TheRPGSite

Just wanted to share this email, I don't have many thoughts on this other than "yeah ok", but Steve Jackson sent out an email complaining about tariff's and asking people to contact congress because they are going to keep manufacturing in China, but maybe will manufacture in US when more infrastructure/capacity builds up.

QuoteAn Important Message From Our CEO

Meredith Placko





On April 5th, a 54% tariff goes into effect on a wide range of goods imported from China. For those of us who create boardgames, this is not just a policy change. It's a seismic shift.

At Steve Jackson Games, we are actively assessing what this means for our products, our pricing, and our future plans. We do know that we can't absorb this kind of cost increase without raising prices. We've done our best over the past few years to shield players and retailers from the full brunt of rising freight costs and other increases, but this new tax changes the equation entirely.

Here are the numbers: A product we might have manufactured in China for $3.00 last year could now cost $4.62 before we even ship it across the ocean. Add freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution margins, and that once-$25 game quickly becomes a $40 product. That's not a luxury upcharge; it's survival math.

Some people ask, "Why not manufacture in the U.S.?" I wish we could. But the infrastructure to support full-scale boardgame production – specialty dice making, die-cutting, custom plastic and wood components – doesn't meaningfully exist here yet. I've gotten quotes. I've talked to factories. Even when the willingness is there, the equipment, labor, and timelines simply aren't.

We aren't the only company facing this challenge. The entire board game industry is having very difficult conversations right now. For some, this might mean simplifying products or delaying launches. For others, it might mean walking away from titles that are no longer economically viable. And, for what I fear will be too many, it means closing down entirely.

Tariffs, when part of a long-term strategy to bolster domestic manufacturing, can be an effective tool. But that only works when there's a plan to build up the industries needed to take over production. There is no national plan in place to support manufacturing for the types of products we make. This isn't about steel and semiconductors. This is about paper goods, chipboard, wood tokens, plastic trays, and color-matched ink. These new tariffs are imposing huge costs without providing alternatives, and it's going to cost American consumers more at every level of the supply chain.

We want to be transparent with our community. This is real: Prices are going up. We're still determining how much and where.

If you're frustrated, you're not alone. We are too. And if you want to help, write to your elected officials. You can find your representative and senators' contact information at house.gov and senate.gov. Ask them how these new policies help American creators and small businesses. Because right now, it feels like they don't.

We'll keep making games. But we'll be honest when the road gets harder, because we know you care about where your games come from – and about the people who make them.

The times are definitely changing. 

We in the west have grown addicted, to a steady stream of inexpensively produced merchandise.  We have financially supported the "Make it in the East, and Sell it to the West" scenario, for numerous decades now.

I'm not sure how this all ends, but I simply won't buy things that are too expensive.  I'll have to prioritize, how I spend my money.  It is what it is.

That simply is how it is.  We as a nation have known for decades that having all of our stuff made by effectively slave labor overseas for pennies on the dollar while all of our manufacturing got priced out of the market was not a sustainable procedure.  It needs to be mended, and the only way to do that mending is to break the economic incentive that perpetuates it, because there's no way people out of the goodness of their hearts will support local manufacturing in enough numbers to sustain it to profitability.

The faux outrage is obnoxious. Literally outsource EVERYTHING to garbage Chinese manufacturing so you make more money, complain when costs go up because US companies cannot actually provide a service because you and them both benefited from garbage Chinese manufacturing and thought the gravy train would never end.

"These new tariffs are imposing huge costs without providing alternatives", i.e. "Boo hoo we knew this was coming and didn't actually have a legitimate plan in place, Trump is a fascist asshole, pity us, please."

I really do not give one fuck. It's board games and crap. Figure it out.

They'll just push the costs onto the customers. The only way that we'll bring manufacturing jobs back to the USA is if the government directly funds their creation and bans international competition. Make a new department of government called the Department of Manufacturing, who will build new factories across the USA and re-employ all those former coal miners.

While we're at it, we need to annex Mexico and make all Mexicans into USA citizens so that the evil corpos won't hire them as effective slaves anymore. Send in the military to blow the cartels to kingdom come. Change drug use from a crime to an infectious disease and treat the addicts as disease victims.

We'll need to annex Canada and Greenland to get access to their rare earth minerals.

Build a bunch of nuclear plants, preferably thorium-based, so we aren't dependent on foreign oil.

Build more homes and sell them at cheap prices to solve the housing crisis...

Honestly, there are so many things we need to do to make America great again that I can't even list them all. It's definitely impossible to accomplish within Trump's presidency, so it needs to become a permanent part of party policy.

I love when businesses try to pass off the tariff percentage as the overall cost increase. Like the restaurant owner in San Francisco that claimed a 20% avocado tariff requires a 20% price increase for guacamole (from $16 to $19. For a side of guac. In SF.)

Except that food cost is a fraction of the total expenst e required to put guacamole on your plate. Labor is the majority, and of course overhead takes a big bite as well. Nor does a 20% tariff result in 20% food cost increase: food cost is mostly transportation (which, last I checked, is getting cheaper lately thanks to falling gas prices).

It's pure disingenuous grandstanding. And also hilarious to watch these people carve the noses right off their own faces (with that mixed expression of indignation and terrible pain), as they drive customers away to make a political point.

No one ever asks Why.  Why is it so expensive to print paper items in the USA?

OSHA?  Environmental regulations?  Prop65 warning tags on everything?  Insurance?  Taxes?  The gov graft and fraud have pushed taxes into the 50% range.  If employers or workers paid less taxes, they could charge less and be competitive.

Games and toys are a luxury item, not a must have.  Don't care about sjg anyways.

I will be blunt; I think the big danger to the tariffs is printer manufacturers trying to charge 3000% markups on ink. The Chinese market would not let them get away with that (they are infamous for piracy), but the American market could get sold an Orange Man Bad song and dance while HP tries to mark up ink costs into the moon.

The idea that Steve Jackson Games is having problems finding printers and plastic makers in the US is ridiculous. Do you think this is the 1980s or something? Did you spend any effort at all thinking about adapting your business model? Have you never heard of 3D printing?

In the short run, I think the RPG market will try to go more and more in the digital direction. PDFs are so good at sidestepping all the logistical hassles physical books create that it makes more sense in many instances to sell the PDF and offer a voucher for a print on demand service if you want a physical book. Prices will not change (if anything, they may go down!) The business model will be the part that adapts.

I've been formatting my work around the standards of a local publishing house for a while now because I am a big proponent of "buy local" and because, if there's ever a problem, I can talk face-to-face with someone with a 40 minute drive and point directly at problems with the product instead of needing to get on the phone with someone on the other side of the planet and hope they understand my issues.

It doesn't hurt that 6x9" also looks damn good on a tablet and as two-page spreads (like you'd see if you had a physical book open) on a laptop/desktop screen without needing to zoom in for those of us with older eyes.

Guess how many problems I have with tariffs?

It has nothing to do with the tariffs or the rising costs.  He's angry and this is a good excuse to howl out loud. 

I mean this guy was gonna bitch about Trump no matter what.  He spends the email basically saying ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO MAKE ANYTHING IN AMERICA SO DON'T EVER BOTHER OK JUST DONT GIVE UP ITS OVER WE SUCK and like I just don't care that a bunch of random political winds hit this guy in the butt and his attitude sucks and he sucks and fuck him.

Who will pick my blueberries now?

Quote from: Venka on April 03, 2025, 05:49:48 PMHe spends the email basically saying ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO MAKE ANYTHING IN AMERICA SO DON'T EVER BOTHER OK JUST DONT GIVE UP ITS OVER WE SUCK

Yeah, that one raised my eyebrow. Maybe we can outsource Steve Jackson's job to China. It's not like he's doing anything useful.

QuoteHere are the numbers: A product we might have manufactured in China for $3.00 last year could now cost $4.62 before we even ship it across the ocean. Add freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution margins, and that once-$25 game quickly becomes a $40 product.

So they charged $25 for a product that cost $3 to make last year. Now the cost could go up $1.62 but the price will go up $15 - from $25 to $40.

And yet they think they're the good guys. And claim to hate capitalism. And now want us to feel sorry for them.

I don't think so.

China is not a moral place.  They pollute their own country massively just to make more money, only allow foreign investment if they also get to be involved/steal the designs, hack our computers to mine them for technical information, have zero control over IP theft, actively forced women to get abortions during 1-child policy era, and is currently sterilizing the Uhygrs of western China.

Let's pay more and get out of that place.

Quote from: Venka on April 03, 2025, 05:49:48 PMI mean this guy was gonna bitch about Trump no matter what. 

I'm actually shocked the email didn't mention Trump by name. Clearly not written by Steve Jackson himself.

(https://yt3.ggpht.com/LzYNsr7VMV1LLGXVb6yIMR7QlN2g2Ga6YmxtL-qujqAwFCh17ErABkeKgnT6ZFeeGPuJEIybFJG4Kw=s800-rw-nd-v1)

Ya know, there is an opportunity here.  Laser cut game tokens from MDF and plexiglass, 3d printing, etc.  While some items do require big machines, not all of them.

Steve Jackson: progressive Democrat who believes in fair wages, unions, and economic patriotism

except when it comes to manufacturing the stuff he sells

then it is all about semi-slave labor in China, and no unions

Quote from: zircher on April 03, 2025, 08:17:52 PMYa know, there is an opportunity here.  Laser cut game tokens from MDF and plexiglass, 3d printing, etc.  While some items do require big machines, not all of them.

yes.  this is why i pointed out taxes and regulations.  because even if you subcontracted this out to a local mom and pop garage operation, they still have to pay very high taxes, and insurance, etc, etc.

Quote from: MerrillWeathermay on April 03, 2025, 09:34:48 PMSteve Jackson: progressive Democrat who believes in fair wages, unions, and economic patriotism

except when it comes to manufacturing the stuff he sells

then it is all about semi-slave labor in China, and no unions

...and yet years ago I remember people used to clsaim the default setting of "Infinite Worlds" (Time Travel) was too 'capitalist'/right woing biased.

 Strange - huh?

- Ed C.

SJG has to explain the incoming price increases to their customers.
And that is what the mail is about.
It merely says "Sorry, we have to raise the prices due to the tariffs and don't come to us and complain because we are not responsible."

That is standard 101 PR.

And it is logical that they cannot produce in the USA since there is not enough production capacity in the foreseeable future.

Regarding slave labour in China - There is slave labour in China but it is not usual. Mostly people get paid their wages and live with that.
There are jobs in which people are being exploited of course (mostly delivery drivers).

But all in all it is not that much different from the USA or Europe.

What I think is an interesting side effect we can see here that the tariffs will probably weaken US exports since products which are partially being produced elsewhere will become more expensive when they are assembled in the USA and then being exported

Seems like a great opportunity to start company in the US specializing in making gaming products.  Or you can be a whiny cunt like Steve Jackson games and put out a political ad for the Democrats and pretend you are non-partisan.

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 04, 2025, 01:50:47 AMSJG has to explain the incoming price increases to their customers.
And that is what the mail is about.
It merely says "Sorry, we have to raise the prices due to the tariffs and don't come to us and complain because we are not responsible."

That is standard 101 PR.

And it is logical that they cannot produce in the USA since there is not enough production capacity in the foreseeable future.

Regarding slave labour in China - There is slave labour in China but it is not usual. Mostly people get paid their wages and live with that.
There are jobs in which people are being exploited of course (mostly delivery drivers).

But all in all it is not that much different from the USA or Europe.

What I think is an interesting side effect we can see here that the tariffs will probably weaken US exports since products which are partially being produced elsewhere will become more expensive when they are assembled in the USA and then being exported

No on tariffs making manufacturing weaker.  The US is working will be having zero tariffs with Argentina.  Vietnam unfortunately did not go the Zero tariff approach it made some concessions on LNG and automobiles, but it was low so they are at 46% now.  Hopefully a zero tariff negotiation can be put in place between the US and Vietnam.

SJG is supposed to be creative and brilliant with the game business, but he isn't showing it.

For decades the aerospace industry has used mom & pop garage type CNC outfits to manufacture their small parts under a subcontractor agreement. Considering the wild proliferation of 3D printers, there is no reason why SJG can't go this same route with boardgame pieces.

Except he wouldn't be able to whine about Trump if he did.

First of all being creative and brilliant with designing games doesn't mean that they have a clue about brilliant and creative means of production.

Regarding the use of 3D printers: These cost money and now they become even more expensive due to tariffs. TTRPG companies usually don't have that much money and banks are also not that open to handing out loans at a reasonable rate to such companies.

Additionally you need paper printers for TTRPGs which are also becoming more and more expensive due to tariffs. We are not talking here about your usual HP printer on your desk.

And all this has to be done at a reasonable price.
Then you need paper and you need to ask yourself wether it is being imported or not. Additionally you have to store the raw material for the printing which means additional costs.

Furthermore you need people to operate the printers. So you need professionals.
But currently you have a labour shortage (so hard that Florida is making it's child labour laws more lax) in the USA and finding expert labour for an industry which has been outsourced is difficult and expensive.

So in each case you have to pay more - the questions are
a) How much more (will it still be cheaper to produce in China than in the USA)?
b) How good will the quality be (proven quality by made in China vs unknown quality by made in the USA).

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 04, 2025, 04:51:22 AMFirst of all being creative and brilliant with designing games doesn't mean that they have a clue about brilliant and creative means of production.

Regarding the use of 3D printers: These cost money and now they become even more expensive due to tariffs. TTRPG companies usually don't have that much money and banks are also not that open to handing out loans at a reasonable rate to such companies.

Additionally you need paper printers for TTRPGs which are also becoming more and more expensive due to tariffs. We are not talking here about your usual HP printer on your desk.

And all this has to be done at a reasonable price.
Then you need paper and you need to ask yourself wether it is being imported or not. Additionally you have to store the raw material for the printing which means additional costs.

Furthermore you need people to operate the printers. So you need professionals.
But currently you have a labour shortage (so hard that Florida is making it's child labour laws more lax) in the USA and finding expert labour for an industry which has been outsourced is difficult and expensive.

