tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66700293447582531482024-03-16T03:10:05.026+02:00LotFP: RPGDesign notes for LotFP: RPG releases and general commentary about traditional gaming in general.JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comBlogger1373125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-12927605352215640892023-07-26T15:56:00.003+03:002023-07-26T18:21:59.403+03:00Introducing the new LotFP releases, out at Ropecon and Gen Con!<p> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Here is a video introducing the 10 new releases, 6 reprints, and one third-party book that we have for you!</span></p><p style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 16px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;">We'll have them on sale at Ropecon (July 28-30), Gen Con (booth 2930, August 3-6), and from the EU webstore (we ship worldwide) on August 11!</p><p style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 16px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="433" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ttdve_Asw48" width="535" youtube-src-id="ttdve_Asw48"></iframe></div><br /><p style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); margin: 16px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></p>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-7359681826509630532023-05-15T17:45:00.001+03:002023-05-15T17:45:13.881+03:00Big LotFP Sale!<p> Hello all!</p><p>First, if PDFs are your thing, we have a "Everything is $1.25 each" sale going on over at our <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/2795/Lamentations-of-the-Flame-Princess">DriveThru RPG storefront</a> for another day or so.</p><p>But for the print stuff, we're running a separate sale through Friday!</p><p>It's Monday morning and time for the big LotFP sale on PRINT ITEMS!</p><p>The coupon code is <b>TAKE30</b> (all caps!) and it is valid in both the EU and US webstores!</p><p>In the US webstore, it gives a 30% discount on everything in the store.</p><p>In the EU webstore, it gives a 30% discount on everything except the items printed this year*, and the Deck of Weird Things. (we're limiting the EU webstore to 100 coupon uses because I have to pack this all up myself by hand and it takes time and I have shit to do and I want these all out the door before my US trip!)</p><p>We can only ship to US addresses from the US webstore.</p><p>We ship worldwide from the EU webstore.</p><p>There are some different items available in each of the webstores.</p><p>Still ongoing is our "order eight or more items, get a free copies of the Death Frost Doom throwback edition hardcover, and the Orgasm Weird Crusher" offer for EU webstore orders.</p><p>Sale ends when I wake up Saturday morning.</p><p>EU webstore: <a href="https://www.lotfp.com/store/">https://www.lotfp.com/store/</a></p><p>US webstore: <a href="https://us.lotfp.com/store/">https://us.lotfp.com/store/</a></p><p>* items not eligible for the discount: Bee-Ware!, Beware the Mindfuck, The Jovian Visitor, Magic Eater, the Adventure Anthology Slipcase, Better Than Any Man Hardcover, No Salvation For Witches, Qelong, Rules & Magic Variant Cover 1, Rules & Magic Variant Cover 2, Deck of Weird Things. Still, buy them anyway, because they're good!</p><p>Enjoy!</p><p><br /></p>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-84735789388376191382023-04-28T09:38:00.002+03:002023-04-28T09:38:16.800+03:00Looking for Artists!<p> It's time to update the Lamentations of the Flame Princess artist files. We publish dark fantasy, horror (cosmic, splatter, all sorts of weirdness), and historical fantasy tabletop RPG books.</p><p>If you're an artist, send an email to lotfp@lotfp.com with a link to your portfolio.</p><p>We are ready to commission a number of pieces immediately.</p><p>If you're right for one of the current projects, we will be in touch. If not, your info will be kept on file for possible future projects.</p>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-22369341858236895732023-01-10T16:16:00.000+02:002023-01-10T16:16:28.678+02:00Well this is just dandy... OGL 1.1 provisions<p> ... from the (hopefully preliminary) draft of the OGL 1.1 that's been posted:<br /><br />"We know this may come off strong, but this is important: If You attempt to use the OGL as a basis to release blatantly racist, sexist, homophobic, trans-phobic, bigoted or otherwise discriminatory content, or do anything We think triggers these provisions, Your content is no longer licensed. To be clear, We want to, and will always, support creators who are using the OGL to help them explore sensitive subjects in a positive manner, but We will not tolerate materials We consider to be in any way counter to the spirit of D&D. Additionally, You waive any right to sue over Our decision on these issues. We’re aware that, if We somehow stretch Our decision of what is or is not objectionable under these clauses too far, We will receive community pushback and bad PR, and We’re more than open to being convinced that We made a wrong decision. But nobody gets to use the threat of a lawsuit as part of an attempt to convince Us."<br /><br />... the boilerplate disclaimer that Wizards of the Coast has put on all of the old TSR D&D stuff over at DriveThru (including the 1e Players Handbook, Mentzer Basic, and Moldvay Basic rules...):<br /><br />"We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end."</p><p>Anyone else seeing a problem here?<br /><br />Consider the efforts that have been made to make sure people see everything from <i>Lord of the Rings</i> to <i>Avatar 2</i> as racist (nevermind earlier works foundational to D&D), and considering the pressures brought recently brought against <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Noto Serif", serif; font-size: 16px;"><i>Complete Kobold Guide to Game Design</i> and <i>Mythic Polynesia</i>.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Noto Serif", serif; font-size: 16px;">I've seen work criticized as racist because somebody was writing characters of a different ethnicity. I've seen work criticized as racist because certain ethnicities weren't present at all.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Noto Serif", serif; font-size: 16px;">This clause can be defined as strictly or as loosely, as desired, at any time. Who's going to decide? Not you, that's the important thing. And the recourse you have? None.<br /></span></p><p>Even aside from that, the "We will not tolerate materials We consider to be in any way counter to the spirit of D&D." bit... that's all they need, someone at Wizards to think something is 'counter to the spirit of D&D' as they at that moment perceive it, and you're done.<br /></p><p>This is the Hays Code, the Comics Code, and the 1990s TSR product code all wrapped together, because they don't even have to say what exactly it is you're not allowed to do.</p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Noto Serif", serif; font-size: 16px;">And from Wizards' own February 2009 FAQ (which may or may not carry any weight legally), upon which a good number of people and companies over the past 23 years based their adoption of the Open Game License, and in some cases their entire livelihoods:<br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1z0Jx-QD6tIGnEKc53rpWJJzxVUzozA7mzZCUWzTlNZYOOCTOGmTGTOWiT3nHvrRXQa7ayjWrwXNuSWoqL_wbRtJZKqCg2w5eZMIjpTtd5j9UkBpElWH61ulCWjimxTVGwgYKvFY5tJpYr2XqmxawZR1t7K1t4FcsN16yxjkHX0AqWhLm7E63UIIv/s580/ogl.tif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="137" data-original-width="580" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1z0Jx-QD6tIGnEKc53rpWJJzxVUzozA7mzZCUWzTlNZYOOCTOGmTGTOWiT3nHvrRXQa7ayjWrwXNuSWoqL_wbRtJZKqCg2w5eZMIjpTtd5j9UkBpElWH61ulCWjimxTVGwgYKvFY5tJpYr2XqmxawZR1t7K1t4FcsN16yxjkHX0AqWhLm7E63UIIv/w623-h148/ogl.tif" width="623" /></a></div><br />I'm going to go ahead and be very naïve, and very hopeful, when I say they can't do this.<p></p><p>And I believe they're going to anyway.</p><p><br /></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Noto Serif", serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Noto Serif", serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></p>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-35251718305044679302022-07-31T22:06:00.002+03:002022-07-31T22:17:14.601+03:00LotFP at Gen Con THIS WEEK<p> LotFP will be at Gen Con August 4-7, Booth 3032! THIS WEEK!</p><p><br /></p><p>Our Deals for the Show:</p><p>* Purchases of $100 or more get a free copy of two debuting titles, Curse of the Daughterbrides and Just a Stupid Dungeon, while supplies last. (300 copies each)</p><p>* Every 4 books purchased at once (not counting free items!) gets a 5th book free. (The cheapest is the free one.)</p><p>* Buy 8 items (not counting free items!), you also get a free copy of the Death Frost Doom throwback edition, plus your choice of an Orgasm (less than 100 left) or the Octo-Planetary Blade of Somnambulistic Beneficence (less than ten left!) while supplies last!</p><p>* A free copy of either The Printer's Devils or The Expiration of Barrington Peake with every purchase, while supplies last.</p><p>* Buy the Deck of Weird Things, get a free book of your choice (of equal or lesser value).</p><p><br /></p><p>Our guy who has in the past provided the card payment capabilities isn't going to be there this year, so we can only take cash (please bring lots of $5s and $10s!) or Paypal (done through your phone, have the url www.paypal.me/lotfp ready to go on your phone's web browser... unfortunately we have to charge a +7% fee for Paypal payments)</p><p><br /></p><p>The mysterious Alucard Finch, author of Big Puppet, will be at the booth 1-3pm Thursday, 4-6pm Friday, 12.30-2.30pm Saturday, and Sunday 1-3pm! He's got a personalized, annotated copy of Big Puppet, and will be giving it away to some lucky/poor bastard!</p><p><br /></p><p>Also Debuting at Gen Con:</p><p>Curious Conundrum of the Conflagrated Condottiero $15 (new Kelvin Green adventure!)</p><p>Obsidian Anti-Pharos $15 (new Alex Mayo adventure!)</p><p><br /></p><p>Other Titles:</p><p>6x6x6: The Mayhemic Misssile Method $35</p><p>Adventure Anthology: Blood $60</p><p>Adventure Anthology: Death $30</p><p>Adventure Anthology: Fire $25</p><p>Asterion $10</p><p>Big Puppet $35</p><p>Book of Antitheses $50</p><p>Carcosa $30</p><p>Cursed Chateau $25</p><p>Death Frost Doom $20</p><p>Deck of Weird Things $100</p><p>Earth Incubation Crisis $30</p><p>England Upturn'd $15</p><p>Fermentvm Nigrvm Dei Sepvlti $35</p><p>Forgive Us $15</p><p>Frostbitten & Mutilated $25</p><p>Green Messiah $25</p><p>Idea from Space $10</p><p>In a Deadly Fashion $25</p><p>Midvinter $25</p><p>No Rest for the Wicked $15</p><p>Obscene Serpent Religion 2 $10</p><p>Punchline $20</p><p>Random Esoteric Creature Generator $20</p><p>Rules & Magic $25</p><p>She Bleeds $10</p><p>Staffortonshire Trading Company Works $35</p><p>Strict Time Records Must Be Kept $30</p><p>Terror in the Streets $30</p><p>Terror in the Streets Boxed Set $120</p><p>Towers Two $25</p><p>Wight Power $25</p><p>World of the Lost $30</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj368KfEUfAXAXe5ZxxIEBicYDDe3j420q-pDNxJXH86-N8kvoBIvRDZkBs7G5cpUSF6pNHcjA7bVBvSPhwOOgwLW2Z_hML73jbCO_bquDDm2Nh8TR1Qx087D-wtvQhm9Pt_SjNyRlZpGHZH_Y9aHV21ctGX72Ue3_rP-Z5RFOjwjHyM4Y_eysh86Gq/s762/daughterbridescoverdisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="762" data-original-width="545" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj368KfEUfAXAXe5ZxxIEBicYDDe3j420q-pDNxJXH86-N8kvoBIvRDZkBs7G5cpUSF6pNHcjA7bVBvSPhwOOgwLW2Z_hML73jbCO_bquDDm2Nh8TR1Qx087D-wtvQhm9Pt_SjNyRlZpGHZH_Y9aHV21ctGX72Ue3_rP-Z5RFOjwjHyM4Y_eysh86Gq/s320/daughterbridescoverdisplay.jpg" width="229" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBmCAhlADsNnrLVhZNxDFi8-4hMrn7Qv7RCafdph-nwAmL1POY0pu7zVxrPw85MepdqWF463sNB7RI-YLd6PjuA_Qn8c06QHo6waFw_V5JkS5O6y3F4ZsxbgbZHxeCySAI1h67AvdLQc82oi6Ra4-Zx9rpXkmEndzBnWJd3mr1tMxUU5Du9AT-bk8W/s832/jusdcoverdisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="583" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBmCAhlADsNnrLVhZNxDFi8-4hMrn7Qv7RCafdph-nwAmL1POY0pu7zVxrPw85MepdqWF463sNB7RI-YLd6PjuA_Qn8c06QHo6waFw_V5JkS5O6y3F4ZsxbgbZHxeCySAI1h67AvdLQc82oi6Ra4-Zx9rpXkmEndzBnWJd3mr1tMxUU5Du9AT-bk8W/s320/jusdcoverdisplay.jpg" width="224" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghyVmFJBKcfi-ZJC5vOzGK4Cs4s6DH6RurTFhVwl85EhVAnX0iW9nymVBShlzQkbR0TQcF-pqNdOJGxHb2vAdBDyHxtUMs5n19tVG3xvzdEXq11ogeD7IaqIfr1gCeVu2-4bYWU2VuvA3w0e-zoWsluWffHtcgrIhAGtmkOXJpY5wp4aXkux4QheyM/s872/4ccoverdisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="872" data-original-width="633" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghyVmFJBKcfi-ZJC5vOzGK4Cs4s6DH6RurTFhVwl85EhVAnX0iW9nymVBShlzQkbR0TQcF-pqNdOJGxHb2vAdBDyHxtUMs5n19tVG3xvzdEXq11ogeD7IaqIfr1gCeVu2-4bYWU2VuvA3w0e-zoWsluWffHtcgrIhAGtmkOXJpY5wp4aXkux4QheyM/s320/4ccoverdisplay.jpg" width="232" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEgzfTp9EOYosSPRaTh8MsgEXWi4uHnhE4KQ3ZTHG7PViny1F7FXhm17qatqSsrpd_x3qyzpQm6f1u2fEpseLCfwBJmS35LMCPVQjfvU5FLMC3Iz0rP9aDh8eGpnbXY69LkMdrIIxCQlw5NYItP0afhrl5PnIs9zA7qnmXG9uuGPqyquvqk4c6RFwx/s886/obsidiancoverdisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="886" data-original-width="624" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEgzfTp9EOYosSPRaTh8MsgEXWi4uHnhE4KQ3ZTHG7PViny1F7FXhm17qatqSsrpd_x3qyzpQm6f1u2fEpseLCfwBJmS35LMCPVQjfvU5FLMC3Iz0rP9aDh8eGpnbXY69LkMdrIIxCQlw5NYItP0afhrl5PnIs9zA7qnmXG9uuGPqyquvqk4c6RFwx/s320/obsidiancoverdisplay.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-11754191900498575722022-04-28T23:37:00.000+03:002022-04-28T23:37:02.732+03:00 The Bodkin and the Quietus<p>So a couple days ago, two things happened. First, I posted this thing to LotFP social media where a fan talks about being introduced to the game in a session where he encounters Penelope Foxlowe:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnaOq0r1B3X63Mbrn-Wu9r00eHvgDnzHj3HirpzNhmtBcB-kuvPH4-QOautVzlwCd_8J1-m8X2bm6J8mlqQpopIw2Cf7XmzG1v7-OwDmvr4BpheYesjTQRoEFc2R4sMIqlNv0aDOfBBJa81N092phxTdffR_Tj3Wl7aQzOX45d0qsKqvAE0FToW8HG/s526/firstexperience.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="187" data-original-width="526" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnaOq0r1B3X63Mbrn-Wu9r00eHvgDnzHj3HirpzNhmtBcB-kuvPH4-QOautVzlwCd_8J1-m8X2bm6J8mlqQpopIw2Cf7XmzG1v7-OwDmvr4BpheYesjTQRoEFc2R4sMIqlNv0aDOfBBJa81N092phxTdffR_Tj3Wl7aQzOX45d0qsKqvAE0FToW8HG/w456-h162/firstexperience.jpg" width="456" /></a></div><p><br /></p>Later that same day in the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/lotfp/posts/2747270558915607/">LotFP Facebook group</a>, a pic of this passage from the game <b>Quietus </b>was posted (mutual plugs!), and... spirited, shall we say... commentary ensued.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgegKHuI5YSZcqz6OQEKNO4tnv0scglRxW-jarc1m8UxUaw4NXvwE5F2CKKG80liFBcFYC8WRxYXGDa5_fAMqW-YCzyPWADv9isFG2W3IhyDMUdpCBCB9fIRq1ytwuQ254lOwVZ3xDkkV2Te_jGrBEt5ziixiZKHkF8KCoMbB0Hs9wTfo-2diH8orYo/s1334/279082690_6186542778028507_1963427515189034042_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgegKHuI5YSZcqz6OQEKNO4tnv0scglRxW-jarc1m8UxUaw4NXvwE5F2CKKG80liFBcFYC8WRxYXGDa5_fAMqW-YCzyPWADv9isFG2W3IhyDMUdpCBCB9fIRq1ytwuQ254lOwVZ3xDkkV2Te_jGrBEt5ziixiZKHkF8KCoMbB0Hs9wTfo-2diH8orYo/s320/279082690_6186542778028507_1963427515189034042_n.jpg" width="180" /></a></div><br /><p>... yeah.</p><p>(I did have the idea of taking out a Facebook ad, naming all the authors credited in that game as specifically recommending LotFP, but rather than making it personal I just did this post.)</p><p>To me, if you're advertising your game as "emulates tragic horror movies like <b>Oculus</b>, <b>The Strangers</b>, <b>The Babadook</b>, <b>Inside </b>and the Netflix version of <b>The Haunting of Hill House</b>. If a piece of fiction can make you cry and scream, then it’s a great model for the sort of stories that you can tell with <b>Quietus</b>," and then talking at length about safety tools, it seems that you're deliberately watering down the experience you're advertising the game to provide. Why would you want that?</p><p>I mean, you're going to do things your way at your table <span style="background-color: white; color: #4a4a4a; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">–</span> AND YOU SHOULD <span style="background-color: white; color: #4a4a4a; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">–</span> but to me as the head cat herder around here, everything is always possible as default and it's your job to edit things for your table, not my job to edit things based on what I think you think is suitable at your table. As publisher, I trust that if somebody buys a product promising them hell, they actually want hell.</p><p>I want you to have the most intense experience possible, and stories of groups noping right out of adventures like <b>Death Frost Doom</b> and <b>Death Love Doom</b>, freaking people out so much they refuse to have their make-believe people go into make-believe places to face make-believe dangers...</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwIa4MzJxDHF5m4fNS5BNL0Wkd_OIIkjZIKi-2KOiCULKqfi_zFFqJqKEM_9XDR6YlrAExZ0vyXJAJea8tDmTRFhjkOQ-05nGIQa5sFuQByI8I5HzGxBRRcQJziZtNRWsEOTfh5Hf_uFzrxuUyxiaZikhoEQzcAMs7svdLYstZzA3wEWWcbxMhKkrI/s680/56f.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="539" data-original-width="680" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwIa4MzJxDHF5m4fNS5BNL0Wkd_OIIkjZIKi-2KOiCULKqfi_zFFqJqKEM_9XDR6YlrAExZ0vyXJAJea8tDmTRFhjkOQ-05nGIQa5sFuQByI8I5HzGxBRRcQJziZtNRWsEOTfh5Hf_uFzrxuUyxiaZikhoEQzcAMs7svdLYstZzA3wEWWcbxMhKkrI/s320/56f.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>This isn't an "SJW snowflake" issue (I work with people who describe themselves as Trump supporters, Marxists, and everything in between, I don't care what people believe beyond the project in question, weirdness and horror aren't limited to any particular political persuasion, and any political system or ideology that limits artistic and creative expression is invalid and should be shot into the fucking sun), this is a "Are you trying to deliver a horrifying experience or not?" issue.</p><p>Here are some images from movies released 1985-6*. A very specific period in time when I was 10-11 years old, seeing this sort of thing WITH MY PARENTS. (ok, <b>Reanimator </b>I didn't see until later but it fits right in time- and themewise and the image is too good not to include)</p><p><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqE6Yob95SHS9x7E_cmX90ijbVQj4-AENoDvT86HqXMd5r_CiY_9Gd-3KiD1LTep2S0ulHZG0YHbk-ZTVUf9ouHzVQvZlI-OTb-s_c-HKR2bsaAgQM_YvkiCg4UfsWk7x1VmT8qF3vybK1cKE3Md4j-dYws44_M8Ntz1aP8J4T8aex4bUu0lLu0Shv/s1280/rotld.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="696" data-original-width="1280" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqE6Yob95SHS9x7E_cmX90ijbVQj4-AENoDvT86HqXMd5r_CiY_9Gd-3KiD1LTep2S0ulHZG0YHbk-ZTVUf9ouHzVQvZlI-OTb-s_c-HKR2bsaAgQM_YvkiCg4UfsWk7x1VmT8qF3vybK1cKE3Md4j-dYws44_M8Ntz1aP8J4T8aex4bUu0lLu0Shv/w400-h217/rotld.jpg" width="400" /></a></p></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF2TAM_LPwRvJk2UW13DUsMdFmMGFRy23WCB-mqRggPpEIs8glpvfIhXdGu3kLmc2Jk7zJJcgkSo9nxJBaMsFgz672RN7cnpfJ795dBvHCsPn1h_h6n9ARCg5s9i57pRIuo8zAK2-aWEZjxuzr2J0VDpWHBXZuPjV7f6NFBE684oaRGcMbbghGAEuE/s1920/reanimator.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF2TAM_LPwRvJk2UW13DUsMdFmMGFRy23WCB-mqRggPpEIs8glpvfIhXdGu3kLmc2Jk7zJJcgkSo9nxJBaMsFgz672RN7cnpfJ795dBvHCsPn1h_h6n9ARCg5s9i57pRIuo8zAK2-aWEZjxuzr2J0VDpWHBXZuPjV7f6NFBE684oaRGcMbbghGAEuE/w400-h225/reanimator.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioY_g1bBECYk3X-ShTlmc0uRTMnPyUoQx0TMNquGeKlQguTanzlk4w3ZdcktvK2abk3NwHlBUZZLP-LZoIP8rmW4FS9OQbGDfNmdZLzNke6mlspHfgmDkPZsRbtOSnzMEREhYJ2zB22uHcuQVaor-J7rFvtTvhQYKtOPvo2uTDZAnNhCAWDTmgbs0W/s1680/tcm2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="862" data-original-width="1680" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioY_g1bBECYk3X-ShTlmc0uRTMnPyUoQx0TMNquGeKlQguTanzlk4w3ZdcktvK2abk3NwHlBUZZLP-LZoIP8rmW4FS9OQbGDfNmdZLzNke6mlspHfgmDkPZsRbtOSnzMEREhYJ2zB22uHcuQVaor-J7rFvtTvhQYKtOPvo2uTDZAnNhCAWDTmgbs0W/w400-h205/tcm2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>(Facebook auto-deleted the <b>Return of the Living Dead</b> shot when I posted this there. oh no, a woman's body is visible, so they censor that, and leave the other pictures which are so so so much worse. The inevitable result of do-gooder censorship, demonstrated right there.)</p><p>To me, this sort of thing represents awkwardness, embarrassment, everything going completely off the rails and having no idea what is even happening. That memory of my father slumping in his seat facepalming while Linnea Quigley danced naked in the graveyard, in the movie he brought his 10 and 6 year old sons to see, <i>I want that feeling stamping on all human faces forever, that's what the world should be like</i>. I didn't see much of my father growing up, and this is actually my most vivid and treasured memory of him. Both the gift he gave in letting me see that wonderful movie when both it and I were new and fresh, his reaction to it, and oh yeah me scaring the shit out of my brother for months afterward by bringing it up because he was terrified by it. yup, LotFP is DADDY ISSUES.