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Editing the Dragon Compendium.
Erik Mona approached me in July and asked if I'd be interested in doing a little freelance editing. Well, I love to edit, so I said sure. He then pointed me to the Dragon Compendium's raw text files that Mike Mearls had developed. I chuckled nervously, gave it a few seconds' thought, and agreed. I plunged right in and started whipping that text into shape. The actual editing of text went pretty smoothly. Mearls delivered good, clean copy, as usual, and some of the articles even originated from issues that Wes and I started working on (Dragon #316 for those of you keeping score at home).
It didn't hurt that the book contains tons of cool stuff that kept my interest piqued: races (including a couple done by me!), standard classes, prestige classes, magic items, and monsters. As anyone who knows me will tell you, though, feats are my favorite part of the game. The Dragon Compendium does not fail me, offering a hefty 77 feats for me to peruse. Reading through them, new and "old," gave me inspiration for new character ideas I want to try some day, and I hope they do the same for you.
In addition to loving the feats chapter, I enjoyed going through all the great old—and not so old—articles updated for third edition. The oldest article I could remember reading in my very own copy of the magazine came from Dragon #184: "The 7-Sentence NPC." Of course, the Classics chapter and the Appendices contain much older articles—articles from an era before I had even heard of Dragon. Editing through those older articles forced me to slow down and tread more carefully. D&D—and Dragon along with it—has become linguistically more precise and exacting with the newest edition. The nostalgia I felt reading articles from the days before and after I first discovered D&D put a smile on my face. We can't go back to those halcyon days of our youth, but the Dragon Compendium can remind us of our earliest memories of D&D. It gives us a little window back to our first experiences with the game we love.
I enjoyed going through all the great old—and not so old—articles updated for Third Edition. The oldest article I could remember reading in my very own copy of the magazine came from DRAGON #184: "The 7-Sentence NPC." Of course, the Classics chapter and the Appendices contain much older articles—articles from an era before I had even heard of DRAGON. Editing through those older articles forced me to slow down and tread more carefully. D&D—and DRAGON along with it—has become linguistically more precise and exacting with the newest edition. The nostalgia I felt reading articles from the days before and after I first discovered D&D put a smile on my face. We can't go back to those halcyon days of our youth, but the Dragon Compendium can remind us of our earliest memories of D&D. It gives us a little window back to our first experiences with the game we love.
Nice. Classy. I like it.
WTF!? Dude, I just tried to download the PDF preview, and my computer says that it contains a virus!? Weak, dudes, very weak. I don't expect that from company sites like Paizo.
Nice. Classy. I'm being sarcastic.
Platonically yours,
The Great Green God
Wow, another great preview page! (And I didn't get a virus warning, and I virus checked it as well.)
I still haven't pre-ordered one yet. I've spent most of my "sweet talking money" from my wife on other things lately, such as D&D Underdark Miniatures, and spending all of Saturday at World Wide D&D Game Day (which isn't money, but took a lot of my sweet talking credit anyways), but I'm sure I'll get a copy from Santa or something.
WTF!? Dude, I just tried to download the PDF preview, and my computer says that it contains a virus!? Weak, dudes, very weak. I don't expect that from company sites like Paizo.
We believe the file is clean, for the following reasons:
1. Norton Antivirus with the latest updates says it's clean.
2. The file was created and posted to the site using nothing but Macs, for which, to my knowledge, there are no known viruses which could be attached to a PDF.
If anyone has evidence that the file contains a virus, please let me know what software detected a possible virus.
regards,
rob
WTF!? Dude, I just tried to download the PDF preview, and my computer says that it contains a virus!? Weak, dudes, very weak. I don't expect that from company sites like Paizo.
I retrack my previous statement. It was I that had the virus. I appologize for any undo stress that this may have caused anyone. As well, I appologize for any negative results that may have been passed on to Paizo. I am working to fix the problem now. (I couldn't fix it earlier because I was out playing D&D. lol)
Although, I did finally get people to reply and react to something I posted on here. I guess being controversial is the way to get attention then, eh?
WTF!? Dude, I just tried to download the PDF preview, and my computer says that it contains a virus!? Weak, dudes, very weak. I don't expect that from company sites like Paizo.Although, I did finally get people to reply and react to something I posted on here. I guess being controversial is the way to get attention then, eh?
Only if you think negative attention is better than delayed attention due to hectic work schedules and deadlines.
Wow! My Sorcerous Bloodline Feats made it in! You guys just made my week.
They did indeed. Glad we could make you happy. :)
Are these just the first article on them, or is it both of the bloodline feat articles combined?
Good articles, by the way. :)
I agree. Great articles. That's why we included them. That's right, most of the feats from both of those articles made it in. I think all of the actual bloodline feats did, but some of the support feats did not.