So in each case you have to pay more - the questions are
a) How much more (will it still be cheaper to produce in China than in the USA)?
b) How good will the quality be (proven quality by made in China vs unknown quality by made in the USA).

I think that you may have missed my use of the word, "subcontractor". You don't buy the printers, you get people who already have them to bid on the part manufacturing jobs. If it's mutually beneficial, you've got a business.

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 04, 2025, 06:34:11 AMI think that you may have missed my use of the word, "subcontractor". You don't buy the printers, you get people who already have them to bid on the part manufacturing jobs. If it's mutually beneficial, you've got a business.

I agree with that. But there are not that many subcontractors in that kind of business in the USA since that is kind of work which had so low margins that it was cheaper to outsource it to countries like China.

So the few available subcontractors left in the USA will have limited capacity and sell their services to the highest bidder (which won't be companies like SJG).

So of course new companies can be founded in that businesses but they have to buy machines which will be more expensive due to tariffs. And for these you need loans which might be difficult to get in that kind of business.

And then you still have the labour shortage in the USA to deal with.

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 04, 2025, 03:53:17 AMSJG is supposed to be creative and brilliant with the game business, but he isn't showing it.

For decades the aerospace industry has used mom & pop garage type CNC outfits to manufacture their small parts under a subcontractor agreement. Considering the wild proliferation of 3D printers, there is no reason why SJG can't go this same route with boardgame pieces.

Except he wouldn't be able to whine about Trump if he did.

This was the whole point.

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 04, 2025, 04:51:22 AMFirst of all being creative and brilliant with designing games doesn't mean that they have a clue about brilliant and creative means of production.

Regarding the use of 3D printers: These cost money and now they become even more expensive due to tariffs. TTRPG companies usually don't have that much money and banks are also not that open to handing out loans at a reasonable rate to such companies.

Additionally you need paper printers for TTRPGs which are also becoming more and more expensive due to tariffs. We are not talking here about your usual HP printer on your desk.

And all this has to be done at a reasonable price.
Then you need paper and you need to ask yourself wether it is being imported or not. Additionally you have to store the raw material for the printing which means additional costs.

Furthermore you need people to operate the printers. So you need professionals.
But currently you have a labour shortage (so hard that Florida is making it's child labour laws more lax) in the USA and finding expert labour for an industry which has been outsourced is difficult and expensive.

So in each case you have to pay more - the questions are
a) How much more (will it still be cheaper to produce in China than in the USA)?
b) How good will the quality be (proven quality by made in China vs unknown quality by made in the USA).

A few significant disagreements:

1): You don't need the best 3D printers in the world to make tabletop game components. Most 3D printers in this category go for less than $500. You could mark up most of them over 200% and the cost would still be at or below $1000 per unit. Obviously the plastic filaments or resin also cost, but my point is that this is not a particularly unapproachable expense for tabletop game companies.

2): The shortage for printing services is actually in bookbinding equipment, not printers. Most office supply stores maintain printers which are as good or better than what is needed to print books out, but they tend to not have bookbinding supplies for things other than spiral bound books. The industry will need to go through teething, but that shouldn't surprise, anyone.

3) International shipping from Southeast Asia means that quality will almost certainly go up because locally produced books can be produced at the same humidity they are intended to be kept in. SE Asia printing has a lot of problems caused by the heat and humidity. When you take paper products out of the heat and humidity they were created in, they tend to warp as they dry out or absorb moisture.

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 04, 2025, 06:55:57 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 04, 2025, 06:34:11 AMI think that you may have missed my use of the word, "subcontractor". You don't buy the printers, you get people who already have them to bid on the part manufacturing jobs. If it's mutually beneficial, you've got a business.

I agree with that. But there are not that many subcontractors in that kind of business in the USA since that is kind of work which had so low margins that it was cheaper to outsource it to countries like China.

So the few available subcontractors left in the USA will have limited capacity and sell their services to the highest bidder (which won't be companies like SJG).

So of course new companies can be founded in that businesses but they have to buy machines which will be more expensive due to tariffs. And for these you need loans which might be difficult to get in that kind of business.

And then you still have the labour shortage in the USA to deal with.

I don't think that you realize how many 3D printers and printing businesses are already out there.

What labour shortage are you talking about?

Quote from: Fheredin on April 04, 2025, 07:18:37 AMA few significant disagreements:

1): You don't need the best 3D printers in the world to make tabletop game components. Most 3D printers in this category go for less than $500. You could mark up most of them over 200% and the cost would still be at or below $1000 per unit. Obviously the plastic filaments or resin also cost, but my point is that this is not a particularly unapproachable expense for tabletop game companies.

A simple 3D printer is not useful for mass production which you need for running a business.

Quote2): The shortage for printing services is actually in bookbinding equipment, not printers. Most office supply stores maintain printers which are as good or better than what is needed to print books out, but they tend to not have bookbinding supplies for things other than spiral bound books. The industry will need to go through teething, but that shouldn't surprise, anyone.

Are these printers suitable for mass production and printing several hundred or thousand books?

Quote3) International shipping from Southeast Asia means that quality will almost certainly go up because locally produced books can be produced at the same humidity they are intended to be kept in. SE Asia printing has a lot of problems caused by the heat and humidity. When you take paper products out of the heat and humidity they were created in, they tend to warp as they dry out or absorb moisture.

I am not sure where the most printing companies in China are but I know several in northern China. Especially during wintertime it is awful dry there.

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 04, 2025, 07:19:19 AMI don't think that you realize how many 3D printers and printing businesses are already out there.

Which need to be suitable for mass production unless you want to pay extremely high prices and wait for real long times.

QuoteWhat labour shortage are you talking about?

Currently the unemployment rate in the USA is about 4.1%. In Florida laws against child labour are becoming more lax because they don't have enough workers.

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 04, 2025, 07:51:22 AMWah! They're taking away my slave labor so I can't get cheap crap now!

Note my post above. I'm going to have zero cost increases because I only source from local printers and manufacturers.

All this is going to do increase the costs of my slave labor and environment destroying competition competing against me unfairly.

I'm crying for them. On the inside.

It's also providing opportunities for people I know to get better jobs. GM just announced they're ramping up production at a plant in my county and will need several hundred additional workers. That means their local suppliers will need to expand production and need new hires as well. Then all the other supporting businesses.

Hell, a decade or so ago I used to laser cut game pieces for some local game producers until I was priced out by China and I've been shopping around with getting a 3D printer to do some custom taillight work for a car restoration guy I already cut acrylic pieces for... doing miniature print runs on the side might make that a better deal for me (with the bed size I'd need for the taillight parts I could probably run 50+ figs at a time and could just set it to run overnight).

I'm pretty sure that, rather than DOOOOOMM!!!^tm, what we're looking at here is called Opportunity.

@Chris
I also think that this will be an opportunity for some. Of course the customers will have to pay.
I doubt that there will be zero cost increases.

Last time when Trump introduced tariffs for steel and aluminium (and I am aware that Biden didn't take them back) the prices for e.g. washing machines Made in SA went up.

So we will see.

Btw it seems that a minor mishap happened here. That quote is not from me.

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 04, 2025, 07:51:22 AM

Quote from: Fheredin on April 04, 2025, 07:18:37 AMA few significant disagreements:

1): You don't need the best 3D printers in the world to make tabletop game components. Most 3D printers in this category go for less than $500. You could mark up most of them over 200% and the cost would still be at or below $1000 per unit. Obviously the plastic filaments or resin also cost, but my point is that this is not a particularly unapproachable expense for tabletop game companies.

A simple 3D printer is not useful for mass production which you need for running a business.

You'd better let all those custom miniature businesses know that they are Doing It Wrong then. It doesn't seem to be stopping them from making a profit.

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 04, 2025, 07:51:22 AM

Quote from: Fheredin on April 04, 2025, 07:18:37 AM2): The shortage for printing services is actually in bookbinding equipment, not printers. Most office supply stores maintain printers which are as good or better than what is needed to print books out, but they tend to not have bookbinding supplies for things other than spiral bound books. The industry will need to go through teething, but that shouldn't surprise, anyone.

Are these printers suitable for mass production and printing several hundred or thousand books?

Yes. I used to work for Kinko's and we would regularly do print runs of 5,000 books of 128 pages double sided b/w each with laminated color cardstock covers - all softcover and with a glue binding in a weekend. The only thing that was substandard IMHO, was that the glue side of the paper was not roughed up to allow the glue to seep in enough for the books to last a very long time (they'd last for 10 years instead of 25).

For rulebooks included in boardgames, it would be even easier because your average commercial office copier can put out about a thousand per hour of 32 page double sided b/w saddle stitched with color laminated cardstock covers.

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 04, 2025, 07:51:22 AM

Quote from: Fheredin on April 04, 2025, 07:18:37 AM3) International shipping from Southeast Asia means that quality will almost certainly go up because locally produced books can be produced at the same humidity they are intended to be kept in. SE Asia printing has a lot of problems caused by the heat and humidity. When you take paper products out of the heat and humidity they were created in, they tend to warp as they dry out or absorb moisture.

I am not sure where the most printing companies in China are but I know several in northern China. Especially during wintertime it is awful dry there.

While humidity can really fuck up printing, especially with lightweight paper, you solve that by using air conditioned space with dehumidifier. I worked in Knoxville, TN when at Kinko's and I can guarantee that summers feel like old school science fiction Venus with extra Swamp Ass.

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 04, 2025, 07:51:22 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 04, 2025, 07:19:19 AMI don't think that you realize how many 3D printers and printing businesses are already out there.

Which need to be suitable for mass production unless you want to pay extremely high prices and wait for real long times.

A 3D printer made for mass production is just multiple 3D printers. You can get the same effect with a bunch of small businesses subcontracted to you.

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 04, 2025, 07:51:22 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 04, 2025, 07:19:19 AMWhat labour shortage are you talking about?

Currently the unemployment rate in the USA is about 4.1%. In Florida laws against child labour are becoming more lax because they don't have enough workers.

How does that apply to what we are talking about? Is that a general number or is it specific to the book printing business and the 3D printing business?

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 04, 2025, 09:27:23 AMYes. I used to work for Kinko's and we would regularly do print runs of 5,000 books of 128 pages double sided b/w each with laminated color cardstock covers - all softcover and with a glue binding in a weekend. The only thing that was substandard IMHO, was that the glue side of the paper was not roughed up to allow the glue to seep in enough for the books to last a very long time.

For rulebooks included in boardgames, it would be even easier because your average commercial office copier can put out about a thousand per hour of 32 page double sided b/w saddle stitched with color laminated cardstock covers.

Interesting.   Was that just a regular Kinkos or more of a regional hub where they'd farm out the bigger runs from the normal storefronts out of curiosity?   I'm relatively clueless in this regard so apologies if some of the questions might seem n00bish.  Is 32 pages the limit for saddle stitched staple binding or is 64 pages possible?   I didn't realize commercial office copiers were capable of doing that as it sounds like they could fulfill the printing for average zine, quickstart, or rules light rpg printing just by themselves.

QuoteWhile humidity can really fuck up printing, especially with lightweight paper, you solve that by using air conditioned space with dehumidifier. I worked in Knoxville, TN when at Kinko's and I can guarantee that summers feel like old school science fiction Venus with extra Swamp Ass.

Cedar Bluff Elementary FTW! 

Happy Liberation Day, Meredith!

Quote from: RNGm on April 04, 2025, 09:52:49 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 04, 2025, 09:27:23 AMYes. I used to work for Kinko's and we would regularly do print runs of 5,000 books of 128 pages double sided b/w each with laminated color cardstock covers - all softcover and with a glue binding in a weekend. The only thing that was substandard IMHO, was that the glue side of the paper was not roughed up to allow the glue to seep in enough for the books to last a very long time.

For rulebooks included in boardgames, it would be even easier because your average commercial office copier can put out about a thousand per hour of 32 page double sided b/w saddle stitched with color laminated cardstock covers.

Interesting.  Was that just a regular Kinkos or more of a regional hub where they'd farm out the bigger runs from the normal storefronts out of curiosity?  I'm relatively clueless in this regard so apologies if some of the questions might seem n00bish.  Is 32 pages the limit for saddle stitched staple binding or is 64 pages possible?  I didn't realize commercial office copiers were capable of doing that as it sounds like they could fulfill the printing for average zine, quickstart, or rules light rpg printing just by themselves.

We were the city hub store on Kingston Pike, there were three other stores in Knoxville. For an all-in-one commercial printer I'd keep it at 48 pages or less because any more pages overstresses the folder mechanism (which is plastic and I swear to God, designed to break). You could probably get 64 pages out of it if you used 10-15 pound 11x17 paper, but that is so flimsy that it would tend to jam in the copier during print runs.

Quote from: RNGm on April 04, 2025, 09:52:49 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 04, 2025, 09:27:23 AMWhile humidity can really fuck up printing, especially with lightweight paper, you solve that by using air conditioned space with dehumidifier. I worked in Knoxville, TN when at Kinko's and I can guarantee that summers feel like old school science fiction Venus with extra Swamp Ass.

Cedar Bluff Elementary FTW! 

Ha! Cedar Bluff Middle School and a year of Farragut High before I moved! Used to buy my games and dice at The Yankee Peddler!

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 04, 2025, 07:51:22 AMCurrently the unemployment rate in the USA is about 4.1%. In Florida laws against child labour are becoming more lax because they don't have enough workers.

The vast majority of economists agree that full employment is an unemployment rate of 5% or less. 4.1% is well within full employment parameters, therefore there is no employment shortage.

Also, the majority of teens who work that the bill would effect work in places like grocery stores and entertainment (Disneyworld, Universal Studios, etc). We're not talking about places like meat packing or manufacturing. The percentage of people who fall within that age bracket aren't that significant either. So, you're about a specific job category (grocery stores) for a specific age group (14-17). The number is insignificant and it's only in Florida. It's not like that parents can't just tell their kids not to work their. They can quit or decline to sign the waiver to allow them to work extended hours.

