hunter1828's page

Cool good to see 4 winds actively making products again.

Thanks! So are we. :)

The print edition should follow shortly, but if you've followed some other threads here you know I've been on a quest to find less expensive printing.

At long last, the PDF version of Tome of Monsters is now available at DriveThruRPG and Your Games Now, and will be available soon here at Paizo as well!

The print edition is still coming, and we apologize for the delay.

The PDF has been updated from the print-ready file of the 2nd Printing. Please see THIS THREAD for more information.

4 Winds Fantasy Gaming has updated the PDF of The Book of Divine Magic. The new PDF was created from the print-ready files for the 2nd Printing (May 2011) of the book. It includes some minor changes to the interior layout, incorporates all known errata directly into the text, and includes some artwork and tables that did not make it into the 1st printing.

If you downloaded the product from Paizo or from DriveThruRPG, you should soon be able to download the updated file at no extra cost.

Hunter1828,

Are there any plans to create a document which assigns the spells in your products to new PFRPG classes such as the magus? I realize a GM could make the assignment for an individual campaign but it would be nice to see the developer's recommendataions.

Doug

We are working on a free web enhancement that would list all the spells from all our books for the APG classes. Probably going to hold off on it until Ultimate Magic is out so we can include the Magus as well, though, so look for it to be available after UM is released.

And I've double checked by downloading it (again) myself and it is indeed the current (new) version. Ross says that it is just the date not updating for whatever reason.

hunter1828 wrote:

Dark_Mistress wrote:

Not yet, still showing last update in 2010.

Give it until Monday (when Paizo offices are open again). If it's still not by then, we'll see what's going on.

It is still showing last update in 2010.

I've reported this issue to Ross, so hopefully we'll see what's going on. Have you tried to download it and see if it looks any different? Perhaps it's just the date that is not updating.

hunter1828 wrote:

I told them what Lulu was charging me to print X number of copies (minimum I need to order), and he said, "Oh, I can beat that!" Lulu was getting way too expensive, especially once shipping was included.

Noted for future reference. Thanks!

If you can find a local that does POD, that's even better. The one I'm using (the only one in town) does full press runs, but they can do minimum runs of 250 books, which is a smaller number than we need to order, so that works out. If I need 20 or 40 in a hurry, I'll still use Lulu. But 400 copies of The Book of Arcane Magic from Lulu would cost me $400 more than it will cost me to order 400 from the local print shop (and LSI isn't as inexpensive as I though - as 400 copies of the same book from them would cost me $1000 more!)

hunter1828 wrote:

So, I went to my local print shop, talked to them, and they are our printer now. I expect to approve some proofs today or tomorrow.

As someone who has worked in commercial printing for many years, I'm happy to hear this!

One of my very first real jobs during and right after high school was in a print shop, so when I walked in, the smell of place just brought back lots of old, fun memories. :)

hunter1828 wrote:

So, I went to my local print shop, talked to them, and they are our printer now. I expect to approve some proofs today or tomorrow.

When I started printing, I went to a good number of places near me. All of them had a per unit cost that was higher than what I was going to sell them for. So it was a non-starter. Feel fortunate that you have a local printer cheap enough to make it work.

I told them what Lulu was charging me to print X number of copies (minimum I need to order), and he said, "Oh, I can beat that!" Lulu was getting way too expensive, especially once shipping was included.

Since last week, the Lightning Source deal has fallen through with us. It's a complicated situation, but since Lulu uses LSI as a subcontractor, our titles were already in LSI's computer. You'd think that would be a good thing, but it's not, as LSI can't (for whatever reason) just assign that information to our account. They want me to assign new ISBNs to books we've previously printed via Lulu, which is asinine.

So, I went to my local print shop, talked to them, and they are our printer now. I expect to approve some proofs today or tomorrow.

Not yet, still showing last update in 2010.

Give it until Monday (when Paizo offices are open again). If it's still not by then, we'll see what's going on.

Ok, the issue I was having with Paizo's uploader has been resolved (thanks Ross!), so the new, updated PDF has been uploaded to Paizo. Hopefully you'll be able to download it soon!

The PDF of this book has been updated, and the update will be uploaded to Paizo very soon. See THIS THREAD for more details on the update.

Cool! Thanks.

You bet!

4 Winds Fantasy Gaming has updated The Book of Arcane Magic PDF. This new PDF was created from the print-ready file of the 2nd printing of the book (which is going to the printer tomorrow) and updates the interior layout to match the layout of books we published after BoAM. It also incorporates some art that never made it into the 1st printing and incorporates all known errata directly into the text. Overall, the book looks better and is easier to read.

