The Pros and Cons of Lulu

The original Lulu in To Sir, With Love (great movie, by the way)

Actually, the real original Lulu for me was my grandmother on my mother's side, Lucienne Foubert Chamberlin. Born in France in 1897, we called her "Lulu". Not sure if she was named that as a younger woman or whether that was her "grandmother" name. But she was French and slightly crazy. I think my grandfather, an all-American Iowa-born guy was enchanted by her. I wish I had known them together.

But of course I'm referring to Lulu, the print-on-demand publishing house.

For reasons I don't completely remember I first decided to put my new game, Seven Voyages of Zylarthen on Lulu as opposed to RPGNow. It was on Christmas day 2013. It's still there. The first mock-up I got looked amazing. Truth be told, I ordered ten sets to give to friends for the holiday. This was the "private" Zylarthen with many copyright violations. Actually, it was called "Seven Voyages of Xylarthen" (Gygax's original example character) and contained Balrogs, Beholders and all the rest. Actually, the "revised" public version that I released a few days later was, I think, superior. I like the "Z" better than the "X", and my "science-fiction" versions of the non-SRD monsters I think are actually superior (in a certain sense) to the originals. (Okay, that was a moment of serious non-humility.)

But, whether with an "X" or a "Z" the copies looked amazing. The creamy covers were exactly the shade I wanted. The saddle-stitched bindings were precisely right in terms of how they lay flat and were easily flipped through. Though the initial cost was high--$8.50 per volume (with only an average of $1.50 profit for me)--they were, in my view, perfect. I couldn't have imagined how any publisher or printing house (print-on-demand or otherwise) could have done a better job.

However, a few months later I ordered another mock-up set. It looked awful. In the interim, Lulu had changed printing factories and the saddle-stitch looked amateurish and ugly. In hindsight, this was fortuitous for me, as it prompted a switch to perfect binding, which, not only looked pretty good, but allowed me to offer it at a substantially lower price and make more profit per unit. But it taught me a useful lesson about Lulu: you never knew when they would make some change such that the physical product would come out differently. Thus mock-up or sample versions were of limited utility.

With that introduction, here are the pros and cons as I see them. Comments from other Lulu authors or customers would be welcome.

The Pros:

1. Lulu is easy. They don't vet anything. All they need is a PDF (or two, counting the cover). If you're just a teeny-bit proficient at computers and uploading stuff, etc., you're set. Also, they're pretty expansive about formats and the minimum and maximum number of pages, and so on. If you want to, say, correct a typo or make a minor (or even a major) change in text, you simply delete the current PDF and upload the new one. This takes five or ten minutes. By contrast, I found RPGNow to be much more difficult to deal with on the front end. My initial attempt to upload stuff hung up for some reason, and I couldn't understand why. Also, they wouldn't allow me to do saddle-stitch with the size and page numbers that I desired. An RPGNow staff member contacted me to try to help me (though she made it clear that my requirements wouldn't fit in to their possible templates). She was perfectly helpful and polite. But the point is that on Lulu you didn't have to deal with anyone. You can just do it.
2. At it's best, Lulu's physical product is great.
3. Lulu doesn't seem to take too big a cut. I make a fair amount on my $5.95 booklets, for example (no, I won't tell you exactly how much).
4. Lulu has periodic sales that make things much more attractive to your customers while not lowering your profits by 1 penny. This is a win-win situation for author and customer. I'm not sure what Lulu makes on these offers, but it's their call.
5. Lulu doesn't censor their stuff and then lie about it, unlike RPGNow. (Oh, sorry. That was a political statement. Ignore if that annoys.)

