3NK3Hr5OjhJZO81nywCPcBGAYYCw/s320/Cover-L%2526D-hires.jpg)



We're very, very close to breaking back into the top 10 bestseller list! So please keep sharing the link and checking out the book!
If you haven't bought the book yet and want to, please do! And thanks!  But if you can't or won't buy the game you can still help by sharing this link to L&D (https://www.rpgnow.com/product/226022/) on all your social media!

And thank you all again. There was one really good side to all this: it truly showed me who my friends are, how great the OSR is, and even helped me get to discover some new friends I never knew I had.


To close, here's just a few of the 1001 reasons why you should buy L&D, by the way:

Reason 104: In Lion & Dragon, magic-users who study Alchemy end up being able to make Byzantine Dragonfire flame-throwers. And yes, this is historical.


Reason 209: Lots of unique magic items based on real myth, including the sword of Roland.

(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qeJ6LWWPkZk/WjQ7gl40snI/AAAAAAAAB54/tn0qY35IOuoro0zfsDjDqVPE2vnbwLmtgCPcBGAYYCw/s320/lion%2526dragonmagicitems.jpg)


Reason 521: People always argue "but you can't have real magic & real miracles & faeries & monsters and still have cultures that look anything like the real middle ages!"
I always answer: "If you don't have ALL that stuff, whatever you've made won't look anything like the real middle ages."

Reason 830: Magic users who learn curses/battle-magic techniques can also make copper-plated sticks (wands, staffs or rods) that blow shit up, all Tim-the-Enchanter style. They're called "blasting rods", and were detailed in some historical grimoires.

(http://dresslikethat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/monty-python-tim-the-enchanter-costume-01.jpg)


Reason 999: If Lion & Dragon gets back on RPGnow's Top-10 list after all this, it will piss off all the right people.



So, keep buying and sharing the new link to Lion & Dragon (https://www.rpgnow.com/product/226022/)! And if you're one of the people who discovered the book in the last while, please let me know what you think of it. Thanks again, all.

Blasting rods are pretty badass.

Mind you, as others have already stated on the forum, fighters are also really badass in the game.

Which, frankly, is the top point that's selling me. Just need to save up the pennies.  Sadly, that's literal at this point.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1017954Which, frankly, is the top point that's selling me. Just need to save up the pennies.  Sadly, that's literal at this point.

Understandable. Anyways, if you want to help out for now, share the link on your social media!

We're now at #11!  This fast a return from complete erasure a month after release is something probably unheard of in RPGNow's history.
We're almost returned to the rightful top-10 slot.

I have just ordered the hardcover!!! Can't wait till it's in hand. Reconquista viva!!!

Cheers,

H:0)

Quote from: Hrugga;1018042I have just ordered the hardcover!!! Can't wait till it's in hand. Reconquista viva!!!

Cheers,

H:0)

Thank you very much!  Please share the link with your friends on social media, if you can. I appreciate your purchase, and please let me know what you think of the game when you have it.

Congrats Pundy!

Whether it was incompetence or malice, the swift return to the top 10 is great news!

Quote from: Spinachcat;1018072Congrats Pundy!

Whether it was incompetence or malice, the swift return to the top 10 is great news!

Well, we're not quite there yet. Right now we're still hovering at #11.  So please keep sharing the link to L&D on your social media, and if you've read it hype it up if you liked it!

Quote from: RPGPundit;1017928Reason 521: People always argue "but you can't have real magic & real miracles & faeries & monsters and still have cultures that look anything like the real middle ages!"
I always answer: "If you don't have ALL that stuff, whatever you've made won't look anything like the real middle ages."

That's actually a good point. The average person thought they were living in a world with all that stuff. If there was a unicorn spotted last summer then all you're changing is that you can actually find it, but you're not making a massive change to average peasant's idea of the world.

Bought the hardcover and currently using it.

Quote from: Séadna;1018084That's actually a good point. The average person thought they were living in a world with all that stuff. If there was a unicorn spotted last summer then all you're changing is that you can actually find it, but you're not making a massive change to average peasant's idea of the world.

Bought the hardcover and currently using it.

Anybody ever watch the news, read magazines or newspapers, or talk to the people around you? We still live a world full of credulous people who think they have seen a ghost, tracked bigfoot, been abducted by spacemen, have secret societies monitoring their phone calls and e-mails, and pray to sky gods. Nothing has changed except our technology and scapegoats.

Quote from: Dumarest;1018090Nothing has changed except our technology and scapegoats.

Personally I'm not so sure. Depends on the part of the world. In most of the world, from what I've read of medieval society, things are quite different. I can continue this in pm or the general Lion & Dragon thread.

