ggroy's page

Would a chaotic good (CG) cop be one that is a "hothead"?

In the Law & Order franchise, one "hothead" was Detective Mike Logan from the first five seasons of the original Law & Order. (Logan was also in Law & Order: Criminal Intent over seasons 5 to 7).

In the last episode of season 5 of the original Law & Order, Det Logan punches a homophobic politician in the face. (Logan was written out of the show).

Will blocks of 4 or 5 issues be reprinted as graphic novels?

(Judging by Dynamite's pattern of graphic novel releases in recent years).

This is not typically how these Christmas layoffs happen.

They don't typically get rid of useless people, but instead, get rid of the folks with the most experience and biggest contribution to their particular areas.

Is this due to salaries being "too high"?

Could it be also due to internal workplace politics, where the people who like playing "politics" end up pushing out the people whom they don't like?

I can just see this happening at my table...

ME: "Make a core-only, non-evil character."

PLAYER: "Fire giant, bam!"

ME: "Uh huh. Now make a core-only, non-evil character."

PLAYER: "No, fire giant."

ME: "Fine, YOU run the campaign."

-The Gneech

I've done this a few times in the past, when it was clear that I was incapable of DMing a game the players were interested in. I just resigned the DM job, and usually moved the power-gamer player into the DM slot.

ggroy wrote:

They even had a moonshine still in the woods behind the house!

What's wrong with that?

Nothing wrong.

I thought it was kinda neat at the time. I never saw a real moonshine still before, until that day.

Saxon's "Rock the Nations" album.

That's ghetto gaming right there, man.

The house was actually in a semi-rural area.

Ghetto gaming probably isn't the best description. Maybe "hillbilly gaming" is more apt description.

They even had a moonshine still in the woods behind the house!

Was that a gaming session or Finnegan's wake? O.o

When I first arrived at the place (it was a house), there were empty liquor bottles all over the place and it smelled like marijuana in the air. The players already there and the DM were smoking bong hits, and drinking heavily for several hours before I arrived. They were repeatedly going to the kitchen to get more beer, from a keg in the fridge. The actual gaming table still had some remnants of a white powder and short straws laying around. (Not hard to guess what it was).

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone knows the number of Printings that 3e D&D had? I know the PHB and DMG both had at least a 2nd printing (with errata incorporated). Was there any further printings before 3.5e came out? Did the MM have a 2nd printing?

Many thanks,
Stefan.

I have a second, third, and fourth printing copies of the 3E PHB1. The second printing states an explicit date of November 2000. The third and fourth printings do not mention any explicit dates.

I have no idea if a fifth printing of the 3E PHB1 exists.

My copies of the 3E DMG1 and MM1, are both first printings. I have no idea if second printings of these two books exist.

Low magic is quickly becoming a sign of a game I don't want to play.

These days I don't even bother playing in "low magic" games anymore.

For some strange reason, just above every DM I know in person who is hardcore into "low magic" games, turn out to be the most boring DMs I have ever gamed with over the years. It was as if their obsession for "low magic" games, is mostly to satisfy their own "control freak" DM-ing style.

One time I played in a 3.5E game in the Forgotten Realms, where the DM had zero tolerance for "canon lawyering" from the players. It turned out several of the players were hardcore FR "canon lawyer" types.

In the first game, one player immediately challenged the DM on FR canon. So the DM forced the player to roll a d20, which was deducted from the player character's primary stat. Another player challenged the DM on another piece of FR canon. This player refused to roll a d20. So the DM rolled the d20 for the player, and force the player to deduct double the amount from the player's primary stat. By the time the game was abruptly over, the players had drained characters like: a fighter with 3 STR, a cleric with 3 WIS, etc ...

One of the players got really angry at the DM, and threw a cup of beer at the DM. The DM threw another cup of beer back at the player, but missed and hit another player. They ended up punching one another out in fist fights, and tried smashing a bottle over the DM's head. I just walked out and never went back.

Any word on how many pages the Tian Xia book will have?

