(rant) "Your Best Game Ever" has me much more bummed than I should be

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I think he’s a fantastic setting creator. Very imaginative and detailed. Thus far, I’ve enjoyed 3-4 of the settings he’s written, even if I might have disagreed with the systems.

I loved Arcana Unearthed/Evolved and liked Ptolus (what little I saw of it), but found Numenera and The Strange underwhelming. (God I knows I wanted to love these two.)
 
I loved Arcana Unearthed/Evolved and liked Ptolus (what little I saw of it), but found Numenera and The Strange underwhelming. (God I knows I wanted to love these two.)

The strange was written by Bruce, if I remember correctly. Numenera I enjoyed as a setting quite a lot. AU/E is still a favorite of mine - ran a game and played in two in that.

Ah well, people change and move on I suppose
 
The strange was written by Bruce, if I remember correctly. Numenera I enjoyed as a setting quite a lot. AU/E is still a favorite of mine - ran a game and played in two in that.

Ah well, people change and move on I suppose

I have voiced my gripes with Numenera here and here. TL;DR — thick with style, thin with substance. The OSR alone boast a hunch of sci-fantasy modules that feature more interesting ideas than the whole Numenera core rulebook.
 
FWIW, I finally got around to reading the book four years later. Misprint aside, it's pretty danged good. I'd definitely recommend reading it for people new to the hobby, or even for old timers like myself. It's always good to get different points of view. I like how Monte brings up the different styles of GMs, players, groups, and games, and lets people know that they're all good, just different. And it can even change as GMs, players, groups, and games change. It's sad that that's even necessary to bring up, but a good idea.
 
So, I backed the MCG KS on their generic RPG supplement, partly because I was curious as to what Monte (and the rest of the contributors) would have to say and partly because it promised to be a good-looking book. So I splurged for the deluxe version.

And now, at the end of the (long) last update, in a pretty nonchalant way, MCG informs the backer that the book is misprinted. One eassay (by Matt Colville) is missing because another (by Ajit George) has been included twice, by mistake.

Now, on an intellectual level, I know the misprint is probably pretty minor. A few pages at most...

... but I'm FUCKING BUMMED, GODDAMN! How the hell do you send a collector's edition to the printer without realizing your FUCKING BOOK IS MISSING PAGES.

Sorry for the rant but I really need to ge this out of my system. So annoying.
Amusingly, the misprint might be making this printing more valuable for collectors...in which case, you'd be able to recoup it:thumbsup:!
 
Did they ever do the right thing or did they intentionally fraud customers by continuing to do presales and sales of those misprinted volumes without warning buyers?
 
Did they ever do the right thing or did they intentionally fraud customers by continuing to do presales and sales of those misprinted volumes without warning buyers?

No idea. They corrected the PDF, and made the Matt Colville piece available online for those who only bought the print book, which was good enough for me.
 
I have voiced my gripes with Numenera here and here. TL;DR — thick with style, thin with substance. The OSR alone boast a hunch of sci-fantasy modules that feature more interesting ideas than the whole Numenera core rulebook.
I found Shadow of the Demon Lord similar, way more Style than Substance (although more substance than Numenera.) I accept your Numenera criticism, and agree, but…there’s something about that setting that got my brain a cookin’. I wanted to find out what was there and came up with a lot of ideas. Unfortunately, there’s tons of questions with very few answers.

I don’t mind you doing a Chris Carter if you’re going to publish a shitload of Monster of the Week modules. If you’re gonna do a Lindelof, though, that’s when I get off the Bridge to Nowhere.
 
I’m almost afraid to ask, but what does Ajit George, a guy who runs an NGO for rural education in India have to do with GMing? Is he also a gamer or something?
 
FWIW, I finally got around to reading the book four years later. Misprint aside, it's pretty danged good. I'd definitely recommend reading it for people new to the hobby, or even for old timers like myself. It's always good to get different points of view. I like how Monte brings up the different styles of GMs, players, groups, and games, and lets people know that they're all good, just different. And it can even change as GMs, players, groups, and games change. It's sad that that's even necessary to bring up, but a good idea.
It's not a waste of time to read their material. MCG's make good products. That said, I'll personally never back another of their Kickstarter's. They drag on forvereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeever. The only reason I'd backed about half a dozen of their Kickstarter's in the past was due to getting the pdf as part of the Kickstarter, since they are one of the anachronistic companies that doesn't believe in pdfs along with the physical product.

The frustration and stress of dealing with their Kickstarters over years grew to be a major frustration and bummer to be all Southern California like. So I finally weaned myself from backing their products. I'd rather wait for the damn thing to release and then pay for the pdf and physical product.
 