Quote from: Séadna;1018084That's actually a good point. The average person thought they were living in a world with all that stuff. If there was a unicorn spotted last summer then all you're changing is that you can actually find it, but you're not making a massive change to average peasant's idea of the world.

Bought the hardcover and currently using it.

Glad to hear it! And welcome to theRPGsite!

Please let me know how you're using L&D if you like, and please please keep sharing the link to it on your social media. We're still lingering at #11 right now.

Quote from: Dumarest;1018090Anybody ever watch the news, read magazines or newspapers, or talk to the people around you? We still live a world full of credulous people who think they have seen a ghost, tracked bigfoot, been abducted by spacemen, have secret societies monitoring their phone calls and e-mails, and pray to sky gods. Nothing has changed except our technology and scapegoats.

On the one hand, I agree that our modern world is not nearly as coldly rationally positivist as people like to believe.

On the other, it's still not the same. Because its one thing for people in 2017 to 'believe' in Bigfoot. It's another thing for people in 1420 to KNOW that the spirits of the dead were real.

That's a difference of paradigm. One thing is belief, particularly beliefs being held by marginal minorities of people, and another is that which is taken for granted by society as a whole and built into the core assumptions of the culture.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1018145Glad to hear it! And welcome to theRPGsite!

Please let me know how you're using L&D if you like, and please please keep sharing the link to it on your social media. We're still lingering at #11 right now.

I've let a good few people know, hope it translates to purchases.

Basically our campaign world (B/X based using retro clones) was full of polytheistic religions like most D&D worlds are, I've used L&D to make a monotheistic faith with accompanying Clerics, powers, as well as other medieval practices. I literally didn't have Astrology, despite it being a medieval mainstay. So, essentially Chapter IV. Planning on bringing in more.

Quote from: Séadna;1018159I've let a good few people know, hope it translates to purchases.

Basically our campaign world (B/X based using retro clones) was full of polytheistic religions like most D&D worlds are, I've used L&D to make a monotheistic faith with accompanying Clerics, powers, as well as other medieval practices. I literally didn't have Astrology, despite it being a medieval mainstay. So, essentially Chapter IV. Planning on bringing in more.

Good stuff! Keep an eye out for the RPGpundit Presents series I'm writing, because about half of it will be Lion & Dragon related stuff.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1018147That's a difference of paradigm. One thing is belief, particularly beliefs being held by marginal minorities of people, and another is that which is taken for granted by society as a whole and built into the core assumptions of the culture.

Yes. IME there's definitely a very big difference between a 21st century middle class young Anglo-American Wiccan who claims to believe in magic, and a 21st century middle class young African who has the rock solid knowledge that witches and magic are real.

Quote from: S'mon;1018274Yes. IME there's definitely a very big difference between a 21st century middle class young Anglo-American Wiccan who claims to believe in magic, and a 21st century middle class young African who has the rock solid knowledge that witches and magic are real.

As far as what?  Neither of them will ever cast or be affected by magic.  One might band together with others and burn a witch when a calf is stillborn, while the other might band together on Twitter to get someone fired because of outrage.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1018293As far as what?  Neither of them will ever cast or be affected by magic.  One might band together with others and burn a witch when a calf is stillborn, while the other might band together on Twitter to get someone fired because of outrage.

I think what he is saying is there is a difference between being an isolated individual who believes something outside of what the vast majority of people in their time and place believe, and being in a place where everyone believes that thing. It doesn't mean it exists, but people behave as though it is true (which isn't to say, the world is affected as though it were true, just people are operating under that assumption). You can really see this first hand if you go to other places where there is widespread belief in the supernatural for example. I am guessing that the 21st century wiccan has some doubts, whereas the person living in a place where belief in witches is the dominant way of viewing the world, would have far fewer doubts . I.E. in the US we don't live in a country where belief in magic is baked into our present-day culture. There is no institution I can go to if I think someone cast a spell on me. But roll back the clock to Puritan New England, and it becomes more likely. Roll it back further to 15th century Europe and belief in magic is clearly baked into the culture (and there are large institutions I can go to if I think someone has cast a spell on me). Without belief in magic you don't have a European Witch craze (and magic didn't have to function for people to act as though it did and burn witches or hang them).

Quote from: CRKrueger;1018293As far as what?  Neither of them will ever cast or be affected by magic.  One might band together with others and burn a witch when a calf is stillborn, while the other might band together on Twitter to get someone fired because of outrage.

A society where everyone knows that witches can make rain fall is going to have a completely different structure than a society where everyone knows that they don't.

Being a normal person who knows that witches exist and can make rain fall is completely different than being a 2017 wiccan who wants to believe that they can make rain fall.
The former is not like the latter.
The former is more like being a 2017 person who knows that gravity exists, or that people can't read each other's thoughts.