</p><p>(I don't even remember awkwardness with my mother seeing Leatherface miming chainsaw fucking that woman, but around this time she decided to show me <b>Flesh for Frankenstein</b> <span style="background-color: white; color: #4a4a4a; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">–</span> which I definitely remember feeling awkward watching <span style="background-color: white; color: #4a4a4a; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">–</span> so I don't think she gave the first shit about things like that. Yet she wouldn't let me watch <b>The Day After</b>. yup, LotFP is the result of being raised to enjoy entertainment as such and avoid propaganda. :P :P :P :P)</p><p>Other people will receive this imagery differently, and it's way way out on the no-no list as a standard in this industry.</p><p>There's always going to be an unbridgeable divide between those who want (at least the potential of) their minds blown apart by batshit insanity in their entertainment, and those who want some assurance of limits.</p><p>I want you to wonder if that ache in your belly is actually the first detectable sign of the tumor that will kill you, not because it's distressing, but because sooner or later you'll be right and that's just life, so why not have some fun with it. Name your tumor Belial because Frank Henenlotter rules.</p><p>You don't like that?</p><p>ok.</p><p>To me all that disagreement isn't worth any more than preferring baseball instead of football.</p><p>Now this attitude does relate to the new books.</p><p>Kelvin's <b>Strict Time Records Must Be Kept</b>, it's clean as a whistle without any of this nasty stuff, but to me that Doctor character is so cringe over the top camp insanity that it falls right into this same category, despite/especially because it's in a game line with a reputation for edgelord negadungeons. </p><p>Alex's <b>Earth Incubation Crisis</b> seemed to be more sane (the cross-genre mecha stuff to me falls under more straightforward gaming activity) until he started the art. That one piece he asked me if it was OK to do, and me, the person who greenlit Wight Power, what was I going to do, say no? So now we have in print and distributed worldwide an illustration of 14 year old girls fiddling with a corpse.</p><p>"14 year olds can't consent. Corpses can't consent. So if a 14 year old fiddles with a corpse... who is the victim?"</p><p>LotFP asks the tough questions society is afraid to face.</p><p>(The answer is of course YOU the READER.)</p><p>The real world is filled with so many limits and considerations and responsibilities and concerns and many of them are even valid, necessary, and good.</p><p>Let us at the very least be "free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy" in our imaginations.</p><p>To sum up, if you use safety tools, that's your business, it's certainly not going to be ours. The official LotFP line is that negative emotions in the proper context are exhilarating, and whatever emotions you feel during a game of LotFP, positive or negative, we hope you feel them to the fullest possible extent.</p><p>So if you want some game-level authority to hold your hand and make sure your intense gaming never gets too intense, by all means go check out the producers of not-too-intense gaming. Make them millionaires. Tell them I sent you.</p><p>But if you want something that offers a sharp, nasty experience and then will actually stab you right in your fucking heart, then Lamentations of the Flame Princess is your dagger, baby. Welcome home.</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p>oh, yeah, I haven't posted in this space that Kelvin and Alex's new books are available, have I? Well they are, at the <a href="http://www.lotfp.com/store/index.php?route=product/category&path=42&sort=p.model&order=DESC">LotFP EU Webstore</a>. We also have a new Weird Crusher installment which will be included in all orders from the EU webstore while supplies last.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIbAP72fgaapk2yt7ljP5iojz9lA-dgTBUxeYfupeWEPebb_bY3raRnoo7sNdJX9jrBdaEWzCHON414daNDVodzD03ThVgOuEAqjvk6xOnLwWxu2AGm-CY4P1iVLTe4LJpSdUWuEiHNGEWmmpDaC6FX6RaHpiZVoWP79hxTYvbznLF2KUQw1sBLfA6/s910/EICcoverdisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="910" data-original-width="644" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIbAP72fgaapk2yt7ljP5iojz9lA-dgTBUxeYfupeWEPebb_bY3raRnoo7sNdJX9jrBdaEWzCHON414daNDVodzD03ThVgOuEAqjvk6xOnLwWxu2AGm-CY4P1iVLTe4LJpSdUWuEiHNGEWmmpDaC6FX6RaHpiZVoWP79hxTYvbznLF2KUQw1sBLfA6/s320/EICcoverdisplay.jpg" width="226" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBBJfU1UKUmp4sHv0VMvOtDxAdTaOhK-vjvbcYozCzPskcUfTeXZha6pbToLBuaVI-OBS5Vwd55d4_pMKCOya8-5x9OHlj6859iVk_PL-z3d786NXd6C2LBU1eCUHHcfp0_b2_xEKeSkK7FNnb0Dasg-BdFCWHcBBXqxbl0de1YiI_7tpG2UGlgY64/s905/STRDisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="905" data-original-width="632" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBBJfU1UKUmp4sHv0VMvOtDxAdTaOhK-vjvbcYozCzPskcUfTeXZha6pbToLBuaVI-OBS5Vwd55d4_pMKCOya8-5x9OHlj6859iVk_PL-z3d786NXd6C2LBU1eCUHHcfp0_b2_xEKeSkK7FNnb0Dasg-BdFCWHcBBXqxbl0de1YiI_7tpG2UGlgY64/s320/STRDisplay.jpg" width="223" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjJFMAEJahe6Nv__e4_1YBkYENKJHX5DA5mB6JqpMidJ_gjyjG2V19Klp_ffmZyE3XjDUs6O0hBmDbtstjTH6p-zMyBRH369dj4xlKnIgNV5i4P_QT-WDOUje_ttBQSZQG0x6mkDpDt3kV-ip7j71xernXNFaA1l1SBCdnqqJg0sHs3zxIQ4re4Tug/s1147/BarringtonCoverDisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1147" data-original-width="806" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjJFMAEJahe6Nv__e4_1YBkYENKJHX5DA5mB6JqpMidJ_gjyjG2V19Klp_ffmZyE3XjDUs6O0hBmDbtstjTH6p-zMyBRH369dj4xlKnIgNV5i4P_QT-WDOUje_ttBQSZQG0x6mkDpDt3kV-ip7j71xernXNFaA1l1SBCdnqqJg0sHs3zxIQ4re4Tug/s320/BarringtonCoverDisplay.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><div><br /></div><br /><p></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: x-small;">* I did think about including male-focused imagery in the movie stills above, but that's a bit tough to come by, isn't it?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;">I mean, right there in <b>TCM 2</b>, a guy's crotch gets ruined by a chainsaw, but it's played for laughs. <b>Robocop </b>has a guy get shot right in the ding ding, and it's no big deal, he deserved it. Dan Akroyd gets a ghost blowjob but does anyone actually react like he's being sexually assaulted? The guy getting fucked by a bull in <b>Top Secret!</b> is similarly played entirely for laughs.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;">The thing that almost fits is Ned Beatty in <b>Deliverance</b>, but even that's not right, it's not fantastical at all, it wouldn't fit for the same reason why Jodie Foster on the pinball machine from <b>The Accused</b> doesn't fit in with the pictures or vibe I'm talking about here. I suspect a lot of people would think this to be a distinction without a difference, but I will create according to my perspective, you will create according to yours, and we don't get to dictate to each other.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;">We did do <b>She Bleeds</b>, which would fit a female-perspective ickiness-to-males bit, and even though that sort of thing isn't pitched to me very much at all, it's not like we won't do it when it is.</span></p></blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-36550203759136500582021-11-30T15:52:00.004+02:002021-11-30T15:52:32.988+02:00WHY I PUBLISHED... #1: The Book of Antitheses!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o-cUk9Qt1Q0/YaYsiKkDaQI/AAAAAAAAS-U/kVvZ7x9dFyoGKvfwqGpk6h7Z1xw52-b9ACLcBGAsYHQ/s900/antithesescoverdisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="635" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o-cUk9Qt1Q0/YaYsiKkDaQI/AAAAAAAAS-U/kVvZ7x9dFyoGKvfwqGpk6h7Z1xw52-b9ACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/antithesescoverdisplay.jpg" width="226" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">'allo all!</span><p></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">On October 25 we made 10 new releases available from <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl py34i1dx gpro0wi8" href="https://www.lotfp.com/store/" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation;" target="_blank">https://www.lotfp.com/store/</a></span> ; eight for sale, and two freebies to entice purchase.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I'm going taking a few minutes every day or five to explain why I decided to publish the items I did, and I will do so in order from what I expected to be the most generally acceptable to what I expect to be the most controversial.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Now coming in at #1: The Book of Antitheses!</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">It's been a little bit before this final entry because I've both been swamped with other publisher duties, and frankly I've never known what to make of this book.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">When Jobe pitched it to me, my thinking was "well, I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about, but why not?" When the book started to take shape, my thinking was "I don't understand this at all. What is this? I guess I'll just have to publish it to find out what happens." The process of understanding what it is that I would be publishing became like an LotFP adventure itself... yeah, it starts innocuously, but by the end I was entangled in some sort of cosmic horror that would be with me forever.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Because the beautiful, and terrifying thing about Jobe Bittman, is that he really seems to just not give a shit, in the best and fearless of ways. Telling him "no" seems to me to be an act of cultural vandalism, frankly. This stuff needs to be out there in the world, changing it. But... that change might itself be cultural vandalism. I have no idea. But that's the best place to be, not knowing what something is exactly or how it will be received. That means it's real.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I'm sure I've told this story before, but when Jobe had first turned in his draft for Towers Two, it was right before the UK Games Expo, in 2014 or 2015, I forget. So I read it on the plane over to Birmingham, and it was just insane. Cuntwhip? Deathfuck magic? The antagonist's goal is to WHAT for WHAT purpose? I had two thoughts as I touched down in Birmingham and then made my way to the venue to set up my booth... "this is going to kill my company" and "I can't wait to tell EVERY SINGLE PERSON I MEET ABOUT THIS PROJECT I'M DOING!" I remember cornering Monte Cook and Shanna Germain near the elevator in the venue and not shutting the fuck up about it. (I also remember being at the airport going home from Gen Con 2017, ending up in the same waiting area as those two and telling my already ex-wife I'd brought with me "Those are the people I'm rebelling against!" as a public spectacle. In good fun, really, but who the hell knows how it was actually received.)</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Some of the early bits of Antitheses were intriguing to me. Jobe brought in Benjamin Marra, "a Grammy nominated artist," and my first concern was "does this guy know what he's getting into?" I wasn't familiar with him, it was immediately after The Events of 2019, and I had nightmares of some mainstream normie artist being recruited and then being horrified at what his art was attached to in the final product. But I was sent a copy of Marra's American Blood and had a chat with him, and of all the problems I'm volunteering for with this book and this job... this wasn't one of them.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Jobe also wanted to know if we could have a hole in the cover of the book. I'd seen such things in softcover books, but never hardcover. But the printer said that's not a problem.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">OK. So we had a concept I didn't understand, a product that I had no clue about how I'd present or what use it could possibly be to anyone, and I couldn't have been more excited. The way I imagine some gamer that's only ever played WotC D&D or Pathfinder and then coming into contact with LotFP, that's how I was feeling with this. No fucking clue what was going on, and loving that I had no fucking clue what was going on. This was going to be a great big major thing for LotFP! </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">One thing I glommed onto was the numerology section. Now numerology is one of the things that ruined Coast to Coast AM for me after George Noory took over the show, all numerology and angels and a lot less of the hardcore weird that Art Bell would present. And here was some friggin numerology in this book proving that the very roots of the industry were Satanic. I had to remind Jobe that he was publishing for Lamentations of the Flame Princess and maybe acknowledge that in the numerology section. <span class="pq6dq46d tbxw36s4 knj5qynh kvgmc6g5 ditlmg2l oygrvhab nvdbi5me sf5mxxl7 gl3lb2sf hhz5lgdu" style="display: inline-flex; font-family: inherit; height: 16px; margin: 0px 1px; vertical-align: middle; width: 16px;"><img alt="😛" height="16" referrerpolicy="origin-when-cross-origin" src="https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/tf8/1.5/16/1f61b.png" style="border: 0px;" width="16" /></span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And now that I'm talking about that section, I guess it's time for a little discussion about how real this all is. I have no idea if all the math adds up in that section. I assume Jobe ran the numbers, I don't even know if the editor did... but as far as I'm concerned, numerology that is mathematically accurate and numerology that doesn't add up is all equally nonsense. I published this book because it's interesting and prickly and an entirely different state of mind than I have or that as far as I know any gamers have, and that's enough for me. I don't believe the "magick" in this book is any more real than the butt parasite weapon in Monolith or Xaxus or Wiki Dot Pod.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Does Jobe believe it? I... don't know. I think I asked a couple years back, but frankly it's irrelevant to me so I didn't retain the information. As far as I'm concerned, I'm publishing gaming material. "It's all made up," is my stock in trade and hardly a strike against else I'd publish, so I wouldn't consider it a strike against this one either. If he does believe it... well... good for him. Maybe he began the whole thing as a joke and worked himself into a shoot. It's not my job to judge or police someone's beliefs, it's just my job to make sure the material is presented well.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">but</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">but</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So after the layout was completed and the artwork started to come together, I really started getting what Jobe was doing. Seeing it all organized rather than a giant text dump does wonders for comprehension sometimes. (too bad I can't afford to have every first draft submission laid out before trying to read it. <span class="pq6dq46d tbxw36s4 knj5qynh kvgmc6g5 ditlmg2l oygrvhab nvdbi5me sf5mxxl7 gl3lb2sf hhz5lgdu" style="display: inline-flex; font-family: inherit; height: 16px; margin: 0px 1px; vertical-align: middle; width: 16px;"><img alt="😛" height="16" referrerpolicy="origin-when-cross-origin" src="https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/tf8/1.5/16/1f61b.png" style="border: 0px;" width="16" /></span>)</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And the "magick" on offer? It's not so different from what I do before games. Because there's what I call "wizard" magic, and then there's what I consider the pretentious label of "magick" applied to basically meditation and mental focus techniques. And I have anxiety and panic before game sessions. "Oh my god, a bunch of people are coming over and then I have to not waste their time and I hope the game is fun AHHHHHHHHH PEOPLE WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE PEOPLE" kind of mentality. I've never ever not once hosted a game where I wasn't hoping that everyone would get sick and not be able to come at the last minute. Anxiety is real!</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So I have some techniques, rituals if you will, to get me calmed down and focused before a session starts. They aren't the same techniques that Jobe details in Antitheses, but I've never seen any similar thing addressed seriously in a game book before. Referee/GM advice in game books is about how to prepare THE GAME. How to run THE GAME. Not how to prepare YOURSELF, not how to run YOURSELF.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So it hit me like the clicheverbial ton of bricks: I don't believe at all in what the book is saying, but I believe 100% in what the book is doing.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Holy shit. This book really is going to be huge.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And then there was the adventure, where Jobe has his usual "I belong in a loony bin" imagination runs wild, what with the butt-faces and 'Poor People' listed in the adventure's bestiary, presented in a novel way and I can't wait to hear the play experiences from people in the wider world.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">There is the fact that the book is an in-game object, so there's this thing where it exists for both the real people around the table and the characters they're playing, and how that works. (are there really guns small enough to fit through the hole? Was Jobe working with a larger hole in his playtests? have fun with that one)</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Then there was the issue of the runes. The method I used to read them was cheating... and we took some steps to make sure others can't do that. All that stuff is actual writing. More content for the diligent (or the not-so-diligent once some buttface posts a transcription).</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Then there was the foreword. Jobe had trouble getting someone to do that, and the list of names he both proposed and tried to recruit I'm sure would result in many annoying comments. The person who did do it, J.F. Martel, was perfect. He cohosts the Weird Studies podcast ("a series of conversations on art and philosophy, dwelling on ideas that are hard to think and art that opens up rifts in what we are pleased to call 'reality.'") and is a published author (his book Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice is very interesting)... and he delivered 4000 (!) words for the foreward of Antitheses, really digging into some things. And the message? At least the one I strongly received from it? The evangelicals were exactly right about D&D and the reason it didn't transform the world is because people only saw it as an entertaining diversion.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And that... that's disturbing. One of the driving forces of my life has been imagination and creation (more enjoying others' than doing my own most of my life) and encouraging and fighting for freer expression of the same, which is necessary since much of my taste is... let's just say not very classy, so it's under constant attack, so it needs defense.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But what if all the accusations are true? What of the defense?</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Well... I've already addressed this in years past. Something along the lines of "If the King in Yellow was a real play and it truly caused madness and death, that would still not be grounds for censoring or banning it."</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">That's what I think.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So what if I'm wrong about what gaming is, and the effect it has (and also wrong about the actual effects of my "edgy" tastes and publications), but also at the same time still right about the defense? Or what if I'm wrong about the defense because what I do isn't what I think I'm doing?</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh my brain hurts.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">What if I haven't published a game book?</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">What if unbeknownst to me I've published a book that is real, and speaks only the truth?</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Do you read Sutter Kane?</div></div>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-36609832838658341062021-11-21T13:32:00.003+02:002021-11-21T13:32:51.838+02:00 WHY I PUBLISHED... #2: The Butchery of Agnes Gooder!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hqPvlGX_J0k/YZouThL4heI/AAAAAAAAS84/y5VLYsiqh_wyyUFUZQR626Jqhg-Ugs1lwCLcBGAsYHQ/s908/agnescoverdisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="908" data-original-width="646" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hqPvlGX_J0k/YZouThL4heI/AAAAAAAAS84/y5VLYsiqh_wyyUFUZQR626Jqhg-Ugs1lwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/agnescoverdisplay.jpg" width="228" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">'allo all!</span><p></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">On October 25 we made 10 new releases available from <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl py34i1dx gpro0wi8" href="https://www.lotfp.com/store/" rel="noreferrer noopener" role="link" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation;" target="_blank">https://www.lotfp.com/store/</a></span> ; eight for sale, and two freebies to entice purchase.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Packing and shipping from that initial avalanche of orders is DONE! But while there are other duties, I'm going to take a few minutes every day or five to explain why I decided to publish the items I did, and I will do so in order from what I expected to be the most generally acceptable to what I expect to be the most controversial.