Goodman Games

Posted: **Mon Dec 31, 2012 4:46 pm**

Tonight I previewed a new product on RPGnow called The Old School Renaissance Handbook:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/109631/Ol ... -%28PDF%29

Description:
You may have heard of the Old School Renaissance, an enthusiastic movement that champions old-school gaming and old-school systems.

Here's the problem: there are dozens of old school rule sets. So which one should you try?

The Old School Renaissance Handbook profiles 16 different popular old-school systems, including their basic mechanics, character attributes, and advice for DMs and players. There's even a handy one-page table comparing all these systems on price and complexity.

Plus, the book stats out the same five first-level characters in all 16 systems. Compare systems easily, and quickly jump into a game with these pregens.

Here are the 16 systems covered in the book:

Adventurer Conqueror King System

BareBones RPG

Dungeon Crawl Classics

Dungeon Raiders

Dungeon Squad!

Dungeon World

Labyrinth Lord

Lamentations of the Flame Princess

Mazes & Minotaurs

Microlite74

Old School Hack

OSRIC

Searchers of the Unknown

Stars Without Number

Swords and Wizardry

Warrior, Rogue & Mage

And soon I'll release a 100-page hardback edition that will also include interviews with Kirin Robinson of Old School Hack, James Raggi III of Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Jason Morningstar of Dungeon Squad!, and Michael Wolf of Warrior, Rogue & Mage.

The misrepresentation comes on page 5 of the preview:

The author has apparently mixed up the beta (168 pages, Highest PC level = 5, etc, etc) with the core book ($19 PDF, $40 Print). There may be other mistakes; I didn't buy it, so I can't be sure.

I'm sure it was just a simple mistake, but since the purpose of the product is to aid readers in choosing which OSR game they should buy, that should probably be corrected. Just FYI.

Posted: **Mon Dec 31, 2012 6:41 pm**

thanks for posting this. I guess I can avoid that product. It's good were looking out for each other.

Posted: **Mon Dec 31, 2012 8:25 pm**

Update: I went ahead & bought it. The section on DCC seems wholly based on the beta, so suffice to say it's not a fair presentation of the final product. I emailed the author and offered to lend a hand if he wished to bring things up to date. I mentioned that the community here would likely be an even better resource, too. And I plugged Purple Sorcerer's character generator, to boot.

Posted: **Tue Jan 01, 2013 4:20 am**

Nice catch, Rick. You da man!

I don't know anything about this book (other than what you've told us) but it seems like a mighty big undertaking and I'm not surprised that there would be a few errors along the way. Glad you're working to fix this one!

Posted: **Tue Jan 01, 2013 6:43 am**

The author is being very cool about correcting and updating the pdf based on feedback. I corrected him via Google+ on the fact that he'd said Adventurer Conqueror King had separate Race and Class, for example, when it's actually Race-as-Class but simply presents several Race-As-Class classes for each race.

Colin

Posted: **Tue Jan 01, 2013 12:00 pm**

it doesn't even sound like the author has read any of these books. How can you screw up this significant details on at least 2 of the books? I know the project sounds like a good thing but it looks like someone is doing an OSR money grab to me. If you can't explain the damn stuff right why should we bother reading it?

Posted: **Tue Jan 01, 2013 1:37 pm**

dark cauliflower wrote:it doesn't even sound like the author has read any of these books. How can you screw up this significant details on at least 2 of the books? I know the project sounds like a good thing but it looks like someone is doing an OSR money grab to me. If you can't explain the damn stuff right why should we bother reading it?

Have you bought/ read the item? If not, dont be so harsh in your judgment. I sincerely doubt its a "money grab". Small time rpg book writers are rarely rich.
The errors seem like innocent mistakes that the author is working to correct.

Posted: **Tue Jan 01, 2013 2:24 pm**

no Im not going to buy the stupid thing. If your going to promote your product as something that tells you what other products are you had better tell the truth about things. There is no way he could have read the DCC book and think there are only 5 levels in the book. No way!

Posted: **Tue Jan 01, 2013 4:07 pm**

dark cauliflower wrote:no Im not going to buy the stupid thing. If your going to promote your product as something that tells you what other products are you had better tell the truth about things. There is no way he could have read the DCC book and think there are only 5 levels in the book. No way!

It was based on beta. The play- test, unfinished version.

Posted: **Tue Jan 01, 2013 7:24 pm**

Thanks for the heads up. I'll contact the author. I'm sure his intentions are good...now he just has to make sure the information is, too.

Posted: **Wed Jan 02, 2013 4:51 am**

This was brought up over on Google+. He has updated the PDF with the correct information and re-posted the PDF. I have not purchased the product, so I can't confirm, but he has stated it has been corrected.

Posted: **Wed Jan 02, 2013 5:05 am**

Rick ought to be able to re-upload the corrected version for free. Perhaps he can report back to us....

