I'm not going to comment on what was posted by Frog God Games. I read the apology from Bill Webb on Chgwiz blog and that's good enough for me. I'm not one to hold a grudge, but I do hope FGG can deliver. I am writing this because of his comment about products from Lulu and what my experience has been.
I think we can all agree that the largest drawback of Lulu is the shipping costs. Over this summer they did a free shipping promotion and I took advantage of it.
The books I've purchased from Lulu:
Monsters of Myth by The First Edition Society
Stonehell Dungeon: Down Night-Haunted Halls by Michael Curtis
OSRIC, economy by Stuart Marshall
Monster Listing by Daniel Proctor
Labyrinth Lord Revised Edition (perfect bound) by Daniel Proctor
Advanced Edition Companion (perfect bound) by Daniel Proctor
Fight On! Issue #4 Winter 2009 by Ignatius Umlaut
Fight On! Issue #3 Fall 2008 by Ignatius Umlaut
Fight On! Issue #2 Summer of 2008 by Ignatius Umlaut
These are not books I look at and toss to the side. These are books I look at regularly and I think they are top notch quality. The only one I had a problem with was the Monster Listing. I thought the price was too high and the quality of the book was poor. The layout had the text crammed to the very edges of the page and it was a weird size, half inch taller than a digest size and a skosh wider. The contents were exactly as described. The other LL books are well done and sturdy.
All of the other books mentioned above are as good as say, Pathfinder or D&D. There may not be as much flash, gloss or art, but the quality of the content cannot be argued. All these products have the excitement of the game imbued in their words and the hand drawn maps (which I personally think are the best). I don't remember what movie this quote is from (I believe it was Immortal Beloved, Gary Oldman as Beethoven) and I know I am going to chop this up "To miss a few notes means nothing, but to play without passion is unforgivable".
Best of luck to Matt and Bill. Let's see what they can do.
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That quote is absolutely fantastic.
ReplyDeleteAnd you're absolutely right about the quality- looking at all the free content produced by the brilliant minds of the OSR, I'd rather have the love for the game than the "professionalism."
For the record, this is one of the best posts I've seen about this little dust-up.