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It took them nine reactions to get there?
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May 8, 2016 20:08
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"Sure, can you send a copy or number of the police report just so I can confirm?"
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May 8, 2016 20:18
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Alien Rope Burn posted:"Sure, can you send a copy or number of the police report just so I can confirm?" He double downed on that: quote:Okay, so I'm going to share Jim's response below (he gave me permission to post it verbatim). The e-mail I sent to him yesterday was inquisitive but not accusatory, as I wanted to give Jim a chance to explain what really happened before we incriminated him. Per his request, I've removed links to some private documents.
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May 8, 2016 20:54
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I think you just say "no" to this guy. He's also doing that liar thing they give you way too much information because "How could he be making all this up?"
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May 8, 2016 21:47
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You tell him tough titties and wish him luck on getting Best Buy to replace his laptop gratis, too. This is either a scammer with his sights set absurdly low, or an incredibly entitled prat. Either way, no. Bieeanshee fucked around with this message at 23:39 on May 8, 2016 |
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May 8, 2016 23:36
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"I was told that since the report was taken over the phone, and because they would not be investigating the crime" Bull. loving. poo poo. From the sounds of it quite a lot of stuff was stolen. At the very least they would send someone out to get a full on proper report and maybe while they wouldn't go out and send out cops and dust for prints and poo poo, they would probably put pawn shops on notice about a bunch of the stuff stolen so they can be on alert. That story sounds 100% like someone figured out a way to scam people. Nobody should trust that.
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May 9, 2016 00:30
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The Black Stones posted:"I was told that since the report was taken over the phone, and because they would not be investigating the crime" Real Story time here on why to do this: I had a gun case of figure stolen out of my car one time. Had a bunch of old school daemons from WFB 5E, which makes the figures a pain to ever get back and worth a decent amount, ~$1000 with ebay prices. I ended up making a police report for the stuff as a way to keep the option open for an insurance claim, which I ended up not making due to the dollar difference in stuff. However, I did get a call within about a month from the cops about some stuff that showed up that they though might be the same stuff. Turns out the guy taking the stuff open the case about a block later, realized it wasn't a gun, and tossed it on a neighbor's lawn. He had zero idea what the stuff was, but figured that effort was put into painting them, and turned them into the cops after nobody came by to claim them. There is zero chance this guy put in a police report, or that he was told that by the cops. The police might not do a major investigation, but they aren't just tossing the paperwork in the trash.
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May 9, 2016 01:06
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That poo poo is clearly a scam. The part about police reports isn't totally unbelievable though. My car was broken into like 8 times over 2 years, I reported it each time, and then on the ninth time they actually damaged stuff and I had to do insurance paperwork, requested the reports from the cops, and while I had 8 receipt numbers, they only had 6 reports on file.
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May 9, 2016 01:06
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The obvious response at this point is to go full-on conspiracy mode and tell him that it must have been the cops who took his stuff, because why else would they refuse to file a report? Then counter every attempt for more free stuff with increasingly more cryptic and fervent updates on how you're uncovering this vast elfgame conspiracy that's going all the way to the top.
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May 9, 2016 01:13
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Fuego Fish posted:The obvious response at this point is to go full-on conspiracy mode and tell him that it must have been the cops who took his stuff, because why else would they refuse to file a report? Then counter every attempt for more free stuff with increasingly more cryptic and fervent updates on how you're uncovering this vast elfgame conspiracy that's going all the way to the top. Sounds like the start of an Unknown Armies game.
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May 9, 2016 01:20
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Attach a picture of a dollar bill with "IN GOD WE TRUST" replaced with "BEND BARS LIFT GATES" and the all-seeing eye is a d4.
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May 9, 2016 01:22
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Fuego Fish posted:...a picture of a dollar bill with "IN GOD WE TRUST" replaced with "BEND BARS LIFT GATES" and the all-seeing eye is a d4. gradenko_2000 posted:Sounds like the start of an Unknown Armies game. Now I have to learn Unknown Armies properly and run this.
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May 9, 2016 01:24
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http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3410-Why-We-Need-To-Pay-What-Games-Are-Worth-Not-What-We-Think-They-Should-Cost The comments are predictably terrible. quote:I'm saying I would be inclined to pay $20 for a black and white thin on art 192 page sword.Coast Adventurers Guide than spend $25 on amazon for the actual as produced product.
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May 9, 2016 04:35
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clockworkjoe posted:http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3410-Why-We-Need-To-Pay-What-Games-Are-Worth-Not-What-We-Think-They-Should-Cost Holy poo poo gently caress that Celebrim guy.
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May 9, 2016 04:48
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Slimnoid posted:Holy poo poo gently caress that Celebrim guy.
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May 9, 2016 05:11
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FMguru posted:He was a semi-regular fixture in the old grognards.txt threads, with the same whining about how books today are too fancy and expensive. Oh yeah, he was the guy who actually had a D&D house rule where women had -4 Strength but +4 Wisdom. I recall that username when he got really, really angry about me posting a Sexism in Tabletop Gaming thread a few years ago on those very forums. Not surprising to see this.