BTW, the Fla law has nothing to do with lack of labor. I've checked multiple sources. It's about aligning with federal standards.

You're making a mountain out of a molehill.

Quote from: blackstone on April 04, 2025, 10:39:23 AMand it's only in Florida.

So many terrible things get dismissed for being "only in Florida" until they spread...

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 04, 2025, 10:31:32 AM

Quote from: RNGm on April 04, 2025, 09:52:49 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 04, 2025, 09:27:23 AMYes. I used to work for Kinko's and we would regularly do print runs of 5,000 books of 128 pages double sided b/w each with laminated color cardstock covers - all softcover and with a glue binding in a weekend. The only thing that was substandard IMHO, was that the glue side of the paper was not roughed up to allow the glue to seep in enough for the books to last a very long time.

For rulebooks included in boardgames, it would be even easier because your average commercial office copier can put out about a thousand per hour of 32 page double sided b/w saddle stitched with color laminated cardstock covers.

Interesting.  Was that just a regular Kinkos or more of a regional hub where they'd farm out the bigger runs from the normal storefronts out of curiosity?  I'm relatively clueless in this regard so apologies if some of the questions might seem n00bish.  Is 32 pages the limit for saddle stitched staple binding or is 64 pages possible?  I didn't realize commercial office copiers were capable of doing that as it sounds like they could fulfill the printing for average zine, quickstart, or rules light rpg printing just by themselves.

We were the city hub store on Kingston Pike, there were three other stores in Knoxville. For an all-in-one commercial printer I'd keep it at 48 pages or less because any more pages overstresses the folder mechanism (which is plastic and I swear to God, designed to break). You could probably get 64 pages out of it if you used 10-15 pound 11x17 paper, but that is so flimsy that it would tend to jam in the copier during print runs.

I agree that it's designed to break to save the company likely 10-15 cents but then charge for repairs.   I was cluelessly hoping that 64 pages would be the limit but not at the cost of tissue paper durability/quality.  Regardless, it's nice to know that it's at least a possibility locally. 

Quote from: blackstone on April 04, 2025, 10:39:23 AMThe vast majority of economists agree that full employment is an unemployment rate of 5% or less. 4.1% is well within full employment parameters, therefore there is no employment shortage.

Dude, that number means that only a few people are looking for a job. Quite often these are people who are unemployable.

QuoteAlso, the majority of teens who work that the bill would effect work in places like grocery stores and entertainment (Disneyworld, Universal Studios, etc). We're not talking about places like meat packing or manufacturing. The percentage of people who fall within that age bracket aren't that significant either. So, you're about a specific job category (grocery stores) for a specific age group (14-17). The number is insignificant and it's only in Florida. It's not like that parents can't just tell their kids not to work their. They can quit or decline to sign the waiver to allow them to work extended hours.

You know that some families cannot afford not to sign such waivers or these kids to quit. And while this may only affect a specific kind of job it is a clear sign that there is a labour shortage.

QuoteBTW, the Fla law has nothing to do with lack of labor. I've checked multiple sources. It's about aligning with federal standards.

I also checked and it seems that it is more aligning to the standards of red states and not federal standards.

@Jeff
Assuming that everything is great and that there will be no additional costs and better quality - why were people like Chris outprized by China?

Ok, I am out of this discussion. We will see how it goes. In my opinion you will have to face raised prices and lower quality (at least in the beginning).
Fortunately I am not affected by this stuff. Free League is in Sweden and Modiphius is seated in the UK

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 04, 2025, 11:50:32 AM@Jeff
Assuming that everything is great and that there will be no additional costs and better quality - why were people like Chris outprized by China?

Ok, I am out of this discussion. We will see how it goes. In my opinion you will have to face raised prices and lower quality (at least in the beginning).
Fortunately I am not affected by this stuff. Free League is in Sweden and Modiphius is seated in the UK

OK, which Chris are you talking about? You've lost me and I won't be able to answer your question accurately until I know which Chris.

Also, you may be feeling smug too soon. Free League may be in Sweden and Modiphius may be in the UK, but that doesn't mean that their books are printed in those countries.

So now they're complaining about RPG book printing? All my POD stuff from DTRPG and Amazon comes from Coppell, TX (Dallas) and La Vergne, TN (Nashville). There's literally no need to get anything printed in China except because you are unwilling to fork over the upfront cost of a decent sized printrun for full bleed. That's it. They're fucking game books; this hobby is so inundated with metric tons of "style over substance" that I welcome more indie designers producing good quality stuff and the large corps going out of business because they can't afford to get their coffee table non-playable bullshit produced anymore.


Whatever.

The videos complaining are starting to come out.

Cry harder.

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 04, 2025, 11:50:32 AMFortunately I am not affected by this stuff. Free League is in Sweden and Modiphius is seated in the UK

So why even comment?

Quote from: HappyDaze on April 04, 2025, 10:41:33 AM

Quote from: blackstone on April 04, 2025, 10:39:23 AMand it's only in Florida.

So many terrible things get dismissed for being "only in Florida" until they spread...

Goggle "Florida man" and hope to God it doesn't.

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 04, 2025, 11:50:32 AM

QuoteThe vast majority of economists agree that full employment is an unemployment rate of 5% or less. 4.1% is well within full employment parameters, therefore there is no employment shortage.

Dude, that number means that only a few people are looking for a job. Quite often these are people who are unemployable.

Unemployable for a number of reasons. We have welfare, social security, and other safety nets for those unfortunate enough to where they physically can't work, but we can't help everybody. As much as the Democrats have tried, they haven't made the US a welfare state yet.

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 04, 2025, 11:50:32 AM

QuoteAlso, the majority of teens who work that the bill would effect work in places like grocery stores and entertainment (Disneyworld, Universal Studios, etc). We're not talking about places like meat packing or manufacturing. The percentage of people who fall within that age bracket aren't that significant either. So, you're about a specific job category (grocery stores) for a specific age group (14-17). The number is insignificant and it's only in Florida. It's not like that parents can't just tell their kids not to work their. They can quit or decline to sign the waiver to allow them to work extended hours.

You know that some families cannot afford not to sign such waivers or these kids to quit. And while this may only affect a specific kind of job it is a clear sign that there is a labour shortage.

Again, it has nothing to do with a labor shortage. There is none. You can argue that until you're blue in the face, but the fact remains the 4.1% you cited is consider full employment by every economist on the planet.

Secondly, yes there are some families that are in that situation, and we have welfare and other systems to help compensate. The number of families that fall into that specific category you mentioned are small.

Sorry for the derailment folks.

Quote from: Brad on April 04, 2025, 01:22:09 PMSo now they're complaining about RPG book printing? All my POD stuff from DTRPG and Amazon comes from Coppell, TX (Dallas) and La Vergne, TN (Nashville). There's literally no need to get anything printed in China except because you are unwilling to fork over the upfront cost of a decent sized printrun for full bleed. That's it. They're fucking game books; this hobby is so inundated with metric tons of "style over substance" that I welcome more indie designers producing good quality stuff and the large corps going out of business because they can't afford to get their coffee table non-playable bullshit produced anymore.


Whatever.

POD quality is ass, though. Don't need coffee table books, but smyth-sewn binding is objectively better than a POD glue job. Whether it's a 90-page book, or especially if it's larger, it's going to last longer. I'd argue that this is MORE important for books that are gonna get used, rather than sitting on a shelf and looking pretty.

Quote from: JanDevries on April 04, 2025, 02:28:25 PMPOD quality is ass, though. Don't need coffee table books, but smyth-sewn binding is objectively better than a POD glue job. Whether it's a 90-page book, or especially if it's larger, it's going to last longer. I'd argue that this is MORE important for books that are gonna get used, rather than sitting on a shelf and looking pretty.

No disagreement about POD vs. sewn bindings. However: https://mixam.com/

I am sure more places will start offering that if the demand is there.

Quote from: blackstone on April 04, 2025, 02:15:07 PM

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 04, 2025, 11:50:32 AM

QuoteThe vast majority of economists agree that full employment is an unemployment rate of 5% or less. 4.1% is well within full employment parameters, therefore there is no employment shortage.

Dude, that number means that only a few people are looking for a job. Quite often these are people who are unemployable.

Unemployable for a number of reasons. We have welfare, social security, and other safety nets for those unfortunate enough to where they physically can't work, but we can't help everybody. As much as the Democrats have tried, they haven't made the US a welfare state yet.

In this thread alone the dude has defended/minimized China's use of slave labor and distorted the Florida labor law changes (then expanded to smear "red states").  You know exactly what you are dealing with.

One thing I can say, these leftists definitely have a stranglehold on reality...

Quote from: Brad on April 04, 2025, 02:42:19 PM

Quote from: JanDevries on April 04, 2025, 02:28:25 PMPOD quality is ass, though. Don't need coffee table books, but smyth-sewn binding is objectively better than a POD glue job. Whether it's a 90-page book, or especially if it's larger, it's going to last longer. I'd argue that this is MORE important for books that are gonna get used, rather than sitting on a shelf and looking pretty.

No disagreement about POD vs. sewn bindings. However: https://mixam.com/

I am sure more places will start offering that if the demand is there.

That link says the price for a smyth-sewn, 48 page hardback is $268.50.

Edit: and that's digest sized.

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 04, 2025, 09:04:58 AMI also think that this will be an opportunity for some. Of course the customers will have to pay.
I doubt that there will be zero cost increases.

Last time when Trump introduced tariffs for steel and aluminium (and I am aware that Biden didn't take them back) the prices for e.g. washing machines Made in SA went up.
..

Biden didn't take them back for good reason; because the steel tariffs were good for the USA:

Quote"Trump implemented a 25% tariff on steel imports in March 2018. His reasoning was related to national security, along with a desire to get US steel mills operating at 80% capacity or higher.
Naturally, the critics of tariffs would argue that steel prices should have increased by 25% or more post-tariff, but even though steel prices increased through the summer (steel prices had already been skyrocketing pre-tariff too) and then began falling substantially. US steel prices eventually fell to price levels much lower than pre-tariff prices.

Why did the price of US steel decrease? Domestic manufacturing of steel increased by nearly 10% for the 2 years post-tariffs. Production rose to 86.6 million metric tons in 2018 and 87.8 million metric tons in 2019, before cratering in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Production bounced back in 2021, as American steel mills produced 85.8 million metric tons of raw steel that year.

This means the 2018 tariffs worked — US manufacturing of steel increased and US steel prices dropped lower.

So now you have a concrete example from the 2018 tariffs that show the critics were wrong. The tariffs led to lower prices, increased American manufacturing, more government revenue, and the creation of American jobs. Also, US inflation (CPI) fell from 2.1% in January 2018 to 1.6% in January 2019, so the tariffs didn't lead to higher inflation either.

The USA will win any tariff war because it has been losing the free trade war for decades. America has literally nothing to lose in this regard."

For table-top gaming:

If domestic manufacturers scale up to meet demand we will see a similar effect. Prices will come down so that games can be made in the US for a reasonable price.

This is an empirical good for the USA. The more jobs that come back into our economy, the better for us in the long run.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 03, 2025, 03:42:46 PMThey'll just push the costs onto the customers. The only way that we'll bring manufacturing jobs back to the USA is if the government directly funds their creation and bans international competition. Make a new department of government called the Department of Manufacturing, who will build new factories across the USA and re-employ all those former coal miners.

New factories promptly filled with robots and AI.

As for SJG. Oh boo hoo hoo! You profited off the misery of others and now come crying because you can't profit off it. 

On the one hand, it'll definitely make us more self-sufficient. On the other hand, it will probably come at a costs-based price both now and in the future.

We don't have the same level of cheap labor or built infrastructure locally, and even if the jobs come back in potential, and even if there is a reallocation of capital (away from what were previously the preferred investments thereof) our labor pool is still limited. So there's a limit to how much labor we can throw into a given industry even if it becomes suddenly more viable locally in absolutely terms. Also, we don't have as many people willing to work those jobs, especially for a given pricing.

Hopefully even moreso limited than previously once illegal immigrants are no longer being hired locally to work in bad conditions.

Why am I rooting for a labor shortage? Supply and demand, we'll see wages rise for those who don't own their own businesses, or who work lower positions. Also, we'll hopefully see an uptick in local business-starting opportunities.

TLDR: Tariffs will cause prices to go up. This will drive up cost of living. But on the flipside, a labor shortage driven by the tariffs could also hike up labor's wages, which could compensate for the everyman, though overall economic growth will likely still slow a bit since there's only so much labor and capital to go around. But this will still likely rebalance power away from the economic elites and back towards the everyman and aspiring business owner.


(I'm not actually trained in economics, so take all of this with a pile of salt.)

I guess in counterpoint to myself, if the other countries retaliate heavily that would drive down demand for us goods abroad, which could make the labor shortage locally less a thing. Let's hope the negotiations go well on that, I guess.

Quote from: KindaMeh on April 04, 2025, 05:11:33 PMI guess in counterpoint to myself, if the other countries retaliate heavily that would drive down demand for us goods abroad, which could make the labor shortage locally less a thing. Let's hope the negotiations go well on that, I guess.

Veitnam already caved and said they'd lower their tariffs on all US goods to zero and Trump has said their reciprocal tariff rate will likewise be dropped to zero.

The reciprocal tariffs were always a negotiation tactic. Give it a few weeks for the foreign government economists to run the numbers and all but the most Globalist regimes will make a deal.

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 04, 2025, 12:59:11 PM

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 04, 2025, 11:50:32 AM@Jeff
Assuming that everything is great and that there will be no additional costs and better quality - why were people like Chris outprized by China?

Ok, I am out of this discussion. We will see how it goes. In my opinion you will have to face raised prices and lower quality (at least in the beginning).
Fortunately I am not affected by this stuff. Free League is in Sweden and Modiphius is seated in the UK

OK, which Chris are you talking about? You've lost me and I won't be able to answer your question accurately until I know which Chris.

