John Robey's page

I know this is purely academic, but I'm curious what people's reactions would have been if either:

a) Paizo still had the license, but decided to do an online-only magazine with exactly the same content.
or
b) WotC sold the license to another publisher who would be creating the two mags from now on.

I suspect that most folks would register either of these individual scenarios as somewhere in the "apprehensive" to "downright negative" spectrum. And in my mind, it is both of these things together that are happening.

Thoughts?

a) I would not buy it, just like I'm not buying the new WotC product. I want a print magazine. I'd call that just as big a SNAFU as the real world SNAFU we have.

b) I would be annoyed at them "fixing something that ain't broke" and I would certainly keep following Paizo's work -- but I would still subscribe to the magazines.

-The Gneech

It seems that Wizards is pulling all its licsenses back, though I don't understand why. Last November, e-Tools was de-liscensed, leaving me out the $250 dollars that I had spent on the program and data patches.

Well, not quite out $250 -- the software still works, at least for now.

But I'm with you ... how did WotC get my money? E-Tools (I didn't buy the books -until- the E-Tools data was available), Dragon, and Dungeon. And they've killed them all in favor of some online thingy that I have no interest in and will not buy.

They've gone from three revenue streams from me, to none. Nice going, guys.

-The Gneech

I'm very keen on a Gamemastery Modules subscription option as well -- or possibly a combined option.

I don't really like full campaigns, even if they are currently the hottest thing since Lord Flashheart's pants. I want adventures I can insert into my own campaign with little or middling amounts of tweaking. The late, great _Dungeon_ magazine format of three adventures, 1 - Low, 1 - Medium, 1 - High, was PERFECT in just about every way and that's really what I want to see.

Thank you for listening. :)

-The Gneech

Y'know, and I'm only speaking for myself here, I'd be happy to have ads and a lower price.

Call me crazy, but I -liked- the ads. Not all of them, obviously ... but I liked seeing new stuff from various publishers and distributors, funky dice manufacturers, Reaper miniatures, Bioware, et al.

For that matter, a "From the Editor" and letters column would be good, too.

And comics. I really like the Order of the Stick one-offs.

-The Gneech

You do know that Tunnels & Trolls had a magazine of its own once upon a time, right?

Good old "Sorcerer's Apprentice," with a mini-solo dungeon in every issue!

Those were happy days. :) Before the dark times.

-The Gneech

The form seems to be broken now anyway. The backlash from this move may have overwhelmed it.

-The Gneech

Paizo is definitely one of the most consistently professional and quality companies in the industry. Well done indeed!

-The Gneech

It's been tried without much success; there are a couple still floating around out there.

Of course, since they don't have to compete with Dragon and Dungeon now, there might be a much bigger market.

I'd love this, myself. :) Really, I'd rather that's what "Pathfinder" was.

-The Gneech

Greyhawk? That's for OLD people. Like printed magazines!

-The Gneech ("No, I'm not bitter, why do you ask?")

I'll be checking out Pathfinder, too. Thing is, while I understand why Paizo wants out of the "magazine" model, I really, really, -REALLY- want a magazine.

I want it to be on the stands at B&N -- in the magazine section, not sequestered off in the "fandom" section.

I want it to be in the FLGS.

I want it to be in the libraries.

I want it to talk about the whole industry, even if it's primarily content for one specific company.

I want it to have ADS for gaming companies, miniatures, companies, and small little vendors that I'd never hear of any other way.

I want it to have a letters column.

I want it to have comics.

There is so very very much more to a magazine than "just" the articles!

-The Gneech

Paizo's been nothing but awesome, and I expect them to continue to be. You'll definitely be getting my business in the future.

WotC, I'm not so sure about.

As somebody who's notorious for being optimistic, or at least saying "Wait and see," about most things, I just want to say...

Holy moly this is a bad move. -.-

-The Gneech

I'm shocked. I'm stunned. I'm ANGRY.

And here I thought what they did to E-Tools was bad!

A world without Dragon magazine is barely comprehensible. It's like having one of your school buddies die.

I'm depressed now. :(

-The Gneech

Was this inspired by MERP/Rolemaster at all, by chance? :)

Looks like a fun one. I shall be getting.

-The Gneech

Just wanted to post here, that Jeff took the initiative and resolved this for me on Paizo's dime, which was more than I was expecting and really impressed me.

Thank you, Jeff & Paizo, for your excellent customer service! I am always impressed with your quality and professionalism. :)

And you'll be getting more orders from me in the future! Thanks again.

-The Gneech

You might also want to try this contact - mercury@magnificentegos.com

Good luck -

That's one of the many that haven't responded, alas.