Most of the people on Enworld seem excited about these previews. Am I alone in feeling underwhelmed?

The only title which may catch my attention, is the Forgotten Realms Neverwinter book.

But yeah, the other 2011 WotC titles feel kind of underwhelming to me.

I didnt check all of them, however it looks like errata aren't included. The first one you list is present in my second printing.

Thanks Steve, for the info. I appreciate it.

Earlier today I dropped by two of the places I went to last week. (One big box bookstore and a gaming store).

I sat down and took a closer look at two books, to examine it for errata:

- second printing of 4E MM2
- fourth printing of 4E PHB2.

It appears there are few errata corrections (if any) incorporated into these subsequent printings. For example:

- In the fourth printing 4E PHB2, there were no errata corrections done for the following class powers:

Avenger: Twin Step
Barbarian: Rage Strike, Devastating Strike, Howling Strike, Recuperating Strike
Druid: Wild Shape, Call of the Beast
Invoker: Blood Debt

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/UpdatePH2.pdf

- In the second printing 4E MM2, there were no errata corrections done for the following entries:

page 8 - Angel of Retrieval
page 9 - Angel of Light
page 96 - Eladrin Arcane Archer
page 158 - Wereboar
page 216 - Aura.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/UpdateMM2.pdf

I also sat down and looked further at the second and third printings of the 4E MM1.

In particular, I examined the hit points of the solo monsters. With a calculator, I determined that the level 11 and higher solos were using the old hit points formula from the 4E DMG1.

The old hit points formula for solos monsters from the 4E DMG1 was:

[ 8*(level + 1) + CON]*4 -> level 1 to 10

[ 8*(level + 1) + CON]*5 -> level 11 and higher

The new hit points formula for all solos from the 4E DMG2 is:

[ 8*(level + 1) + CON]*4

I also did the hit points calculations of the solo monsters in the 4E MM2 book. It follows the new hit points formula from the 4E DMG2.

I also saw the Orcus figure on the shelf at the gaming store, and noticed the Orcus stat card (printed on the box) mentioned that Orcus is level 34 and has 1252 hit points. Doing the hit points calculation, this is consistent with the new hit points formula from the 4E DMG2, assuming Orcus has a CON of 33. (Orcus from MM1, has a CON of 33).

At this point in time and in the near future, I don't know if WotC will ever publish any new printings of the 4E core books with the errata corrections incorporated into them. For the rest of the year, most of their printing efforts will be on the 4E Essentials product line.

Keep on the Shadowfell was early in 2009 (I can't be more precise than January to June I'm afraid). Forgotten Realms Player's Guide was around about August/September 2009. Although being in Australia will no doubt have some (unknown) effect on the significance.

Thanks Steve for the info.

I have another question about the second printing "Forgotten Realms: Player's Guide" (FRPG). Did your second printing copy include any errata corrections?

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/UpdateFRPG.pdf

For example, on page 26 for the "Swordmage Warding", is the third paragraph deleted?

The third paragraph from the first printing FRPG which should be deleted is:

"If you become unconscious, your Swordmage Warding benefit disappears. You can restore it by taking a short rest or an extended rest."

Another errata on page 28, is for the Burning Blade power. The errata states that the line "Target: One creature" is missing from the first printing of the FRPG.

A third errata on page 29, is for the Lingering Lighting power. The errata states that the "[W]" should be replaced by "d8".

Keep on the Shadowfell

Forgotten Realms Players' Guide

Both of which are the second printing.

Just wondering. (If you don't mind me asking).

Do you remember when you purchased the second print "Keep on the Shadowfell" module?

Do you remember when you purchased the second print "Forgotten Realms: Player's Guide"?

This information could give a better timeline as to when these subsequent printings first appeared on the market.

For my second print of "Thundespire Labyrinth", I remember purchasing it sometime around May 2009.

Have stuff sit in warehouses for years costs money too (ever hear about the 1000's of copies of 1E hardbacks that had to be pulped by WotC when they took over TSR even after a year long $5 sale? The stuff had been sitting there since the 80's in some cases).