Also, you may be feeling smug too soon. Free League may be in Sweden and Modiphius may be in the UK, but that doesn't mean that their books are printed in those countries.

Weird to quote myself, but a quick Google search shows that Free League prints their books in Latvia and Lithuania while Modiphus prints their books in the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe, and the UK (apparently to keep shipping costs down). Take it with a grain of salt (Google).

Quote from: JanDevries on April 04, 2025, 03:38:09 PM

Quote from: Brad on April 04, 2025, 02:42:19 PM

Quote from: JanDevries on April 04, 2025, 02:28:25 PMPOD quality is ass, though. Don't need coffee table books, but smyth-sewn binding is objectively better than a POD glue job. Whether it's a 90-page book, or especially if it's larger, it's going to last longer. I'd argue that this is MORE important for books that are gonna get used, rather than sitting on a shelf and looking pretty.

No disagreement about POD vs. sewn bindings. However: https://mixam.com/

I am sure more places will start offering that if the demand is there.

That link says the price for a smyth-sewn, 48 page hardback is $268.50.

Edit: and that's digest sized.

I didn't say it was cheap! But if there is enough demand I bet the price will drop dramatically. What's amazing to me is the US used to do all this stuff and the prices were maybe a bit higher but wasn't fucking Chinese junk. When I was a kid anything made in China was seen as a joke for poors. Now it's ubiquitous and yet the quality is exactly what it's always been. Can you imagine buying a refrigerator, for instance, that just...works? And maybe you replace the freon after 20 years, otherwise you die before it does. That used to be the norm.

Steve J., what a maroon.  He should be joining the class action against Actblue for how they were parties to massive fraud and  misuse of the funds Steve and other 'gamers' gave them.  What a dip

It seems like an opportunity really.  Someone should step up and produce high end board game components in the United States.

Quote from: JanDevries on April 04, 2025, 03:38:09 PMThat link says the price for a smyth-sewn, 48 page hardback is $268.50.

Edit: and that's digest sized.

That's for one.  There is a setup cost.  If you increase quantity to 100, the price goes to $9.53 per book.  At 1000, it's $7.28.  Not cheap, but not crazy expensive.

Quote from: David Johansen on April 04, 2025, 11:04:49 PMIt seems like an opportunity really.  Someone should step up and produce high end board game components in the United States.

That's the idea, innit?

Quote from: blackstone on April 04, 2025, 02:04:56 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on April 04, 2025, 10:41:33 AM

Quote from: blackstone on April 04, 2025, 10:39:23 AMand it's only in Florida.

So many terrible things get dismissed for being "only in Florida" until they spread...

Goggle "Florida man" and hope to God it doesn't.

I live and work in central Florida. I don't need to Google it when I can see it every day. OTOH, the Florida Man stories only seem so ridiculous because Florida allows stories to come out without any credible evidence. Stricter laws elsewhere generally require more stringent reporting, so the Florida Man is really no more common (OK, maybe a little more common...) than idiots elsewhere, they just get more exposure.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 04, 2025, 11:59:13 PM

Quote from: David Johansen on April 04, 2025, 11:04:49 PMIt seems like an opportunity really.  Someone should step up and produce high end board game components in the United States.

That's the idea, innit?

Probably, there's all kinds of wild speculation as to how things will go and where they are going.  It's hard to say what the long term effects will be or even how long term the tarrifs will be.   A new stateside producer may have to buy the equipment from China.  Who wants to spend millions building a factory if things are back to normal in a week.

Quote from: David Johansen on April 05, 2025, 07:19:25 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 04, 2025, 11:59:13 PM

Quote from: David Johansen on April 04, 2025, 11:04:49 PMIt seems like an opportunity really.  Someone should step up and produce high end board game components in the United States.

That's the idea, innit?

Probably, there's all kinds of wild speculation as to how things will go and where they are going.  It's hard to say what the long term effects will be or even how long term the tarrifs will be.   A new stateside producer may have to buy the equipment from China.  Who wants to spend millions building a factory if things are back to normal in a week.

Because China's demographics cliff mean they almost certainly will not remain productive for much longer. The "new normal" after China's aging workforce starts to wear out will either be production moving to India, Mexico, or reshoring to the United States. The only way to avoid this fate is to add 30+ years of life to the Chinese worker.

...I suppose that's possible. Not very likely, but possible.

When you put it this way, paying to move the industrial base is almost inevitable. It's just a question of where you go and when you pull the trigger.

One thing no one is discussing either that happened last time and particular governments are already starting to do this time is that countries hit by the tariffs start subsidizing their manufacturing to allow them to lower prices to counter the tariff increases and remain competitive in the US market.

That's why we didn't see massive price spikes on Chinese goods last time and they and EU are already moving to do it this time.

If the tariff is 25% and the business drops it's price from $1.00 to $0.80 (with their government paying them $0.20 to cover it) then the US consumer is still paying only $1.00 and the US government is collecting $0.20.

EDIT: Ignore me. Someone already covered what I was going to post.

Quote from: BadApple on April 03, 2025, 05:37:51 PMIt has nothing to do with the tariffs or the rising costs.  He's angry and this is a good excuse to howl out loud.

It's Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Quote from: Chris24601 on April 05, 2025, 10:35:06 AMOne thing no one is discussing either that happened last time and particular governments are already starting to do this time is that countries hit by the tariffs start subsidizing their manufacturing to allow them to lower prices to counter the tariff increases and remain competitive in the US market.

That's why we didn't see massive price spikes on Chinese goods last time and they and EU are already moving to do it this time.

If the tariff is 25% and the business drops it's price from $1.00 to $0.80 (with their government paying them $0.20 to cover it) then the US consumer is still paying only $1.00 and the US government is collecting $0.20.

It's pretty obvious the collection of cronies in DC were covering tariff costs from USAID to purposefully make it look like we weren't in a recession. SJGames and all the retards voting for Democrats literally will not admit all their "hard earned revenue" was directly subsidized by the US taxpayer. I cannot take them seriously at all because now they're suddenly experts in foreign trade overnight when the reality is IT IS WORKING AS INTENDED. Vietnam already capitulated and Kosovo(!!!!) wants to be an ally with the US. So, fuck China in the ass, all the jackass politicians can try to fund their grift somewhere else, I guess.

Can anyone tell I hate the government?

Quote from: RPGPundit on April 05, 2025, 04:20:16 PMIt's Trump Derangement Syndrome.

If Trump gave everyone a gold brick, they'd complain it was too heavy to carry. I do believe they are actually insane.

Quote from: orbitalair on April 03, 2025, 03:59:22 PMNo one ever asks Why.  Why is it so expensive to print paper items in the USA?

OSHA?  Environmental regulations?  Prop65 warning tags on everything?  Insurance?  Taxes?  The gov graft and fraud have pushed taxes into the 50% range.  If employers or workers paid less taxes, they could charge less and be competitive.

Games and toys are a luxury item, not a must have.  Don't care about sjg anyways.

USA, land of Fern Gully and Avatar. Land of 'save the trees' until plastic is bad so basically you aren't allowed to bag your groceries anymore or print or produce... anything.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 04, 2025, 11:59:13 PM

Quote from: David Johansen on April 04, 2025, 11:04:49 PMIt seems like an opportunity really.  Someone should step up and produce high end board game components in the United States.

That's the idea, innit?

Nobody understands the working conditions of factories in the USA. It's literally worse than other countries. Prisoners ask to go back to jail. The bathrooms are full of graffiti warning workers to quit before they get financially trapped there for life. Machines are operating on DOS OS. Hydraulic cutters are leaking oil everywhere. Blood gets dripped onto the merchandise due to clumsy workers being overworked, promised a normal workweek 'someday' but that's actually when they get laid off instead. Everybody is fucking and cucking each other in the bathrooms when they're not smoking and it's so loud that your boss has to yell at you just so you can hear them. All this in the middle of the night. By the end of the workday, your hands can't physically open and close all the way in a normal fashion. It's terrible.

Quote from: Daosus on April 04, 2025, 11:26:00 PM

Quote from: JanDevries on April 04, 2025, 03:38:09 PMThat link says the price for a smyth-sewn, 48 page hardback is $268.50.

Edit: and that's digest sized.

That's for one.  There is a setup cost.  If you increase quantity to 100, the price goes to $9.53 per book.  At 1000, it's $7.28.  Not cheap, but not crazy expensive.

Does that include shipping? Moving the books can jack the price in freakish ways.

The possible speedbumps would be...

A: shipping to you.
B: shipping to the customer.
C: shipping to overseas customers. This one has killed quite a few KS games as no one thought to check and it can be insanely high to ship. And theres possibly customs too to worry about.

Quote from: Brad on April 05, 2025, 04:21:53 PMCan anyone tell I hate the government?

I'm with you. The one big concern I have over these tariffs is that the government gets da moolah. Which means most of it is likely going to go to "administrative costs".

Quote from: Omega on April 05, 2025, 04:57:45 PM

Quote from: Daosus on April 04, 2025, 11:26:00 PM

Quote from: JanDevries on April 04, 2025, 03:38:09 PMThat link says the price for a smyth-sewn, 48 page hardback is $268.50.

Edit: and that's digest sized.

That's for one.  There is a setup cost.  If you increase quantity to 100, the price goes to $9.53 per book.  At 1000, it's $7.28.  Not cheap, but not crazy expensive.

Does that include shipping? Moving the books can jack the price in freakish ways.

The possible speedbumps would be...

A: shipping to you.
B: shipping to the customer.
C: shipping to overseas customers. This one has killed quite a few KS games as no one thought to check and it can be insanely high to ship. And theres possibly customs too to worry about.

Nope. Shipping is just under 17 bucks on top of that, to the US (presumably from the US).

RPGs and tabletop games are about the easiest thing to move to the US these days. The best 3d printers for printer farms are now being made in the USA: https://blog.prusa3d.com/we-are-now-manufacturing-3d-printers-and-filaments-in-the-usa_99148/

Print on demand and PDFs are well established these days. There are plenty of people making money in tabletop gaming without bulk printing product from China. If SJG can't adapt, then it'll just be an opportunity for the new players that are already doing things differently to shine.

Supposedly Nike may stop selling shoes in the USA as per analysts. Pretty wild that abortion was conservative/authoritarian in China. I'm a radical moderate and all these tariffs are going to create a mess for quite a while before people can even begin to resolve them with inventive solutions. Say what you will, every company in the USA has provided figures in the 45-60% price increase range. Regardless of what happens with tariffs, I expect prices to jump like some sort of massive, countrywide price-fixing scheme. It's not illegal when the whole country does it, right? 

Quote from: D-ko on April 06, 2025, 09:11:08 PMSupposedly Nike may stop selling shoes in the USA as per analysts. Pretty wild that abortion was conservative/authoritarian in China. I'm a radical moderate and all these tariffs are going to create a mess for quite a while before people can even begin to resolve them with inventive solutions. Say what you will, every company in the USA has provided figures in the 45-60% price increase range. Regardless of what happens with tariffs, I expect prices to jump like some sort of massive, countrywide price-fixing scheme. It's not illegal when the whole country does it, right? 

I used to work at a Just For Feet before they went bankrupt. The average Nike product cost 1/4 (clothes, regular shoes) to 1/20 (Jordan's) of the price it was sold for and they had the most returns. I'm not worried about that market.

I legitimately hope Nike is driven straight out of business by this, they've deserved it for a long time now for hawking their sweatshop slave labor garbage for a premium price.  It takes some real effort to stand out as unambiguously evil among large corporations, but they somehow make it look easy.

Yea it would be really satisfying if Nike took it to the face on this, but just don't think it's in the cards.  Their products are so wildly profitable.  There's honestly a bunch of things that aren't even gonna be subject to tariffs, like "books as a class even if they are for a game" that I don't think any of these shitty companies and people will actually be hit by these in any meaningful way.

Still, it would be nice.  Nike, specifically, should be harried and given no rest or quarter if possible.

Quote from: Banjo Destructo on April 03, 2025, 02:10:43 PMHere are the numbers: A product we might have manufactured in China for $3.00 last year could now cost $4.62 before we even ship it across the ocean. Add freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution margins, and that once-$25 game quickly becomes a $40 product. That's not a luxury upcharge; it's survival math.

By that math, the price should go up to $27 MAX. IF SJG charges $40 they are lying to the customers.

Sadly, I see many businesses doing just this.

Quote from: Godsmonkey on April 07, 2025, 01:49:52 PM

Quote from: Banjo Destructo on April 03, 2025, 02:10:43 PMHere are the numbers: A product we might have manufactured in China for $3.00 last year could now cost $4.62 before we even ship it across the ocean. Add freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution margins, and that once-$25 game quickly becomes a $40 product. That's not a luxury upcharge; it's survival math.

By that math, the price should go up to $27 MAX. IF SJG charges $40 they are lying to the customers.

Sadly, I see many businesses doing just this.

Let me do some back of the envelope math here, because I am starting to think there is a serious opportunity for market disruption via Print on Demand.

I saw a commentator (would need to double-check my history to remember which) who pointed out this was about Munchkin. A game which is literally nothing but playing cards. We are literally talking about a box containing 304 custom playing cards, so we are talking about $0.09 per card at the current price increasing to $0.13 per card.

I want to remind you that the cost per page from a standard inkjet is about $0.25 tops. Let's up that to $0.50; estimating really high here makes sense because of quality paper and these prints will use a TON of ink, which is not cheap. A standard sheet of paper can fit about 10 playing cards, depending a bit on the dimensions you use. That means a standard inkjet printer will cost about $0.05 per card and you can sell them for $0.09 at current prices. You can even automate the card cutting process. I don't think anyone seriously doubts that will be a tough automation task.

The tariffs add just enough leeway for LGSes to switch from carrying physical inventory to Print on Demand. Go to the geek shop. Hang out with friends. Have zero day shipping on your games. Almost zero game store space is taken up with physical inventory, which means that LGSes can convert most of their storefront floor space into rentable game rooms.