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I’m almost afraid to ask, but what does Ajit George, a guy who runs an NGO for rural education in India have to do with GMing? Is he also a gamer or something?
...why wouldn't he be?
 
I dunno, it's just weird because the first time I ever heard of the guy, it was in a completely non-gaming context.
So? That just means you were in a similar circle as him professionally. But all of us have other professions, those that are full-time RPG creators are just a handful here*, right? So it makes sense that many people would have heard of us and we of them in other contexts.
And gaming isn't as niche today, or as it was in the the past - reportedly MAR Barker kept a strict separation between his gaming and professional lives. Today, we don't have to, our colleagues might think it a bit eccentric, but we've got overall better at accepting eccentricities:shade:!

As an example, I've invited colleagues, and some of them accepted. None of them would have heard about me in a gaming context first:thumbsup:.
And a decade ago, I'd have kept a strict separation myself. Times, they be a-changing...

Besides, if you're working with agricultural workers, you should have your evenings free, which might well mean gaming:angel:!

*As opposed to the Forge, at least according to the jokes that it's a place where game designers are selling each other their new Hotness Of The Month:grin:!
 
I found Shadow of the Demon Lord similar, way more Style than Substance (although more substance than Numenera.) I accept your Numenera criticism, and agree, but…there’s something about that setting that got my brain a cookin’. I wanted to find out what was there and came up with a lot of ideas. Unfortunately, there’s tons of questions with very few answers.

I don’t mind you doing a Chris Carter if you’re going to publish a shitload of Monster of the Week modules. If you’re gonna do a Lindelof, though, that’s when I get off the Bridge to Nowhere.
Yeah. I liked the idea of a short-form "world's gonna end soon" system, but the actual content for that basically amounts to "there be demons, yo"; there's nothing you couldn't do with any other system.

Perfectly fine game in it's own right, but not the game it's marketed as.
 
Yeah. I liked the idea of a short-form "world's gonna end soon" system, but the actual content for that basically amounts to "there be demons, yo"; there's nothing you couldn't do with any other system.

Perfectly fine game in it's own right, but not the game it's marketed as.
Snap. I read it over as it seemed to tick a fair few boxes but I felt like it didn't earn itself the right to change up the ability names from STR, DEX, CON and so on.
 
I first heard of Mr. Cook through his Dark Space setting sourcebook for Rolemaster/Spacemaster. I thought it was pretty cool, but as far as I know there was never anything additional for it.
 
I’m almost afraid to ask, but what does Ajit George, a guy who runs an NGO for rural education in India have to do with GMing? Is he also a gamer or something?
He put together radiant citadel. I was following Mimi Mondal, and he started following and interacting with me.
 
I first heard of Mr. Cook through his Dark Space setting sourcebook for Rolemaster/Spacemaster. I thought it was pretty cool, but as far as I know there was never anything additional for it.
My mate had this Dark Space book when I was a teen. Back then I never followed authors at all.
I really loved Dark Space, but we never managed to run a game with it.
I never actually connected it with Monte Cook to many years later, long after D&D 3E, long after Ptolus.
It was probably when perusing the original edition of Numenera that I realised Monte Cook had written that rather unique RM/SM supplement.
In hindsight it was very him, it stood out from the rest of the ICE settings and thematically isn't far from the scifi fantasy stuff his company produces now.
 
So far, "all the bullshit" is a dozen or so polite messages of people expressing disappointment.
I've seen worse.
Well, that's boring. Why am I even reading this thread? Sure, I can put the pitchfork back in the tool shed, but my torch is a write-off. I was promised there would be an angry mob for me to join. :gunslinger:
 
FWIW, I finally got around to reading the book four years later. Misprint aside, it's pretty danged good. I'd definitely recommend reading it for people new to the hobby, or even for old timers like myself. It's always good to get different points of view. I like how Monte brings up the different styles of GMs, players, groups, and games, and lets people know that they're all good, just different. And it can even change as GMs, players, groups, and games change. It's sad that that's even necessary to bring up, but a good idea.
Oh, any mob that did form dispersed years ago. I'm doubly misled.
 
Well, that's boring. Why am I even reading this thread? Sure, I can put the pitchfork back in the tool shed, but my torch is a write-off. I was promised there would be an angry mob for me to join. :gunslinger:
You replied to a four year old post?
 
It's a good piece, but it's under 500 words. It's almost a throw away blog post. I was led to believe this is a major deal.

I agree it's embarrassing for the publisher. I guess we can disagree about the magnitude of the failure to properly proof the ms.
 
To me the question is did they continue to take sell the misprinted volumes without disclosure of the mistake once it was known? That possibility was raised earlier in the thread.
 
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