Posted: **Wed Jan 02, 2013 6:03 pm**

finarvyn wrote:Rick ought to be able to re-upload the corrected version for free. Perhaps he can report back to us....

I did re-download it after receiving an email claiming that corrections had been made, but it's still incomplete and inadequate (especially in the sense of covering the DCC RPG).

It claims Adventurer Conqueror King is the longest book amongst the 16 games featured, page count-wise ACKS is a little over half the size of DCC.

Under "Mechanics" it states there are no Skills.

Under "Player Character Elements" it states that Hit Points are 1d4 + "Class Bonus".

4 of the 5 example characters are statted out using Strength-Dexterity-Constitution-Intelligence-Wisdom-Charisma. Only the Dwarf character is done w/ the correct terminology (Strength-Agility-Stamina-Personality-Intelligence-Luck).

The characters are half done (at best). This is the included Cleric, in its entirety:

Dania
Class Cleric Alignment Law God Gorhan
HP 5 Attack +0 Weapon 1d6
Crit Die 1d8 Crit Table III Action Dice 1d20
Strength 9 Dexterity 11 Constitution 15
Intelligence 12 Wisdom 16 Charisma 14
Fortitude +1 Reflex +0 Will +1

No spells. No Lucky Roll. No Occupation. Incorrect terminology.

In other words, none of the things that make DCC stand out from the pack, as it were.

So, if the purpose of this product is to assist in determining which OSR-inspired game is right for you, based on what I've seen it does not succeed. And, remember, this is after corrections were made. Caveat emptor.

Posted: **Wed Jan 02, 2013 6:15 pm**

If he does not correct it, post a negative review where you bought it. RPGnow or wherever.

Posted: **Thu Jan 03, 2013 7:53 am**

Well...now I've inadvertently stepped into it on Google+ based on a response to a blog post by the inestimable Rob Conley.

Any updates on what has and has not been fixed?

Posted: **Thu Jan 03, 2013 10:50 am**

Thanks for the feedback, everyone.

I've been frankly overwhelmed by the response. I thought the OSR Handbook would be a useful project, but people are clearly upset that I got information on the DCC wrong.

For clarity: When I sat down to write the section on DCC, I opened the wrong PDF. I apparently put the final product in the wrong place, and I had the beta rules in the "review" folder. My fault, and I apologize.

When I learned about this earlier this week, I fixed the main DCC stats in the book--number of pages, number of monsters, etc.--then reviewed my profile of the book to make sure there were no obvious technical problems. I then pushed out a revised copy. I recognize that my profile of DCC will undoubtedly need to be revised, once I sit down and read through the final PDF closely.

As to the description of DCC: I am sorry that the description of the DCC feels incomplete, and I will work to expand that.

I want to make the OSR Handbook as useful as possible, and obviously I don't want it to be inaccurate.

To that point: What should I include in the profile? I obviously can't cover every pro and con for every system, but what are the big things that make DCC "stand out from the pack," in Rick's words?

Posted: **Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:55 am**

Welcome to the boards, Brent!

BrentNewhall wrote:I've been frankly overwhelmed by the response. I thought the OSR Handbook would be a useful project, but people are clearly upset that I got information on the DCC wrong.

I doubt that anyone thinks it was intentional. Sounds like you have been juggling a lot of information and got a little of it tangled.

I think that the OSR Handbook has a lot of potential, as there are so many products which have appeared in the past few years that many folks can't keep track of them all. Having a guide as to the strengths and weaknesses of each can be nothing but a positive thing!

Posted: **Thu Jan 03, 2013 2:01 pm**

finarvyn wrote:Welcome to the boards, Brent!

(snip)
I think that the OSR Handbook has a lot of potential, as there are so many products which have appeared in the past few years that many folks can't keep track of them all. Having a guide as to the strengths and weaknesses of each can be nothing but a positive thing!

Thanks! Yeah, I'm hoping it'll be useful to folks, especially as I expand it and incorporate feedback. The OSR has a lot of wonderful corners, and it could do with more information across systems.

Posted: **Thu Jan 03, 2013 9:03 pm**

It might not be bad to contact the creators of said games (or at least those very familiar with the system) to OK what you info you have & how their games are represented.

Goodman Games

[Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGnow

[Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGnow

Re: [Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGno

Re: [Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGno

Re: [Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGno

Re: [Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGno

Re: [Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGno

Re: [Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGno

Re: [Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGno

Re: [Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGno

Re: [Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGno

Re: [Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGno

Re: [Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGno

Re: [Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGno

Re: [Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGno

Re: [Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGno

Re: [Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGno

Re: [Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGno

Re: [Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGno

Re: [Joseph] DCC RPG misrepresented in PDF for sale on RPGno