The Cons:

1. As implied above, you never know what the physical product is going to look like for your customers. It seems like Lulu is always changing printing factories, etc., or the printing operations are mercurial. The first perfect-bound booklets I ordered were biased towards the top. I considered compensating with the margins on my PDF but then figured that that might skew things in the opposite direction the next time. Sure enough, none of my customers complained about that. I ordered some additional copies for myself during the recent 35% sale. The margin bias was corrected, and the covers had more color. However the interior text looked more faint--almost as if they were trying to save ink. It was good enough, and I think worth the $5.95 price, but not ideal.
2. Lulu doesn't allow you to bundle. Within a few weeks I will have a combined four-volume PDF of Seven Voyages of Zylarthen available, which I will sell for a price. But Lulu won't allow me to offer that along with, say, the physical booklets.
3. The "preview" function makes your cover and pages look blurry and amateurish. Or maybe it has something to do with the format that I took advantage of. But still.
4. RPGNow has a much larger audience, at least for game products. That may not be Lulu's fault, per se, but it still is a factor.
5. The shipping costs seem too expensive (to me). Lulu seems to make some extra money there. And it varies. I swear that during the 35% off sale, the shipping costs seemed higher.

Look, overall, print-on-demand is positively utopian. I think Lulu is wonderful. I'm just trying to be accurate here.

Again, I'd love to hear any similar/opposed opinions.

Save Versus All Wands Makes the Top Ten!

Save Versus All Wands is honored to have been chosen as one of the Top Ten Gaming Blogs of 2014 by Jeffro Johnson of Jeffro's Space Gaming Blog and Castalia House. Jeffro revealed his choices on Friday (one by one and with much drum rolling and fanfare) on Google+ (later reposted on his blog). He also posted it on the new Recommend, where he is now an Expert reviewer.

Here is the list:

1. Gaming Ballistic by Douglas Cole
2. Dungeon Fantastic by Peter V. Dell’Orto
3. Save Versus All Wands
4. Delta’s D&D Hotspot by Delta 
5. The Tao of D&D by Alexis Smolensk
6. Semper Initiativus Unum by Wayne Rossi
7. Hack & Slash by Courtney Campbell
8. Don't Split the Party by Rick Stump
9. RPG Snob by Jason Packer
10. Pulsipher Game Design by Lewis Pulsipher

Jeffro commented on the methodology behind the rankings:

The shortlist came from whoever was writing stuff that I would link to on my blog. Every link was essentially a vote by me for who I enjoyed reading. However... the actual rankings came from what my own readers were clicking on. While some might quibble over the exact order, I think that these really are all together the best gaming blogs around. I certainly have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of them.

This is a super group of blogs and bloggers, and without false humility I feel a bit unworthy to be included on it. But I will proudly take credit for at least having the good taste to already be an enthusiastic reader of most of them. Being made aware of the others was a treat.

Jeffro's Space Gaming Blog: Microgames, Monster Games, and Role Playing Games contains a gold mine of material, stretching back an amazing ten years. There are hundreds of posts on Car Wars (the original focus of the blog), Traveller, other science fiction games such as Ogre and Star Fleet Battles, military wargames (a large and diverse assortment) as well as, of course, old school D&D. Jeffro sometimes posts material inspired by or about gaming with his children. These are quite funny but also wise, as well as being an inspiration for this relatively new father.

In addition, Jeffro is one of the in-house reviewers for the fantasy publisher Castalia House, where he is in the midst of a series of lengthy and detailed reviews of works by the "Appendix N" authors.

I should note that it was Jeffro who first brought up the Femen angle, quipping that mentioning Save Versus All Wands might spark a Femen protest. In return, I thought it might be fun to take advantage of my links in the radical feminist and performance artist communities and "create" one for him.

If he wants to do an interview with Pussy Riot, I might be able to set that up...

But being included on his list made my month.  

Cheers again and here's to another ten years, my friend.

Femen Demonstration

Six members of the activist group Femen pose in front of WOTC
headquarters before rolling up characters and buying equipment.

There was no OSR Art Friday post yesterday, due to this author's desire to express a day of blog silence in solidarity with three Femen members still detained by Washington authorities.

RENTON, WA, December 5 (AP) – Members of the topless feminist group Femen staged a demonstration today against the “anti-sexual prudery” of the new 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons and against “New School” gaming mechanics in general, stripping down to what one activist called “our sacred chainmail bikinis” in front of the gates of Wizards of the Coast headquarters in suburban Seattle. Three members were arrested.