Wonder how many TSR Buck Rogers books and modules, ended up being pulped by WotC.

You got me curious (plus I have a mountain of unappealing work to get to) so I checked my copies. All of them are first printing (a complete set of 4th edition books, I think) except for:

Keep on the Shadowfell
Forgotten Realms Players' Guide

Both of which are the second printing.

It didn't cross my mind at first to check the printings of the WotC 4E modules.

So I went through my modules, and noticed my copy of "Thunderspire Labyrinth" is indeed a second printing. (I purchased it back in mid-2009).

All the other WotC 4E modules I have are first printings.

No pics. Sorry. I don't own a camera or a cellphone.

Though if you don't believe me, you're certainly welcome to check out some nearby big box bookstores and see whether there are any subsequent printings of various 4E books on the shelves, and report your findings here.

I was in another part of town today, and decided to check out two big box bookstores and a comic book shop which stocked 4E books. (I haven't been to these places in over a year).

The printings of 4E books I came across were:

- second printing of 4E Forgotten Realms Player's Guide
- second printing of 4E PHB1
- second printing of 4E DMG1
- third printing of 4E MM1
- fourth printing of 4E PHB2

(The other 4E books in stock were all first printings).

At one big box bookstore, I sat down and took a closer look at the subsequent printings of PHB1, DMG1, and MM1. It appears there were not many errata (if any) corrections incorporated into these subsequent printings. For example:

- The second printing of PHB1 still had the old stealth rules as the first printing of PHB1.
- The second printing of DMG1 still had the old skill challenges as the first printing of the DMG1.
- The third printing of MM1 still uses the old hit points formula for solo monsters above level 11. (ie. The level 33 Orcus has 1525 HP in the first, second, and third printings of the 4E MM1. With the corrected hit points formula for solo monsters in the 4E DMG2, a level 33 Orcus should have 1220 HP).

Pirating will always happen. A lot of the folks who pirate books wouldn't have bought the books in the first place.

The most hardcore pirates I knew in person over the years, rarely ever used the warez they got. All the stuff they downloaded, whether it was software, music, movies, books, etc ... was almost always for ego and bragging rights amongst other like-minded pirate types. Basically it is a one-upmanship contest to see who has the latest bleeding edge warez, and/or who cracked the DRM security scheme on it.

One pirate type person I knew for many years, was hardcore into 1E AD&D. (I played in one of his campaigns awhile ago). It turns out this guy doesn't bother using any of the rpg pdfs collected on his hard drive. He instead filled in the gaps in his 1E AD&D collection by searching for old stuff on EBay.

The interest is seeing how many printings of various 4E books have been done so far. Nothing more, nothing less.

It may help understand what exactly is going on, as to whether the rumors are baseless.

With all this talk of WotC not doing any printings for the 4e core books in various threads, let's look at what the actual printings the 4E D&D books are.

Here's a guide to determine what printing a particular book came from.

http://www.travelinlibrarian.info/writing/editions/#prfa

One should see a sequence of numbers on the page with the copyright information.

In the case of WotC 4E D&D books, this information will be on the second pages of most 4E books, at the bottom left hand corner. (Page one is usually the title page, while page three is the table of contents).

For a first printing, one should see the sequence of numbers

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For a second printing, one should see the sequence of numbers

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

For a third printing, one should see the sequence of numbers

9 8 7 6 5 4 3

For a fourth printing, one should see the sequence of numbers

9 8 7 6 5 4

etc ...

Looking through all my 4E books, they all have the sequence of numbers "9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1" which means they are all first printings.

So far over the last year or so of looking through big box bookstores and gaming stores, the only second printings of 4E books I've seen so far have been for the 4E Player's Handbook 2. (These printings have the sequence of numbers "9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2").

The misleading part about many 4E books, is that it will also include a string "First Printing: **Date**" also right below (or above) the sequence of numbers "9 8 7 6 ...". For example, the 4E core books PHB1/DMG1/MM1 will have a string "First Printing: June 2008", regardless of the printing. This string does NOT tell you what the actual printing is.