This is very much shaping up into a major market disruption win.

Quote from: Fheredin on April 07, 2025, 03:13:04 PMThe tariffs add just enough leeway for LGSes to switch from carrying physical inventory to Print on Demand. Go to the geek shop. Hang out with friends. Have zero day shipping on your games. Almost zero game store space is taken up with physical inventory, which means that LGSes can convert most of their storefront floor space into rentable game rooms.

There's already a lot of miniature Patreons with cheap commercial licenses. $35 a month for Epic Miniatures and your store can 3d print and sell minis, terrain and dice towers for customers on demand. You could also run paint classes, sell the paint, etc.

It could probably use a good open source or commercial kiosk system where you can browse STL files and put in an order. But the core local/store manufacturing infrastructure exists, we're just still in the "print cheap stuff overseas and ship it" model.

Gaming will absolutely still thrive though no matter what happens with tariffs. Hopefully it continues to have a solid store focus in the future as well.

Edit: also with minis, there's a lot of up-sell potential here as well for the local store: priming, painting and so on.

Quote from: D-ko on April 05, 2025, 04:46:22 PMNobody understands the working conditions of factories in the USA. It's literally worse than other countries. Prisoners ask to go back to jail. The bathrooms are full of graffiti warning workers to quit before they get financially trapped there for life. Machines are operating on DOS OS. Hydraulic cutters are leaking oil everywhere. Blood gets dripped onto the merchandise due to clumsy workers being overworked, promised a normal workweek 'someday' but that's actually when they get laid off instead. Everybody is fucking and cucking each other in the bathrooms when they're not smoking and it's so loud that your boss has to yell at you just so you can hear them. All this in the middle of the night. By the end of the workday, your hands can't physically open and close all the way in a normal fashion. It's terrible.

I've spent a considerable amount of time in American factories.

The bathrooms didn't have any graffiti. Computers on the factory floor are running outdated operating systems, but it's Windows 7, not MS DOS. You certainly do see oil and grit, but no it's not leaking all over the place. I'm sure there are injuries, but I've never seen an open wound or blood. Can't speak to "normal work week" because I don't track anyone's hours. Never seen any sex in the bathrooms, but that doesn't mean it's not happening on the night shift. Nobody smokes indoors. It is definitely loud. Heavy machinery makes noise. There are definitely people in the factory who go home sore.

The production floor is a rough environment, but it also has rough, tough guys working there. These two things go hand in hand.

By the standards of the factories I've been in, you're wildly exaggerating. I'm not calling you a liar. America is a big country. What you've described does match up with the description a UAW friend gave of his work environment. I suspect that labor unions have something to do with this, or maybe more accurately, the hostile nature of negotiation between labor unions and businesses.

Instead of worker safety, the union negotiates for expensive, top shelf health insurance packages that the company has to pay for. The company then decides this health insurance counts as doing their due diligence on worker safety. Got hurt on the job? Fuck you, you've got the best health care coverage on the planet. The working hours is a similar situation. The union negotiates for pay and hours for its members, but in exchange they're committed to providing a certain amount of workers. The union could split those hours up among a larger pool of workers, but they want to offer their members 6-figure salaries. You get that money, but you're getting worked like a dog.

This also does touch on outdated and damaged equipment. Unions try to block new equipment that improves workplace efficiency, because that new equipment means fewer hours to pass along to their members. The maintenance workers who are supposed to repair that equipment are also union, and they're moving at their union pace. A damaged piece of equipment means that the guy at that station gets to ride the clock until it gets fixed, so he may not even report it. He sits on his ass doing nothing until his supervisor asks why he's not getting any work done.

One thing that definitely happens regarding equipment is that businesses are often more interested in investing capital in foreign countries. They're allowing their American factories to decay while they build new ones overseas. This is true of both union and non-union factories.

Quote from: Jaeger on April 04, 2025, 04:12:33 PM

Quote from: Coffeecup on April 04, 2025, 09:04:58 AMI also think that this will be an opportunity for some. Of course the customers will have to pay.
I doubt that there will be zero cost increases.

Last time when Trump introduced tariffs for steel and aluminium (and I am aware that Biden didn't take them back) the prices for e.g. washing machines Made in SA went up.
..

Biden didn't take them back for good reason; because the steel tariffs were good for the USA:

Quote"Trump implemented a 25% tariff on steel imports in March 2018. His reasoning was related to national security, along with a desire to get US steel mills operating at 80% capacity or higher.
Naturally, the critics of tariffs would argue that steel prices should have increased by 25% or more post-tariff, but even though steel prices increased through the summer (steel prices had already been skyrocketing pre-tariff too) and then began falling substantially. US steel prices eventually fell to price levels much lower than pre-tariff prices.

Why did the price of US steel decrease? Domestic manufacturing of steel increased by nearly 10% for the 2 years post-tariffs. Production rose to 86.6 million metric tons in 2018 and 87.8 million metric tons in 2019, before cratering in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Production bounced back in 2021, as American steel mills produced 85.8 million metric tons of raw steel that year.

This means the 2018 tariffs worked — US manufacturing of steel increased and US steel prices dropped lower.

So now you have a concrete example from the 2018 tariffs that show the critics were wrong. The tariffs led to lower prices, increased American manufacturing, more government revenue, and the creation of American jobs. Also, US inflation (CPI) fell from 2.1% in January 2018 to 1.6% in January 2019, so the tariffs didn't lead to higher inflation either.

The USA will win any tariff war because it has been losing the free trade war for decades. America has literally nothing to lose in this regard."

For table-top gaming:

If domestic manufacturers scale up to meet demand we will see a similar effect. Prices will come down so that games can be made in the US for a reasonable price.

This is an empirical good for the USA. The more jobs that come back into our economy, the better for us in the long run.

Apologies since this is a couple pages back. But I believe some of these people are so captured by their ideology they would refuse to work with domestic companies just to try to make Trump look worse. The hope is there's enough moderates or people lying about their true beliefs for that not to happen.

My thoughts on this, some have been covered already.

1) Tariffs are only on the import of items produced in China and other companies; NOT the manufacturing by slave labor, NOT the domestic shipping, not the "warehousing fees", NOT the distribution or advertising.  So an increase of about a dollar and a half to $4.62 translates to a $15 increase from $25 to 40?  This Steve Jackson math is only for the gullible people who share their ideology.

2) We can't make our games in America.  Why not?  "There's no infrastructure."  Then create it!  Obviously there's a new demand to meet.  The infrastructure is never there to support the massive upheaval the left's intrusive social conditioning requires.  Suddenly latent consequences matter.

3) They produce a house organ for one of their RPGs.  It's published in America by an American company.  I hear that they want to raise prices on this purely domestic product.

4) When Biden presided over the shipping crisis, and four years of the highest inflation numbers ever in America, they fail the intellectual honesty test.  They said it was a hardship and it's all temporary, and they didn't blame anyone.  I saw a post on their forums along the lines of "People get what they vote for."  I said to myself, "That won't last long."  It didn;t.

5) They already are into both 3D printing and offering STL files as alternatives to miniatures, and digitize their new stuff and much of their GURPS catalog so they can make loot selling non-inventory products.

6) They recorded a loss in 2023, while their guy was in the White House eating pudding.  SJG went from a company that made fun games in the past to one too mired in their fringe politics to be innovative.  They're now infested with diversity hires at all levels, peddling their agenda, so politics will trump running a business productively.  Petitioning congress won't save them.

Let's face facts: It's all about access to child slave labor.  It kind of makes sense that Stevie left Texas to move to the land of cotton.

Quote from: JanDevries on April 04, 2025, 03:38:09 PM

Quote from: Brad on April 04, 2025, 02:42:19 PM

Quote from: JanDevries on April 04, 2025, 02:28:25 PMPOD quality is ass, though. Don't need coffee table books, but smyth-sewn binding is objectively better than a POD glue job. Whether it's a 90-page book, or especially if it's larger, it's going to last longer. I'd argue that this is MORE important for books that are gonna get used, rather than sitting on a shelf and looking pretty.

No disagreement about POD vs. sewn bindings. However: https://mixam.com/

I am sure more places will start offering that if the demand is there.

That link says the price for a smyth-sewn, 48 page hardback is $268.50.

Edit: and that's digest sized.

For single and very low numbers of books, the number is crazy.  Print a large run and watch the cost per book melt away.  I use Mixam for my RPG book production.  I've seen the wild price fluctuations between printing 1, 2, or 7 books, and printing 100, 300, or more books.   It's strange, but definitely Mixam is for larger print runs.  And it's totally domestic, so the price increases per year have only been limited to reflect Bidenflation.

Trump just upped the China tariff to 104%.

Quote from: Godsmonkey on April 07, 2025, 01:49:52 PMBy that math, the price should go up to $27 MAX. IF SJG charges $40 they are lying to the customers.

Sadly, I see many businesses doing just this.

Deliberate fear-mongering trying to fool people into thinking that the tariffs apply to MSRP...

The left, and blackpill Rinos are trying to hit the panic button to see if public pressure can get GodEmperor 2.0 to stop.

Quote from: Gooberguh on April 07, 2025, 07:07:59 PMApologies since this is a couple pages back. But I believe some of these people are so captured by their ideology they would refuse to work with domestic companies just to try to make Trump look worse. The hope is there's enough moderates or people lying about their true beliefs for that not to happen.

You would be correct.

SJG is too small to hold out long. But certain corporations can hold out for a bit, and some will try self-sabotage to see if they can induce enough panic to get the status quo back.

Quote from: DocJones on April 08, 2025, 02:44:03 PMTrump just upped the China tariff to 104%.

(https://media.tenor.com/CfP4U7GzGeIAAAAM/the-sopranos-tony-soprano.gif)

Companies with TDS just love spreading their contageous mind virus.  Only a few days before their tariff rant, they posted this:

QuoteI just came across a document that nicely ties things together: Survive the Tyrant: An RPG-style guide to living under an oppressive regime. Using the terminology and tropes of roleplaying, it explains the challenges of living in, and resisting, an authoritarian regime. There are character classes (Agitator, Community Leader, Transport and Sanctuary specialists) and foes (Informants, Corrupt Bureaucrats, Quislings). Under "Skill and Ability Checks" are suggestions for staying safe, out of custody, and healthy. Treasure is defined as the community ties and activities (including creative pursuits and playing RPGs . . .) that help you stay sane and brave. Mind you, this isn't a game system! It's a lesson plan and an action plan. And I imagine a lot of people would find it relevant.

For Reasons.

They must think this is clever.
Keep in mind they punish people who talk politics on their forums.
Keep in mind also that they're unaware of what "oppressive" or "regime" really mean, or that after four years we just liberated ourselves from one.  We could have used this post in 2021.

And just like that, the stock market stabilized and a new leftist talking point emerged...

Quote from: Cathode Ray on April 08, 2025, 07:23:05 PMCompanies with TDS just love spreading their contageous mind virus.  Only a few days before their tariff rant, they posted this:

QuoteI just came across a document that nicely ties things together: Survive the Tyrant: An RPG-style guide to living under an oppressive regime. Using the terminology and tropes of roleplaying, it explains the challenges of living in, and resisting, an authoritarian regime. There are character classes (Agitator, Community Leader, Transport and Sanctuary specialists) and foes (Informants, Corrupt Bureaucrats, Quislings). Under "Skill and Ability Checks" are suggestions for staying safe, out of custody, and healthy. Treasure is defined as the community ties and activities (including creative pursuits and playing RPGs . . .) that help you stay sane and brave. Mind you, this isn't a game system! It's a lesson plan and an action plan. And I imagine a lot of people would find it relevant.

For Reasons.

They must think this is clever.
Keep in mind they punish people who talk politics on their forums.
Keep in mind also that they're unaware of what "oppressive" or "regime" really mean, or that after four years we just liberated ourselves from one.  We could have used this post in 2021.

Kind of funny that the side of the political spectrum known for gulags, brainwashing, and mass death also gets a hard-on for being the resistance against non-existant oppression from the other side.

Quote from: Corolinth on April 07, 2025, 06:43:06 PM

Quote from: D-ko on April 05, 2025, 04:46:22 PMNobody understands the working conditions of factories in the USA. It's literally worse than other countries. Prisoners ask to go back to jail. The bathrooms are full of graffiti warning workers to quit before they get financially trapped there for life. Machines are operating on DOS OS. Hydraulic cutters are leaking oil everywhere. Blood gets dripped onto the merchandise due to clumsy workers being overworked, promised a normal workweek 'someday' but that's actually when they get laid off instead. Everybody is fucking and cucking each other in the bathrooms when they're not smoking and it's so loud that your boss has to yell at you just so you can hear them. All this in the middle of the night. By the end of the workday, your hands can't physically open and close all the way in a normal fashion. It's terrible.

I've spent a considerable amount of time in American factories.

The bathrooms didn't have any graffiti. Computers on the factory floor are running outdated operating systems, but it's Windows 7, not MS DOS. You certainly do see oil and grit, but no it's not leaking all over the place. I'm sure there are injuries, but I've never seen an open wound or blood. Can't speak to "normal work week" because I don't track anyone's hours. Never seen any sex in the bathrooms, but that doesn't mean it's not happening on the night shift. Nobody smokes indoors. It is definitely loud. Heavy machinery makes noise. There are definitely people in the factory who go home sore.

The production floor is a rough environment, but it also has rough, tough guys working there. These two things go hand in hand.

By the standards of the factories I've been in, you're wildly exaggerating. I'm not calling you a liar. America is a big country. What you've described does match up with the description a UAW friend gave of his work environment. I suspect that labor unions have something to do with this, or maybe more accurately, the hostile nature of negotiation between labor unions and businesses.

Instead of worker safety, the union negotiates for expensive, top shelf health insurance packages that the company has to pay for. The company then decides this health insurance counts as doing their due diligence on worker safety. Got hurt on the job? Fuck you, you've got the best health care coverage on the planet. The working hours is a similar situation. The union negotiates for pay and hours for its members, but in exchange they're committed to providing a certain amount of workers. The union could split those hours up among a larger pool of workers, but they want to offer their members 6-figure salaries. You get that money, but you're getting worked like a dog.