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May 9, 2016 05:41
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gradenko_2000 posted:Sounds like the start of an Unknown Armies game. Once the guy has managed to get a free copy of every single game currently in print, he will become the new Godwalker of The Scammer.
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May 9, 2016 06:23
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Scammers like that suck. Does anyone have a contact address for GMS? Someone broke into my car and stole all my RPGs and I was really looking forward to playing Far West.
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May 9, 2016 07:32
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My favorite "books cost too much" argument was that the move to POD hurt sales because people could no longer
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May 9, 2016 07:39
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For supplement heavy lines like D&D, WoD, GURPS, etc I can very much see the value in allowing your customers to read the books before purchasing them. Particularly in crunch heavy systems that require a bit of referencing.
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May 9, 2016 07:44
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clockworkjoe posted:http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3410-Why-We-Need-To-Pay-What-Games-Are-Worth-Not-What-We-Think-They-Should-Cost
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May 9, 2016 10:24
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I think a lot of the problem here is that the big seller RPGs can afford to have lower prices than lot of other companies. So they set the standard. Then the smaller RPG companies come into the game and have fewer customers who would be interested in a less main stream game to begin with which means the production cost is a larger portion of their overall funding. Then if they raised the prices this would just compound the problem, and make even fewer people play indie games because the mega popular games can afford to keep books cheap. So really if you want to stay in business as an indie RPG maker you need to either use something like kickstarter that essentially locks in a minimum number or preorders or else rely on nerd charity to buy your 80 dollar book. The former seems a lot more likely to work out than the latter, because nerd charity is something we've seen fail to carry though basically every time it is requires.
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May 9, 2016 10:39
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I'm very OK with stripped-down, budget editions of rulebooks. Full color glossy pages are great, but I get more table use out of B&W POD editions since I can write margin notes, use highlighter, pencil in errata, etc. It's also a lot easier to spend $10 on something like the Savage Worlds explorer edition or $25 on the Kings of War player's edition. The current model works pretty well since I can buy a PDF and print my own "reference edition" of important sections for the table.
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May 9, 2016 13:51
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moths posted:I'm very OK with stripped-down, budget editions of rulebooks. Full color glossy pages are great, but I get more table use out of B&W POD editions since I can write margin notes, use highlighter, pencil in errata, etc. Do they make "binder edition" RPGs with holes cut out on each page? Those are my favorite versions of textbooks, especially since you can put them in a smaller binder as "chunks" dedicated to a particular midterm/section, and I think they'd be really useful for RPGs.
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May 9, 2016 13:56
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Asimo posted:I love the "oh I would totally love a plaintext file instead!" arguments because they are so transparently bullshit. A proper layout and art are actually pretty critical to RPGs, since they help break up the text and make it easier to remember where various sections of the text are in the book. It's the same reason good textbooks have chapter illustrations, tables, and other visual cues. Someone who claims they would prefer going without is like, the perfect example of someone who has no idea of what they actually want in a product.
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May 9, 2016 14:25
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There's also the "everything is easy to people who don't have to do it" factor. Like, why does editing take so long, just dump the text in Word and see what it puts red underlines under, right? Why are you worrying about publishing costs, just let DriveThru do the POD and that's all.
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May 9, 2016 14:32
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Asimo posted:I love the "oh I would totally love a plaintext file instead!" arguments because they are so transparently bullshit. A proper layout and art are actually pretty critical to RPGs, since they help break up the text and make it easier to remember where various sections of the text are in the book. It's the same reason good textbooks have chapter illustrations, tables, and other visual cues. Someone who claims they would prefer going without is like, the perfect example of someone who has no idea of what they actually want in a product. I disagree. RPG books are generally terribly organized but a well done book would be fine in pure text form. Visual cues are fine but not necessary, that's what ToCs/Indexes/memory are for. I honestly would prefer to have a stripped down text-only version of the games I play with any frequency, but that's obviously going to sell a lot less because people like having pretty things so it is not a good move to make anyway.
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May 9, 2016 14:37
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Yeah, regardless of any people who don't need art, art sells. An RPG without art is probably doomed to failure.
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May 9, 2016 14:41
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clockworkjoe posted:http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3410-Why-We-Need-To-Pay-What-Games-Are-Worth-Not-What-We-Think-They-Should-Cost Oh man this is amazing: Celebrim posted:You don't deserve anything for living out your dream job. No one has any obligation to you at all just because you wanted to be an RPG writer and decided to spend time making product. Zilch. Nada. None. Work doesn't inherently have value. That sort of gushy sounding 'deserve' has a nasty mailed fist and a jackboot underneath it.