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Now coming in at #2: The Butchery of Agnes Gooder!</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So late last year, I was thinking of how the catalogs I'd pass out at conventions were a good way to hook people. Product descriptions, a good piece of art to hook people in, I think it's one of the few promotional ideas I've had that was just gold star quality... (developed because I hated the constant banter of trying to hook interest and sum up the game to random passersby... carnival barker plus flyer is more my speed in that environment) But all our 2020 conventions were canceled, and 2021 was not looking good either at the time (we ended up not traveling internationally for the conventions that did happen), so I had the idea of doing a freebie thing to encourage more direct orders.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The idea was an A3 page folded to A5 size, to easily add to orders and not add to the postage weight. On one side of the page would be "cover" art, product information and general boilerplate stuff. On the other side would be an A3-sized adventure (which would dictate what the art would be).</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So I made an open call for pitches, and ended up getting four or five of them submitted. But of course the first one was going to cost a whole lot more money than budgeted... because this fuckin' guy had an idea that would require TWO folded sheets, and two additional pieces of art, because there was a sort of paper doll thing going on with it. So clever, so good, so greenlit.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">It's definitely in the deep end of the LotFP pool as far as content. And not everyone who likes LotFP likes the nasty stuff. Because contrary to what you may have heard, we do release a good amount of material that works with general audiences. And now people after the easier stuff is going to get some hardcore LotFP that they didn't ask for.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And I started stressing about it ten months before it was released: <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl oo9gr5id gpro0wi8 lrazzd5p" href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/lotfp/posts/2451894658453200/?__cft__[0]=AZVHQT-8H01Dvnc1nCNhdOTjLfLwQF9O2LPcK3ctL6_jr19BfOeFz56aaJtwGXkBHvhPJBmM7n3QFTLhODuF8M32YK5qI6_KJCZ1kRy6gmrsOmEBvNKFyXvOs5nanLZAYfsvcZlsHI1bItpr2uh-dXUY&__tn__=-UK-R" role="link" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0">https://www.facebook.com/groups/lotfp/posts/2451894658453200</a></span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The thing about LotFP, a big problem, actually, has to do with the question "Is this a good idea?" I imagine most other publishers don't stress too much about this. I think they're able to separate "Does this appeal to me personally?" and "Will this sell well/is this a good idea for my business?" and separate their personal taste from their professional activities.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Me? "Does this appeal to me personally" is all there is. What is the bloody point of going through all the hassle of running a business, of living with the chaos and constant uncertainty that comes with being a small-time operator in the "culture industry," if not to trust myself and be me in choosing projects and how they are presented? </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So... the intended cheap freebie that's just had its art cost tripled and printing cost more than doubled (the second sheet requires special folding), that'll piss off some unknown number of my most valuable customers to boot... the concept appealed to me, so fuck it, it happens.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Sorry to all you Glynn Seal fans who only wanted a completely inoffensive book of maps. <span class="pq6dq46d tbxw36s4 knj5qynh kvgmc6g5 ditlmg2l oygrvhab nvdbi5me sf5mxxl7 gl3lb2sf hhz5lgdu" style="display: inline-flex; font-family: inherit; height: 16px; margin: 0px 1px; vertical-align: middle; width: 16px;"><img alt="😛" height="16" referrerpolicy="origin-when-cross-origin" src="https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/tf8/1.5/16/1f61b.png" style="border: 0px;" width="16" /></span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So much of this business is just saying "fuck it" and leaping into the void with blind faith that there's a soft landing at the bottom. The entire industry is a bad idea to begin with... "Hey, let's codify and sell ways for people to play pretend with each other! You know, things people can already do without outside help!" was iffy enough as it is as the basis for an industry, but almost 50 years later adding on "... even though there are already a million choices out there, many of them available for free!" So yeah, "is this a good idea to release?" really doesn't even have a rational basis to even be asked because if I was so worried about good ideas I'd be selling insurance or something instead of ever doing this in the first place. So fuck it.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Anyhow, to me personally (I do remember my ex-wife telling me to never follow the golden rule because I'm so weird that following it would only offend everyone else) the thing shouldn't actually be offensive to anyone who was a fan of NCIS or Silent Witness. But RPG people are bizarre.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And the cover art pictured here was not part of the original idea... but it needed a cover, and considering what the inside art pieces are, I decided to take the idea from Deicide's Once Upon the Cross cover art since it would apply very well here.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The back cover format we'll be using for these things is an adaptation of the Grindcrusher compilation cover art. That thing was so valuable to me when I was just starting to get into death metal and grindcore in 1992. It's been released with a variety of different color schemes for the cover, but the one we used here is the same as the cassette copy I had back in the day.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The other promo freebie concepts that were accepted will be released in the months and (hopefully not too many) years to come. Buy from the EU webstore so I run out of copies of this one and have to move on to the next!</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">WHY I PUBLISHED #1 soon! You should be able to figure out which one it is.</div></div>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-88662606513314904732021-11-19T17:49:00.006+02:002021-11-19T17:49:54.951+02:00WHY I PUBLISHED... #3: Asterion!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7ejJLaPghI8/YZfHkFLvswI/AAAAAAAAS8w/hWFFMChaEAY7P8stLw6wUf-9DzDMZWs2gCLcBGAsYHQ/s905/asterioncoverdisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="905" data-original-width="638" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7ejJLaPghI8/YZfHkFLvswI/AAAAAAAAS8w/hWFFMChaEAY7P8stLw6wUf-9DzDMZWs2gCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/asterioncoverdisplay.jpg" width="226" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">'allo all!</span><p></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">On October 25 we made 10 new releases available from <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl py34i1dx gpro0wi8" href="https://www.lotfp.com/store/" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation;" target="_blank">https://www.lotfp.com/store/</a></span> ; eight for sale, and two freebies to entice purchase.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I'm going to take a few minutes every day or five to explain why I decided to publish the items I did, and I will do so in order from what I expected to be the most generally acceptable to what I expect to be the most controversial.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Now coming in at #3... Asterion!</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I was first pitched the project in August 2020. It had a basic layout, was very short. My response was, "How would you feel about expanding this concept into a proper adventure for publication?" and also had the note "would need to sophisticate up the minotaur a bit (couldn't just be SEX MONSTER, have to be something 'real' and able to be interacted with in real ways in there)."</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">We went back and forth for a couple weeks, then... time passed. I had honestly forgotten all about it.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So this past June, I get an email with an updated product, with a fresh, slick layout and all, with this note: "You said Asterion couldn't just be a horny man bull and I took that as a challenge to prove he could."</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I admired the chutzpah of the author in defying my notes, because it actually worked. It was still a short ziney sort of thing, so my thinking was as a quick, simple concept it was OK in a way it might not have been if it was a 48 page adventure of horny man bull.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But the truth was the devil-may-care attitude in the product (in full form right there on the cover!), the atmosphere created by only using Metropolitan Museum pieces in the layout as art, and the fact that this was all intended in the spirit of naughty fun very easily won me over. I wanted to release this!</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Since it was so short, it wasn't going to be a hardcover book or anything, so I wasn't going to print thousands of them and try to push it through retail. As a direct-order-only limited run? Why the fuck not.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">One problem. It really is all about a horny man bull who wants to fuck you whether you want to be fucked or not. People get... testy... about that sort of thing in media in general and gaming in particular. Especially when presented in a decidedly unserious way. (I treated myself to the Boiled Angel collector's boxed set from my take of the spectacular sales last year's release cycle, so that tells you right there what my thoughts are on that matter... just imagine the finger-involved gesture I'm making right now at the frowny-faced brigade right now)</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I do believe that anything that happens, or has happened, or might happen, or could be imagined happening, belongs in fiction, and anything in fiction belongs in gaming. And if this sort of thing specifically can be in novels and movies and music and GREEK FUCKING MYTHS, it can be in gaming. Other people disagree, but then that's why there are multiple people all making things according to their own philosophies and taste.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But I didn't want to hear the blah blah blah over this with all the other blah blah blah I was likely to hear with this release cycle, so I just put it front and center in the promo material. People have seen their twitch channels crash when dealing material even in the general direction of this sort of thing, and there have been controversy and all sorts of shit when people introduce this kind of material in convention games.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So that's what the promo blurb said. This is what it is, you either want it or you don't. No surprises.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Then there is the disclaimer blurb on the back cover... that comes from a copy of 120 Days of Sodom I have, produced in 2008, which contains this blurb on the copyright page: "This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race have changed before allowing them to read this classic work."</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">whaaaaaaaaaaat? That's what you're worried about kids taking away from that story? They're having a laugh with that, right?</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But the idea of parents presenting 120 Days in Sodom to their kids to read was hilarious to me, and the idea of parents sitting down to play Asterion with their kids is similarly hilarious, so... that explains the back cover.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Fun fact: A couple days ago DriveThru informed me they will not carry Asterion. Someone remind me at the beginning of September to put together a real presentation next year for Banned Books week because we've got quite the collection of publications that have been banned from one venue or another.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">#2 soon! It's not going to be getting any friendlier!</div></div>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-11468630026872461622021-11-17T00:37:00.003+02:002021-11-17T00:37:32.595+02:00WHY I PUBLISHED... #4: Wight Power!<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here we go...</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H1gDTM1uDXA/YZQylCMh0FI/AAAAAAAAS8o/g96HyCPYt28izpcQZZYzOCBGmTV2Yy76wCLcBGAsYHQ/s894/wightpowercoverdisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="894" data-original-width="628" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H1gDTM1uDXA/YZQylCMh0FI/AAAAAAAAS8o/g96HyCPYt28izpcQZZYzOCBGmTV2Yy76wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/wightpowercoverdisplay.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'allo all!</span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">On October 25 we made 10 new releases available from <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl py34i1dx gpro0wi8" href="https://www.lotfp.com/store/" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation;" target="_blank">https://www.lotfp.com/store/</a></span> ; eight for sale, and two freebies to entice purchase.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Packing and shipping from that initial avalanche of orders is DONE! But while there are other duties, I'm going to take a few minutes every day or five to explain why I decided to publish the items I did, and I will do so in order from what I expected to be the most generally acceptable to what I expect to be the most controversial.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Now coming in at #4... Wight Power!</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">First off, I want to say that this post is the opinion of the publisher, James Edward Raggi IV. The author has his own thoughts on his instagram page, the first post of which is here: <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl py34i1dx gpro0wi8" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CVdNX4hJpuy/" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation;" target="_blank">https://www.instagram.com/p/CVdNX4hJpuy/</a></span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Now this is at #4 in possible trouble for one reason: All the possible controversy is in the title. And the title is simply wordplay, since the adventure takes place on the Isle of Wight and one of the possible complications in the adventure is a reanimated corpse. And as naive as this may be, as much as I knew that people's knees were going to jerk hard at the title (I kept the title secret until it went on sale because I didn't want to catch all the shit without people being able to see the truth of the matter for themselves), I believe that what something is, is far more important for judging a thing, than what something could be mistaken for being. And I released things this time around, three of them in fact, that are substantively more subversive and disturbing in their actual contents than this book.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And there isn't anyone that's going to tell me that something so stupid as the concept and ideology behind "white power" is so important, that the words are so sacred, that wordplay and puns and generally goofing on it is some blasphemous act. Fuck off with that shit. I have no respect or reverence for "white power," either the words or the concept, and neither should you. I also have no respect for people who would insist that I should have respect for it, either the words or the concept, and neither should you.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And I don't know who needs to hear this, but "wight" and "white" are words with different origins and different meanings. Anyone who says they are the same thing is wrong, or is lying to you.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Anyone who has read any of the actual book and still says that the title is some sort of racist signal, or anyone who knows who the author Alex Mayo is and still says that the title is some sort of racist signal, is either a blithering imbecile, a vicious liar, and probably both.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But I know how people are. I know how the internet is. I knew that people were going to react to the title, I knew that most people don't look into things, I knew that certain people were going to assume the worst when they saw the title, and I knew that certain people were going to use the title as a weapon against LotFP, honesty be damned.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So then... why when Alex pitched me the title and concept along with a few others, was I immediately drawn to this one? Why would I volunteer for at the minimum being harassed by morons, and at worst being branded for all time (the association is only an internet search away!) as an absolutely horrible person (by those that don't already think that of me, of course)?</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Because fuck you, that's why.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I'm going to break it down more than that of course, but that's basically it. Do we have the freedom to create or don't we? If we do, then fuck off and leave us to it. If we don't, then I don't want to be here anymore, in this job, on this Earth. It's the only thing that makes life bearable. I'll go out with middle fingers extended.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And I've felt kind of neutered the past couple years. I don't deal too well with real-world things. It's one reason why I enjoy fiction and art and publishing and all the things that occur in the mind and imagination and don't participate in the real world so much. So when Alex offered this to me, it felt like I was being confronted with Big Questions in Life.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Who am I? What do I believe in? Am I going to keep my head down and be scared of twitter rando opinion forever?</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">nah.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And I've told this story a bunch of times before, but it's relevant and worth repeating: One reason my tastes are as they are, one reason my tastes are as they are, one reason LotFP looks the way it does, is because of the Satanic Panic and general anti-D&D attitudes in the 80s. That devil-may-care 70s attitude towards presentation in the original books was simply superior, and they ruined most everything by watering down what they presented and how they encouraged their player base to water down their imaginations.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The forces today that want to bowdlerize creative work and sand down all the interesting edges and features aren't the same as the people who did so back then, but their influence and pressure is having the exact same effect. I don't have any respect for the people who put negative pressure to conform to certain views in the 80s, and I certainly don't have any respect for the people who are doing it now.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Your modern day Pat Pullings with their misdirected trauma, and your modern day Thomas Radeckis with their bullshit social theories about media, can all go eat shit. Leave people alone.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">oohhhh trivia: When deciding how to reveal this book to the world during the release day livestream, I had something more fun in mind than just taking it out of a bag to show off the cover. The idea I had was to pretend like I had no idea how "wight" was pronounced. I was going to say I thought "wight" was Welsh in origin, and pronounce the word in that exaggerated Blackadder-phlegm-joke way. I'd say "Wicchhgt Power! It takes place on the Isle of Wicchhggt" and act completely clueless about it resembling a sinister phrase. But I didn't trust my acting ability to make it seem even remotely convincing, and I definitely didn't trust my ability to do it without cracking up.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And underneath the catchy title, there's one hell of an adventure there too. Faction play, a mystery, weird science, and multiple threat vectors. Sort of like how Towers Two had a lot of insanity laid over what was essentially a small-scale old-school sandbox setting.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">#3 soon!</div></div>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-8603963591993167672021-11-07T17:25:00.000+02:002021-11-07T17:25:32.887+02:00WHY I PUBLISHED... #5: 6X6X6: The Mayhemic Misssile Method (Tenscore and Sixteen Ways for Sorcerists, Witches, and Other Thaumatrophs to Defend Their Indefensible Persons)!