Using this convention of a sequence of numbers to determine the printings of the 4E books, which printings of 4E books do other people have?

140) Matter-Antimatter asymmetry in the universe, is completely absent.

The DMG3 with a release date of September 2010, was mentioned here (albeit in passing):

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/drfe/20090814

104) Karl Marx is killed in Paris before he ever meets Engels.

Article sources are not confirmed.

With that being said, the question is how many copies of PHB1/DMG1/MM1 are still floating around in circulation at places like Amazon, Alliance Distribution, Borders, Barnes & Noble, etc ... Unless WotC/Random House decides to destroy (ie. pulping) a large number of copies for tax write-off purposes, I wouldn't be surprised if there are still many copies around to last for at least another year or two (or three).

- Under a really punitive Treaty of Versailles, Germany ceases to exist and is dismembered into individual states (ie. Bavaria, Prussia, Silesia, etc ...) which are forbidden to reunify.

The question is, what exactly is there left to "destroy" in Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Dark Sun, Nentir Vale, etc ... which they still find objectionable (for any number of reasons)?

With that being said, one can look at precedents from the past for other RSE type events.

The Forgotten Realms "Time of Troubles" and the Spellplague, came with a change in edition. Some may argue the Spellplague had an additional dual purpose, of throwing out existing FR canon.

The "Greyhawk Wars" was somewhat different. Allegedly it was done to reinvigorate the moribund Greyhawk setting, back in the early 1990's. In the end it appeared it didn't do much to shore up sales, and TSR dropped Greyhawk shortly thereafter from its roster of settings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyhawk_Wars

With these past precedents in mind, what is the main purpose of introducing the "Abyssal Plague" to begin with?

- An upcoming change in edition?
- Throwing out tons of canon?
- Reinvigorating a setting, in order to shore up sales?

Another possible purpose is to merge all of the previous D&D settings, into one huge "Points of Light" universe. From the blurb in the OP, this "Abyssal Plague" will allegedly be affecting all of the known 4E D&D worlds published so far. Could this be similar to DC comics' 1985 "Crisis on Infinite Earths"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_on_infinite_earths

The case of an upcoming 5E D&D edition in 2011 or 2012, would probably be the least likely. That is, unless one is really cynical to believe that WotC has already been developing a 5E D&D over the last two years in complete secrecy.

In the case of throwing out canon, what remaining canon is there to throw out which the Spellplague has not already thrown out? Kill more gods? Reduce the size of the pantheons even further?

If 4E sales haven't been very good over the last year or so, one could be led to believe that the "Abyssal Plague" is a cynical ploy to hype up sales by "jump starting" the setting. (Sales figures are unknown at this point in time to non-insiders).

Merging the existing (and future) 4E D&D settings into one huge universe, is probably more likely and less cynical than the other possible conjecture purposes above.

Companies never reveal why they let somebody go, and usually they ask the person to sign a non-disclosure if they want their termination benefits. So we will probably never know.

The only times I ever heard anybody badmouthing their previous employers concerning the exact reasons why they were canned (after signing a non-disclosure agreement), was typically after the company went bankrupt or closed down. By then, they typically didn't need a reference from the company anymore for their resume.

OTOH, if they've made money on D&D video games, they may keep the brand and related IP and just crank out more video games instead, dropping the tabletop line. That would be very sad, but as all of us here know, with Pathfinder and many other fine games out there, life will go on. :)

Something like this may have unintended consequences.

If the tabletop D&D rpg is taken off the market, who else will step in as the "gateway drug" into the tabletop rpg world for new players?

For example, does Pathfinder have the "brand awareness" in popular culture to attract tons of new players to the game, without D&D acting as a "gateway drug"?

We could use licensing in other media as an example. At the end of second edition and a good while through third edition Forgotten Realms video games were big (Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights) has there even been mention of a 4E video game yet?