The file for the new PDF has been uploaded to DriveThruRPG already, but due to some issues with the Paizo uploader, we've not yet been able to update the product here. It will be updated here as soon as possible, though. If you purchased The Book of Arcane Magic PDF at either DriveThruRPG or here at Paizo.com, you should get a message that a new version of the file is available soon and will be able to download it at no extra cost.

Robert
4 Winds Fantasy Gaming

*sway* I actually discovered a copy of Luven's had mysteriously appeared on my computer at some point, so I must have DLed it in a chunk of other things when I had a chance and totally forgot.

It's a seriously cool book though. On the topic, could it have been split into smaller cheaper releases? Yeah, sure, but I think some of the commentary and less thrilling, but charming items would have been lost if the delivery would have favored more of a bullet-point item feature rather than chapters presenting huge walls of items for the reader to poke through.

On the other hand, Super-genius seems to be doing fine, financially, with their releases and I like their presentation also. You see the cream of Kragnar's collection presented piece by piece. The Kragnar format is just a bit different of a flavor from Luven's.

Anyhow, I think the quality of these products trumps general arguments about either format over the other. As much as the market changes, good publishers will tend to be able to sell good content.

Very glad that you like Luven's! We're proud of all of our books, but that one especially. And that fact that it is our best selling product (in terms of how frequently we sell a copy) makes it all the better. :D

Well, we just had our account with Lightning Source set up and verified today (independent of the DriveThru POD service), so we'll see what we have to do differently than we did at Lulu. I'm willing to make changes though because of the (apparent) massive cost differences between the two.

Laddie wrote:

I'd maybe die of joy overload if I saw some sort of Luven Lightfingers vs. Krazy Kragnar Bargain Battle Bazaar collaboration. That would be the very pinnacle of all human achievement.

I'd be up for it!

While Luven thinks that Krazy Kragnar is, well, crazy, I would be up for it as well.

Email me, Owen (4windsfantasygaming AT gmail DOT com), and lets talk!

RJGrady wrote:

Rite Publishing wrote:

I have seen more sales at Drivethurrpgs POD than LULUs

That doesn't surprise me. I haven't been keen on the idea of reformatting the book just to use their POD service, however.

Why would you need to reformat anything? The layout and formating of our PDF only versions is exactly the same as the printed formatted versions, just that the printed versions come with printers marks and the PDF only does not. To the layman, there is no difference between the versions...

Not entirely true. The files we used at Lulu were rejected by the DriveThruRPG POD service for not being the correct size, plus our cover was rejected for already having an ISBN and barcode on it. I'm not going to have my cover and interior layout people set up two different books just to add the DTS POD service.

The added watermark overlaps the text on many of the cards. Is it possible to ask Paizo to remove the watermark on this product?

We will certainly look into that. Thanks for letting us know.

4 Winds Fantasy Games entire catalog is spectacular. Luven's is probably the best, but, then again, it's in a class by itself. The others are amazing resources... I've actually NEVER created a Pathfinder Wizard without using the Book of Arcane Magic, for instance.

Thank you very much! We're very glad you get so much use and enjoyment from them. :D

You're welcome :) . I've been acknowledged by someone who wrote something I game with - now I feel all important and stuff :D !

I would, in fact, consider the "Flaws" PDF to be absolutely essential - after buying it, I haven't made a single character that didn't use it.

Say, if I may ask a question - the Luven Lightfingers book; is that a book detailing a single store and its contents and owner, or is it primarily an expanded items list? And, if it's the latter, is it magic or mundane equipment, mainly? Inquiring minds want to know ;) !

Oh, yes, that's another thing I look for in 3PP: New and interesting non-magical gear.

We are just as excited when gamers tell everyone they use our products in their games! :D

As for Luven's - the book is designed primarily as an expanded equipment book, with new weapons, armor, adventuring gear, special materials, alchemical items, food & drink, musical instruments, took kits, etc. There are a few magic items also included, but most items are mundane equipment. The appendix does include details on the shop and the proprietor, should you wish to include the actual shop in your games, but the equipment can be introduced independently of the shop itself.

Our Paths of Power includes several bases classes - a witch and a samurai (full class, not alternate fighter) that predate the Paizo versions as well as the gladiator and voyageur, plus an elemental wizard archetype that predates the Paizo elemental archetype.

In my games, I currently use the following two 3PP:

- Tricky Owlbear's "Learning Curve: Apprentice Level Characters"
- 4 Winds' "Flaws"

And we appreciate that!

Robert Thomson
4 Winds Fantasy Gaming

And Player's Options: Flaws was ranked #7 on the April 22 edition of RPG Countdown! w00t!

hunter1828 wrote:

Looks like we're probably going to go with them. Can't beat their rates. Thanks to Steve prompting me to get in ask Jim Searcy about it, he's putting me in contact with their LSI rep ASAP. It looks like we're going to save nearly 50% by going with LSI over Lulu, even with the set up fees, which is fantastic.