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3eJAc1q-L5U/YYfuxM6GzLI/AAAAAAAAS8c/3FBCDTebM1cSseOE5aFNzJQ_zm0rVI0PwCLcBGAsYHQ/s907/666CoverDisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="907" data-original-width="634" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3eJAc1q-L5U/YYfuxM6GzLI/AAAAAAAAS8c/3FBCDTebM1cSseOE5aFNzJQ_zm0rVI0PwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/666CoverDisplay.jpg" width="224" /></a></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">'allo all!</span></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">On October 25 we made 10 new releases available from <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl py34i1dx gpro0wi8" href="https://www.lotfp.com/store/" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation;" target="_blank">https://www.lotfp.com/store/</a></span> ; eight for sale, and two freebies to entice purchase.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Packing and shipping from that initial avalanche of orders is ongoing, but I'm going to take a few minutes every day or two to explain why I decided to publish the items I did, and I will do so in order from what I expected to be the most generally acceptable to what I expect to be the most controversial.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Now coming in at #5... 6X6X6: The Mayhemic Misssile Method (Tenscore and Sixteen Ways for Sorcerists, Witches, and Other Thaumatrophs to Defend Their Indefensible Persons)!</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Holy balls where do we start with this one? Last winter, while waiting for Antitheses to be completed, right around I did that call for collaborators... I receive an almost fully formed draft of a book all about magic missiles (or, as the book calls them, "misssiles").</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">There was an immediate conflict: I have one conception of Magic-Users as utility players, not combat artillery. Removing fireball and lightning bolt from the spell list was done long ago, but for the (still far in the future; the current rulebook will get at least one reprint which should last a few years) "next edition," I had an idea to remove absolutely all 'direct damage' spells from the list.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">On the other hand, this thing I had just expands on something already coded right into the LotFP rules: "Each Magic-User’s Magic Missile is unique in appearance and always looks the same. When the caster writes a scroll, the resulting Missile looks identical to the normally cast version. When using a scroll written by another Magic-User, or memorizing a spell out of another’s spellbook, the resulting spell will look like that other caster’s Missile. Each different ‘signature’ for a Magic Missile must be researched and/or transcribed as if it were a different spell."</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">With 216 variations on the magic missile spell (the 6x6x6 title is a double entendre, referring to both the blasphemous nature of magic and the die mechanic used to randomly determine the variation), plus six separate frameworks by which magic missile can work, with each combination being researched/prepared/cast as a separate spell, the book provides 1296 variations of a single spell. I was seeing the book as something akin to the old Champions sourcebooks, "the Ultimate Energy Blaster" sort of thing (with a lot of the missile variants suggesting and having effects beyond just the damage rolled), which had the added bonus of making individual MUs unique in some way, even with the most generic of spells. Plus so many of the effects are going to be incongruous with individual campaign flavors, and I see that as a complete plus because that's what the very nature of magic is, an out of context intrusion into a world.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So this was either going to be a product with possible crossover mass appeal because what game doesn't use the most basic of pew-pew spells (absolutely everyone can use this as-is in their next game), or an incredibly niche exercise in pedantry.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So what the hell... let's do this!</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The first concern was going to be whether to try to push this as a general audiences game aid or to go all LotFP with it. The answer to that one was pretty obvious. There were some pretty gnarly effects in the book, and some pretty bizarre effects, in the text, and it seemed like a complete waste to not highlight those in the artwork. I asked the author how much I was allowed to LotFP up the art (authors do have a strong say in how their books are presented!), and the answer was "As for interior art, I approve gruesomeness, if that's what you mean by LotFP. I prefer it cartoonish--Robocop, Evil Dead 2. But I request no genitals." No genitals, no problem! I consider 'Robocop' to be is pretty damn gruesome (but of course I have the director's cut in mind more than the theatrical cut when thinking of the movie... it that cheating?). OK. Let's go NUTS.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So yeah, I took this thing that could appeal to every damn body if they got to know about it, and made it something that'll repulse a great percentage of them. But mass appeal madness eats your brain, so I thought it should instead be as genuine and cool as possible.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But there was the problem of the cover. Individual pieces inside the book are no problem to conceptualize, just pick an entry and illustrate that, but how to do a cover that encapsulates the entire concept? Ideas went back and forth, but in the end I thought that any representation would somehow be limited or generic. So came the idea of just presenting a foiled text design and sidestepping the issue in favor of a classy look. The gold foil on purple cloth looks absolutely magnificent in the final product, if I do say so myself.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">For the interior, to go all 'Robocop' gruesomeness will require anatomical realism to have the requisite impact, so Yannick Bouchard was the only person that could do it. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">A layout that's going to be all table/formatting rather than the usual text flow, cloth and foil cover, Bouchard doing all the art. This was not going to be a cheap book, and I knew it before proceeding down this path. Fuck it. Full-effort failure is worth more than half-ass success. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">One thing I didn't expect, as I was going through the text to figure out which entries would be best to illustrate, at first I thought I was being cheeky in putting metal references in the art briefs... but... ahhh... it wasn't me being cheeky or putting my influence on someone else's work, I was just reading what's in the frickin book. Like the entries in item #200 wasn't a dead dead dead giveaway.. oh yeah, that is Paul Di'Anno's arm we used as a model for the accompanying illustration across the spread. But I'm often bad in picking out such things when I'm reviewing drafts, as my concerns are general atmosphere and structural cohesion more than detail flair; that's the writer's job. (For example in Kelvin Green's work, I only discovered his recurring bits when fans started asking about them... hell, I learned about one thing he repeats every time just yesterday!)</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So anyway, on page three is a Doug Johnson (Defenders of the Faith, Screaming for Vengeance cover artist) inspired piece that's pretty much saying what this book is all about. Yeah, that thing is a magic missile spell and this is what we're doing with the concept so get on board right the fuck now. Then the next picture is one that I hope makes people puke because it's dental trauma... but the fun thing about a lot of these illustrations is that the weird and gross stuff is showing what happens to the caster as their form distorts to shoot the missiles.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I'll specifically shout out p49's full-page illustration for being so ridiculous as to be sublime, and the final illustration on p64 is so LotFP to the core that I think I should put it on a roll-up stand so everyone passing by our convention booths when we return to the world next year has to look at it.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">This book turned out beyond-anything-I-could-have-dreamed-when-it-was-first-presented-to-me awesome and it fucking rocks and if you haven't ordered it yet you are a fool. Because not only can you use it as-is in your game, you can just read through the first few pages and start using it in your game TODAY. So easy and adaptable.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">#4 in a day or two! We are now crossing the rubicon.</div></div>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-61970796991913864032021-11-06T17:53:00.002+02:002021-11-06T17:53:23.964+02:00WHY I PUBLISHED... #6: In a Deadly Fashion!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LHPlv-CYdj8/YYak59GIQGI/AAAAAAAAS8Q/VR8NguLtk6knoN73XbKk_qu3DfqgxOKTgCLcBGAsYHQ/s906/inadeadlyfashioncoverdisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="906" data-original-width="631" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LHPlv-CYdj8/YYak59GIQGI/AAAAAAAAS8Q/VR8NguLtk6knoN73XbKk_qu3DfqgxOKTgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/inadeadlyfashioncoverdisplay.jpg" width="223" /></a></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">'allo all!</span></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">On October 25 we made 10 new releases available from <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl py34i1dx gpro0wi8" href="https://www.lotfp.com/store/" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation;" target="_blank">https://www.lotfp.com/store/</a></span> ; eight for sale, and two freebies to entice purchase.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Packing and shipping from that initial avalanche of orders is ongoing, but I'm going to take a few minutes every day or two to explain why I decided to publish the items I did, and I will do so in order from what I expected to be the most generally acceptable to what I expect to be the most controversial.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Now coming in at #6... In a Deadly Fashion!</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Courtney submitted the first draft of this adventure on November 30, 2015. The final draft, after playtesting, on February 15, 2016. Why did a 48 page adventure take five and a half years to get released? Not going to go too deep into it but tTto scrap that and get a new artist, but then we lost the layout person including editing changes that had been communicated to the layout person but never communicated with me, the new layout person had to recreate the old layout blocks pretty much from scratch but retain the old person's structure because art had already been done to fit the old layout, but then we lost that artist so then a new artist had to come in and of course had to do a fresh editorial review... I hope everyone involved in the delays gets an evening of uncomfortable indigestion. (I've already done my evening.) But basically this is how time works with LotFP and it got done in the end and that's all that matters. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">This adventure is all about hobnobbing with clothing-obsessed rich folk and trying to find out why the bodies are piling up, without joining the pile. I thought the fashion angle was a novel framing device and gives everything a very distinct atmosphere, and it's delivered in a tight package that'll be good for a night or two's gaming, and I think it's going to sit very well in the LotFP canon when all is said and done. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Anyway, I am over the moon about how the book came out. It looks fantastic, as befitting a fashion-related adventure. Rich Longmore really outdid himself. The cover is one of the most striking in LotFP's history, the friggin endpapers and background texture are so so so so so good and how often do you see anyone bragging about such things? It has a candidate for the most exciting LotFP action scene pieces in its pages, and another picture that I think will become a signature of LotFP... you'll know it when you see it because it's just so jolting and gratuitous and hilarious (a combination which then comes around to being ESSENTIAL!).</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And I love the idea that once this gets into stores that someone will randomly page through it and there's someone with a clock head in one piece of art, and it's never explained in the text because it's one of the PC stand-ins and so there's nothing in the book to explain it. And of the 7.9 billion people in the world, one surely will want to know what the hell is up, and what a rabbit hole they'll have to go down to figure out who that character is and why does she have a clock head. (Search for Portal Swarth in Youtube and watch the live video that comes up to find the basic inspiration for the look.) So I guess that's a bit of publisher indulgence thrown into someone's book, but hey, if you were hiring a group of player character adventurers, if one of them could break the laws of physics through the mystic arts... that they look a bit peculiar isn't the greater concern here.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And there's lots of art. Lots of it. And that's its own publishing decision. LotFP publishes books that are multiples of 16 pages for cost reasons, because of the way paper is used in the printing process (giant-ass sheets that are printed on, then it's cut and folded according to page size), if we did a multiple of 8 (I don't know if we can do four or two with stitch binding, but we definitely could with glue binding) it's still using the same amount of paper as the multiples of 16 and thus we pay for the paper, even we're not using all of it. Something like that. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So we get into a situation with these shorter books (and now speaking generally about all such books I've published, this isn't something unique to the book at hand) where 32 pages would be cramped and without the art needed to bring the ideas to life... but maybe 48 pages is a bit much to be efficient. So what do I do? Go for maybe a more efficient but uglier book? Let it breathe by filling the space with artwork? Tell the author to pad the word count so the text takes up more pages? Increase the font size? Or just use a multiple-of-eight page count and not care about the inefficiency in cost? Some combination?</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">It's a fascinating dance of economics, creative inspiration, information design, and art direction. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">(The problem seems to disappear if we're talking about a decision whether or not to do a 144 page or 160 page book. Adding an art spread or three throughout that book to get something to 160 pages isn't even a concern.)</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">One cool thing about LotFP is that we look at these things on a project-by-project basis, with no predetermined look or format hard-coded into the "product line." </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The case of this adventure, I think the "get it to 48" instead of "compress it to 32" greatly aided the entire presentation. The whole deal with macaroni fashion is rather visual anyway, and especially those notable late-page full pagers/page and a half art pieces would probably have never come to pass if we had 16 (or even eight!) less pages to work with.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">#5 in a day or two! This is where it starts to get SPICY.</div></div>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-57684424347644981102021-11-04T21:11:00.003+02:002021-11-04T21:11:17.324+02:00WHY I PUBLISHED... #7: Terror in the Streets!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-B0V0jUEw7Jg/YYQwOi7Z4tI/AAAAAAAAS8E/39Yg_7k3rd0G1tYT6JdEFAOFadWWhQrlwCLcBGAsYHQ/s877/TitScoverdisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="877" data-original-width="629" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-B0V0jUEw7Jg/YYQwOi7Z4tI/AAAAAAAAS8E/39Yg_7k3rd0G1tYT6JdEFAOFadWWhQrlwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/TitScoverdisplay.jpg" width="230" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H3A-NRaiu84/YYQwEBqgx1I/AAAAAAAAS8A/_pxZJlbuQxcDwZke2VbDy_uxvb4qL-WVACLcBGAsYHQ/s1000/titsboxcontentdisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H3A-NRaiu84/YYQwEBqgx1I/AAAAAAAAS8A/_pxZJlbuQxcDwZke2VbDy_uxvb4qL-WVACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/titsboxcontentdisplay.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">'allo all!</span><p></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">On October 25 we made 10 new releases available from <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl py34i1dx gpro0wi8" href="https://www.lotfp.com/store/" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation;" target="_blank">https://www.lotfp.com/store/</a></span> ; eight for sale, and two freebies to entice purchase.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Packing and shipping from that initial avalanche of orders is ongoing, but I'm going to take a few minutes every day or two to explain why I decided to publish the items I did, and I will do so in order from what I expected to be the most generally acceptable to what I expect to be the most controversial.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Now coming in at #7... Terror in the Streets!</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The original plan was to send Terror in the Streets and the Book of Antitheses to press in October 2020, as a quick turnaround after the summer's releases. TitS was ready... but Antitheses was not. So what to do?</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Instead of putting Kelvin to work on another project, I decided like a total publishing genius "Hey! While we're waiting, let's make more content for the adventure and we'll do a big ol' boxed set!"</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">There were all sorts of plans for the box... even to have a 7" record in the box. (The publishing rights ended up being something too involved for me to navigate, since the rights fees are tied up in the final price of the product, and in this case it would have cost me 8000€ just for mechanical royalties on two tracks and I couldn't find anyone at the Nordic music publishing agency to give me the time of day to explain this was to just be a component inside of a greater project and not a fancy presentation for a 7". Sucks since I did get a couple tracks for it.)</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">While I was wasting time pursuing that, Kelvin was working on a book of sidequests to TitS (mainly "stuff that happens around/starts off in Paris," and not really connected to the main adventure) and so the project ended up looking like two parts from my perspective: A more grounded "main adventure" that is along the lines of "A Jack the Ripper type situation, but in Musketeer era Paris," with sociopolitical ramifications. It's not strictly historical, there is some supernatural weirdness and "enhanced reality" lurking about, but it's more subtle than in most adventures but it'll be fun if the players get lulled into a false sense of security and it bites them right in the butt. And there's one suggestion I made in this one that I am inordinately proud of. I can't remember why we had Yannick Bouchard do this cover instead of Kelvin doing it. I remember thinking at the time that it might be a bit edgy to have Notre Dame burning on the cover but I expect nobody would have even noticed now if I didn't mention it because of the freak shows that ended up being released alongside this book.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The bonus book, Huguenauts (an intentional misspelling of Huguenots, giving a clue to what one of the sidequests is all about), is just bugfuck nuts weirdness ranging from the campy to the quite sinister. Great stuff in here. It's... difficult. It's such good stuff that it's a shame to keep it limited edition in the box, but on the other hand the box needs something special. I didn't want to do the "oh Japan wants an exclusive bonus track, guess we need to do a cover song or instrumental" move with it.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And then Kelvin designed a custom die, all six sides, so we had something to go along with the social unrest mechanic in the main adventure, made some handouts, and a bunch of paper cutouts/miniatures because I always thought that was cool in a couple of old TSR things in the 80s. We had that done in Poland.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">And then... the box. The bloody box.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Turns out for a proper game box that even 550 copies is a really small amount to manufacture and it's going to be expensive as hell to do. I could have gone for a printed cardboard folded thing like the old 2010 and 2011 LotFP boxed sets, but no, my conception from the beginning was that this time we were going to do a PROPER BOX dammit! But as it turns out, doing a proper box in these quantities meant that the box cost more to manufacture per unit than everything in the box combined. ffuuuuuuucck. But that's why it's the price it is.