Thanks, nonetheless!

-The Gneech

I received an e-mail from Magnificent Egos today. It read:

--

Well, our website is not updating and it's been a couple of months since we put out new releases. Never fear!

13 new Uncommon Characters, 2 new boxed sets, Kobolds Ate My Baby and Legends of The Five Rings are all on their way.

In the meantime check out our MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/magnificentego

Or Paizo.com for news.

You can still order from our site. www.magnificentegos.com

Ego out!

--

So they've obviously got my e-mail address. Unfortunately, they're still not responding to any queries about unfulfilled orders. :-`

-The Gneech

John Robey wrote:

Back in November of last year, I ordered some minis off of the Magnificent Egos website and paid via Paypal. The miniatures never arrived, and my e-mail inquiries about the order status went unanswered.

Since they are partnering with you good people at Paizo now, I'm hoping you can connect me with whoever it is over there I need to talk to so I can either get my minis, or a refund. I've tried emailing "mercury@magnficientegos.com" -- their listed contact -- and not heard a peep. There are no phone numbers to be found on their site.

Thanks for your help in this matter!

We're looking into this for you...have something soon.

--Jeff

Thank you very much!

-The Gneech

Back in November of last year, I ordered some minis off of the Magnificent Egos website and paid via Paypal. The miniatures never arrived, and my e-mail inquiries about the order status went unanswered.

Since they are partnering with you good people at Paizo now, I'm hoping you can connect me with whoever it is over there I need to talk to so I can either get my minis, or a refund. I've tried emailing "mercury@magnficientegos.com" -- their listed contact -- and not heard a peep. There are no phone numbers to be found on their site.

Thanks for your help in this matter!

-John "The Gneech" Robey

I don't mind taking down the Dark Lord, half as much as the fact that if I then tried to take over his kingdom, the GM would have kittens.

Or more likely, say, "Okay, your character becomes the new Dark Lord. Roll up a new character for the next quest to find the Macguffins of Plotpoint." :P

-The Gneech

So, that's what this thread is for: letting off steam about your pet peeves about the games, players, DMs, whatever.

I want to play a Conan-style BBN who starts as a lowly thief and mercenary and eventually carves out a kingdom -- but the only other DM around here can only run the same "You must recover the eight MacGuffins of Plotpoint before the dark lord gets them and fulfill the Prophecy of Predestination!" campaign over and over.

Gah! I create my own destiny! The dark lord can kiss my axe! Yarr!

-The Gneech

...what happened to the Deepwood Sniper?

He was ambushed at point-blank range by a dozen kobolds who dragged him into a 3' cave.

He was never seen again, poor b*st*rd.

-The Gneech

If you're going to lose all those abilities anyway, why not just take 1 level of druid?

-The Gneech

*waves banners that say "Monsters, yay!"*

Displacer beasts!
Hook horrors!
Orcs and owlbears!

Displacer beasts!
Hook horrors!
Orcs and owlbears!

Displacer beasts!
Hook horrors!
Orcs and owlbears!

Yaaaaay!

-The Gneech

What was it like? A random, cobbled-together mess. Ugh. Some things you wanted to roll low; others you wanted to roll high. Sometimes surprise was a percentile roll; sometimes it was a d6 or a d8. There were lots of "this acts as that" ... "this creature saves against spells as a thief but saves against poisons as a cleric" type of rules.

1e/2e made me walk away from D&D entirely and play the HERO System, which for all its math, at least had a unified system that made sense. The only problem was that you had to pretty much create everything yourself.

3.0 was a godsend! :) And 3.5 is even better.

-The Gneech

B.A. in English here. :)

-The Gneech

For my PC, I use "Nirodel" from Reaper Miniatures, with a suitably customized paint job. :)

I've also done minis for other party members, and several of the monsters that show up when I am the GM.

-The Gneech, shamelessly showing off

If by "disaster" you mean "a pretty cool book," then I'm inclined to agree.

If by "disaster" you mean "disaster," well, no, I have to disagree. I like it quite a bit.

And I started DMing D&D in 1982. Newbieness got nothin' to do with it.

-The Gneech

The guy with the 80s hair is meant to be a representative cleric of Pelor

Ah. Sort of a cross between Jozan and David Lee Roth, then? ;) That makes more sense.

-The Gneech

I use spellcraft and the table in the 3.5 DMs screen I got from dragon mag or was it dragon. The table kinda of reveals a bit of the type of magic (abjuration, conjuration etc.) with that and other clues size shape who had it, the players can sometimes but not always figure it out.