More than twenty demonstrators stood silently for ten minutes with slogans etched in black marker across their chests, such as “Take your Clothes Off My Body!” "Imagine the Hell Out of It!" and “Fight On!” They then unfolded a card table and proceeded to “role play” a game of what one demonstrator called “Holmes Basic”, led by an activist wearing nothing above her waist except a three-paneled cardboard screen emblazoned with the words “Dungeon Mistress”.

A spokesperson for Wizards of the Coast commented, “I have no idea why they are mad at us. For the text of 5e we consulted all the experts on game design and gender equality. We believe our product reflects the latest consensus of people whose opinion we care about. Where did we go wrong?” When informed of this statement, one of the demonstrators held up what she called a “twenty sider” and shouted, “Save or die, Fascist!”

“What’s all the fuss about,” said Sally Layton, a software engineer from Microsoft, who happened to be on her way to work. “5e is the new thing by the dominant company in the industry. That means it must be good. So, why are these women, like, getting naked or whatever?”

“I find it appalling and highly offensive,” said Matt Vickers, another software designer, who was recording the event with a high-resolution video camera.

Irina Gygaxocova, a representative of Femen from the Ukraine, said the demonstration was intended to highlight how the corporate patriarchy intended to keep women out of tabletop gaming by making the new editions as stupid and boring as possible. “1974 was a liberation for us. Soon there was so much to choose, including Warriors of Mars, original Boot Hill and Gamma World. It was a love orgy of freedom that lasted for more than a decade. But beginning with 3e, and even more with 4e and now 5e, they tried to re-enslave us with their rules for everything, $50 core books and sexually repressive art. (Bleep) them! We can now get whatever OSR games and modules we want from Lulu and RPGNow for less than 1% of the cost of a leather skirt.”

Femen calls its form of protest “Hextremism”.

Natalia Arnesoneskva, a Femen member currently serving five years of hard labor in Moldova for possession of a paperbound copy of Labyrinth Lord was more circumspect. Reached for a comment during her weekly five-minutes exercise period, she said, “I support my sisters, but I now feel that edition wars are counter-productive. As long as the game group is having fun, that’s all that matters. I intend to make that point during my next parole hearing.”

Police detained three demonstrators after they refused to remove a banner they had pinned to the company gates. The banner contained the letters “OSR”--thought to be the abbreviation of a political slogan used by Danish feminists. In a press release on their website, Femen stated that lawyers were working to get the three released as soon as possible. “No laws were broken. They’ll be out quicker than the time it takes to fight a melee engagement in 4e.”

Uncharacteristically, the RPG Pundit had no comment.

0 Level Characters in Zylarthen

There aren't any.

That is, Zylarthen avoids distinguishing, say, 1st level player character Fighting-Men from any other able-bodied fighting types such as non-player character soldiers, mercenaries, etc., at least in any general sense. Among other things, all use the same attack and saving throw tables, though for simplicity, soldiers and mercenaries might sometimes use the "Up to 1" hit dice row of the Monsters Attacking table if keeping track of their weapons becomes more trouble than it's worth.

Now, note that I use the phrase in any general sense. There are a few specific ways in practice that player-characters will differ from other types.

1. Members of the Fighting-Men class (whether player characters or non-player characters) get 1+1 die of hit points as opposed to simply 1 die of hit points for all other able-bodied types.
2. All starting player characters get as many hit point roll mulligans as they need so as to guarantee their hit point roll will be at least 4.
3. All player-character or non-player character members of a class have the chance to gain levels by accumulating experience points.
4. Only player characters or important non-player characters ("important" probably ruling out mercenaries etc.) get to roll on the Zero Hit Point table, thus having a chance to cheat death, if only temporarily. 

That said, it is implicit in Zylarthen that the difference between, say, a classed Fighting-Man and a soldier is merely one of, so to speak, initiative or chosen circumstance. It's certainly not genetic or metaphysical or anything like that. So, for example, when player characters have mercenaries arrive in response to their advertisements--anything from Barbarians (1 silver a day) to Cataphracts (20 silvers a day)--the rules make it clear that they could either be hired in their "ordinary" role, or if the player characters desire, any of them could be invited to be "close associates"--Fighting-Men with the potential to gain levels--as long as they are promised at least half-shares in any treasure.