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Then there was a matter of sealing the box. It wasn't going through the distribution chain, so we had some leeway. Shrinkwrapping would have been the most professional way to do it, but the printer would have charged like 59€/hour to have someone manually putting all of the components into the box, so I did that myself. And it wasn't going to work having them ship me all the stuff separately, me putting everything into the box, and then shipping them all to the place to do the shrinkwrapping, then sending it all back to me. So I needed another way to seal it. I came up with the wrap idea with the sticker, and I was going to be an asshole about it. My idea was that by using the paper wrap with a sticker used to seal it shut, people couldn't open the thing without tearing the wrap and leaving all the sticker gunk on the box. Brilliant! Collectors would have to buy TWO if they wanted to see what's inside AND have a mint copy!</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Didn't work, which serves me right. I was asked if I wanted paper or vinyl stickers, and what do I know about stickers? Vinyl would be shinier and prettier, so I chose that. Damn things peel right off. uugghhhhhh.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I don't think I'll be willing to put myself through another boxed set anytime soon. Hopefully you'll find them to be a neat collector's item though.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">phew. This one was a bit of a whine. But if you end up enjoying it, then it was all worth it.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">#6 in a day or two!</div></div>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-70961188235363152302021-11-02T21:21:00.003+02:002021-11-02T21:21:41.769+02:00WHY I PUBLISHED... #8: Green Messiah<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BJRf46YWDU8/YYGPs2P2oMI/AAAAAAAAS70/G0eGXfxS34UBM1XvAmx7iU1YMBkM8RqhQCLcBGAsYHQ/s907/greenmessiahcoverdisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="907" data-original-width="636" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BJRf46YWDU8/YYGPs2P2oMI/AAAAAAAAS70/G0eGXfxS34UBM1XvAmx7iU1YMBkM8RqhQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/greenmessiahcoverdisplay.jpg" width="224" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">'allo all!</span></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">On October 25 we made 10 new releases available from <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl py34i1dx gpro0wi8" href="https://www.lotfp.com/store/" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation;" target="_blank">https://www.lotfp.com/store/</a></span> ; eight for sale, and two freebies to entice purchase.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Packing and shipping from that initial avalanche of orders is ongoing, but I'm going to take a few minutes every day or two to explain why I decided to publish the items I did, and I will do so in order from what I expected to be the most generally acceptable to what I expect to be the most controversial.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Now coming in at #8... Green Messiah!</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">oh this one is easy. Kelvin Green is always a good time for an adventure. His material is always eminently playable, excellently crafted, and nails that balance of whimsy and creepiness that's unique amongst the LotFP rogue's gallery. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But when I read Green Messiah, I just went nuts. He'd outdone himself. I immediately started telling people that Kelvin Green was the RPG equivalent of John Landis and Joe Dante (directors who had made classic horror movies, and classic comedies, and often classic horror comedies...)... this was just next-level. Just pure fun, and horrible in the kinds of ways that I imagine general audiences would consider a good time and not just aimed at the core LotFP weirdos.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I even went so far to tell him that he'd be credited as Messiah Green this time around both because it's funny that it's just the title reversed, and because this time he was in God mode as an adventure designer.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I hope people realize what a gem Kelvin is as a creator... I'm afraid that people into the "oohhh we're so dark and have such anti-social imaginations!" LotFP stuff might be sleeping on him since he's not in that mode, and then I'm afraid that people who generally stay away from LotFP because of the same are missing out on things they'd really like. Whoever I'm accurately describing in this paragraph needs to get their head on straight right now.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">As for the adventure itself... trying not to give too much away... I'll just say space elf swamp thing (this is one book you do judge by the cover!) and you'll get the general themes of the adventure.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">All-time legend shit, this one is.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">#7 in a day or two!</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">(why do I think one of the entries at the end of this series will have more engagement than the others?)</div></div>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-3226763095108864142021-11-01T21:04:00.004+02:002021-11-01T21:04:53.266+02:00 WHY I PUBLISHED... #9: The Staffortonshire Trading Company Works of John Williams<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D2FJlQMLMhA/YYA6LWzGtYI/AAAAAAAAS7s/Y1i_8hb3RuIpf1XXrX8XFCYNw7ZHSPrGACLcBGAsYHQ/s896/staffortonshirecoverdisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="896" data-original-width="628" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D2FJlQMLMhA/YYA6LWzGtYI/AAAAAAAAS7s/Y1i_8hb3RuIpf1XXrX8XFCYNw7ZHSPrGACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/staffortonshirecoverdisplay.jpg" width="224" /></a></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">'allo all!</span></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">On October 25 we made 10 new releases available from <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl py34i1dx gpro0wi8" href="https://www.lotfp.com/store/" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation;" target="_blank">https://www.lotfp.com/store/</a></span> ; eight for sale, and two freebies to entice purchase.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Packing and shipping from that initial avalanche of orders is ongoing, but I'm going to take a few minutes every day or two to explain why I decided to publish the items I did, and I will do so in order from what I expected to be the most generally acceptable to what I expect to be the most controversial.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Now coming in at #9... Staffortonshire!</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">This release has basically been in the can for a number of years... but because it's pretty much just maps, I thought I'd pair it up with another historical supplement to really push the overall concept of historical gaming being part of the LotFP experience along with the weirdness and death metal and Troma flavoring.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But one project with a large advance still hasn't been done, another project that I thought was going to be a showcase event kind of book was canceled by the author last year, and at this point how long do I keep this thing laying around? Time to make the donuts.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Now since we started using the Early Modern historical time period for the backdrop of LotFP in 2012, there has been this tension of people not knowing how to do history "right." If people pick up classic RPG settings like Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk, they feel they have more license to invent or change or even just make mistakes concerning the setting, because it's made up, who cares.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But history? oooooo it's like they're hurting somebody if they screw it up.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Happens to me frequently. I goof shit up all the time, and I have a couple bookcases of expensive university press books concerning the era. (I'd recommend Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis, Cunningham and Grell's The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and Peter H. Wilson's Europe's Tragedy as good primers for the era... and just from these titles you see one reason I chose this time period for LotFP!)</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So I've had the idea to have people do historical sourcebooks for the era, but that's like pulling teeth. "What, no tentacle monsters?"</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">We've woven the historical setting through many of our releases, but the only one to date that really is hard history is the magnificent No Rest for the Wicked, which really is an emotional grinder worthy of the LotFP name. A few others aren't explicitly supernatural but are still "hyper real" in ways I wouldn't consider them "historically based." </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So here you go, a whole 128 pages of maps that can help you present a greater sheen of authenticity if you're embracing the historical setting as the backdrop for all the fantastic nonsense that people seem to prefer from their RPG gaming.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Of course there's the concept, and then there's the production. What should the _book_ look like? This is where the publisher/businessman hat comes into play.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I went with a fancy-ass printed hard cover with foiling, a "wet" varnish (feels so good to just rub it all over!), a couple of bookmark ribbons, and stitch binding, plus a full color print even though for the most part the colors are very muted background texture. Yeah, I could have just done a cheapie b/w softcover and maybe it could sell for half the price (I price using a formula based on actual per-unit cost).</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But a few things there...</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">One, there is evidence that putting a book in a hardcover format makes it sell better than a softcover, simply for the fact that it's hardcover. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Two, because my pricing is based on costs... better production values means a bigger risk... but bigger potential reward if it catches on and sells well. A more expensive book that sells well better enriches the creator (who damn well deserves it doing 128 pages of maps!) as well as keeps my business going and allows me a greater opportunity to take chances on other projects. And if the risk doesn't pay off... well... we did our best shooting for success, which makes a whole lot more sense to me than presenting a project that was produced to mitigate failure.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Three, who doesn't love a well-made, beautiful book? People who want it cheap can (and will) print out the PDF. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">#8 in a day or two!</div></div>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-50708095296692900632021-10-31T20:05:00.001+02:002021-10-31T20:10:14.478+02:00WHY I PUBLISHED... #10: Death Frost Doom Throwback Edition<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lBLrrA1L7yI/YX7auwdF0wI/AAAAAAAAS7k/kvHPnQBIYdEWZfqqmB64CG2e4C6-FLWqACLcBGAsYHQ/s680/dfdtcoverdisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="464" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lBLrrA1L7yI/YX7auwdF0wI/AAAAAAAAS7k/kvHPnQBIYdEWZfqqmB64CG2e4C6-FLWqACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/dfdtcoverdisplay.jpg" width="218" /></a></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">'allo all!</span></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">On October 25 we made 10 new releases available from <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl py34i1dx gpro0wi8" href="https://www.lotfp.com/store/" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation;" target="_blank">https://www.lotfp.com/store/</a></span> ; eight for sale, and two freebies to entice purchase.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Packing and shipping from that initial avalanche of orders is ongoing, but I'm going to take a few minutes every day or two to explain why I decided to publish the items I did, and I will do so in order from what I expected to be the most generally acceptable to what I expect to be the most controversial.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">First up at #10... the Death Frost Doom Throwback Edition!</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">This is a limited edition of 500 hardcover, thread-sewn copies, and will be automatically added for free to any order from the EU webstore containing eight or more items (any eight, not necessarily the eight new ones), while supplies last.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The explanation for publishing this one is rather simple... I thought it would be good to give incentive to buy all of the new items, but since some of the new items would be... difficult... I didn't want to strongarm people into buying books they might find objectionable, so I made it available for any order of eight or more items.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So this version of Death Frost Doom is the original adventure that properly launched LotFP, and was intended as an homage to Evil Dead and Night of the Living Dead (and, unbeknownst to me at the time I wrote it, the Lichway... someone sent me a copy not long after the original release to let me know about that. <span class="pq6dq46d tbxw36s4 knj5qynh kvgmc6g5 ditlmg2l oygrvhab nvdbi5me sf5mxxl7 gl3lb2sf hhz5lgdu" style="display: inline-flex; font-family: inherit; height: 16px; margin: 0px 1px; vertical-align: middle; width: 16px;"><img alt="😛" height="16" referrerpolicy="origin-when-cross-origin" src="https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/tf8/1.5/16/1f61b.png" style="border: 0px;" width="16" /></span>). Across all printings and versions is one of our most popular titles of all time. The original version hasn't been officially available since the rewrite came out in 2014, so lots of people haven't seen it. Reprinting a classic title like this made more sense financially than commissioning an entirely new project that would just be given away for free.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So that's that.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">(fun fact: Both Bridget Phetasy and my printer for some reason call this adventure Death Frost Room. Don't ask me why.)</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">#9 in a day or two!</div></div>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-24858224764277422002021-10-23T21:47:00.001+03:002021-10-23T21:54:47.088+03:00Details on the New Releases Out Oct 25, Plus Livestream Oct 24!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OqqE9nxyZFE/YXRYiqz5lhI/AAAAAAAAS7Q/BosVpiWeyvMxfne4-_-wdQb1ZH_RPx6GQCLcBGAsYHQ/s500/oct2021newreleases.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="459" data-original-width="500" height="294" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OqqE9nxyZFE/YXRYiqz5lhI/AAAAAAAAS7Q/BosVpiWeyvMxfne4-_-wdQb1ZH_RPx6GQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/oct2021newreleases.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Once more unto the breach!</span></p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">On Monday October 25th is new release day! Eight new books for sale, and two bonus items to encourage you to get in on the new stuff early!</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">We'll be introducing the new books in a livestream Sunday October 24 at 21.00 Finland time on the </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/lotfp" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">LotFP Youtube channel</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">.</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">We previously had started our pre-release hype detailing The State of the LotFP Union (</span><a href="http://lotfp.blogspot.com/2021/09/10-new-releases-have-gone-to-press-but.html" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">blog</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">, </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/LotFP/posts/10158441249050886" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Facebook</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">) as well as The Strength of LotFP (</span><a href="http://lotfp.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-strength-of-lotfp-new-releases-out.html" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">blog</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">, </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/LotFP/posts/10158505970100886" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Facebook</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">).</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">We'll also be offering the Adventure Anthology slipcase as a separate item for sale when the new books go live.</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The freebies will be The Butchery of Agnes Gooder, which will be put in the first 500 orders, and we've done up a special hardcover reprint of the very first printing of Death Frost Doom, which you will get free if you order any eight items at once (any eight, not necessarily the eight new ones) after the new items go live (limited to 500 copies).</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The titles for sale are:</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">6x6x6 The Mayhemic Misssile Method</b><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> by Ezra Claverie: Customize and expand your Magic-User's offensive potential with this arsenal of options! Presented as a beautiful clothbound hardcover with terrifying and wondrous art by Yannick Bouchard.</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Asterion</b><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> by Kristopher Carosella: A zine-formatted release concerning a very classic monster. Limited to 500 copies.</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Book of Antitheses</b><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> by Jobe Bittman: This is the damndest thing. Mostly an adventure, but also the ultimate guide to unlocking the magick of role-playing! Extensively illustrated by Grammy-nominated artist Benjamin Marra, with a foreword by JF Martel.</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Green Messiah</b><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> by Kelvin Green: A botanical adventure set in the English countryside, with possible global implications!</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">In a Deadly Fashion by Courtney C. Campbell</b><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">: High fashion meets stark terror in this adventure set in Seville. Brilliantly illustrated by Rich Longmore.</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Staffortonshire Trading Company Works of John Williams</b><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> by Glynn Seal: An extensive collection of maps to bring the Early Modern to life in your campaign!</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Terror in the Streets</b><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> by Kelvin Green: An adventure set in 1630 Paris, available as either a hardcover book or limited edition deluxe boxed set which includes the main adventure hardcover plus an additional hardcover book, props, and a custom die.</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">And one adventure by Alex Mayo that we will be keeping secret until everything goes on sale. It's a belter.</span><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The limited items will not be going through the distribution chain or be available from the US webstore, and the rest probably won't reach the US warehouse until after the new year. Never fear though, we ship worldwide from the EU webstore and over the summer we reached agreements with several shipping companies to get our parcel shipping prices as low as possible!</span>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-85523258671421749862021-10-22T02:38:00.000+03:002021-10-22T02:38:13.840+03:00 The Strength of LotFP (New Releases Out this MONDAY October 25!)<p>So I've been trying to put together the "Strengths of LotFP" post to accompany the Weaknesses post that went up six weeks ago. I've been having trouble because I was trying to format it like a clickbait listicle that would be all rah rah cheerleading hooks that would make existing fans feel good about their support while also enticing new or lapsed people to come on in... especially with all the new books going on sale soon. You know... marketing.</p><p>But it just wasn't working. Over a month of agonizing over it, and nothing was coming. Of course it wasn't working.</p><p>The strength of LotFP is that such horseshit simply does not apply.