bombadil wrote:Man, I just nose-snorted beer all over my keyboard after seeing that new avatar!  Frickin' hilarious!      

Interesting that my new avatar has been recognized several times already but R. E. Howard was mostly a mystery.

I'm gonna leave him up here for a bit.  Really does make a creepy/strange/whimsical statement, doesn't he?

I would add "sad" to the creepy/strange/whimsical list above.  

I have wondered about the UK and the D&D scare.  The US is a much more religious society than most other countries....a sort of messianic zeal that colors our national character both for better and for worse.

As the son of a fundamentalist minister and a gamer I was in the midst of both worlds as a teenager.

Mark  

FormCritic wrote:I would add "sad" to the creepy/strange/whimsical list above.  

I have wondered about the UK and the D&D scare.  The US is a much more religious society than most other countries....a sort of messianic zeal that colors our national character both for better and for worse.

As the son of a fundamentalist minister and a gamer I was in the midst of both worlds as a teenager.

Mark  

I lived in the Texas bible belt.  For one thing, you didn't advertise the fact you played D&D..that would have brought instant condemnation. A small circle of friends played, and except for our parents and closest friends, no one knew we gamed on the weekends. I remember a guy coming from the west coast and wondering why we didn't have a D&D club at school.  We were aghast at the suggestion...it's not even a stretch to say it would have been vetoed, and all of us put into some sort of counseling by the powers that be at the school for even suggesting it. You just knew that D&D wasn't something you did in public, and not something you advertised you did.
   I know for awhile all of our parents were very, very leery of our involvement in the game.  If all of us hadn't been such good students at school and good kids (no one was really in anykind of trouble), I don't know what the reaction would have been.  My friends and I have discussed this to this day, and I talked about it with my mom many years later, and they all mentioned that if the guy who introduced us to D&D and played with us (Joe) hadn't been such a straight arrow, they might have been very worried. As it was, he was the class salutatorian (he got rooked out of being Valedictorian), joined the corps at A&M, got his medical degree, joined the Navy and came out a Captain, and now is a successful doctor.  Plus at the time he was altar boy and very active in boy scouts and the church.  So, inhis own quiet way, he pretty much blew up any stereotype that our parents had about what a "Dungeons and Dragons kid" should look or act like, and they were just damn happy we spent the weekends hanging out with him instead of some no good long haired drug taking hippie weirdos (it was the 70s, you understand....)

Mike B.

I'm gonna make a prediction that at least a few of these will sell on eBay for more than $50.

King,

Tell your FLGS manager that he can buy one box per store location, if he so desires. And the cost is merely to cover the shipping... With one box per location, he should get the full 10 copies of each Goodman Games modules.

jamesmishler wrote:King,

Tell your FLGS manager that he can buy one box per store location, if he so desires. And the cost is merely to cover the shipping... With one box per location, he should get the full 10 copies of each Goodman Games modules.

Will do...thanks for that info James.  

mordrin wrote:Maybe a couple days beforehand, someone can bump this if they think of it.

(My personal odds of remembering go from low to 0 otherwise)

****BUMP****

One week to tee (er, free) time.

John

Badmike wrote:I don't know if the companies sponsoring this are handling it well.  I know it's a "new" thing and there are still kinks to be worked out, but as of last week my local game retailer (Generation X) who is listed on the Goodman Games website as particpating in their giveaway, has heard nothing about any product arriving.

The packages went out early this week, and some have already arrived at various stores. An e-mail went out when the packages were shipped; maybe he didn't check his e-mail?

Badmike wrote:From another Acaeum member I have also heard the local chain that is participating might have very few copies of all the materials.  Looks like there will be little left over, and people coming in will be limited to one item per person in most cases.

During Free Comic Book Day most stores limit consumers to three comics each. It was never intended that everyone who comes into the store is going to get one of everything. It's up to the retailer, though, how he hands out the freebies; as long as they are given out free, and without the requirement of purchase, he can do it however he wants.

That said, yes, there are some items that are more limited than others. When this started out, we assumed that there would only be 100 stores interested in geting involved, so we scheduled printing of 1,000 units of each product to go in. Then the project ended up being more popular than we imagined, and instead of 100 stores we had 300 stores signed up. Some of the publishers (notably Goodman) were able to increase their print run; others, such as myself, were not, so instead of 1,000 units divided by 100, it was 1,000 units divided by 300...

Unlike Free Comic Book Day, the publishers involved in Free RPG Day do not get the cost of printing back to them from the retailer; everything is provided from the publisher to the retailer entirely for free. The retailer pays $30 to Impressions Advertising & Marketing only for the cost of packing and shipping; the publishers get none of that money. And in fact, that $30 is subsidised by further sponsorship payments from the publishers to Impressions; Impressions will be lucky to break even on this event.

I would love to have been able to print three times the number I originally contracted for; unfortunately, it just wasn't in the budget.

Badmike wrote:I have also seen very little local advertisting for the Free Game Day. I hope it succeeds but it appears the organizers should so a little better PR work.

It was assumed that the retailers would actually do some sort of work to push the event locally; there is no way on earth the publishers can publicize the event in every local newspaper! I think you assume much about the budgets of RPG companies. The costs of local advertising in 100 local areas, let alone 300 local areas, far outstrip the budget of even Wizards of the Coast, let alone the participating companies of Free RPG Day. As it is, most companies strained their budgets just to print the free products.