This also does touch on outdated and damaged equipment. Unions try to block new equipment that improves workplace efficiency, because that new equipment means fewer hours to pass along to their members. The maintenance workers who are supposed to repair that equipment are also union, and they're moving at their union pace. A damaged piece of equipment means that the guy at that station gets to ride the clock until it gets fixed, so he may not even report it. He sits on his ass doing nothing until his supervisor asks why he's not getting any work done.

One thing that definitely happens regarding equipment is that businesses are often more interested in investing capital in foreign countries. They're allowing their American factories to decay while they build new ones overseas. This is true of both union and non-union factories.

Sounds like you're seen the very best example of a factory in America and even that still had issues. As an aside, most of the workers were women. I'm no sexist, but you get a bunch of tired, angry ladies together at night with hydraulic cutters and holy shit, that alone is a scary aspect. Lots of the workers I worked with were former criminals as well, so topics such as how they dealt fentanyl in the past for more money would be a normal topic of discussion. There was also a wide pay disparity due to paying whatever it took to fill a random position at a random time. I was making more than a lot of the workers who had been there for years and that created further tension. Even more difficult was when the plastic product being sent to us to be cut had production issues, the lead would accuse me of being a drug user when I pointed out that the quality was degrading and the structural integrity of the pipe fittings were being compromised that we were sending out. It was like I was some kind of enemy of the state for simply doing my job. At one point on QC, I just let everything through because I knew my he'd make my night hell if I pointed out issues with the final product. And yes, in America there was a huge smoking area inside the factory. Phones weren't let inside due to trade secrets (and probably fears of remote detonation of pipes by a disgruntled worker of which there were many) and while the place promised insurance, it was difficult to actually lock in and I'm not sure it really covered much because the managers would blame us whenever we had any kind of issue. Hearing damage? Well you should've worn earplugs more often. But! If you didn't hear my instructions, you're going to get bitched out. There was no winning.

And just like that, unless you're buying specifically from Chinese slave labor factories, all the huge tariffs are paused for 90 days as they work out tailored bilateral trade deals with the countries that didn't act like complete asshats.

I'm sure SJG can now get its plastic parts and book printing from Vietnam or South Korea while someone here works up a viable Made-in-the-USA alternative.

All of this does feel like a "wait 1-2 weeks and see how it goes" kind of thing instead of "freak out every day at things coming up"

Quote from: Banjo Destructo on April 09, 2025, 03:59:27 PMAll of this does feel like a "wait 1-2 weeks and see how it goes" kind of thing instead of "freak out every day at things coming up"

The Trump doomcasters make their hay out of every Trump decision being the End Of The World. And when the world does not, in fact, end, they look like idiots.

I've been slammed by tariffs. I do not object to the concept. I object to the manner it was done. And fuck you for not caring about those details.

During his first administration Trump imposed many tariffs. Biden also continued them. But the way Trump did it, he gave businesses lots of notice, and told them what the new rate would be in advance so they had time to make logical business decisions about whether they wanted to buy goods under those terms, pass along costs, change where they bought, manufacture at home, etc..

This time, he literally imposed massive tariffs on products on ships already on the water. Less than a weeks notice. Products left port under one customs rule, and arrived at the US port under an entirely different one. Businesses often had no ability to make decisions based on the change. No possible new manufacturing could happen from it. No possible change to the products or even the prices in many cases could be made as customers were often locked in to contracts as you do with wholesale.

MEGA corps can afford that loss. Small businesses like mine, and most medium sized businesses, cannot.

There is a Government agency which can help with this sort of thing. The SBA. Trump cut their budget and staffing by 50% before he raised the tariffs. So the one place you can go for help, suddenly couldn't help. Then the markets tanked, and banks reacted by immediately ceasing loans to anyone who was a risk - which is small businesses impacted by a huge unexpected tariff.

So yeah, I object to the way this was done.

And those who say tough shit this is for the greater good: you're EXACTLY like those fuckers who supported Obamacare and told me the same thing when my insurance costs skyrocketed with worse coverage. If you want sacrifices for the greater good, volunteer to make that sacrifice yourself. Don't voluntold me to do it for your principals.

There was an opportunity to do this without harming small and medium sized businesses. It was EASY to do it that way and still do tariffs - he had already done it that way successfully before. He chose the reckless path instead. Which sucks and deserves criticism instead of this sheep-like parroting of the Administrations lame talking points.

Quote from: Mistwell on April 09, 2025, 09:54:14 PMMEGA corps can afford that loss. Small businesses like mine, and most medium sized businesses, cannot.

How much did you lose?

Steve Jakcson games just released their shareholders' report.  They of course couldn't keep their TDS in their pants, as expected.  They added this paragraph in italics:

QuoteFinishing this report as I am in early April of 2025, it's hard to remember that I am writing it "as of January 1." A new national administration has come in, the economy is in disarray, and our hobby (like many other sectors) is reeling from tariffs and uncertainty. So clap your hands very hard and pretend you are reading this before life got so interesting.

Life was not interesting before 2025?
Let's review some of the things that made 2024 interesting:

- The economy was in disarray
- Puff Daddy gets thrown in jail
- A senile "President" finally gets seen on the national stage for the nation to witness
- Biden's party forces him out of the campaign
- Biden's party selects their nominee without a single vote
- Pro-genocidal protests throughout nation and college campi
- Jews on college campi fear for their lives at Harvard, Columbia,
   and other universities as they are trapped/held hostage in libraries by genocidal protestors
- Trump found "guilty" of 34 trumped-up charges in Soviet Style attempt to eliminate Biden's polticial opponent
- Haitian illegal immigrants stealing pets and local wild ducks
- Alec Baldwin gets away with murder
- Tulsi Gabbard walks away from the democrat party
- Illegal immigrant gang seizes an apartment complex in Colorado
- An assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in Butler PA
- Secret Service found to be negligent at best, complicit at worst
- Head of Secret Service resigns in disgrace
- Satanic Olympic opening ceremonies and the resulting backlash
- A mean beat a woman to a pulp and wins an Olympic gold medal in women's boxing
- Robert F Kennedy Jr walks away from the democrat party
- Assassination attempt #2 at Trump's property
- New agency, DOGE, is announced
- Boeing planes fall apart in the sky in midflight
- Boeing spaceship breaks down, strands Americans on International Space Station
- Trump wins reelection, taking all 7 swing states
   Kamala HQ, in disarray, just goes home midway through election night
- Marxist fascist murders United Healthcare CEO

But tell me things weren't interesting

Oh, and the report states that 2024 was "about the same" as 2023.  What it conveniently omits, obviously to mislead, is that 2023 was a loss for them, because the economy was "so great" then.

I imagine that the tariffs are about to do my employer's supply chain major harm, but at the same time I really don't think that this is a bullet which could have been dodged. The tariffs are all about China and their malicious compliance in the supply chain, and a lot of the hullabaloo on "Liberation Day" was about distracting from the obvious truth that China was the primary target. It's likely a secondary goal was to maximize the internal chaos this creates in China because the logical retribution from the CCP is to invade Taiwan in an attempt to deny the US access to chips to build new industry with. You have to paralyze them with a disaster, and even that is probably only going to be temporary.

I can see that it was done disruptively, but I can't actually see doing it differently playing out any better. You do it less disruptively and China would already be mobilizing to invade Taiwan.

FYI: I actually think the US Dollar is starting to deflate as a delayed reaction to the Fed's quantitative tightening back in 2022. Most people don't know about Fed policy, but if you actually look up official FRED data, QT policies in response to inflation actually shrank M2 by about $1 Trillion. However, in economics, some goods have stickier prices than others, so the market will not respond to deflation at a uniform rate.

If I am correct, increasing prices in response to tariffs is a suicidal idea. If prices aren't yet changing because of price stickiness, then the demand curve will steepen instead. If you increase your price, your demand will drop a lot faster than you anticipate.

For the record; I didn't say "tough shit, it's for the greater good."

That was all the Leftists telling small businesses they were "nonessential" during the pandemic.

I said "you screwed your neighbors out of work they could be doing to save a few bucks by getting into bed with communists using slave labor. You deserve this."

So does SJG if they're still in bed with China. I'm going to have a toast when Nike, patron saint of profiting via slave labor, goes under.

Businesses doing business with their fellow Americans aren't even touched. Those doing business with someone other than Chinese slave labor have another 90 days to get affairs in order or hope for a good bi-lateral deal.

The net change on printing from anyplace that isn't China is pennies per book. And if you're doing business with Chinese slavers... again, you deserve this.

^thumbs up, fuck the Chicoms

Quote from: Cathode Ray on April 10, 2025, 05:14:33 AMSteve Jakcson games just released their shareholders' report.  They of course couldn't keep their TDS in their pants, as expected.  They added this paragraph in italics:

QuoteFinishing this report as I am in early April of 2025, it's hard to remember that I am writing it "as of January 1." A new national administration has come in, the economy is in disarray, and our hobby (like many other sectors) is reeling from tariffs and uncertainty. So clap your hands very hard and pretend you are reading this before life got so interesting.

Life was not interesting before 2025?
Let's review some of the things that made 2024 interesting:

Spoiler

- The economy was in disarray
- Puff Daddy gets thrown in jail
- A senile "President" finally gets seen on the national stage for the nation to witness
- Biden's party forces him out of the campaign
- Biden's party selects their nominee without a single vote
- Pro-genocidal protests throughout nation and college campi
- Jews on college campi fear for their lives at Harvard, Columbia,
   and other universities as they are trapped/held hostage in libraries by genocidal protestors
- Trump found "guilty" of 34 trumped-up charges in Soviet Style attempt to eliminate Biden's polticial opponent
- Haitian illegal immigrants stealing pets and local wild ducks
- Alec Baldwin gets away with murder
- Tulsi Gabbard walks away from the democrat party
- Illegal immigrant gang seizes an apartment complex in Colorado
- An assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in Butler PA
- Secret Service found to be negligent at best, complicit at worst
- Head of Secret Service resigns in disgrace
- Satanic Olympic opening ceremonies and the resulting backlash
- A mean beat a woman to a pulp and wins an Olympic gold medal in women's boxing
- Robert F Kennedy Jr walks away from the democrat party
- Assassination attempt #2 at Trump's property
- New agency, DOGE, is announced
- Boeing planes fall apart in the sky in midflight
- Boeing spaceship breaks down, strands Americans on International Space Station
- Trump wins reelection, taking all 7 swing states
   Kamala HQ, in disarray, just goes home midway through election night
- Marxist fascist murders United Healthcare CEO

But tell me things weren't interesting

Oh, and the report states that 2024 was "about the same" as 2023.  What it conveniently omits, obviously to mislead, is that 2023 was a loss for them, because the economy was "so great" then.

Well, in SJG's faux-defense, none of those things directly impaired his ability to save $1.62 by outsourcing to producers under the control of a brutal authorian regime commonly accused of using alleged slave prison and child labor to achieve those savings.   

Quote from: Mistwell on April 09, 2025, 09:54:14 PMAnd those who say tough shit this is for the greater good: you're EXACTLY like those fuckers who supported Obamacare and told me the same thing when my insurance costs skyrocketed with worse coverage.

Nonsense, Obamacare effected everyone, was permanent, and based on a lie. Tariffs are a short term bad that will go away or push different sourcing so they don't matter. I understand your pissed but that's a bad comparison.

Quote from: Chris24601 on April 10, 2025, 08:30:04 AMFor the record; I didn't say "tough shit, it's for the greater good."

That was all the Leftists telling small businesses they were "nonessential" during the pandemic.

I said "you screwed your neighbors out of work they could be doing to save a few bucks by getting into bed with communists using slave labor. You deserve this."

So does SJG if they're still in bed with China. I'm going to have a toast when Nike, patron saint of profiting via slave labor, goes under.

Businesses doing business with their fellow Americans aren't even touched. Those doing business with someone other than Chinese slave labor have another 90 days to get affairs in order or hope for a good bi-lateral deal.

The net change on printing from anyplace that isn't China is pennies per book. And if you're doing business with Chinese slavers... again, you deserve this.

Let's give credit where credit is due. It's the labor unions' fault those jobs got outsourced in the first place. They became too onerous to work with, make too many ridiculous demands, and try to exert control over businesses. They need this sword of Damocles hanging over their head that, yes, we will outsource all of their jobs to foreign countries if they don't act right.

That's not to discount the rest of what you're saying. Businesses got addicted to cheap foreign labor, and they need the threat of tariffs hanging over their heads to get them to act right.

I'm optimistic that enough people have just been kicked in the nuts that they can sit down and negotiate like civilized men.

Quote from: Cathode Ray on April 10, 2025, 05:14:33 AMSteve Jakcson games just released their shareholders' report.  They of course couldn't keep their TDS in their pants, as expected.  They added this paragraph in italics:

QuoteFinishing this report as I am in early April of 2025, it's hard to remember that I am writing it "as of January 1." A new national administration has come in, the economy is in disarray, and our hobby (like many other sectors) is reeling from tariffs and uncertainty. So clap your hands very hard and pretend you are reading this before life got so interesting.