So, in essence, the only thing that separates you (as a starting character) from that "typical" or "average" guy with a sword over there is that you're brave enough (or stupid enough) to tramp into that dungeon a day's ride away. Or rather, you are that soldier, but you have a desire to make something of yourself by tramping into that dungeon. This may or may not be a good thing.

One might say that Zylarthen shares with Dungeon Crawl Classics the idea of the funnel. Except that in Zylarthen, the funnel isn't something that happens before first level; it is first level. That's a bit of an exaggeration but still...

Why did I design the game this way?

Well, first, since Zylarthen was intended  to follow OD&D in spirit, I wanted to eliminate as many AD&D accretions as possible. And AD&D made much of the distinction between 0 level and leveled types, among other things introducing the term henchmen for non-player characters you could hire--who had a character class and the potential to gain experience and thus level up--as contrasted with hirelings--who were just "normal" mercenaries. In truth, the idea of a Normal Man with attack numbers inferior to starting player characters was first introduced by Holmes, but I'm not sure whether the idea originated with Holmes or whether he wasn't just giving an early launch to an idea that was being tossed around by the AD&D planners. It's also possible, I suppose, that Gygax or Arneson had intended the 0 level distinction for OD&D but hadn't stated it explicitly, or that it was present in some form in Chainmail. Nevertheless it's not in the OD&D text itself.

Second, adding another row or column (for 0 level types or normal men or whatever) to the attack tables just seems fussy. What's the purpose of it exactly? Why are, say Bandits any better at fighting than the average mercenary you might hire? Or, to put it a different way, why go to the trouble of adding an entirely new class or category of people, just to make it clear that bandits (or player characters) are 5% better? Again, what goal does that serve in game terms?

But finally and most importantly, introducing the concept of 0 level characters was in my view one of the first steps into inducing the players to think of their characters as pumped up superheroes--complete with elaborate back stories and titles, etc.--before they had even raised a sword against a Kobold. The Gygaxian conception outlined in The Dungeon Master's Guide (1979) was almost Nietzschean. Only 1 in 100 humans in the average village, town or city were leveled or even had the potential to level. Needless to say, I find the whole trend to be annoying for about five different reasons.

Here's one of them: I wanted Zylarthen to be in part a game about heroism. And yes, I even felt that it had the potential to teach children about this virtue, at least in some small and non-obnoxious manner, without of course getting in the way of the game's primary purpose--using one's imagination to have fun. Not to sound too curmudgeonly, but the point about heroes and heroines is that they need to earn the title. They're not born but made. Or rather, they make themselves through their own actions. Though, having teachers or role-models can obviously help. The anti-0 level thing is only a small part of promoting this idea, I know, but it is a part.

Those who choose to act as heroes or heroines may succeed completely--killing the monster or saving the land or the prince or whatever, perhaps even getting rich as a reward for their efforts. Or they may succeed only partly. Or they may die in the process.

But it is the act that confers the title.

OSR Art Friday: Cover of The Dragon #67

This festive scene is from one of six covers that Jack Crane drew for Dragon Magazine. He also did some interior art for the magazine and wrote a short story, "The Legacy of Hortus", which appeared in Issue # 87.

Scott Taylor of Black Gate: Adventures in Fantasy Literature, recently did an illuminating interview with the artist here, from which we took most of the information below. Among other things, Crane stated:

I’ve always been a bit of a non-conformist, as is probably the case with most artists and creative types. And I’ve always rejected the “norm”, meaningless rules, and established styles for almost everything. My style of drawing is … my style of drawing … as is the case with most artists. And when I first started working for Dragon I was unambiguous about insisting that I never create art depicting one human being inflicting death or injury upon another human being … or any other sentient beings. This seems to be a predictable response to having spent four years in the military with one of those years in a war zone. Kim (Mohan) was perfectly comfortable with those parameters.

Fair enough. His pieces stand out from other fantasy offerings of the day partly for their whimsical humor and Art Nouveau-style use of shading and colors. Add another important mark to Old School art: it was diverse.

Luckily, he didn't apply his otherwise laudable philosophy to holiday turkeys.