What we don't know, is how exactly does WotC treat the revenue accounting for their D&D video games. For example, is the video game revenue treated as one big pot, without itemizing it into individual settings (ie. FR, Greyhawk, Eberron, etc ...)?

Furthermore, do they treat the revenue from their video games independently from the rpg and/or novel publishing parts of the business?

WotC took it up for themselves to take a fire axe to the Forgotten Realms, piss off as many old fans as possible and refuse to listen to the massive protests on the forums. All for a shot at getting new costumers.

BTW, did those new costumers come? I couldn't take *another* of my favorite fictional universes going down in flames ( after BattleTech and EU post-ROTJ Star Wars ) and haven't posted on the Realms forums after the release of the new campaign setting. I'm curious what WotCs approach reaped.

What we don't know is how much revenue was being made by Forgotten Realms during 3.5E, and how much is being made with 4E FR.

For example, WotC has not disclosed how much revenue was made from the last dozen or so 3.5E Forgotten Realms splatbooks/modules, nor have they disclosed how much revenue was coming in from the FR novels before the spellplague.

The only possible sure sign of 4E FR being a complete failure (that I can think of offhand), would be if the 4E Forgotten Realms books ended up in huge quantities in the 5 dollar bargain sections at places like Borders, Barnes & Noble, and other bricks & mortar bookstores. (It could be in piles of as many as a ten or twelve books of the same title).

For all we know, the 3.5 FR splatbooks and novels revenue in principle could have been getting worse and worse towards the end of 3.5E, but they didn't say anything public about it. If this was indeed the case, then in principle they may have thought that they had very little (or nothing) to lose by pulling off something like a spellplague.

The setting has lost all support. It has become a dead world.

The same can be said about many other D&D, 3PP, and other developed game setting worlds such as: Mystara, Scarred Lands, Midnight, Ravenloft, Birthright, Planescape, Greyhawk, Glorantha 3rd age, etc ...

I was using various adventure path books to scavenge for ideas to use in my previous sandbox 4E D&D game. A lot of it was taking various encounters, storylines, maps, etc ... and adapting it to the 4E ruleset, which was relatively easy most of the time. There were a few adjustments, such as making the room sizes slightly larger.

Any estimates on how soon we will see some of the other continents on Golarion mapped and fleshed out? (ie. Tian Xia, Arcadia, Azlant, Casmaron, etc ..).

I can't imagine that the subset of folks who want copies of every printing of every book we do is that huge (however much I might want that subset to be huge!).

Do you believe many people are buying the Pathfinder APs (and other supplements), largely as a paper replacement for Dragon and Dungeon magazines? (ie. With better print + paper quality and no cheesy ads).

In my case, that's what I've been doing. The cost of the Pathfinder titles I pick up every month, is approximately two times the amount I was paying for both Dragon and Dungeon magazines every month during the d20 glut era.

or at least until we switch rules systems again (which, hopefully, won't be for 10 years or more).

We'll hold your feet to the fire on this. ;)

DMG2 is my favorite of the 4e books, too. However, it is very short, and has a "setting" section tacked on to the end, which makes me think that the comments about "not even being able to fill one book" have a certain validity.

Perhaps this is one possible reason why DMG3 was taken off the release schedule for 2010. Not enough stuff to fill one book?

DMG3 was unofficially mentioned to have a release date of September 2010 in

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/drfe/20090814

It will advance the timeline by a couple of years, but won't assume any of the modules or Adventure Paths have taken place.

Will there be a "realms changing event" for Golarion, such as something like a "time of troubles" or "spellplague" of Forgotten Realms, or the "Greyhawk Wars" of Greyhawk?

Or will it be more like the what happened to Eberron from 3.5E to 4E?

Beckett wrote:

That is because in general, modules do not sell very well. One and only 1 person in a gaming group should purchase it, most do not, and once that group has gone through it, the physical module is typically fogotten about or sold for cheap.

Interestingly it seems to be how Paizo managed to bootstrap itself into the rules business and seems to be how they're keeping up the interest in their own campaign world.