Life was not interesting before 2025?
Let's review some of the things that made 2024 interesting:

- The economy was in disarray
- Puff Daddy gets thrown in jail
- A senile "President" finally gets seen on the national stage for the nation to witness
- Biden's party forces him out of the campaign
- Biden's party selects their nominee without a single vote
- Pro-genocidal protests throughout nation and college campi
- Jews on college campi fear for their lives at Harvard, Columbia,
   and other universities as they are trapped/held hostage in libraries by genocidal protestors
- Trump found "guilty" of 34 trumped-up charges in Soviet Style attempt to eliminate Biden's polticial opponent
- Haitian illegal immigrants stealing pets and local wild ducks
- Alec Baldwin gets away with murder
- Tulsi Gabbard walks away from the democrat party
- Illegal immigrant gang seizes an apartment complex in Colorado
- An assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in Butler PA
- Secret Service found to be negligent at best, complicit at worst
- Head of Secret Service resigns in disgrace
- Satanic Olympic opening ceremonies and the resulting backlash
- A mean beat a woman to a pulp and wins an Olympic gold medal in women's boxing
- Robert F Kennedy Jr walks away from the democrat party
- Assassination attempt #2 at Trump's property
- New agency, DOGE, is announced
- Boeing planes fall apart in the sky in midflight
- Boeing spaceship breaks down, strands Americans on International Space Station
- Trump wins reelection, taking all 7 swing states
   Kamala HQ, in disarray, just goes home midway through election night
- Marxist fascist murders United Healthcare CEO

But tell me things weren't interesting

Oh, and the report states that 2024 was "about the same" as 2023.  What it conveniently omits, obviously to mislead, is that 2023 was a loss for them, because the economy was "so great" then.

They memory-holed all of that shit because it doesn't fit their narrative.

Quote from: Corolinth on April 10, 2025, 12:09:53 PMLet's give credit where credit is due. It's the labor unions' fault those jobs got outsourced in the first place.

It's hard to compete on wages with people paid pennies per hour.

The Fed didn't help either with all its inflation of fiat currency making the dollar worth pennies on what it was worth a century ago (great for those who can leverage it, a continual tax upon the working class).

Setting up fiduciary laws for public companies to focus exclusively on short term gains also made it criminal to NOT do everything possible to maximize profits by shipping those jobs out to use slave labor.

If those laws aren't changed, then elements like high tariffs are the only thing that can reverse the trend.

But that only applies to publically held companies... that's not most game companies who, if they chose to, could choose to do what's best for their customers and employees and community. Those game companies choosing to do business with China deserve every bit of pain they're going to receive.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 09, 2025, 04:53:26 PM

Quote from: Banjo Destructo on April 09, 2025, 03:59:27 PMAll of this does feel like a "wait 1-2 weeks and see how it goes" kind of thing instead of "freak out every day at things coming up"

The Trump doomcasters make their hay out of every Trump decision being the End Of The World. And when the world does not, in fact, end, they look like idiots.

Its like the Mayan Calendar DOOOOOM morons who predict DOOOOOOOOOM!!!! for some year. Then when it never happens... they move the goalposts... again.

Though with Trump stuff you never know where things will go sideways and we ARE seeing problems on other fronts.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 10, 2025, 12:29:41 AM

Quote from: Mistwell on April 09, 2025, 09:54:14 PMMEGA corps can afford that loss. Small businesses like mine, and most medium sized businesses, cannot.

How much did you lose?

Looking about close to $50K. And we were lucky. Didn't have to pay the extreme high tariff on one of our two large shipments, just the 20% higher.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 10, 2025, 12:29:41 AMNonsense, Obamacare effected everyone, was permanent, and based on a lie. Tariffs are a short term bad that will go away or push different sourcing so they don't matter. I understand your pissed but that's a bad comparison.

I am not talking about the entire thing being the same, I said and mean the fuckers who told me I needed to pay more for worse insurance so that others could have better insurance was the same intent and sentiment as those saying I need to pay more to sacrifice so that America can regain it's manufacturing base. It doesn't matter how long or short term, the intent with both is telling me to sacrifice for your ideals while you don't sacrifice for those same ideals.

Quote from: Mistwell on April 10, 2025, 09:21:39 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 10, 2025, 12:29:41 AMNonsense, Obamacare effected everyone, was permanent, and based on a lie. Tariffs are a short term bad that will go away or push different sourcing so they don't matter. I understand your pissed but that's a bad comparison.

I am not talking about the entire thing being the same, I said and mean the fuckers who told me I needed to pay more for worse insurance so that others could have better insurance was the same intent and sentiment as those saying I need to pay more to sacrifice so that America can regain it's manufacturing base. It doesn't matter how long or short term, the intent with both is telling me to sacrifice for your ideals while you don't sacrifice for those same ideals.

I think you misquoted when replying to this one.

Quote from: Mistwell on April 10, 2025, 08:57:54 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 10, 2025, 12:29:41 AM

Quote from: Mistwell on April 09, 2025, 09:54:14 PMMEGA corps can afford that loss. Small businesses like mine, and most medium sized businesses, cannot.

How much did you lose?

Looking about close to $50K. And we were lucky. Didn't have to pay the extreme high tariff on one of our two large shipments, just the 20% higher.

I was hoping for a bit more context. I don't know the nature of your business, the amounts you usually pay, and how shipping rates fluxuate outside of this incident. At the risk of derailing the thread. I'm curious how serious this particular incident was, since you brought it up.

oooh. This all now makes me wonder how hard or not this will impact any Kickstarter that was either shipping overseas. Or having manufacturing done overseas?

Quote from: Omega on April 11, 2025, 06:03:26 AMoooh. This all now makes me wonder how hard or not this will impact any Kickstarter that was either shipping overseas. Or having manufacturing done overseas?

The BattleTech Mercenaries kickstarter has said it will eat the increased costs for backers but the products showing up in retail will have increased prices. However, the vast majority of backers had already received their stuff (at least within the USA and much of Europe), so I don't think this really bites all that deeply.

Quote from: Mistwell on April 10, 2025, 08:57:54 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 10, 2025, 12:29:41 AM

Quote from: Mistwell on April 09, 2025, 09:54:14 PMMEGA corps can afford that loss. Small businesses like mine, and most medium sized businesses, cannot.

How much did you lose?

Looking about close to $50K. And we were lucky. Didn't have to pay the extreme high tariff on one of our two large shipments, just the 20% higher.

Yikes. Deep hit for any small to medium business.

I'm not really having a lot of sympathy for companies that print in China and get burned by it. Just browsing through my small library, Swords and Wizardry, ACKs and all my POD books are printed in the US. Griffon Saddlebag books are printed in Europe.

China is a choice to save some money. That's fine if you want to do that rather than employee/support local economies, but these are the kinds of risks you take on with that.

Heck, maybe we need a "Prints in North America/Europe" company list thread.

According to Sandra Taylor on their newest Kickstarter for books, the new tariffs don't apply. (Doesn't matter for card games and minis, etc. But interesting for books.)

QuoteBooks: As stated above, books are not subject to the recent US tariffs. The tariffs were enacted under the IEEPA (a law allowing the US President to enact tariffs unilaterally), and that law specifically exempts bound printed matter from tariffs. There are other tariffs that do apply to books, but we've been dealing with those for years.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/howardtayler/a-function-of-firepower-schlock-mercenary-book-19/posts/4360073 (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/howardtayler/a-function-of-firepower-schlock-mercenary-book-19/posts/4360073)

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 10, 2025, 10:28:23 PM

Quote from: Mistwell on April 10, 2025, 08:57:54 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 10, 2025, 12:29:41 AM

Quote from: Mistwell on April 09, 2025, 09:54:14 PMMEGA corps can afford that loss. Small businesses like mine, and most medium sized businesses, cannot.

How much did you lose?

Looking about close to $50K. And we were lucky. Didn't have to pay the extreme high tariff on one of our two large shipments, just the 20% higher.

I was hoping for a bit more context. I don't know the nature of your business, the amounts you usually pay, and how shipping rates fluxuate outside of this incident. At the risk of derailing the thread. I'm curious how serious this particular incident was, since you brought it up.

We usually pay a 29% tariff and have since Trump's first administration (it was lower before that but he gave lots of notice of the new rate his first term and adjusted our business to accommodate it), and paid a 50% tariff instead this year. We're lucky we didn't pay a 145% tariff. We can survive the $50k but it makes things much more difficult. And we will need to switch vendors for next year, despite really liking our vendor who we have worked with for 15 years, and who we know runs an ethical business with good working conditions for his employees, something we can't say for many China manufacturers. We personally checked out this vendor, and there won't be time or funds to personally check out a new one in a different country  (though we may get recommendations from someone we trust who has).

Trump's now exempting high tech from his new tariffs for China. Which is absurdly hypocritical. He wants to bring back the lowest level of sewing jobs but not the higher level technology jobs? Come on, you guys can't think this is a wise plan, or any real plan he's working from.

'Concepts of a plan.' At least Trump was upfront about not having a plan.

The real issue being overlooked is that the USA is nearly ready to default on the national debt. This is all really just theatrics while they scramble to figure out how to make payments by June (or raise the ceiling, but we're getting awful close and Trump isn't exactly in a bipartisan mood-- everyone seemingly ignoring this massive elephant in the room). If Trump's financial games don't pay off big time, there's a much bigger issue at hand than tariffs at that point. This is why Biden disappeared at the end of his term and wore a maga hat. This is why Musk was allowed into the White House with a chainsaw-- the US government is out of money and is running out of time.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-risks-default-soon-august-without-action-debt-ceiling-cbo-estimates-2025-03-26/

Quote from: D-ko on April 12, 2025, 01:31:40 PM'Concepts of a plan.' At least Trump was upfront about not having a plan.

The real issue being overlooked is that the USA is nearly ready to default on the national debt. This is all really just theatrics while they scramble to figure out how to make payments by June (or raise the ceiling, but we're getting awful close and Trump isn't exactly in a bipartisan mood-- everyone seemingly ignoring this massive elephant in the room). If Trump's financial games don't pay off big time, there's a much bigger issue at hand than tariffs at that point. This is why Biden disappeared at the end of his term and wore a maga hat. This is why Musk was allowed into the White House with a chainsaw-- the US government is out of money and is running out of time.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-risks-default-soon-august-without-action-debt-ceiling-cbo-estimates-2025-03-26/

Both sides will likely try to extort concessions out of each other and then wind up raising the debt ceiling after much bitching and doomcasting.

That's usually what happens, but it doesn't change the fact that it's playing with gasoline. There's a very different precedent this time around for a couple reasons and it's not like Trump is afraid of bankruptcy. On defaulting:

QuoteNobody really knows. It means nothing, but psychologically, it may mean a lot, right? In other words, it doesn't have a real meaning other than you've violated something

Um... Shouldn't all these RPG companies, who constantly bleat on about modern 'morals' and 'ethics' be getting their stuff made in the US, anyway? I mean, isn't that the right thing to do, protect jobs in the USA?? While making sure the hobby thrives?

Seems a little 'à la carte' to me when picking morals.

Troll Lord Games, get their stuff printed in the USA afaik.

Quote from: D-ko on April 12, 2025, 01:31:40 PM'Concepts of a plan.' At least Trump was upfront about not having a plan.

The real issue being overlooked is that the USA is nearly ready to default on the national debt. This is all really just theatrics while they scramble to figure out how to make payments by June (or raise the ceiling, but we're getting awful close and Trump isn't exactly in a bipartisan mood-- everyone seemingly ignoring this massive elephant in the room). If Trump's financial games don't pay off big time, there's a much bigger issue at hand than tariffs at that point. This is why Biden disappeared at the end of his term and wore a maga hat. This is why Musk was allowed into the White House with a chainsaw-- the US government is out of money and is running out of time.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-risks-default-soon-august-without-action-debt-ceiling-cbo-estimates-2025-03-26/

That was actually Coin Bureau's conclusions, as well.

I think it's not that simple. I can think of 4 or 5 objectives which would potentially justify tariffs. It could renegotiate the federal debt. It could provide revenue. It could allow moving federal taxation away from income tax. It could be used to contain China. It could be used to encourage reshoring jobs and industry.

Realistically, you aren't going to get all of those and I don't think it's possible to know which ones are doable and which ones aren't before the policy lands. But you don't need to necessarily hit home runs on all five objectives I just spitballed for it to be successful. This is especially true if you're bearish on the economy's outlook with or without the tariffs.

And I am very bearish.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on April 12, 2025, 06:58:35 PMUm... Shouldn't all these RPG companies, who constantly bleat on about modern 'morals' and 'ethics' be getting their stuff made in the US, anyway? I mean, isn't that the right thing to do, protect jobs in the USA?? While making sure the hobby thrives?

Seems a little 'à la carte' to me when picking morals.

Troll Lord Games, get their stuff printed in the USA afaik.

If I recall correctly, DriveThruRPG actually prints everything here in the US. I've had mixed results with their hardcovers but their softcovers are honestly well-made.

Quote from: D-ko on April 12, 2025, 10:47:30 PM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on April 12, 2025, 06:58:35 PMUm... Shouldn't all these RPG companies, who constantly bleat on about modern 'morals' and 'ethics' be getting their stuff made in the US, anyway? I mean, isn't that the right thing to do, protect jobs in the USA?? While making sure the hobby thrives?

Seems a little 'à la carte' to me when picking morals.

Troll Lord Games, get their stuff printed in the USA afaik.

If I recall correctly, DriveThruRPG actually prints everything here in the US. I've had mixed results with their hardcovers but their softcovers are honestly well-made.

My Dark Sun hardcover was excellent, but I only have the one example. The rest I bought stoftcover.

Quote from: D-ko on April 12, 2025, 10:47:30 PM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on April 12, 2025, 06:58:35 PMUm... Shouldn't all these RPG companies, who constantly bleat on about modern 'morals' and 'ethics' be getting their stuff made in the US, anyway? I mean, isn't that the right thing to do, protect jobs in the USA?? While making sure the hobby thrives?

Seems a little 'à la carte' to me when picking morals.

Troll Lord Games, get their stuff printed in the USA afaik.

If I recall correctly, DriveThruRPG actually prints everything here in the US. I've had mixed results with their hardcovers but their softcovers are honestly well-made.

That's pretty cool of DT at least.

So, why are SJG blubbing? Why can't they do the decent thing and make their stuff in the US? Or are they enjoying the profits cheapo China.
I just find the morals of these companies laughable when they can't even support their own US economy. I think it's a pretty sad state of affairs.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on April 13, 2025, 06:25:20 AMSo, why are SJG blubbing? Why can't they do the decent thing and make their stuff in the US? Or are they enjoying the profits cheapo China.