Glad I could be of service. If you need any other help, just ask. I've been in this business for a long time. :)

Which reminds me, I need to email Jim my new address so the checks arrive...

--
Steve

Just want to say thanks again, Steve. LSI's customer service has been topnotch and I found their website easy to navigate. Quite the opposite of my attempts to set up with Superior POD.

Do any common stereotypes about "American cars" vs. "Japanese cars" come to mind when you say that? How many people do you know personally who have said "I'd like to buy American, but they're so unreliable and gas guzzling..." I must have heard that at least 100 times, and so have you. So maybe Chrysler's newest model is just great but it's part of a field that isn't. There are some common factors in the American car industry that tend towards those factors, so exceptions are seen as being exceptional. Sorry man, life isn't fair.

You really did miss my entire point. It wasn't about American cars vs. Japanese cars - I just happened to randomly pick those two manufacturers. My point was "that's like assuming that because Car Brand A craps out on the drive home then Car Brand B will do the same, because it's a car, too." Point of origin does not matter. I could very well have said "that's like assuming that because the orange you bought at the store is rotten, all citrus fruit you ever buy will be rotten, because they are all citrus fruit, too."

In the end, if you don't want to buy our PDFs because another publisher produced a poorly edited PDF, there's little I can do to change your mind.

I would hope that folks would not assume that just because the PDFs by one (or more) 3PP are poorly edited, that means that all of them from all 3PP are. I mean, that's like assuming that because a Dodge craps out on the drive home then Toyotas will do the same, because its a car, too. I don't mean to be snarky, but that really is the same sort of comparison. Each 3PP should be judged on their own individual merits and not on any standards (or lack thereof) of other 3PP.

Everything we sell here at Paizo, we also sell at DriveThruRPG, and at DriveThruRPG customers can see multi-page previews of each and every one of our products.

I just want to add that (to my knowledge) none of us print in China. Paizo being the only exception. None of us sell in the quantities that make printing in china economical. My book for example have been printed in Kentucky, Arkansas and New York. I'd consider printing in Canada if I knew of any Canadian printers (which I don't). But printing in China for a print run of a few hundred is not really economical.

That is very, very true. In fact, everything I've had printed has cost (depending on page count) anywhere from 15 to 20 times "25 cents" per unit, or more.

3. For some reason, PDFs are not priced right a lot of the time. Sorry some people took a bath on the "1.99 app priced PDFs" thing, and maybe that's not the right price point, but I never have and never will buy a PDF that is 50% or more of the cost of a comparable printed product. Yes, you skipping the printing and me paying all that money to you instead would be great from the publisher perspective, but I don't feel like I'm getting sufficient value for my money, and it trips my "they're charging me $20 for something that takes 25 cents to make in China" button.

4. And to be honest, PDFs tend to be poorly edited. It's natural - if you are paying for it to be printed, and those words will be fixed for a long time, you take more effort. It's the print->pdf->blog->Twitter continuum of effort spent on editing and proofing and coherency. Some people tweet as much content as a game book every month, but I've never been tempted to pay for someone's Twitter feed.

I'm just going to address a couple of your comments and leave the others for someone else if they like.

Our PDF-only products go through the same editing and layout steps that our products destined for print do (with the exception of a tiny handful of our earliest PDFs), so that we can be sure customers are getting the best product we can possibly produce for them.

For our PDF-only products also, the prices are always less than $7.00, and usually significantly less than that. The reason is because the length of the product does not, to us, warrant higher prices than that. The PDF versions of our print products are more than 50% of the print version because it costs us significantly more to produce those products (which range so far from 50 pages (priced at $7.99) to 108 pages (priced at $10.95)) than it does to produce a 5 to 10 page PDF only product that may or may not have any art and if it does it's most likely stock art. Thus we can sell a 10 page PDF-only product for $1.99 and make a profit. It just doesn't work like that for larger products, though.

The best thing we do for customers as far as PDFs of the print products is make available bundles where you get the PDF at no extra cost when you purchase the print product. Our bundles are available here and at Indie Press Revolution. But what if you buy your print products at a FLGS? If that store is a part of the Bits & Mortar coalition, you can get the free PDF through them as well.

Robert
4 Winds Fantasy Gaming

There are also some tricksy hoops with specs for Lightning Source - just be aware that the hoops are there. Also, sometimes they're on fire.

Looks like we're probably going to go with them. Can't beat their rates. Thanks to Steve prompting me to get in ask Jim Searcy about it, he's putting me in contact with their LSI rep ASAP. It looks like we're going to save nearly 50% by going with LSI over Lulu, even with the set up fees, which is fantastic.