</p><p>In 2009-2010 we were doing dark-tinged fantasy, but it still fell within the parameters of the mainstream RPG fantasy flavor. After the first boxed set sold out very very quickly and I realized this could be a going concern and that my plan to scam the Finnish government out of startup money had failed because I'd actually created a viable startup with their money (oops), the "ok we're doing this for real now" was accompanied by a the switch to the imagery and branding of the Grindhouse boxed set... because if I was going to do it for real, I wasn't going to hold back.</p><p>So what is Lamentations of the Flame Princess? </p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>It is the feeling I got when my father gave me a crate of Conan the Barbarian and Savage Sword of Conan comics the previous tenant had left behind in the new apartment he'd moved into, and at six years old I was reading things like A Witch Shall Be Born and Horror from the Red Tower and Hawks Over Shem thinking I'd stumbled onto something mythical and magical, what with all the gore and even nudity found within, and now I want to give you that feeling of poring over the forbidden.</li><li>LotFP is when my father took me to see the rated-R Conan the Barbarian in 1982 when I was only seven years old, and I want to give that feeling of being allowed to see something you maybe shouldn't to you.</li><li>LotFP is getting into Dungeons & Dragons with the Mentzer red box in 1984 at the age of nine going on ten and having entire new worlds opened up by this new hobby, and I want to uphold role-playing's promise of being able to do anything you can imagine, for you.</li><li>LotFP is the feeling as a ten year old of getting the three AD&D hardcovers and delighting in being treated as an adult in the language and art in a product labeled for ages ten and up, and I want to give that same feeling to adults now.</li><li>LotFP is my ten year old self not being able to read the Monster Manual at night because so many of the pictures were too scary for me to handle, and I want to give that feeling to you as an adult today.</li><li>LotFP is my discovery of Weird Al Yankovic with his In 3D album and being immediately drawn to Nature Trail to Hell all about extolling everything great about slasher movies while also poking fun at their cliches, and I figure that's a great attitude to have to all this stuff.</li><li>LotFP is me going over to a friend's house every day after school at one point in the mid 80s because he had cable and MTV was showing the Young Ones and Monty Python and my prepubescent self couldn't believe the absolute chaos I was watching... and I want to give that feeling to you as an adult today.</li><li>LotFP is my father taking my ten year old self and my six year old brother to see Return of the Living Dead... and he facepalmed right there in the theater contemplating what he had done when Linnea Quigley started dancing naked in the graveyard, my brother had nightmares for a long time after seeing the movie, and I of course loved it, and I now want to make things that cause all of these reactions in other people.</li><li>LotFP is my family getting a VCR when I was 11 or 12, and we immediately rented Friday the 13th from the local video store, watched it... then I ran back to the video store to rent Friday the 13th Part II, watched it... then I ran back to the video store to rent Friday the 13th Part III, watched it... and continued on however long it was open until we ran out of Friday the 13ths to watch, and now I hope like hell we're making stuff that when someone tries one, they run right out for more afterwards.</li><li>LotFP is me renting A Nightmare on Elm Street from the local video place and it scaring the living shit out of me, so I would frequently bother the local video store DEMANDING to know when part 2 would be released for rental, because one definition of "good" is something that draws that reaction out of me and I want to draw that reaction out of you.</li><li>LotFP is me renting Toxic Avenger from the local video store in 86 or 87, starting a lifelong adoration of Troma and low budget "trash" horror... while also being terrified because the lo-fi nature of the movie made its effects seem more genuine and real to me, like I wasn't sure if I was watching a snuff film or not and what kind of sicko makes something like this... and I'm sure LotFP delivers that feeling to you.</li><li>... and LotFP is also seeing Toxic Avenger at Night Visions in 2014 and being disappointed that it was a cut version, and being pretty rude to guest of honor (and personal hero) Lloyd Kaufman during the Q&A about why there would even be a censored version in the first place.</li><li>LotFP is my mother showing me Flesh for Frankenstein (aka Andy Warhol's Frankenstein) when I was 11 or 12 when our family got our VCR and she was wanting to show me the weird horror movies she was into before she had kids... and my discomfort realizing that this really was a bit much... and now wanting to give that feeling to you as an adult today.</li><li>LotFP is me at 17 first discovering Napalm Death, then Carcass, Cathedral, Morbid Angel, Entombed, Deicide, Death, etc. etc. etc. and learning about and becoming a part of this worldwide underground, parallel world that had fuck-all to do with the mainstream, that never had to compromise, and the deeper I dug the less the artists cared whether anyone liked them or not... and I'm still digging 29 years later.</li><li>LotFP is my reaction when my first girlfriend, a Wiccan, wanted to teach me about paganism, and so she showed me The Wicker Man... and now I want to give you that same sense of "what in the actual fuck are you trying to tell me?" today. </li><li>LotFP is my going to see Event Horizon in 1997 thinking it was just a sci fi spaceship movie and wondering why my girlfriend at the time showed up with a teddy bear to hold, and being absolutely delighted that there was an unexpected horror genre switch... and I hope more of you would surreptitiously slip in LotFP adventures in your regular RPG campaigns and watch players freak right the fuck out.</li><li>LotFP is my experience of seeing Gone Fishin' with my girlfriend in 1997, because hey Joe Pesci and Danny Glover were fun in the Lethal Weapon movies, and as it turns out it was one of the worst and most unfunny comedies of all time. My girlfriend wanted to leave, and so I pretended in the theater that it was the funniest movies I've ever seen because A- I don't walk out of movies, and B- her severely agitated discomfort was definitely something to see... and I definitely want to bring that feeling to you.</li><li>I went to see The Beyond when Tarentino's Rolling Thunder toured it around the US in 1998. It was a midnight showing in a swanky shopping mall's movie theater, and the movie showing in the room immediately before was Hope Floats... LotFP is the look on all the yuppie couples' faces as they filed out, they had to run the gauntlet of us freaks lined up for some Fulci. LotFP is the movie being preceded by classic horror movie trailers and the whole place cheering as the words "It has been a number of years since I began excavating the ruins of Kandar..." rang out and we all knew what it was. LotFP is the crowd enthusiastically cheering during the main feature when a little girl's head was blown off.</li><li>LotFP is also laughing along with the rest of the crowd at a Night Visions showing of Atroz in 2013 because the movie tried way too hard (BARBED WIRE DILDO!) to the point of comedy.</li><li>LotFP is my seeing The Blair Witch Project at a small theater before its wide release, and being so affected that afterwards I wandered around the streets of Atlanta in a fugue state, the summer afternoon sun seeming very dark... and I want to give you that feeling.</li><li>LotFP is also my seeing The Blair Witch Project on its opening night of wide release with a packed house and seeing in real time a crowd going from confusion to rejection and knowing there was a great divide between me and most people... and I want to give you that feeling even more.</li><li>LotFP is my starting to collect uncut cult classic films in the late 90s, and deciding to have a date over to watch some classic horror and then maybe a bit of rompy pompy... and never having seen it before, I thought I Spit On Your Grave would be a fine film for this. I was so affected that I actually lost all sexual function for some days, and I hope to recreate that feeling for you.</li><li>LotFP is my finally buying all of Lovecraft's work in 2002 after years of seeing it referenced in movies and music, and I definitely, definitely, want to bring that feeling to you now.</li><li>LotFP is my seeing Babadook in the theater and having a complete panic attack when they did the monster reveal, I actually thought I was going to die on the spot, that was so well done... and I want to give you that feeling.</li><li>LotFP is watching Squid Game with my girlfriend and being so jealous that she's trembling and crying at the violence and drama and wishing that I could feel everything I watch as deeply as that... and I hope I can do that for you all.</li></ul><p></p><p>But LotFP is also burning hatred for those who wish to restrict what people are allowed to imagine, or what media other people are allowed to have ready access to.</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>LotFP is complete contempt for Mary Whitehouse and her National Viewers' and Listeners' Association and the pressure it put on British media.</li><li>LotFP is complete contempt for the PMRC and everything it did to make life miserable for musicians.</li><li>LotFP is complete contempt Pat Pulling, Thomas Radecki, and every parent, teacher, reporter, police officer, anyone that had anything to do with creating the atmosphere that resulted in my mother sitting me down to watch Mazes and Monsters like it was a fucking documentary, anything that contributed to a police officer coming to my elementary school to talk to us about the dangers of heavy metal and role-playing games (YEAH THAT WORKED REAL WELL YOU FUCKERS), anything that contributed to putting Gary Gygax on 60 minutes, anything that contributed to the Angry Mothers from Heck attitude at TSR and their capitulation and infantilizing the game.</li><li>LotFP is complete contempt for the people that put the Dead Kennedys on trial for their artwork in the Frankenchrist album, the people who put Mike Diana in jail for comics they didn't like, for putting 2 Live Crew's music on trial, for the public pressure and government action after Janet Jackson's Superbowl performance.</li><li>LotFP is complete contempt for content standards (Hays Code, Comics Code) which restrict creativity, and rating systems as they become guides and limitations for creative works rather than simply describing content.</li></ul><p></p><p>If you support the banning of creators or creations, blacklists or blackballing, or making it more difficult for people to acess creative works that you don't like, you are a wicked person. There is nothing on this Earth worse than a censor.</p><p>So there it is, describing the ethos of LotFP through example. Maybe not the slickest marketing, but if it can reach the people who connect with the vibe, then who gives a shit about the rest.</p><p>Although if you're wanting more traditional hype and testimonials, check out what LotFP's fans say about the game <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/lotfp/posts/2427546284221371/">here</a>.</p><p>Concerning the upcoming releases... we'll be doing a livestream on Sunday on our Youtube channel to introduce the new books, and before that we'll have some more specific information in this space about all the new releases... </p><p>It's our biggest release cycle yet. We're releasing ten new items. Eight for sale, and two bonus items. </p><p>Four should be fine for general audiences. (but what do I know, I thought Blood in the Chocolate was going to be fine for general audiences before people started telling me how awful some bits of it were)</p><p>Two would have been fine for general audiences if we didn't decide to do up the art all LotFP-like.</p><p>Two will cause frowny faces to those who think frowny faces are the thing to do.</p><p>Two will be absolutely indefensible to those who think creativity needs to be defendable.</p><p>My life, and the lives of everyone involved with LotFP and who plays LotFP will change on Monday.</p><div><br /></div>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-74132308578073718922021-10-04T23:01:00.003+03:002021-10-04T23:01:57.197+03:00If Facebook stays down forever I might have to use this thing again.<p> Anyway, two of the things to be released soon have been delivered, and four more are expected in this week... with the last four coming next week.</p><p>I really need to get that "Five Great Things About LotFP" post that was supposed to be a quick follow-up to the last Debbie Downer post finished.</p><p>In (cross-fingers) two weeks time, we are going to blow your minds, melt your faces, and you know all the rest.</p><p>I kind of hope Facebook never comes back. Wouldn't that be nice. But it'll come back up, before I hit 'publish' on the post even, and I'll be right back there looking at nonsense, posting nonsense, and using it as a work communications tool instead of email like a responsible person.</p>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-68794494032337503402021-09-10T15:49:00.000+03:002021-09-10T15:49:53.931+03:0010 New Releases Have Gone to Press. But First, The State of the LotFP Union<p>First, the real news: The long-awaited "next release cycle" is finally happening. Ten new releases have gone to press.</p><p>Eight will be for sale, one will be a freebie that you get if you order eight items at once (any eight, not necessarily the eight new things), and one will be a freebie you get with any order. Here is the lineup for each of the releases, in alphabetical order by book title:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Ezra Claverie and Yannick Bouchard</li><li>Kristopher Carosella and the Metropolitan Museum of Art</li><li>Jobe Bittman and Benjamin Marra with JF Martel</li><li>Kelvin Green</li><li>Courtney Campbell and Rich Longmore</li><li>Glynn Seal</li><li>Kelvin Green (again!)</li><li>Alex Mayo and A Nonny Mouse</li></ul><p></p><p>and the no-extra-charge bonus material to encourage you to buy buy buy immediately upon release:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>m.c. franklin and Yannick Bouchard</li><li>James Edward Raggi IV and Laura Jalo and Aino Purhonen</li></ul><p></p><p>Yes, I know I didn't include the titles yet. There is only one reprint in the bunch, and it's one of the bonus items. We'll do actual promo for the new releases as we get closer to the on-sale date. </p><p>The good news is that our new shipping deals for parcel packages in the EU webstore, in place since early last month, makes shipping so much cheaper and in many cases incredibly faster wherever you are worldwide than it was before. </p><p>And be aware that we lose our Blood in the Chocolate rights in early December (184 copies left as of this writing), and we're down to less than 50 Veins of the Earths, which won't be reprinted either, so when you buy the new releases, grab these before they're gone.</p><p>Now then, the fun part...</p><p>*** *** ***</p><p><b>State of the Union</b></p><p>We'll do the happy stuff about what the new books are, why they're awesome, and why it benefits you to buy them later on, but right now it's time for the boring business and cringy drama llama stuffs.</p><p>If the printer doesn't burn down and all the new books are released next month, it'll be fifteen months since the last LotFP releases. That's just absolutely ridiculous. And preparing ten things to go to press at once is an absolute nightmare. I actually cried as I at long last sent the last files to the printer a few weeks ago. (and as it turns out, there were technical issues and the last corrected file just got approved today. Why ever stop crying? :P )</p><p>This is a good time to take a breath, look around, and figure out where we are and where we need to go. So in that spirit, and realizing some of this might be a repeat of last year, I give you The Five Problems with LotFP:</p><p><b>Problem One: Shipping</b></p><p>The main problem with LotFP is I'm way up here in Finland, and 98% (actual number) of the customer base isn't. International shipping prices increase once, sometimes twice a year. At the beginning of 2019, the post office here got rid of the mid-price parcel shipping option. Sales dropped like a rock immediately. And when the pandemic hit, the economy letter option suddenly started taking 5-6 months to reach its destination. I had to refund a lot of orders before figuring out what was going on... (and those refunded orders were not returned to me, so people ended up keeping the books when they were eventually delivered, at my expense.)</p><p>This past summer I signed deals with three different companies (DHL, UPS, and a special contract with Posti) so parcel shipping worldwide is now much cheaper than it's been since those 2019 postal changes, so buying multiple books isn't nearly so painful postage-wise as it was. But there are no good options for shipping a single book outside of Europe at anything resembling a reasonable price, and that fact is driving most of the decision-making around here right now. It'd be nice to release each book as it is ready without worrying about when the next will be ready, it really would.</p><p>(After last year's releases, I thought the next couple books would be ready to go to press in October 2020. One was ready, the other... wasn't. So we decided to prepare a boxed set edition of the one that was ready, while waiting for the other one... which took over six more months, and in the meantime a bunch of other stuff got to that finish line and here we are with all the new releases.)</p><p>The printer is also here in Finland, and the distribution warehouse is in the USA, so there needs to be ocean freight shipping. The more units being shipped, the cheaper it is per unit.</p><p>So this is why I don't just release single books as they're finished, and I group them together for printing.</p><p>With how printing works, doing the full run here and shipping most of it overseas is cheaper than printing some here and some in North America. </p><p>And I have more than a decade's long relationship with the printer here. It seems every project has special requests that we have to work through, they work with me on delivery scheduling and billing terms (I have not been late with a single payment to them throughout our decade-plus working relationship), just tons of reasons to continue working with them rather than try printing with someone closer to the US warehouse.</p><p>So when so many projects are ready to go at the same time... what do I do? Eight books is a *lot* to ask people to buy at a time. But if I release two now, two more in two months, then a couple more two months after that... or even four now, four next month... any sort of splitting it up... aren't I just encouraging people to wait for everything on deck to be released anyway and pay a less-per-unit shipping cost anyway?</p><p>Whether I'm making the right decisions about all these things, or even good-enough decisions, I guess we'll see.</p><p>And this becomes an important issue, because...</p><p><b>Problem Two: Money</b></p><p>Through the end of 2018, LotFP was doing absolutely amazing. I had literally more money than I knew what to do with, to the point that I was giving away four-figure advances like candy and frequently spending four-figures on giveaway convention flyer art (which was always intended, admittedly, to also be used as Ref book art... even I'm not stupid enough to blow that much money on a one-use, limited-audience giveaway).</p><p>And it was all mainly propped up by two books: A Red & Pleasant Land and Veins of the Earth. RPL is now out of print, and the Veins creators are not extending my license so I won't be reprinting that, so when the current copies are gone, that's it.</p><p>(Veins is going away, and RPL is a problem in this way: I still hear consistently from people who think I was cowardly in dropping Zak and they let me know it in varying ways, from the sympathetic to what I consider kicking me in the teeth over it. I still also hear consistently from people who think I am the biggest shithead in the world for not doing the unpersoning thing with Zak and I'm frequently made aware of... unkind... things that people don't say directly to me. *shrug* Even two and a half years on I'm still not dealing well with it all; last December I applied to the health service here for specialized psychiatric care on the advice of a primary care physician after I reacted badly to sleep/depression medication he'd prescribed, but was turned down. Things haven't gotten any better since. However, after being told by multiple people independently that I should really get myself checked for ADHD, I got back on it and did manage to get an appointment with a specialist in late September and just maybe I will have a chance to find out what's going on upstairs finally.</p><p>Ah, there is a third group I hear from... the "oh get over it" crowd. I'll make y'all a deal. You make a book with no Zak involvement sell as quickly and as much as Vornheim, RPL, or Frostbitten & Mutilated... or for that matter Veins, which he was involved in... hell, even half as quickly and as much, and I'll stop thinking of this business and frankly my life in terms of Before and After the Zak situation.)