The other covers, including the iconic Tree-Men in the Dismal Swamp (# 54) and the unforgettable Andragon (# 96) can be seen in the same Black Gate post, among other places.

Since the 1980's he has had a great diversity of non-fantasy art commissions including newspapers, trade, hobby and craft publications as well as three-dimensional legal displays for law firms. Recently he publicly returned to fantasy art, doing some work for Gygax Magazine. Great stuff.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

The Winners!

"Someone may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it."

-Steve Prefontaine, proto-Old School gamer.

The winners of the Jack Vance Writing Contest are:

perdustin:

Dear Pfenning, this presumption is unbecoming! I regard myself a grandee of discernment and propriety! If I expend a terce or two, it is only to cultivate the goodwill of the townsfolk. Are we rude mermelants, covetous of one another's turnips, or are we men fortunate enough to share the abundant joys of life?

etc.

and

ScrivenerB:

My disposition is choleric, not sour. Nor is it habitual; it is entirely occasioned on finding your image here, inspecting the contents of my treasure vaults. Is this gratitude, to make use of my own gift to spy on my chambers?

etc. etc.

Each received a small (quite) gift certificate from RPGNow to purchase Proteus Sinking or another product of their choice.

In my opinion, the multiple entries of the above writers were pretty brilliant. You may find the others in the comments section of the original post.

Have either of you thought of going the Michael Shea route?

Congratulations again!

On a related note, vfults was the winner of the Seven Voyages of Zylarthen Name Shortening Contest, but I have yet to hear from him or her. Please step forward and claim your prize! Does anyone here know them so they can be reminded?

The deadline is when the sun dies or I go broke, whichever comes first. That should not be reassuring. The sun has been looking quite dim in cold Chicago recently, and I am currently on my third glass of expensive bourbon...

OSR Art Friday: World of Adventure Movie

World of Adventure, created by Riley Swift in 2006, is our first video entry in the OSR Art Friday series. Swift, who was already known in gaming circles for his set of Dungeon Majesty actual play videos, put this together for a fan movie contest. It won of course.

It's a perfect homage to early 80's D&D (has anyone created a more perfect one?), using seemingly found and modified TSR art as well as "original" pieces such as the big-hair nymphs or sexy shamans or whatever they are exactly, beckoning to the viewer in the opening seconds. There are dungeon corridors, more dungeon corridors, slithering things, skeletons and skulls and more skeletons and skulls including a giant skull with flashing jewel eyes. There are references to Spelljammer as well as tavern scenes and floofy wilderness settings with bards and maidens. My three-old son was looking at the video very intently and seriously, but then burst into a spontaneous and joyous laugh when the talking tree appeared.

Scott Martin of the metal/punk bands 400 Blows, Crom (the American one) and Big Business created the original heavy metalish soundtrack. Speaking of which, the whole video is sort of a shorter and more fun version of the 1981 film Heavy Metal. Again, remember, World of Adventure was made in 2006.

Swift would later be hired by HASBRO to use pieces of the movie to create thirty second television ads for the "Red Box" version of D&D 4e. Many Old Schoolers predictably sniffed at this as an attempt to portray a bad game in nostalgic terms it hadn't earned. They were right of course, but the ads are still fun. 

Dungeon Majesty (whose 2004 trailer is here) features Swift and four ladies sitting around a small table playing D&D 3.5 in a relatively demure if nerdy manner. However, the greenshot background shows the ladies dressed as their characters in cheesy but cool early 80's style costumes, sneaking through corridors and swinging their weapons. I'm not sure how many episodes there are but they seem to all be available from multiple sites. You either like this sort of thing or you don't. I like this sort of thing.

Swift is a graphic artist and video maker who directed and wrote the Multinauts, with a similar 70's/80's low-budget ambience. His website also features a diverse set of commissioned works ranging from the Intro to the Sophie Grace and Rosie Show, a toddler's website, rock and roll tee-shirts and a Disney Cars video featuring, of all things, the great Stooges song Search and Destroy.

Cool stuff all around. We wish him well.

But most of all, thanks for World of Adventure.