It has huge differences in terms of what living in the society is like.

We've crossed streams here, I'll answer this in the Magic/Belief thread.

Now get Dom to make a Dark Albion package. :D

Quote from: CRKrueger;1018441We've crossed streams here, I'll answer this in the Magic/Belief thread.

Now get Dom to make a Dark Albion package. :D

What would a "Dark Albion Package" consist of, to you?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1018460What would a "Dark Albion Package" consist of, to you?

Bundled package where if you buy the physical copy, or at least the hardbound, the pdf isn't a full price second purchase.
Exactly like there is for Cults of Chaos (http://www.rpgnow.com/product/187942/Dark-Albion-Cults-of-Chaos) and Lion and Dragon (http://www.rpgnow.com/product/226022/Lion--Dragon?src=hottest).
Dark Albion is still two (http://www.rpgnow.com/product/152423/Dark-Albion-The-Rose-War?src=hottest_filtered) separate entries, (http://www.rpgnow.com/product/152351/Dark-Albion-The-Rose-War) not a combined entry with multiple options like the other two.

Got mine. I liked the rules in Dark Albion, I don't mind at all having them as a standalone resource.

I've been interested in picking up Cults of Chaos anyway so I went ahead and bit the bullet on this one.  Just bought all 3 pdfs: Dark Albion:TRW, Cults of Chaos and Lion & Dragon.  I'm going to have a lot of reading for this weekend.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1018497Bundled package where if you buy the physical copy, or at least the hardbound, the pdf isn't a full price second purchase.
Exactly like there is for Cults of Chaos (http://www.rpgnow.com/product/187942/Dark-Albion-Cults-of-Chaos) and Lion and Dragon (http://www.rpgnow.com/product/226022/Lion--Dragon?src=hottest).
Dark Albion is still two (http://www.rpgnow.com/product/152423/Dark-Albion-The-Rose-War?src=hottest_filtered) separate entries, (http://www.rpgnow.com/product/152351/Dark-Albion-The-Rose-War) not a combined entry with multiple options like the other two.

Oh, I see.

I don't know if there's anything to be done about that. The thing is we focused most of the print sales on Amazon and Lulu, which went well in fact.

Of course, it would have been better in retrospect for both of those to have been available in the same URL.

Quote from: rgalex;1018687I've been interested in picking up Cults of Chaos anyway so I went ahead and bit the bullet on this one.  Just bought all 3 pdfs: Dark Albion:TRW, Cults of Chaos and Lion & Dragon.  I'm going to have a lot of reading for this weekend.

Awesome! Let us know what you think!

And please, if you like it, share the links (especially to L&D, but the others too) to all your social media! It's the best 'tip' I could get.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1017796And don't forget "Dave is gone today so I'll try to fix it" and the next day Dave gets back and says "No, dipshit, THIS is what you should have done."

Amusingly, that's the first thing I though has happened:).

Quote from: RPGPundit;1018763Oh, I see.

I don't know if there's anything to be done about that. The thing is we focused most of the print sales on Amazon and Lulu, which went well in fact.

Of course, it would have been better in retrospect for both of those to have been available in the same URL.

You can make a bundle, Pundit;). That way, if I bought Dark Albion's PDF and wanted to buy the softcover, too, the price of the bundle would be auto-reduced by the price of the PDF, and I'd get a discount on the book which might coincide with the price of the PDF.

Quote from: AsenRG;1018823You can make a bundle, Pundit;). That way, if I bought Dark Albion's PDF and wanted to buy the softcover, too, the price of the bundle would be auto-reduced by the price of the PDF, and I'd get a discount on the book which might coincide with the price of the PDF.

Well, I literally can't make a bundle. I'm only the writer/designer. Dominique Crouzet/ DOM Publishing is the publisher, and only he can do what you ask.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1018845Well, I literally can't make a bundle. I'm only the writer/designer. Dominique Crouzet/ DOM Publishing is the publisher, and only he can do what you ask.

Get his ass on the horn then and make it so! :D

Quote from: CRKrueger;1018905Get his ass on the horn

:eek:

Quote from: RPGPundit;1018845Well, I literally can't make a bundle. I'm only the writer/designer. Dominique Crouzet/ DOM Publishing is the publisher, and only he can do what you ask.

A) I'm using the plural "you", because I don't care to learn the details of your publishing business:).
B) I'm asking nothing, because I have no interest in buying a hardcopy of Dark Albion. It's a suggestion to resolve what other people in this thread asked. You can take it or leave it, it's free;)!

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1018906:eek:

Well, Gronan, the suggestion might be crass, but it sure would be a Medieval Authentic approach:D!