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May 9, 2016 14:53
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GimmickMan posted:I disagree. RPG books are generally terribly organized but a well done book would be fine in pure text form. Visual cues are fine but not necessary, that's what ToCs/Indexes/memory are for. I honestly would prefer to have a stripped down text-only version of the games I play with any frequency, but that's obviously going to sell a lot less because people like having pretty things so it is not a good move to make anyway. We talking GameFAQ-style-formatting RPG book (i.e. Table of Contents searchable by ctrl+f and no art or indexing)? Table of Contents and indexes that use page numbers are hideously time-consuming unless you use software to maintain them for you. And if you are using software that can do that, the only thing missing would be art. I don't think this would result in as large of a cost savings as some would think. e: a while back, someone posted a link actually detailing how to budget for a rpg book but I apparently didn't favorite the link; does anyone have it handy? Kibner fucked around with this message at 14:57 on May 9, 2016 |
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May 9, 2016 14:53
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Jimbozig posted:Yeah, regardless of any people who don't need art, art sells. An RPG without art is probably doomed to failure. I heartily agree. If you believe in the statement that "rules should support the fiction", art plays heavily into that because "a warrior fighting an orc" can be illustrated a zillion different ways, but it's the specific way that it's shown in your book that puts a flavor onto how the game should look and feel and run like, whether that's gritty, or whimsical, or sci-fi, or anywhere in between.
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May 9, 2016 15:03
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Reading comments from publishers on that ENWorld article, it occurs to me that a large part of the problem is that the nature of RPG design makes it feel like it's "free work". After all, it doesn't cost you anything to write something, and playtesting is just playing RPGs, which we all do anyway, right? And you don't even need to handle publishing/distribution costs anymore now that we live in the POD/PDF era. So what are you really charging for? I think this is an offshoot of the industry's low barrier of entry. Anyone can make and publish something nowadays, so clearly it's cheap and easy to do. (I've worked on two things that have been published: the Dungeon World Guide and a chapter in Inverse World. Of the two, I was only paid for IW, and out of the two the Guide is insanely more popular. Eon and I didn't charge for the guide mainly because we didn't think it'd be so huge, but looking back I still want to put it up as PWYW on DriveThru or something. But I lost contact with Eon ages ago and don't want to do that without his okay and a way for him to get his fair share.)
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May 9, 2016 15:26
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I'm not sure I've seen the idea of 'wages are literally fascism, destroy the capitalist system' derive from entitlement over RPGs before.
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May 9, 2016 15:26
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That mentally probably grows from when a DM does "work" preparing a game for free. They're extrapolating their unpaid effort to what a designer does, when in reallity running a game/campaign is how they choose to consume and enjoy the product. They see a designer as a "Big DM" who gets the most say, not as an actual working person who deserves a salary. Since they enjoy doing what (they imagine) a designer does, they never consider it paying work. Chill la Chill posted:Do they make "binder edition" RPGs with holes cut out on each page? I don't think this had been a thing since the 2e AD&D Monsters Compendium, but I feel like Trinity had a weird binding.
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May 9, 2016 15:36
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Evil Mastermind posted:You're living the dream of being an RPG publisher! Isn't that payment enough? Hardcore RPG player is tight assed, libertarian shitlord, news at 11
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May 9, 2016 15:37
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moths posted:I don't think this had been a thing since the 2e AD&D Monsters Compendium, but I feel like Trinity had a weird binding.
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May 9, 2016 15:39
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GimmickMan posted:I disagree. RPG books are generally terribly organized but a well done book would be fine in pure text form. Visual cues are fine but not necessary, that's what ToCs/Indexes/memory are for. I honestly would prefer to have a stripped down text-only version of the games I play with any frequency, but that's obviously going to sell a lot less because people like having pretty things so it is not a good move to make anyway. Text-only != plaintext. A text-only version of a game still has to have formatting and layout in order to be legible.
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May 9, 2016 15:45
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Mors Rattus posted:I'm not sure I've seen the idea of 'wages are literally fascism, destroy the capitalist system' derive from entitlement over RPGs before. NTRabbit posted:Hardcore RPG player is tight assed, libertarian shitlord, news at 11
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May 9, 2016 15:46
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moths posted:They see a designer as a "Big DM" who gets the most say, not as an actual working person who deserves a salary. Since they enjoy doing what (they imagine) a designer does, they never consider it paying work. That same attitude also contributes to the enormous glut of RPG designers and individual RPGs we have. A market that paid a living wage should be what we work towards, but there are numerous RPGs that don't have broad enough appeal to be sustainable at a higher price point.
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May 9, 2016 15:48
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Halloween Jack posted:This has come up a few times in grogs.txt, but I've noticed that discussions about the RPG market itself tend to take on a peculiarly libertarian bent, until it comes to the subject of particular game that a particular poster wants--then he wants it to be cheap-to-free for nonsensical reasons. I always notice how 'libertarian' arguments are completely in favor of companies working for their own interests, but when labor agitates for its own interests, they're "entitled" and "lazy" and probably millenials who don't know the value of an hour/dollar or whatever. This guy exemplifies a lot of similar attitudes about how developers should feel honored to drop 80+ hours a week in videogames "because they are art not a job" and they shouldn't complain about the hours or being underpaid because again art! Didn't he mention games are art?! Stop being such a spoiled whiner!
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May 9, 2016 15:52
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