I agree. Great articles. That's why we included them. That's right, most of the feats from both of those articles made it in. I think all of the actual bloodline feats did, but some of the support feats did not.
Sweetness. I wish it was the entire thing, but having all the actual bloodline feats is good.
Plus this book has Good Hits and Bad Misses. I'm in heaven already. :)
I'm still hoping I didn't buy a preorder for a book that's giving me more than 50% of what I already have. I have all the Dragon issues starting from #274, the first 3E issue, so looking at the feat preview I felt a little disappointed that every feat on that list I already had typed long ago on my personal reference files (I have files with spells, feats, PrC, etc all typed up and summarized from all WotC published 3E sources, helps me find things easier).
I hope at least half the book will be useful to me. I am already purchasing it thanks to the Orange, Purple and Yellow dragons got me sold but I've got my fingers crossed.
amethal
(Pathfinder Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Roleplaying Game, Campaign Setting, Tales Subscriber; GameMastery Superscriber)
Wow! My Sorcerous Bloodline Feats made it in! You guys just made my week.
I love those feats. They were a great idea.
Paizo have just done themselves out of a back order purchase of Dragon 311 (I already have 325).
I can only hope having one more customer for the Compendium will make up for it in some small way.
I agree. Great articles. That's why we included them. That's right, most of the feats from both of those articles made it in. I think all of the actual bloodline feats did, but some of the support feats did not.
I don't suppose there are contributor copies available, or even contributor discounts? :)
my guess would be no. first of all, there are dozens, if not a hundred folks who contributed indirectly to this book by writing an article 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, or 30 years ago. this would require the staff working on the book to go and track everyone down. it would not be fair to give a free book to some but not others. this is not the staff's job.
second of all, your original contract undoubtedly does not specify anything about reprint rights (other than the company can reprint the material anytime they like, and you get zilch-o for it) since you are being paid for the one-time printing.
i'd say only those who worked on the book directly (editing, compiling, revising, etc.) would get a comp copy, because anything else would be unfeasable.
Not wanting to restart an old discussion, but I keep wondering:
When people asked if there would be another Dragon CD-ROM, Paizo's answer was, that it was too difficult to track down every authour and to get their agreement.
Now the Dragon compendium comes: does that mean that a new CD-ROM is going to be published?
If no: please explain what is the difference between re-publishing articles in a compendium and republishing them on CD-ROM... ;-)
Just for curiousity's sake: if authours' aggreements keep on being a "Damokles sword" hanging over every republishing attempt: did you consider to make the authours of every new article (e.g. from issue 320 onward) agree to the republishing of their articles?
One more question (this time about the Compendium's content): I have a complete collection of Dragon issues: for that reason I am most interested in seing old edition material conversions to 3.5 edition. How much of the Dragon compendium is converted material or is it largely previously published 3rd edition material?
Looking forward to your answers (and of course to the compendium),
Guenther
When people asked if there would be another Dragon CD-ROM, Paizo's answer was, that it was too difficult to track down every authour and to get their agreement.
That's right. And it's not just authors: artists and cartoonists must also be contacted.
Now the Dragon compendium comes: does that mean that a new CD-ROM is going to be published?
Probably not.
If no: please explain what is the difference between re-publishing articles in a compendium and republishing them on CD-ROM... ;-)
The difference is the same as the difference between lifting 100 pounds over your head and lifting 1,000 pounds over your head. If we have 40 or so authors just for the compendium imagine how many we might have for the entire run of the magazine... Frankly, Paizo doesn't have the manpower to contact everyone involved. And that just covers the authors. Artists and cartoonists are different animals entirely.
Just for curiousity's sake: if authours' aggreements keep on being a "Damokles sword" hanging over every republishing attempt: did you consider to make the authours of every new article (e.g. from issue 320 onward) agree to the republishing of their articles?
Uh... that's been policy for a long time. Wizards of the Coast owns all rights to all the articles that have been purchased since they bought TSR. The problem lies in the pre-buy-out contracts (and the occasional missing contract).
One more question (this time about the Compendium's content): I have a complete collection of Dragon issues: for that reason I am most interested in seing old edition material conversions to 3.5 edition. How much of the Dragon compendium is converted material or is it largely previously published 3rd edition material?
Well obviously the feats and prestige class articles are from the days of third edition (since those didn't exist before third edition). The magic item chapter is mostly third edition. The rest of the chapters are predominantly pre-third edition.
The feats are all from 3E magazines?!
DOH!
:(
I thought some of them were at least 1E and 2E abilities/material that could've translated as new feats were being presented?
Ugh...well. Can't have everything and life wasn't made to be fair so I guess I'll have to live with spending 40 bucks on a book that I have half the material already in my possession. ><