I have heard many times that modules don't sell well, don't make money, whatever. This may be true (I don't know any of the details about the business) but they're certainly an important part of a game's longevity and what makes the memorable.

This may possibly be true for the "big fishes" of TSR and later WotC. On the other hand, modules may possibly sell "just well enough" to be viable for a smaller rpg company. Since nobody has released any official sales and profit figures, we will never know for sure.

Here's an old thread which discussed a 3PP company (Monkey God) exiting the adventure modules business, back in late 2003 during the d20 glut.

Monkey God no longer doing adventures

As to whether Paizo will follow the WotC model of pumping out new hardcover crunch-heavy splatbooks every month instead of adventure modules, remains to be seen. At the present time, I don't see Paizo going in that direction. The only way I can see Paizo changing their business model to cranking out tons of new hardcover crunch-heavy splatbooks, is if D&D is removed from the market by Hasbro and Paizo fills in the vacuum capturing most of the existing D&D audience.

I think they would probably point out that most organized crime profit comes from vice operations

There are organized crime activities which do not always fall directly into the "vice" category, such as:

- infiltrating unions or other groups with lots of money
- running guns
- laundering money
- loan sharking
- "muscle" for hire shakedowns
- protection rackets
- smuggling
- kidnapping

Just legalizing adult vices, certainly would not eliminate these activities.

I'm not sure that I accept the inevitability of the strong brutalizing the weak in the absence of the the state. Anarcho capitalists would certainly reject that assumption.

How does the mafia and other organized "crime" type groups disappear from such a system? That is, short of redefining organized "crime" activities from being formerly illegal to being legal.

I would define freedom as a lack of interference by state.

By this definition of "freedom", America certainly does not have the most "freedom" when it comes to banking.

Places like Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, etc ... have considerably more banking "freedom" than America.

I) We believe that America is the greatest country in the World, because of the efforts of its people.

V) We believe that the greatest asset America has is freedom and it should be exported at every opportunity.

Change the word "America" to "Germany", and see how much it changes these statements.

A German who believes or says such statements (with "Germany" replacing the word "America"), will be automatically accused of being a Nazi.

Steve Geddes wrote:

I've bought Blackmoor, Scarrport....

What are those like? I've been debating about purchasing them.

I have skimmed through both when I saw them at a nearby FLGS. I came to the conclusion they would be largely next to useless for my 4E game.

The 4E Blackmoor book looked like a 4E version of the 3.5E Blackmoor campaign guide.

Scarrport sort of reminded me of a Freeport type town.

The players in my 4E game were largely resistant to any classes, races, etc ... that were not in the DDI character builder. At most, I suppose I could use Blackmoor, Scarrport, etc ... for making new NPCs or monsters + badguys. Other than that, they would probably see very little use in my 4E game.

If I really wanted to play a Blackmoor game, I would probably do it using 3.5E/Pathfinder or an older D&D box set from the 1980's with the DA series of modules.

I've used some of the encounters from various Goodman DCC 4E modules, in my previous 4E sandbox game.

They were on something of a stock buying binge at the time - there are a number of filings from that period about stock buybacks. They probably were able to get a bigger bang for their buck with the repurchase of the warrants.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were several underlying motivations, from the both the financial and consumer sides.

On the consumer side back when the episodes 2 and 3 movies were still "fresh" (ie. 2002 -> 2005), I remember seeing Star Wars figures being sold even in places like food supermarkets. Today these same supermarkets haven't been selling any Star Wars figures for the last several years. They were largely gone a year or so after episode 3 was released. Perhaps there was a "glut" of Star Wars toys figures on the market, saturating it?

Lucasfilm had "warrants" that gave them a *right to buy* Hasbro stock; Hasbro spent $200 million in 2007 to buy back those warrants.

Wonder why exactly Hasbro made the decision to buy back the Lucas warrants.

Without knowing any inside information, one could guess that perhaps the Star Wars toys may not have been selling as well in 2006-2007. They probably thought it would be easier to settle with Lucas, than to have to deal with whatever contract they had originally signed with him.