So you're complaining about something you have no interest in. Why are you even on this thread, then?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1019119So you're complaining about something you have no interest in. Why are you even on this thread, then?

Suggesting a solution that might give you more business=/=complaining, Pundy:D!

And I'm on this thread to learn WTF happened with Lion&Dragon. It's right in the title, in case you've somehow managed to miss it;).

Obviously something was wrong, but I'm glad a file I own wasn't pulled from the site or anything like that.

Well, it does look like the crisis is over.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1019119So you're complaining about something you have no interest in. Why are you even on this thread, then?

Well, if we follow that logic the entire forum dies in a week!

Quote from: RPGPundit;1018419A society where everyone knows that witches can make rain fall is going to have a completely different structure than a society where everyone knows that they don't.

Being a normal person who knows that witches exist and can make rain fall is completely different than being a 2017 wiccan who wants to believe that they can make rain fall.
The former is not like the latter.
The former is more like being a 2017 person who knows that gravity exists, or that people can't read each other's thoughts.

It has huge differences in terms of what living in the society is like.

I know more than a few Wiccans. None of them believe that they can make rain fall. However, the distinction you make is quite reasonable.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1019172Well, it does look like the crisis is over.

No offense but I'd hardly call any of this a "crisis".

Quote from: rgrove0172;1019795No offense but I'd hardly call any of this a "crisis".

On a scale from zero to a fully trademarked Crisis of Treachery, probably not even on the halfway mark.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1019795No offense but I'd hardly call any of this a "crisis".

If it's the only way to make his money, it is to him.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1019329I know more than a few Wiccans. None of them believe that they can make rain fall. However, the distinction you make is quite reasonable.

I've known a few who did, or claimed to think so.

And I know more than a few sports fans who believe the outcome of the game is dependent on whether or not they take a bathroom break during a crucial moment.

Yes, but again, mere 'belief' and 'paradigm' are not the same thing.  Belief is the concept of trying to convince yourself of something you suspect to be untrue. A paradigm is something that everyone in your culture 'knows' to be true.

Lion & Dragon is #8 now on the RPGNow bestseller list as of this moment.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1020005Yes, but again, mere 'belief' and 'paradigm' are not the same thing.  Belief is the concept of trying to convince yourself of something you suspect to be untrue. A paradigm is something that everyone in your culture 'knows' to be true.

That's not what "paradigm" even means.

Oh gods, are we going to have to go through a definition-of-paradigm thread?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1020623Oh gods, are we going to have to go through a definition-of-paradigm thread?

That would fit with the current paradigm in this forum.

Fun fact: Paradimes are the 10 cent coins the 101st Airborne were issued prior to D Day.

Quote from: Dumarest;1020622That's not what "paradigm" even means.

It is in the context of "Social Paradigm".

Quote from: Sable Wyvern;1020672Fun fact: Paradimes are the 10 cent coins the 101st Airborne were issued prior to D Day.

Nah, it's what you have in your pocket when you only have 20 cents.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1020726Nah, it's what you have in your pocket when you only have 20 cents.

Ok, it took me a while to work that one out. :cool:

Quote from: Sable Wyvern;1020857Ok, it took me a while to work that one out. :cool:

Heh. ;)

That's funny guys, but let's stick to the subject.

How does magic work?  I remember you mentioning that there are rolls involved.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1020884How does magic work?  I remember you mentioning that there are rolls involved.

Clerics have a brief list of the more common miraculous abilities (things like laying on hands, blessing, and -yes- turning undead). They can gain these miracles as they level up. When a cleric has all 8 of the miracles, he can then also pray directly for "Divine intervention". This will allow him to do any variety of things (assuming the divine is favorable).

Magic-users have a  number of different magical skills (astrology, battle magic, banishing, cures, talismans, summoning, true alchemy) each of which have a variety of techniques (types of cures, classes of talismans you can create, different alchemical formulas, etc). Magic users can gain these as they level.   While there are a small number of these that can be 'cast' spontaneously, most of them require lengthy rituals or special materials (often very costly), so there's preparation required in creating magical artifacts or preparing magical rituals.

In both cases, the success or failure of prayer or magical performance depends on a Prayer check or Magic check.This is a D20 roll modified by Wisdom for Clerics or Intelligence for magic-users, and by the level of the caster, against a difficulty number (the difficulty varies by the effect desired or the difficulty of the ritual).

Quote from: RPGPundit;1017625Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Solitario Volcano + Blue Boar

It's pretty clear you're smoking Morleys, buddy. You should get your tinfoil hat refitted.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;1021377It's pretty clear you're smoking Morleys, buddy. You should get your tinfoil hat refitted.

Do you mean Cornell & Diehl's "Morley's Best"? That's a fine pipe tobacco.