So THIS is the low magic setting you were referring to in earlier posts. W00t!

Actually, this is a different project. :D Which is why we are looking at using a different core system for it, as we don't necessarily want to low-magic PF-compatible settings out at around the same time, unless PF turns out to be the best core system for this project.

Might be the best choice. Cortex has one advantage/disadvantage. It has not native magic system for use, so you would need to make your own. That could go both ways on the good/bad. On the one hand, you get to tailor the system to mesh with the books rather well. On the other hand, you have to make the system.

That, and I'm not sure it's been licensed for 3PP use.

Might be a good use of the Cortex or Savage Worlds systems.

SW is definitely on our list.

The biggest pain is using their templates for your covers. The rest is fairly easy. Like I said, talk to Jim.

Sent Jim an email.

Thanks!

hunter1828 wrote:

Lyingbastard wrote:

I recommend not using the Palladium system, unless you want to have your eyebrows chewed off by their CEO...

That system never ever crossed my mind.

That's good, because you and C would look weird without eyebrows.

I could photoshop a picture, if you want to confirm.

hunter1828 wrote:

I'm still looking at other POD services to replace Lulu, though.

Talk to Jim Searcy about Lightning Source. I've been very pleased with them and the quality and price of their printing.

--
Steve Creech
DragonWing Games

I have heard that getting set up with LS is a pain in the rear, but it's worth a shot. I've tried contacting Superior, but haven't heard back from them in over a week.

hunter1828 wrote:

I'm still looking at other POD services to replace Lulu, though.

email sent.

Got it, thanks!

Many thanks to Stark Enterprises VP for the new 5-star review!

Many thanks to Stark Enterprises VP for the new 5-star review!

Many thanks to Stark Enterprises VP for the new 5-star review!

hunter1828 wrote:

I'm still looking at other POD services to replace Lulu, though.

May I ask why?

Because Lulu is one of the highest priced POD companies there is. I like the quality of their product, but their prices are pretty steep and a lot of others beat them.

hunter1828 wrote:

Necromancer wrote:

Looks interesting. Are any of the creatures 0-HD?

By "0-HD" do you mean 1/2 HD? If so then, yes, there are a few creatures that are only 1/2 HD.

He means creatures that don't have racial hit die, but rather class levels. I'm pretty sure that we do.

If that's the case, then yes: the goatmen, machlyes, neanderthals and otso are all creatures with no racial HD, and can be used as playable races.

I recommend not using the Palladium system, unless you want to have your eyebrows chewed off by their CEO...

That system never ever crossed my mind.

Looking back at this old thread, I have to report that Lulu sales have been almost nonexistent on Denarii. POD is hard to do. Trying to publish large print runs makes me nervous.

We've been using Lulu for 2 years for our printing services, ordering when we need to ship to IPR or Paizo or for our own use. We recently signed on with Studio 2 Publishing for distribution, and our order numbers were higher than we expected, but still manageable. I'm still looking at other POD services to replace Lulu, though.

Very cool, I know nothing about the books or world setting yet though. But plan to go check out the authors site.

It's lower magic world, more akin to Middle Earth than, say, the Forgotten Realms. That's part of the reason we haven't settled on a system for it yet, as we are already in the process of developing a Pathfinder-compatible low magic setting, I don't know that we want two of them at about the same time. We have several options we are looking at, though.

Any updates? Thanks

We experienced some delays this spring, but print copies should be shipped to retailers by the end of this month. (PDF will be up here as soon as we have it ready).

Congrats on getting that license. May good fortune go with you.

Thanks, Dale! We're very pleased, to say the least. We'll be announcing soon whether the RPG will be Pathfinder-compatible or a different system.

Great Falls, MT-based roleplaying game publisher 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming will be producing roleplaying game books based on award-winning author Margaret H. Bonham’s The World of the Chi’lan, as detailed in the Swords of Destiny series of books. such as Prophecy of Swords, Runestone of Teiwas, and others.

“This is an amazing opportunity for us,” said 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming co-owner Robert W. Thomson. “We are incredibly happy to work with Maggie Bonham to produce roleplaying games based on her books and stories, and especially honored that it was Maggie who sought us out over other game publishers.”

This is not the first work 4 Winds and Maggie are doing together. In June 2011, 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming will publish Phantasia Zoologica Volume I: Cats, Dogs and Horses, with cats and horses entries written by Maggie.

4 Winds has not yet set a release schedule for any The World of the Chi’lan products, but look for the first one in early 2012. The game system and specifics of the products are yet to be determined, but will be announced soon. Follow @4WFG on Twitter or "like" 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming on Facebook for immediate updates and announcements. You can learn more about Maggie Bonham and her books at her website, Shadowhelm.net.