Yeah, another Spellcraft user here, particularly for relatively simple magic items or common potions. My players in particular tend to never use their potions/scrolls/whatever, so if they can't identify something right away, it goes into the bag of holding and gets forgotten. Then months later, they get back to town and spend the money to have something identified, and I no longer have my notes on what it was 'cause it was three dungeons ago.

If something is cursed or an interesting "plot item," on the other hand, I make it more difficult for them to figure it out. When the fighter was dominated by the evil, intelligent greatclub, the party had a heck of a time dealing with the problem!

-The Gneech

I received #346 last night ... great issue! I'm really enjoying the "Core Beliefs" series and want to see it go on as long as there are deities to cover. I'm particularly looking forward to Wee Jas, just because she happens to be a particular power in my current campaign, but they're all interesting! I did think the illustration of Pelor was a bit odd ... what's the deal with the '80s hair? I always pictured Pelor looking a bit more roof-of-the-Cistene-Chapel-ish, myself.

The "Class Acts" article for Scouts is quite handy too. My Legolas-clone is very likely to take advantage of a few of those feats in the not-too-distant future! Nice illo, too.

While I'm praising the art, I'd like to single out the cataphracts, too -- very nice!

-The Gneech

PS: Oh, and the upcoming Princes of Elemental Evil? YES. Between those and the avatars in MM IV, my players are in for some big, big trouble!

You want to get a big fat geek on, swear like Conan:

"Crom and Mitra! This burger meat is rotten, or I'm a Shemite!"

Well if you're going to go there, why not say "Llie n'vanima ar' lle atara lanneina!" which is (according to some) elven for "You're ugly and your mother dresses you funny!"?

-The Gneech

I suppose "odds bodkins" is just too much, tho.

-TG

Zherog wrote:

"Two can be as sad as one;

it's the loneliest number since the number one."

That gets a little more omph with Elan standing to the side with the lute in-hand. PLAY 'FREE BIRD'!!

*flick's lighter and waves it.

o/`

Oh, on-topic, I love the MoM's, too. :) And I notice they showed up (conceptually) in MM IV.

-The Gneech

-The Gneech

Well, as I said on the ENWorld boards... ;)

Picked myself up a copy and for the most part, I like it. The whole "Spawn of Tiamat" thing feels like it should be a stand-alone book -- if you gave them their own book, put maps and scenarios in it and called it a megamodule, I suspect many of the haters would be lovers instead.

Nature is certainly red in tooth and claw in this book; there's a plethora of pissed-off plants and a flood of foul-tempered fey. (What am I, Stan Lee all of a sudden?) The Verdant Prince in particular just happens to be perfect for a scenario idea I've been working, how handy!

There are also a few "WTF?" sorts of critters in the book; the Zern in particular don't seem to do anything that beholders and mind flayers couldn't do just as well, other than being a monstrous humanoid. They definitely have that "inserted with the hope of becoming a new big thing" feel; ditto the Windblades, who seem to be to Githyanki as Raptorians are to Elves.

(Note: I will restrain the impulse here to rant about making the Raptorians a new race, when the Winged Folk or the Avariel already exist and could fill that niche perfectly well ... as it isn't really germaine to MMIV. But I'll let myself go on the subject sometime!)

For those who want oldschool and/or "classic fantasy" goodness, there are plenty of candidates to fit the bill. The Avatars of Elemental Evil are a nice callback to an old standard; the Dwarf Ancestor immediately makes one wonder why there wasn't one of these things tromping around in Moria; and the Joystealer, Wizened Elder, and aforementioned Verdant Prince immediately suggest Herne the Hunter or old Irish folktales.

So yeah, you could say I like it.

-The Gneech

I played through a conversion of the "Liberation of Geoff" version and all I have to say is -- level up before you attempt it!

Giants have gotten much, MUCH tougher than they were in 1e...

-The Gneech

That's no mind-flayer -- that's a Cthulhuspawn!

-The Gneech

Hmm ... I don't see an easy way to send messages here either, now that you mention it. Toss me an e-mail at thegneech@gmail.com. :)

-The Gneech

The Hall of Fire website is: http://halloffire.org/

This is an incredible source for gaming in Middle-earth, & I have no problem converting the characters, sites, etc., to D&D.

Good stuff:)

Oooh, this bears investigations!

BTW, I'm in NoVA myself. Drop me a note sometime if you're looking for a player.

-The Gneech

I need to find a feat or some sort of special ability that would allow me to add the PC's Intelligence modifier to the attack bonus . . . Is there anything out there like that?

IIRC, the Swashbuckler class ability "Insightful Strike" is what you're looking for, it sounds like.

-The Gneech

Just don't know how to put REH and HPL together.

