You remember Randy from Greytalk, Jason?

JasonZavoda wrote:
I remember Randy, and as I mentioned to Badmike a lot of what was said about him came from a clique that gave me a lot of trouble too. Back then when I was having heart trouble and my Dad was dying of lung cancer I was getting crap from these same people.

So why not just judge this book by its content and not by more of the same from people who have an axe to grind.

Irregardless of Randy's sins, I'll end up purchasing the book at some point.  The creator shouldn't be a reflection on the material, and vice versa. I love swamps and swampy-type adventures so this should come in handy.  

Mike B.

Whatever faults the writer did or did not have...

Dreadmire is an excellent book, jammed with ideas and fun to read.

ashmire13 wrote:damn, this is the 2nd time this has been praised in recent months and I still cant get a copy in the UK...

Not long ago, the author couldn't seem to give them away on Ebay.

so would anyone have a spare copy they may wish to sell/trade? Found it on ebay, but shipping kills it really.
Cheers
Dave

I've tried talking to seller a couple of times too, but the guy is completely ignorant. Any idea whether it's the author himself (which allegidly would be in keeping with his personality) or someone else? I presume everyone knows of the legal wrangle and allegations of theft and plagerism surrounding this product. Not the first time such allegations have been levied at the author.

Yes, I'm sure the surge of interested buyers is the cause of the raised price.  It is now $10.99.  The earlier ones started and sold for $3.99.

mbassoc2003 wrote:I've tried talking to seller a couple of times too, but the guy is completely ignorant. Any idea whether it's the author himself (which allegidly would be in keeping with his personality) or someone else? I presume everyone knows of the legal wrangle and allegations of theft and plagerism surrounding this product. Not the first time such allegations have been levied at the author.

And by the same bunch of sumbags too. This book has been out since 2005. So somebody should post exactly what was plagerized. Not that I've seen, just the same smear campaign by a bunch of faceless internet a-holes.

What legal wrangles?

I don't know the author at all so I won't comment on his personality but I know what I've read. I haven't read of a single legal action. I haven't seen a single comparison of material to show plagerism. I have heard from people that they didn't like the book, but that simply appears to be that they didn't like the author. So far the book looks great.

For a guy so reviled in this hobby he has done an amazing job with this independent product, and that is what this thread should be about. The quality of this product. If anyone has actual proof of plagerism please post it.

Mars wrote:As far as I have read there is no "proof" that has been published.  The only history is that Necromancer rejected the book's publication because of plagerism.

The author then published the book himself - I mean through Spellbinders (not related to the other Spellbinders) which was their only product.  Actually it is claimed that Spellbinders has been around for decades and produced 4 kids books that no can find and have not been documented anywhere.  The author then created/ran their webpage and eventually bought the company.  On the Spellbinder forums, you could read about how the book sold out of their 1st and 2nd prints and how they sold over 1000 PDF copies, etc, etc.

I don't know who gave him a hard time back in the day on Greytalk or what their "proof" at the time was either.  I'm saddened that they gave you (Jason) a hard time back then too because you seem like a straight up guy here.  The current/recent backlash to the author seems to be from Necromancer Games who are also the ones who appear to be completely clueless on the marketplace and are trying to sell their Rappan Athuk Reloaded for $1K.  Don't get me wrong, the author seems like a nutball but so do all the people accusing him of stuff.

Thanks. I may piss people off but I don't lie to people. That being said I have no association with the author except for some contact back in the greytalk days so I can't speak for his personality.

But I do want to speak out for what is looking like an excellent book. I don't play d20 but I take material for my campaign from wherever I can find it. I don't have a swamp sourcebook (swamp, which is a big difference from jungle) and this one covers a lot of material.

Like I said I was expecting a softcover, but it is a very nicely bound hardcover. 223 densely packed pages of information, with decent to very nice illustrations.

It has an extensive table of contents (3 pages) covering multiple headings for each page. It has an index of places for anyone using the setting as named in their campaign. Its largest section deals with new creatures for a swamp campaign but it also has a few pages on how to create your own swamp creatures after the monster listings. It offers a new type of magic with new spells, new classes (not for me, but interesting to adapt for NPCs in my campaign), new items, a glossary and lexicon of swamp related terms, a few adventures, listings of NPCs the dreadmire campaign write-up. Etc...

At a later time I can comment on the specific usefulness of these for a 1e campaign. I will probably write a review for Dragonsfoot, but right now I can say it was well worth the $10 it cost me.

Now if someone wants to post what material from this published book is plagerized please do so. Otherwise let's just talk about this book. I don't know if there are other printings but the copy I received after winning an ebay auction is a 1st printing hardcover published 2005

So far this stands out high above the bulk of third party d20 material I have come across and way, way above any one shot independent book I've seen so far.