</p><p>The stuff released last year? The initial sales were pretty damn amazing. Unbelievably so. But most of those profits came from the Deck gimmick pricing and slipcase add-ons, and the profits went to clearing up 2019's past-due debts (and I still have payments to do on some of that). And for the things that went into distribution, they've done OK. But they haven't been hits, nothing to replace RPL or Veins as far as providing money to invest in future products.</p><p>A bit of a tangent: A kind whistleblower told me at the beginning of the year they'd gotten into some privy areas where RPG industry people gather. (Spaces that not only have I of course never been invited into, but that I didn't even know existed.) Where there was chatter about LotFP, this person said their problem with me wasn't the Zak situation, wasn't politics of any usual sort... but because I'd fucked the payment structure of RPGs with many LotFP titles remaining creator-owned (notice how many titles say "issued under license") and paying in profit-share percentages rather than flat fees to creators. And some other smaller publishers have followed suit. This hasn't affected the top-label RPG companies I don't think, but has caused a real stink at the levels under that. And most everyone is at the levels under that. (funny that the person crowing the loudest about LotFP pay arrangements for years and years ago was also a widely unpopular person in many corners of the industry...)</p><p>I think maybe I should label everything in the webstore that does have creator profit-sharing. Publicize that more.</p><p>So anyway, this has good and bad effects. Good, because after years of running my metal zine and talking to musicians who didn't have the rights to their own work and were making pretty much no money while their record label was, when I got into RPGs I wasn't going to do the same thing. Even if that means certain titles going bye-bye because their creators weren't sticking around.</p><p>Bad, because... well, if a book is a hit, everyone swims in cash and no problems. But if a book just does OK, then... well, we're splitting OK money two or three ways. This is all I do for income. And I have full-timers I'm paying. So to keep that going on this pay structure, I need to have a decent number of releases come out, so I need people spending their time doing that. It's a balancing act.</p><p>But when there hasn't been a release for over a year... hooboy. As I laid out in my video this past February, regular releases grease the entire machine. And the machine hasn't had any grease for over a year now.</p><p>And... you're going to love this... all these new releases? Being paid for with short-term credit. They need to sell, like, right away on release.</p><p>Is that a risk? oh yeah. Unbelievably so. Stupidly so. But what choice is there? I can't count on anything being a hit, and the shipping problems mean I have to release things in batches of some size or another... and it's why I risked more with the bonus items, spending a few more thousand euros in hopes of drawing (far) more than that in sales at release, if I can.</p><p>And within all these means, I really tried to spare no expense. Going cheap isn't going to help anything, if you're buying a physical object in this day and (digital) age it has to be fucking worthy and not cookie cutter formatted cheaply produced books. This is going to result in some beautiful books. This has also resulted in doing a limited edition boxed set where the limited run means that printing the box itself costs more than everything going into the box, combined (plus I'm going to have to hand-assemble all 550 of them when everything is delivered, 21 components including the box and wrap). Yeah, I worry about whether I'm overproducing some of this stuff, whether if trying to make everything special means nothing stands out as special... but why not ask "How can I present this book as something special?" on a book-by-book basis, regardless of what's happening with any other book? Doing less than I can do doesn't make sense as a formula for success, or to put it another way, "I have a cool idea for this book but I won't do it just because I had cool ideas for some other books," makes no sense to me. But it's a gamble.</p><p>I don't want to be doing an annual "AAHHHH PLEASE BUY BUY BUY BUY SKY IS FFALLLLIINNGGGG" post but this is a small business and the past couple years it's a constant fight to pay bills and invest in the next things. There is no buffer. Enough people need to buy things or that's that. It's just how shit works. Now I know I'm not entitled to your purchases, and that's why I try to make to the best of my ability everything we release worth buying. Whether I succeed is entirely up to you. But reality is you need to decide fairly quickly when these things are released.</p><p>Do the last few paragraphs sound absolutely mental to you? Do I come off as a really bad businessman when I say all that?</p><p>Well no shit. This leads directly into our next problem:</p><p><b>Problem Three: Organization</b></p><p>I am the chief executive, product producer, project manager, art director, talent, receiving warehouse and shipping department, marketing manager, *and* customer service for this company I own. It runs out of my living room. (Well, I claim a 60% home office credit on my taxes so it's actually more accurate to say my living room is in my office... having five new titles stacked up in the apartment last year made the place unliveable. TEN? fuuckkk...)</p><p>I am good at one of those duties, really, and competent at maybe another two or three of them. The rest, I'm shit. I fell into this job and running this company because back in 2009 the government was offering 9 months of support for starting a business and I thought "hey why not avoid getting a real job for a little while longer." But to my utter shock (everyone in RPGs at the time were very down on the idea of making a living in RPGs), this LotFP thing caught on. I've been stumbling forward ever since, with this whole thing working because of good material, and not because of any sensible business strategies or infrastructure.</p><p>(I released hardcover Free RPG Day books for crying out loud. This is not responsible businessmanning.)</p><p>Project management is especially poor over this way. That February video I released looking for new contributors? That was done with the assumption that all this new stuff was going to press late May/early June. oops. Three months late. This is also the reason why crowdfunding isn't the answer to the money problem for new releases... if you think the ongoing Referee book debacle is bad (update on that coming as soon as the shipping phase on these new releases is complete, by the by), one of the books freshly sent to press was commissioned and had text completed back in 2015. It was to be part of the same batch of releases as Blood in the Chocolate (which has been out for almost five years). It went through multiple layouts and artists because people kept dropping out of the project. And that's just a frickin 48 page book. All sorts of shit happens as a normal condition of being around here. Through my years doing this I've learned that giving people deadlines doesn't result in any faster work than not giving them deadlines, so it's impossible to schedule anything. People either get their shit done in a certain timeframe or they don't, and I haven't noticed any relationship between ability to get shit done on time and the quality of the work. Crowdfunding just isn't going to work for me unless the book is 100% ready for press, and at that point, after spending on all the content and being ready to print, what happens if it doesn't fund? Do I just scrap it? And if it would fund, why give the crowdfunding platform their percentage?</p><p>I have as of this writing 497 emails in my inbox. Things that are real mail, not spam, and haven't been answered and really should be. You know the drill: Some emails that come in involve the thing being worked on right now, and others don't. You're processing orders (orders and bills get processed and printed out right away), project work, or accounting, or whatever it is other than sitting down and answering emails. And more come in than get answered over time. Things end up in a day or three falling down to page two, and it's either "out of sight out of mind," while you're dealing with the new things going ding in the inbox, or you do remember and it's "oh shit I haven't answered in a month, it'll be awkward to answer now, this had better be good..." but in the meantime more messages are piling in every day. Some of these 497 emails have been sitting in the inbox for years. Lots of missed opportunities, and/or people feeling not good because I'm not getting back to them. This isn't a good thing at all but that's how it is.</p><p>What comes into my head to fix this is "hire more people!" I could really use a personal assistant to organize and handle all the non-order emails and keep me on task day to day (and to actually write the response emails based on what I think the response should be but without the anxiety of how to word them because I'm always worried I'm going to say something that pisses people off if I'm just rushing through emails, so instead I piss them off by requiring them to re-send emails because I'm putting off responding...aghhhhh. Yeah. But hiring an assistant for this requires shitloads more money than I have available, even for part-time help. </p><p>But as it is, I sort of flail around, working on one thing only until something else dings and then I go after that until something else dings. And the thing that comes last in my priorities is my own creative work, frankly.</p><p>This was all so manageable when there were just a few releases, mostly mine, and I had a living situation where I wasn't actually required (expected?) to make any real money at it. Just as long as it self-sustained. Now it's dealing with dozens of people on dozens of projects in various states of doneness and multiple peoples' livelihoods are at stake and it all just sort of happened where I thought "OK I'm doing this now but if I do THIS then things will be better" and in this case "better" just means bigger risks for potentially bigger rewards. I was never in my life very conscientious or disciplined before starting this company and I haven't figured it out after 12 years in business. So I oscillate between thinking "it's going to be 14/15 months between releases? Fuck!" and "It's a bloody fucking miracle anything's ever been released."</p><p>But in the end I do this because I have to. Not as in "I have an obligation" (although I do, to many people at this point), but because when it actually works, when other people do their things right and I do my things right and something is created, there is no better feeling in the world and certainly nothing better I can be doing for the world. Despite however I have to fight myself and other people to get any damn thing done, I don't have much of a choice. What else am I going to do? What else would I want to do? This is a dream job in a great many ways.</p><p>I think I'm good on the creative end, working with people to do something a little better, a little more effective, than it would have been without me... but a good businessman I ain't. Which exacerbates every other problem.</p><p>Anyway, the goal I have is to organize myself so that after this mega mass homicide of a release cycle, I can release batches of three books every quarter. Not just 32 or 48 page books either. Probably mostly though. With the idea that the wheel will keep turning and we're always in the "what's new?" conversation for fans and on the retail end, and if the wheel is being greased just maybe it's not a disaster if the new books don't sell immediately. And if there are more than three things ready to go that quarter, I don't have to go insane releasing them all because who knows when the next release is. bloody hell this has been a pain in the ass.</p><p>I thought whether it was wise to say any of this publicly, but if I'm going to have a cathartic "put all the cards on the table" exhalation here with any honesty, it has to be on the table. And what I'm saying won't be news to anyone paying the least bit of attention for any amount of time anyway. We're not smiley-faced "creative professionals" with our timetables and handshakes and a desire to bring focus-grouped fun to your entire family. We're... different. From you, and each other. And now I realize my intended generalizations aren't really going to work. Some of the people I work with do come off to me as the smiley-faced creative professional type that can be normal and deal with normal people, and I'm fucking lucky that any of that type want to work with me and they probably pull their hair out in their dealings with me.</p><p>Wait? People paying attention? That seems important...</p><p><b>Problem Four: Promotion</b></p><p>This past week I was invited by one convention organizer to be part of a panel with another publisher for a convention that will hopefully be happening, and that I will hopefully be able to attend, in 2022. The first thing I asked them: "Won't that other publisher's fans cause a problem for them if they're on a panel with me?"</p><p>That's how I perceive my image with the RPG public to be. Makes it a bit difficult to stick my head out and say "Hey, look at all this cool shit we're doing!"</p><p>So... promotion.</p><p>People buy RPGs when they like the material AND they believe they can actually play the damn thing with other people.</p><p>And RPGs, even after they reach a level of popularity and success, require promotion to constantly attract new people. People don't remain with a game line forever. They get other hobbies, move on to the next shiny thing, have money issues, just lose interest, get offended and say fuck it, aren't gaming during a global pandemic... or maybe very few people buy everything, so you need more people so there are enough buying each thing. A million reasons why people cycle out that are all normal and happen in the best of times. To not continue to promote means steady fanbase attrition even if everything else is aces.</p><p>And the promotion... um. LotFP has an enormous problem here. Forget the issue of getting the attention of the RPG masses. It's worse than that. If someone hears about LotFP and wants to find out more about it, how exactly does one go about learning about it?</p><p>Any ideas?</p><p>Anyone?</p><p>yeah. There really isn't anywhere to go to find that shit out. I like talking up LotFP, in LotFP spaces, in terms of the vibe and outside media influences. I don't talk about LotFP in terms of where it stands in the contemporary RPG scene... because I have no idea. I haven't played D&D since 2nd edition. I didn't play 3e, or 4e, I haven't played 5e. Or Vampire, ever. Or FATE, or even Call of Cthulhu (although I have played other BRP games). I own the books for many of these games, I've read through a lot of them... but not interested in playing them. Hell, the past few years I've gotten things like the reprint of the Star Wars RPG from the 80s, that big Fantasy Trip box Kickstarted a few years ago, and the Rogue Trader reprint. Haven't even opened their boxes/taken off the shrink wrap. I played lots of different games through about 2000... and then just stopped. I found the nascent OSR in the early 2000s and that was it for me. The system is incredibly versatile, I know what to tweak and twist to change how it plays out, and the OSR showed that the basic rules frame is entirely modular... you just swap out various rules for different ones, you can end up with a Theseus' Ship game, where every rule has been swapped out but it's still "the same game." And if you need a new subsystem, you just make it up and bolt it on and it works. I find that worrying about mechanics and systems and such are not ther terms of how I think about my game, and was very surprised when I worked with a veteran game designer that he was writing material for LotFP *using the rules*. Blew my fucking mind. Didn't occur to me that someone would do that.</p><p>So how do I communicate to the mainstream gamer, who might be interested in LotFP if I could only communicate to them its strengths not as a vibe or an atmosphere or an idea or comparison to other media examples, but *as a game* in contrast to what's out there already?</p><p>Fuck if I know.</p><p>So how does one promote a role-playing game...</p><p>LotFP's original trick was being part of a greater OSR, where tons of different people used more or less a common system to express their individual ideas. We plugged into an existing ecosystem, and together acted as a promotional force multiplier without even trying. And we all were able to coexist... for awhile. It was a scene that engaged in mutual cooperation and promotion. Awesome.</p><p>But that was passive, and it splintered due to things having nothing to do with games. What did I do proactively?</p><p>Free RPG Day. This was a tremendous help, getting the word out to and through the shops. We made sure to not compromise the presentation in the promo items or tone down any of the content, and that gained us many fans and many enemies. I'll never understand why people develop such personal enmity based on creative work. It went well until setting up for 2018, when another participating publisher (whose name was not provided to me) didn't want me involved. Strings were able to be pulled so the book I'd produced for that year did get out there, but on the condition that I not participate in 2019. Then the Free RPG Day thing was sold to new management and I didn't even bother because who needs the stress of fighting just to give something away.</p><p>Conventions. Conventions were where we could both make a boatload of cash and advertise our existence to the general gaming audience. Alas, this is the second straight year of not attending conventions for rather obvious reasons. Yes, some of the conventions are back, but the uncertainty involved in allocating resources six or more months out when who knows whether things will actually happen that far in advance, in addition to the issues with international travel right now... yeah, maybe next year if the Omega+++ variant cooperates.</p><p>Blogging and social media. Once upon a time, I was a part of a healthy blogging community through lotfp.blogspot.com. (you might even be reading this on that very blog!) Then Google + happened, and between the blogger interface going wonky and the more conversational nature of G+, I pretty much just migrated over there at some point. I had thousands of people looking at whatever I was posting, whether it was about games or movies or what have you. An entire ecosystem... but... things started to get nasty. I don't know what the trigger was. Trump's election? But people started taking sides and I was done dealing with the public as a matter of course in fall 2018... probably not coincidentally just before the real controversies started. I hired a succession of people to be the social media manager of LotFP, but the last person to have the job quit in part because of all of the shit they were taking for the effort. So for over a year now, there's been nobody looking around for new reviews, etc. to broadcast back out.</p><p>And I'm not at all interested in doing that myself at this point. So... what, then?</p><p>Actual play videos? Well... no. I hate the format. Just hate it. But even if it was my favorite thing, there would be problems. Last weekend, the Finnish state broadcasting company livestreamed a tabletop RPG gaming session. It's in a nice spacious studio, with all the production Finnish state TV can provide. I've seen similar with the more popular channels on Youtube, in those cases sometimes even Hollywood people take part with the popular channels. One of the appeals of LotFP I think is the fact that when we don't fuck it up (and we occasionally do), our books sit very comfortably next to the products of the planet's biggest RPG companies as far as presentation and production. Livestreaming a bunch of chucklefucks gaming over potato webcams is just not going to get that across as an official promotional strategy. This is the kind of thing that shows my age. This is the best way to promote the game, but I couldn't be in it because "I really don't want to be here" energy isn't great for a promotional video... and endorsing or sponsoring or hiring anyone to do it on our behalf... well... I'd have no idea how to do quality control. And with all the icky things LotFP touches, I'd be responsible if someone was deemed a little too into it, which has caused controversy for other people in the recent past.</p><p>There are the same issues for convention games. At conventions, I'm at the vendor table, all the time, so it wouldn't be me running the games... but if I give a convention game my imprimatur then I'm responsible for what happens there. And a significant minority of LotFP material deals with material that causes RPG-media scandal when people do it at cons. </p><p>And then someone will tell me "Did you know one of the bigger OSR discussion groups has your name on the same moderator alert list as Hitler?" So it makes me very hesitant to ever reach out to new people, or even people I used to know from the before-times. </p><p>Now here's the thing. The pressures I feel are real, but I also know they're not universal. People do reach out to me. People do want to collaborate. When I showed up to Gen Con in 2019 ready to be physically assaulted, all I found was friendliness and support. This whiplash I've been dealing with, that conflicts with my deepest sensibilities (exclude no one, disagreements about things like politics or religion or anything, really, shouldn't have any bearing on creative cooperation), basically caused me to turtle up. I almost never reach out anymore. I don't even keep track of what anyone else is doing in RPG land anymore. </p><p>Most tellingly, when I need help or a collaborator and I do an open call hoping to find a person or two, and my inbox gets FLOODED with people wanting to work with me. That's my disconnect between how I think the world is, and how the world is. And the response is to the point I'm overwhelmed, and due to disorganization and time restraints mainly (and anxiety, frankly), and I bet all but a few end up feeling... unappreciated for their efforts? I did realize yesterday that I haven't communicated AT ALL with some of the artists who responded to the February recruitment video, EVEN THOUGH I HAVE FLAGGED THEM AS PEOPLE I'M INTERESTED IN WORKING WITH WHEN THE CURRENT PRIORITIES ARE SETTLED.