I just find the morals of these companies laughable when they can't even support their own US economy. I think it's a pretty sad state of affairs.

Because that would require treating your workers like human beings. People may complain, Rightfully, about working for Palladium. But at least you got fucking payed for the work. SJG's gotten away with ripping off their workers for decades.

Quote from: D-ko on April 12, 2025, 10:47:30 PM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on April 12, 2025, 06:58:35 PMUm... Shouldn't all these RPG companies, who constantly bleat on about modern 'morals' and 'ethics' be getting their stuff made in the US, anyway? I mean, isn't that the right thing to do, protect jobs in the USA?? While making sure the hobby thrives?

Seems a little 'à la carte' to me when picking morals.

Troll Lord Games, get their stuff printed in the USA afaik.

If I recall correctly, DriveThruRPG actually prints everything here in the US. I've had mixed results with their hardcovers but their softcovers are honestly well-made.

That's print on demand right? They aren't doing it out the goodness of their hearts, it's cheaper to print small quantities locally even without tarrifs. Amazon have been printing the GURPS books locally on demand in the local market for ages.

My latest GURPS books say "printed in Sydney Australia."

My current GURPS 3E basic set was printed in Las Vegas in 2021.

Of course as late as the '90s Australia used to have proper printing presses running off everything sold locally en masse. This was because of protectionist tarrifs. There's probably almost no one left working in Australia that knows how to run a large scale printing and binding process anymore thanks to Globalism.

I'm supposing a robot prints the fairly low quality PODs from Amazon. The binding is just glued. Sloppily too. The printing is clear. I guess they could feed it better paper if they wanted to, but they don't.

Fuck globalism.   

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on April 13, 2025, 06:25:20 AM

Quote from: D-ko on April 12, 2025, 10:47:30 PM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on April 12, 2025, 06:58:35 PMUm... Shouldn't all these RPG companies, who constantly bleat on about modern 'morals' and 'ethics' be getting their stuff made in the US, anyway? I mean, isn't that the right thing to do, protect jobs in the USA?? While making sure the hobby thrives?

Seems a little 'à la carte' to me when picking morals.

Troll Lord Games, get their stuff printed in the USA afaik.

If I recall correctly, DriveThruRPG actually prints everything here in the US. I've had mixed results with their hardcovers but their softcovers are honestly well-made.

That's pretty cool of DT at least.

So, why are SJG blubbing? Why can't they do the decent thing and make their stuff in the US? Or are they enjoying the profits cheapo China.
I just find the morals of these companies laughable when they can't even support their own US economy. I think it's a pretty sad state of affairs.

What's that phrase the extreme left always uses?
Oh yeah:
Windfall profits.

Dice. Nobody is saying books cannot be printed in the USA, but I suspect custom dice are a nightmare for a company with games like Zombie Dice. China can afford to prioritize entire factories for something custom they get a large order for, plus engineers/toolers who can quickly make a design into something real-- as it turns out, making counterfeits of products leads to workers who are really good at seeing something and mimicking it on the assembly line. America doesn't really have anything like that readily available, certainly not that cheap either. It reminds me of how Normal Rockwell actually used projection tracing and many Japanese manga authors openly promote tracing in order to learn how to draw extremely detailed objects at strange angles. The entire way of American thought toward work and creativity is going to need to change for this AI revolution we have coming.

Quote from: D-ko on April 14, 2025, 11:29:52 AMDice. Nobody is saying books cannot be printed in the USA, but I suspect custom dice are a nightmare for a company with games like Zombie Dice. China can afford to prioritize entire factories for something custom they get a large order for, plus engineers/toolers who can quickly make a design into something real-- as it turns out, making counterfeits of products leads to workers who are really good at seeing something and mimicking it on the assembly line. America doesn't really have anything like that readily available, certainly not that cheap either. It reminds me of how Normal Rockwell actually used projection tracing and many Japanese manga authors openly promote tracing in order to learn how to draw extremely detailed objects at strange angles. The entire way of American thought toward work and creativity is going to need to change for this AI revolution we have coming.

If you're willing to work with wooden six-siders (and 4-siders if you aren't married to the caltrop shape), I can engrave whatever you want. I could do acryllics and other polyhedrals too, but if you're already importing, I likely won't be saving you any money.

I'm sorta seeing the appeal of chit cups as an alternative though. Heck, the flexibility of being able to drop random (possibly non-numeric) effects into the chit cups could make a fun mechanic if you built a system around it. When you get a blessing you get one or more max-result chits dropped in the cup or the reverse for a curse... or when you take a wound you drop say, a dagger token in the cup and if you draw it, you draw again, but the wound also affects the outcome of the action in some way (ex. you pull the stitches and start bleeding again).

I like your optimistic view and it's funny-- I was just looking at wood engraving tools just yesterday.

Wood block engraving? If a 3D printer can make detailed miniatures, then it can also make custom dice. Now I'm not going to say that one way is better than another, but both do provide good commercial opportunities. The wood block engraved dice are good for fantasy games and would cost more (they are labor intensive in comparison), but are excellent higher priced gifts for special occasions. The 3D printed dice are better suited for mass production and inclusion in game sets.

This really isn't a problem that the doomsayers like Steve Jackson are claiming.

Quote from: Chris24601 on April 14, 2025, 12:20:03 PMI'm sorta seeing the appeal of chit cups as an alternative though. Heck, the flexibility of being able to drop random (possibly non-numeric) effects into the chit cups could make a fun mechanic if you built a system around it. When you get a blessing you get one or more max-result chits dropped in the cup or the reverse for a curse... or when you take a wound you drop say, a dagger token in the cup and if you draw it, you draw again, but the wound also affects the outcome of the action in some way (ex. you pull the stitches and start bleeding again).

This could also be done with a deck of cards to get the same effect. Either way, there are some complications. If different things require altering the contents of the cup/deck, then each character will likely need their own cup/deck or else things get weird with constantly having to readjust the contents between each draw. Also, if you just use a common draw source, then you could end up with subsequent draws having altered probabilities unless the drawn chit/card is replaced between each draw. No matter what, it sounds cumbersome for anything more than a solo game.

I used to play Avalon Hill hex-and-chit games and I don't see why we can't go back to that.  Hell's bells, I used cardboard standees for Battletech as recently as 2012.  We don't need expensive plastic or metal game pieces. 

I believe that I, like so many other gamers, have way more dice than I will ever wear out in a lifetime.  I think we could certainly do something like a dice exchange co-op to get people the dice they need until we can get our own dice making cottage industry up and running.  (There are also dice roller apps too.)

Honestly, I'd be happy to see the hobby revert to a "for gamers, by gamers" model.  Home printed books and cardboard play pieces ordered from the back of a zine  sounds like a return to better times to me.  The death of companies doesn't mean the death of the hobby.

Simple: Buy from Troll Lord Games, where everything is made right here in the USA.

Quote from: BadApple on April 14, 2025, 05:49:46 PMI used to play Avalon Hill hex-and-chit games and I don't see why we can't go back to that.  Hell's bells, I used cardboard standees for Battletech as recently as 2012.  We don't need expensive plastic or metal game pieces. 

I believe that I, like so many other gamers, have way more dice than I will ever wear out in a lifetime.  I think we could certainly do something like a dice exchange co-op to get people the dice they need until we can get our own dice making cottage industry up and running.  (There are also dice roller apps too.)

Honestly, I'd be happy to see the hobby revert to a "for gamers, by gamers" model.  Home printed books and cardboard play pieces ordered from the back of a zine  sounds like a return to better times to me.  The death of companies doesn't mean the death of the hobby.

Yeah I have a ton of the cardboard standups I DO like the minis I got with the new boxed sets, but I suck at painting so they're almost all still plastic colored. And they take up a lot more room.

I think there's a certain segment of gamers that literally just collect stuff and have no intention of ever playing, and these are the most vocal about crap like having to use chits or cardboard counters. People who actually play tend to not care nearly as much.

Quote from: Brad on April 14, 2025, 08:43:21 PM

Quote from: BadApple on April 14, 2025, 05:49:46 PMI used to play Avalon Hill hex-and-chit games and I don't see why we can't go back to that.  Hell's bells, I used cardboard standees for Battletech as recently as 2012.  We don't need expensive plastic or metal game pieces. 

I believe that I, like so many other gamers, have way more dice than I will ever wear out in a lifetime.  I think we could certainly do something like a dice exchange co-op to get people the dice they need until we can get our own dice making cottage industry up and running.  (There are also dice roller apps too.)

Honestly, I'd be happy to see the hobby revert to a "for gamers, by gamers" model.  Home printed books and cardboard play pieces ordered from the back of a zine  sounds like a return to better times to me.  The death of companies doesn't mean the death of the hobby.

Yeah I have a ton of the cardboard standups I DO like the minis I got with the new boxed sets, but I suck at painting so they're almost all still plastic colored. And they take up a lot more room.

I think there's a certain segment of gamers that literally just collect stuff and have no intention of ever playing, and these are the most vocal about crap like having to use chits or cardboard counters. People who actually play tend to not care nearly as much.

I like the minis too. I have a bunch of Star Wars minis from the X-Wing game.  I want to continue to see great products for table top gaming.

That said, I don't think that going without for a few years while the market straightens itself out is going to hurt the hobby at all.  We had fun before plastic minis and high page count full color art books pretending to be gaming material and we can do it again.  Then, as there is a market for this stuff, some of us will figure out how to do it locally and we will see the rise of more products.

There's no reason to be worried about the state of gaming, just the state of publisher's sanity. 

Quote from: D-ko on April 14, 2025, 11:29:52 AMDice. Nobody is saying books cannot be printed in the USA, but I suspect custom dice are a nightmare for a company with games like Zombie Dice. China can afford to prioritize entire factories for something custom they get a large order for, plus engineers/toolers who can quickly make a design into something real-- as it turns out, making counterfeits of products leads to workers who are really good at seeing something and mimicking it on the assembly line. America doesn't really have anything like that readily available, certainly not that cheap either. It reminds me of how Normal Rockwell actually used projection tracing and many Japanese manga authors openly promote tracing in order to learn how to draw extremely detailed objects at strange angles. The entire way of American thought toward work and creativity is going to need to change for this AI revolution we have coming.

When I was a kid I marvelled at the illustrations in Twilight 2000 2.0 I was like "how does he draw that good!??! It's like a photo!!"

Of course, they were photos traced with a lightbox. I only realised that when I was in my 20s. I was a slow learner.

My grandmother was an amazing acrylic painter (at one point she was working for the government painting concept art in the late '80s for what would later become what we know as drones, and her boss actually repossessed a work of hers, a bear catching a fish in running water, to keep for himself-- heh) but she always berated herself for starting her projects with a lightbox tracing. I don't think she ever quite realized how good she was with acrylics. It's like, comic books have sketchers, inkers, and colorists. You're not a failure if you only do one role! Anyway.

Some opinions on Tim Bradstreet who illustrated T2K 2.0 https://www.statueforum.com/showthread.php?s=3bbe476935b45bf6c2003b6aa47931bf&t=103068

Quote from: BadApple on April 14, 2025, 05:49:46 PMI used to play Avalon Hill hex-and-chit games and I don't see why we can't go back to that.  Hell's bells, I used cardboard standees for Battletech as recently as 2012.  We don't need expensive plastic or metal game pieces. 

I believe that I, like so many other gamers, have way more dice than I will ever wear out in a lifetime.  I think we could certainly do something like a dice exchange co-op to get people the dice they need until we can get our own dice making cottage industry up and running.  (There are also dice roller apps too.)

Honestly, I'd be happy to see the hobby revert to a "for gamers, by gamers" model.  Home printed books and cardboard play pieces ordered from the back of a zine  sounds like a return to better times to me.  The death of companies doesn't mean the death of the hobby.

I'm basically a wargamer, and the one RPG I play, other than my own, uses counters, and I make my own professional grade counters, and love the DIY aesthetic in gaming, so i'd fit in just fine in this situation.

Quote from: Mistwell on April 09, 2025, 09:54:14 PMI've been slammed by tariffs. I do not object to the concept. I object to the manner it was done. And fuck you for not caring about those details.

During his first administration Trump imposed many tariffs. Biden also continued them. But the way Trump did it, he gave businesses lots of notice, and told them what the new rate would be in advance so they had time to make logical business decisions about whether they wanted to buy goods under those terms, pass along costs, change where they bought, manufacture at home, etc..

This time, he literally imposed massive tariffs on products on ships already on the water. Less than a weeks notice. Products left port under one customs rule, and arrived at the US port under an entirely different one. Businesses often had no ability to make decisions based on the change. No possible new manufacturing could happen from it. No possible change to the products or even the prices in many cases could be made as customers were often locked in to contracts as you do with wholesale.

MEGA corps can afford that loss. Small businesses like mine, and most medium sized businesses, cannot.

There is a Government agency which can help with this sort of thing. The SBA. Trump cut their budget and staffing by 50% before he raised the tariffs. So the one place you can go for help, suddenly couldn't help. Then the markets tanked, and banks reacted by immediately ceasing loans to anyone who was a risk - which is small businesses impacted by a huge unexpected tariff.

So yeah, I object to the way this was done.

And those who say tough shit this is for the greater good: you're EXACTLY like those fuckers who supported Obamacare and told me the same thing when my insurance costs skyrocketed with worse coverage. If you want sacrifices for the greater good, volunteer to make that sacrifice yourself. Don't voluntold me to do it for your principals.

There was an opportunity to do this without harming small and medium sized businesses. It was EASY to do it that way and still do tariffs - he had already done it that way successfully before. He chose the reckless path instead. Which sucks and deserves criticism instead of this sheep-like parroting of the Administrations lame talking points.

I totally agree with you, Mistwell. You're absolutely on point here. The way this was done will definitely hurt small businesses much more than the big corporations. And if it matters, I really am sorry this is happening to you.

Meredith Placko resigned.

Quote from: DocJones on April 19, 2025, 07:45:24 PMMeredith Placko resigned.

Every time I hear her name I feel like she's stuck to my teeth.