Howard's vision was that of a Nietzchean Ubermann striving and conquering in a world gone mad, by sheer force of will alone.
Lovecraft's vision,...reality is an existentialist nightmare that the Hero never escapes sane or normal, if even alive. Man has no hope in the face of a supernature he doesn't dare try and comprehend.
If the two got together and did Conan vs. C'thulhu, you know Conan would put the sucker back to bed in R'lyeh for another age of man. But how would any of it even make sense?

REH and HPL were pen-pals and borrowed from each others' works liberally. They're not that far removed. The main difference is in the durability of their heroes, which makes sense. REH was a cowboy and a boxer; HPL was a pale and sickly antiquarian type. They just wrote to suit their own natures! ;)

(Yes, I'm exaggerating a tad, I know.)

REH wrote a sizable chunk of what is considered to be part of the original "Cthulhu mythos" stories, and had fun inserting bits of the mythos into the Conan and Kull stories. Some mythos sources consider the Hyborian Age to be part of the history. It works. :)

-The Gneech

Any chance you live in Southern California? If you do, then you can count me in.

Nope, sorry, other end of the country. I'm sure you can find a group out there one of these days, tho!

-The Gneech

I ran a kinda-sorta MERP game way back in the '80s; the problem w/ ME as a setting is that the big story has already been told, really. Unless you're playing an alternate-universe version where your players have a chance to alter the course of history, or a post-Rings game where Sauron is gone and Aragorn/King Elissar is "mopping up" the remnants, there's not actually that much for players to DO there, other than go sightseeing.

-The Gneech

I only played it once, at a convention game with a less-than-stellar GM; so I'd hardly say it was a typical experience. All I can say is, "It was a great game, except for the GM." The rest of the players and I more or less were playing one game, while the GM was playing "Show off my Mary Sue NPC."

I love the setting, tho ... I've been reading Robert E. Howard since I was so high and in terms of reading the game, it seems like it would be a good interpretation of it as an RPG. If I had another REH fan in my group, I'd probably be running it right now.

-The Gneech

I believe there was errata for the scout class adding open lock and disable device to the class skills.I don't remember where I saw it though.

Disable Device, yes, is on the WotC official errata page. Open Lock is not mentioned in the errata, so I'd have to check my copy of Complete Adventurer.

-The Gneech

If you want pure stand-and-shoot devastation, yeah, the human fighter/OBI is your best bet.

Inspired by a certain Uber Acrobatic Elf Archer who appeared in some mildly popular films recently, I went with a ranger/scout/thief-acrobat however, and he performs admirably:

http://the-gneech.livejournal.com/1066632.html

Souces used: PHB, Complete Adventurer and Races of the Wild.

The "Defensive Archery" feat from RotW is not quite as nice as the OBI's Close Combat Shot (gives an AC bonus rather than just not provoking AoO's), but the Scout's Skirmish damage makes a fine replacement for Ranged Precision. It also combines with Manyshot, which Ranged Precision doesn't. The downside, of course, is that the Scout has a lower BAB.

This writeup can also do those crazy "run up the troll's chain" maneuvers, thanks to the Thief-Acrobat levels.

If you wanted to forego the two-weapon fighting angle, you could choose the Archery path for the ranger and spend the level feats on more archery feats (Far Shot, Ranged Sunder, stuff like that) as well. But you'd be at a noticeable disadvantage when (not IF) you get forced into melee.

-The Gneech

1) Was it supposed to come only with a Epic D&D Minis card and not a regular D&D Minis Card? I had heard rumors that some or all of the huges only had epic cards and not regular ones this set.

The card that came with mine is two-sided, with Epic DDM stats on one side, and more reasonable CR 14 D&D stats on the other.

-The Gneech

Actually, the MMIV is the first one that's looked interesting to me since Monsters of Faerûn. I like detail!

-The Gneech

...and it's very cool! There are few issues w/ the paint (the wash on the rider's legs went "outside the lines"), but overall it's very good. I'm already working on a way to put it into my campaign. :)

So, thanks!

-The Gneech

Thunk actually nullifies the smell of rocks and dirt and replaces it with the hearty smell of fresh baked biscuits. Even WOTC can't deny further product line to a race that smells like biscuits.

*spews water all over the monitor from laughing so hard*

-The Gneech

Sebastian wrote:

I remember watching the movies and thinking "Screw Frodo - give the damn ring to Sam already. He'd be up to Mount Doom and back again in no time flat. And with a lot less whining."

Yes,yes and yes again!

I gotta admit, I'm less than enthused about Frodo myself. Of the hobbits, Bilbo was always my favorite, although Merry and Sam were cool too. :)

-The Gneech