</p><p>But there is still an energy and excitement out there in people, excitement they have for the material. "LotFP got me back into RPGs!" is not a rare sentiment. While I look at numbers and pore over layouts and deal with all the minutiae, I haven't been able to see in people for awhile and so it's just The Internet, where the bad things sting more than the good things salve.</p><p>One thing I've been trying to get together for awhile is the Youtube channel. I've got a decent rig for shooting videos, I just need on-camera talent (I want to be behind the camera and learn the technical side to be able to not rely on other people to make the things look like I hope to make them. Plus I am old and look horrible and there's already so much aging hairy metalhead energy in this company, I want a contrast for the video promotions.) to get started. The ultimate goal is to do "infotainment" promotions, something between the Red Letter Media skits and Honest Government Ads, stuff that could be entertaining on its own but is also promoting the game. Cross fingers that I can get this off the ground before the camera equipment is hopelessly outdated.</p><p>Anyway, someone kindly provided a list of likely-sympathetic bloggers and youtubers to send the new releases for review, and I will be taking advantage of that. I also have plans for is an audacious social media campaign to promote the new releases.</p><p>Audacious. uh oh...</p><p><b>Problem Five: We Just Can't Help Ourselves</b></p><p>So my social media promotional plan for the new releases is an absurdist, cynical parody that I am 100% positive will be misconstrued and generally disliked. Actually, people that recognize what I'm doing might not like it either. I think (worry? imagine?) some people are going to freak the fuck out.</p><p>So why do it that way? Because as a creative endeavor in and of itself it seems worthwhile and fulfilling, and should successfully get attention. I can't even imagine how to put together an ad campaign that would communicate what it is we're doing in a way that would be effective or memorable without it being considered twisted or somehow wrong for what it's trying to do.</p><p>Think this through. When you see advertising, especially online, what do you think? I know what I think. GET THIS OFF MY SCREEN. THIS IS SHIT. I mean, I get why advertising exists. "I made a thing, now I want to let people know about it!" is not an awful motivation as things go. The problem is the craft of advertising has "advanced" to the point where it's is generally designed to put your mind to sleep. I want my ads to sting. To slap across the face. To wake you the fuck up.</p><p>And what we're needing to promote is itself insane.</p><p>Ten new releases. I believe that four of them will end up causing online blah blah problems for me and my business. I am fairly sure that two of them are existential threats to the business capable of generating significant backlash. Seeing as how I've reacted to such pressures in the past, releasing these books has a non-zero chance of being my final act on this planet as a functional human being (and I am not really sure whether I am being DRAMATIC FOR EFFECT or giving a real prediction when I say that). Or maybe I'm just working myself into problems for absolutely no reason, the same way I did at my last Gen Con, and people will just roll their eyes.</p><p>I'm not going to dive into that thinking here... five months ago I started a Substack in part to specifically explore those issues, and I didn't promote it because I wanted to see if people would organically find it. Guess not, you lazy fucks. Start at the beginning when you find it and then have fun.</p><p>Not so long ago, my girlfriend suggested that I shouldn't live in chaos the way I do. Being on a financial edge yet again, releasing material that I think just might ruin me. Couldn't I be safer?</p><p>Well... no. Stability would be nice, and if we can get our shit together for quarterly releases that should help. But sacrificing the creativity to do it? Scrutinizing and gatekeeping who gets to create? What would even be the point of LotFP then? Hell, what would be the point of me then? It's been years now of being told I must stop speaking to this group of people, disavow these other people, I must take that political stance, I need to hire sensitivity readers, I have to frown at the proper times and applaud on command, do that and the other thing with my books and must not publish anything relating to some other list of things over here.</p><p>No.</p><p>No.</p><p>No.</p><p>NO.</p><p>What I need to do, and what all you fucks out there need for me and mine to do, is to express fearless creativity. Or close as we can get. Whatever strength we can manage at any particular time, we absolutely must use it for this above any and all other considerations. With all its warts, imperfections, and hypocrisies. Even if everyone sane runs away from me more than they already have. Even if it compromises my physical safety and mental well-being. I am constantly terrified, I am constantly angry, every day, and I am so, so tired of it all. I both deeply care and am sensitive to how people react (embarrassingly so, really) and at the same time am out of fucks to give.</p><p>These four potentially problematic releases all have one thing in common: When I first read them, they tickled my brain. They lit it up. They impressed me in all sorts of ways. They were funny, or imaginative, and/or interesting... just good in some real way. And especially for those special two (Jobe and Alex are treating LotFP like they did this building in the pics below), I knew that nobody else would touch them. They aren't going to exist, not in the way they need to, unless I take them on. Even though one of them in particular expresses a view of reality in direct opposition to my own entire philosophical worldview. (Can't wait to be forever accused of agreeing with it.) People are going to think we are having a meltdown when it all goes on sale, but these things have been worked on for many months, in one case for three years. It is intentional. We are coming, and hell is coming with us, to paraphrase a great band.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sCN__F4Qj4M/YTtR87K54BI/AAAAAAAAS5g/uPkT_RQAI5Ya6tFURZZmczCwp3ZFI5AAgCLcBGAsYHQ/s960/aa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sCN__F4Qj4M/YTtR87K54BI/AAAAAAAAS5g/uPkT_RQAI5Ya6tFURZZmczCwp3ZFI5AAgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/aa.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XwsRumzOJLk/YTtR87JSdtI/AAAAAAAAS5c/ZCSSQ584u3UskDWaHA_UgQQZDvMipbv1gCLcBGAsYHQ/s960/ab.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XwsRumzOJLk/YTtR87JSdtI/AAAAAAAAS5c/ZCSSQ584u3UskDWaHA_UgQQZDvMipbv1gCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/ab.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>I'll stand by everything I'm presenting as creative works. Some of it is fine for general audiences. Some of it would have been fine for general audiences if the decision hadn't been made to "LotFP" the presentation. Not everything has to be, not everything should be, challenging to the sensibilities of the audience. It can just be good fun. We've got that.</p><p>And then we've got the other stuff. We'll always have the other stuff. The Things That Should Not Be. </p><p>yup, at this precarious time, LotFP is going to do our biggest slate of releases ever, taking what I think are more creative chances than ever.</p><p>That's what we do, and that's the state of things.</p><p>I'm sure you have many questions after reading this. We will be doing a Q&A video before we start the proper promotions for the upcoming release. Email your questions to hannalotfp@gmail.com by Monday September 13. We're intending this one for issues surrounding the business and its place in the industry in general and not gameplay or specific releases. If it goes well we'll do more Q&A about other topics later on. The Q&A video will be done as a proper sit-down interview, and I will not know the questions until the camera is recording.</p><p>So I'm off to catch up on some emails and start seriously organizing the promotion for release.</p><p>Until next time... stay crazy. nah, not crazy. Stay stark raving mad.</p><p>-<br />James Edward Raggi IV<br />September 10 2021<br />Helsinki</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-53871473018875156782021-06-04T12:11:00.001+03:002021-06-04T12:11:32.974+03:00EU Webstore Shipping Update<p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9);">The post office raised their rates for parcels going outside of the EU as of May 1, and we had to raise our rates to match. The increase was 66% in some cases.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9);">We have this week completed negotiating new shipping deals with three different carriers. This will greatly reduce shipping costs from the EU webstore for everyone, and maybe even shipping times.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9);">Until that is all set up in the webstore, and we estimate it could take up to two weeks to learn three new shipping systems and then get them set up as choices in the webstore, we've deactivated shipping to all territories except Finland.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9);">Sorry for the inconvenience but you'll love what comes after.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9);">***</span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9);">One reason we "estimate" that it could take a couple weeks to get up and running is that in the middle of this, we have a number of new titles that are supposed to go to press by the end of the month. All of this is happening at once. yay!</span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9);">So hopefully in early August we have seven new titles for sale, much better shipping rates for it all no matter where you're ordering from, and we all give an unironic yay!</span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9);">And the plan is still for the release cycle after that to finally deliver the Ref book.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.9);"><br /></span></p>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-54039851776972734372021-02-14T23:25:00.001+02:002021-02-14T23:25:34.065+02:00Call for New Collaborators! Video + Notes<p> 'allo all!</p><p>Here's the new video call for collaborators:</p><p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rRwWbHJ3J0Q" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /></p><p>Now that was done on the spur of the moment with no prep, so maybe a few coherent words about this with less drama queen presentation.</p><p>LotFP is kind of in a space where it's all "mad genius" creations (or wannabe mad genius, you decide) where everybody takes forever to do things and we come up with things which I understand are... weird.</p><p>As advertised.</p><p>But we've also fallen into a thing where the books are all FANCY-ASS BIG PRODUCTION VALUES, or attempts at such. That'll be true for the next release cycle. We've got insane things in the works.</p><p>Therefore, LotFP has a big proportion of sales going to collectors and readers. And LotFP also has this reputation for (among other things) having kill-happy unwinnable adventures (which is, by the way, pure bullshit).</p><p>This is all rather uninviting for new and unfamiliar players and Referees curious about the game, so I am told. And we want new Referees and players to be checking things out.</p><p>So this call for writers and artists is not only to "pump out product". It's to regularly release a certain type of product:</p><p>Less fancy production values that are shorter, sit-down-and-play-sized adventures. Think Idea from Space or Tower of the Stargazer. Maybe keeping to more familiar and traditional adventure formats, and less pretentious concepts, but still keeping the LotFP atmosphere. Maybe "weird" and not "utterly bizarre."</p><p>You know, stuff that people who aren't hip deep in this shit might actually take a chance on.</p><p>If we can get those sorts of things coming out regularly, and keep up on the fancy-ass high(er)-concept material for the real maniacs a time or two a year, then maybe we'll have a happy healthy thing happening again. Because I don't think we can have a business built around just the smaller accessible material, and doing just the once-a-year-cycle fancy stuff involves enormous risk and an unstable feast-or-famine life.</p><p>So if you're a writer or artist who has some neat ideas, a an-do work ethic, and the willingness to work on a royalty basis (I repeat: we have never lost money on a book!), get in touch: lotfp@lotfp.com</p>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-10128097535044229702020-12-19T14:25:00.000+02:002020-12-19T14:25:16.907+02:00LotFP 2020 Year-End Sale!<p>Merry New Year everybody!</p><p>***</p><p><b>For the <a href="http://www.lotfp.com/store/index.php?route=product/category&path=42">EU Webstore</a></b>... 20€ FLAT-RATE SHIPPING OPTION WORLDWIDE. Finally pick up those heavy books like Veins of the Earth (don't forget the slipcase!) without paying Finand's arm and a leg rates for shipping. I'll eat the difference. My Christmas gift to you all! Add more stuff in, shipping will not increase! (And I've already received notice that shipping rates are going up after the first of the year...)</p><p>Do note we only have FOUR Vornheims left as of this writing, ELEVEN Isle of the Unknowns, and FORTY-EIGHT Broodmothers. When these are gone, they are all gone. So grab your copy now.</p><p>ALSO, use promo code BYE2020 when checking out and get 50% off any and all <a href="http://www.lotfp.com/store/index.php?route=product/category&path=41&sort=pd.name&order=ASC">t-shirts</a>!</p><p>Offer ends December 28!</p><p>EU Webstore: <a href="http://www.lotfp.com/store/index.php?route=product/category&path=42">http://www.lotfp.com/store/index.php?route=product/category&path=42</a></p><p>***</p><p><b>For the <a href="https://us.lotfp.com/store/">US Webstore</a></b>... hmmm... less bits and bobs there.</p><p>Free shipping on all orders!</p><p>Offer ends December 28!</p><p>US Webstore: <a href="https://us.lotfp.com/store/">https://us.lotfp.com/store/</a></p><p>***</p><p><b>For you PDF fans</b>, over on DriveThru, the LotFP Everything Bundle is 80% off normal prices! Through December 31!</p><p><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/193347/LotFP-Everything-Bundle-BUNDLE">https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/193347/LotFP-Everything-Bundle-BUNDLE</a></p><p>***</p><p><b>NOTES:</b></p><p>Just want to thank everyone for a big year here at LotFP. We came really close to total disaster, but you all made sure we live on to fight another day. </p><p>But now it's time to advance again. Looks like the next releases won't be to the printer until March or so (five months later than I'd hoped... *sigh*) and then the release cycle after that... seriously... the Ref book. So I need to conserve resources for all that, but there is much to do between now and then.</p><p>For LotFP, I have a mischievous promotional program in mind. Maybe it's a cheeky little clever idea, maybe it's another "OH GOD WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?" mess in the making, but LotFP has been bouncing back and forth across that line its entire existence. It's baked into the LotFP way of doing things. We're not like the other children and won't be made to be. Getting swatted back a few times isn't going to stop that.</p><p>But this idea (which I'm not telling - the outcome is something I want to see as it happens, not see people predict what would happen) will take a little cash. So whether it results in a full-on meltdown, an unnoticed damp squib, or some level of amusement and/or useful promotion in the middle... buy a book or ten and let's play.</p><p>And if that all gets financed, then there are a couple of other promotional things that I want to do that are a bit safer and standard, but less interesting and exciting on my end.</p><p>And after the business is done, there are some personal improvements to take care of, and always more projects to get on the faster track. That'd be cool too.</p><p>2020 was just weird on a global scale... an LotFP LARP of awfulness, really. 2021 will probably be moreso. I'm not confident I'll be able to get back out on the road to see you all this year (Goth Con has already announced going digital-only for 2021...) but while I don't miss the travel I do miss matching the actual human faces to the digital presences. I actually miss you people. Damn it.</p><p>We have an active LotFP Facebook community group at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/lotfp">https://www.facebook.com/groups/lotfp</a> and you can come interact with the chatty ne'er-do-wells that haunt that cursed place.</p><p>Be swell, everyone.</p><div><br /></div>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-35871628140382841982020-12-07T11:27:00.000+02:002020-12-07T11:27:06.805+02:00Free Shipping to UK Offer! Plus Updates...<p> First the good stuff. Because this is the time of year we would have been at Dragonmeet, we're going to offer free shipping for all UK orders made through the <a href="http://www.lotfp.com/store/index.php?route=product/category&path=42">LotFP EU webstore</a> through December 15! </p><p>Second... Facebook recently updated its interface, and the official LotFP page there is effectively unusable. The page was categorized as "Gaming" (LotFP is a gaming publisher, after all), but trying to post the sale update there today.. there's no more posting that I can find, and it's assuming that "Gaming" pages are used for video game streaming. Which would make it a dead page. If they can't fix it, I'm dumping Facebook entirely. So there's the <a href="https://twitter.com/LotFP">LotFP Twitter</a> (bleh) , and there is this blog. There are also the mailing lists from the LotFP webstores, but in an effort to not spam I only use that for actual release announcements.</p><p>I don't look at Twitter mentions and I'm not mental enough to leave comments open here, so I'm about to be very disconnected from everyone.<br /><br />But looks like this blog might once again become my primary outlet for updates and "stuff."</p>JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6670029344758253148.post-36653202188148189862020-08-02T19:05:00.002+03:002020-08-02T19:05:25.546+03:00August Update!Orders were extremely heavy after the new titles went on sale (see the previous post), to the point that July 2020 was the biggest month sales-wise that LotFP has ever had. Thank you all!<br />
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But this created some logistics issues, and I only now today finished all the packing:<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RdrHJDXG_Wc/XybiA2MBaBI/AAAAAAAASgs/4iZP1sF61N8fvP2hstPlOjCwb-WENKAbACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/ready.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="902" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RdrHJDXG_Wc/XybiA2MBaBI/AAAAAAAASgs/4iZP1sF61N8fvP2hstPlOjCwb-WENKAbACLcBGAsYHQ/s400/ready.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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... and it's taking up my whole apartment. You can see some of the living room (packing ground zero!), as well as some of the hallway (it is full of boxes ready to go out), some of the kitchen mess, and the bedroom has stacks of boxes as well.<br />
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We've made arrangements with the post office to have a dedicated employee processing all this tomorrow, and I have some assistants that will be arriving to help me get it all there.<br />
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Can't wait to be living in a living space and not a warehouse again. :P<br />
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As far as orders through the US store, the shipment of the new titles has not yet arrived at the US warehouse. I was told it was arriving last Monday, and the printer (who is the official shipper of record for that) has not gotten an update or explanation all week as to why that has not happened. Last year my big freight shipment was stuck in some waystation warehouse <i>in the same metro area as the final destination</i> and it took someone driving up there from Indianapolis to get things cleared up and properly moving... and seeing as there's no Gen Con this year (today would have been the last day!), we have to do all this crap very remotely. But when the shipment arrives, all of your orders through the US store will go out right away.<br />
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Until next time...JimLotFPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02992397707040836366noreply@blogger.com