klecser

Hey BRP Forums,

I know it might be difficult to think about recreation right now, but there may be an argument for needing exactly that to keep our SAN manageable. So, I hope you can get a positive feeling from this.

@Rick Meints @Mike M @MOB This has gotta suck for Chaosium. Thank you for fixing the issue, and I hope that you didn't have to take a financial hit on the reprints.

I would be surprised if copies were reprinted that quickly.

I am definitely interested but I am on a personal moratorium on CoC Kickstarters right now until a majority of my existing ones are delivered. If and when that might be.

Yes.

As a new player to ASL, I've been very frustrated that Starter Set 1 is not available. I have Starters 2 and 3, which is a good place to get me started, but Box Set 1 is sold out and it includes some good maps with basic scenarios. I recognize that I could pick some of this up via PDF or buying some maps separately (many are sold out).

In positive news, a buddy of mine was in town and we got a game in and it was a blast. Starter 2 is a fairly economical place to start, if you are interested @Bill the barbarian.

As far as learning the game, this YouTube series helped me the most: 

I've also found that watching game play on YouTube has not been helpful because rarely are they teaching games. It is veterans playing the game at the speed of light and it might as well be in a different language.I'm really missing context on WHY the rules are designed a certain way. I learn games best when I understand the "whys" of the mechanics. 

ASL is a very intimidating game to get into, but when I actually sat down and played, it was fun. But I had to concentrate tremendously because we were basically teaching ourselves with no guidance, so after playing for two hours I was exhausted.

"Why not locate veterans in your community?" Because I don't like playing games with people I don't know. Gaming needs to be an energizing thing for me, not energy sucking, and playing with randoms in my community is energy sucking 95% of the time.

So, do check it out. It is an awesome game. It just has a really really steep learning curve.

I just got into ASL...

Noteworthy that another way to spend wealth is this game is to hire help.

Part of that wealth can go to salaries to get people to do things that you need done.

I could imagine a wealthy Investigator providing a salary for someone to maintain a clip file of newspaper articles. The advantage being that the game becomes less about the trip to the library or newspaper but to their own curated collection. That doesn't mean that there wouldn't be intrigue involved. Some articles can exist in obscure newspapers that are not part of the collection.

Not every player likes trudging through the mundane as a part of the experience. Finding the balance of what style of game the Investigators and Keepers like is really what confronting the "wealth issue" is all about.

Arm-chair quarterbacking anything usually does not result in the kind of acceptance people seek.

Whew. Good news @Mike M!

Do you think that a Greater Independent Race would ever be subject to the same SAN checks as a human would? Would they be completely immune to SAN losses from other Greater Races/Lesser Races? Would they still roll SAN checks on Outer God sightings and Avatar of Outer God sightings?

A cheaper option exists if there is an Office Max, Office Depot, Staples etc near where you live. Submit the PDF to their online system (they have settings that allowyou to cut out the pages you don't want) and have them print on whatever kind of paper you think best emulates the Starter sheets. Maybe glossy or semi glossy? Takes a little work, but it should be just a couple dollars for 4-5 of each.

40 minutes ago, Cloud64 said:

Thanks for the heads up on this. If there's a problem with the print run I will hold off ordering for now, if other copies are OK, I'll take my chance. Given the usual quality of Chaosium products I'd guess this is an aberration, an unfortunately ironic one given one of the selling points for this version is new artwork.

 I really hope I have an aberration. I'm hoping others will post and say "nope, mine looks fine!"

There is only one handout that I would consider "unusable" in the back. The others are all clear.  And as mentioned before, the maps and handout images in the text all mostly look fine. I think most Keepers are going to have the PDF. However, I can imagine someone only buying a hard copy in an FLGS and getting home and not even being able to photocopy a handout that is unreadable. And then being forced to buy the PDF to run it effectively. Now, I think Chaosium would help out under those circumstances, but it is better for all if my copy is a fluke.

Well, I received my hard copy of Deadlight AODT. I'm well known as a pretty staunch supporter of Chaosium, and will continue to be, but this is an example where I am disappointed. I don't say that lightly because I'm pretty forgiving and take most setbacks in stride.

The artwork in the PDF has very clear contrast, and I have no trouble discerning the characteristics of the images on the "painted" pieces of artwork. On my hard copy, all of these images are very difficult to discern detail on. It ends up looking like a jumble of dark greys melded together. The handouts and maps are ok in print.

Examples: page 17: The only reason I can make out a car on the right of the image is because of the headlights. Page 38: The woman looks like a uniform shadow with no discernible detail. Page 41: One giant mess of grey. I can tell someone is in a window in a house. I've attached some images. Note that my phone camera actually makes them look better than they look on visual inspection, IMO.

I am curious as to whether others that received their hard copies have this same problem. Perhaps I just got a bad copy.

I sent a message to customer service when I got my coupon for Deadlight because it told me that I had to spend an additional 1.99 to use the coupon. So, there may be some kinks to work out with it?

Update: My issue is that I had purchased both in PDF but only wanted Deadlight in hard copy. Dustin sorted it for me, as always!

Mind posting the one with allowance for HP and SAN?

Through Chapter 1 so far and the only error I've found so far is: Page 18, The Question of Literacy and the Alphabet sidebar, the text overlaps the border art at the bottom of the box.

1 hour ago, Dethstrok9 said:

I'm not trying to be rude in any way, just want to know the answer.

It seems like there's many typos and errors in all Chaosium products that I own, do you guys have crappy editors or what?

You are succeeding at being rude. And I invite you to share your own editing of your own works before making this claim of others.

@MOB, does this mean weeks or months? Are we "on the boat" from Lithuania? It will help me plan whether to hold for a big order or do smaller orders. Thanks!

25 minutes ago, ajtheronin said:

Back in GenCon 2015 Chaosium had some pre-published copies the newest version fo Cthulhu Dark Ages. It even had the same cover. 

There has been a few threads about it. (Yup, this and Cthulhu in Space are two obsessions of mine)

Thanks for the added info!

14 minutes ago, ajtheronin said:

How different this edition will be to the GenCon 2015 edition? Same text different layout and art? Or the changes are more significant?

The most recent full edition is 2003? Am I missing something? Are you referring to the Dark Ages section of Cthulhu Through the Ages?

Edit: Ok, it seems that there was a limited release Ashcan version of Cthulhu Dark Ages at Gen Con 2015.

It seems to me like this book was rebuilt from the ground up, but @MOB would need to confirm that.

Edit 2: The more I look into this the more confused I get. This may NOT be that different from the 2015 Gen Con Edition.

Fantastic. I'm trying to imagine what it must be like to be Addison. We've been hearing snippets for months and Addison asks and hears: "PDF in a few days!" Nice timing.

I think that even one loss of ten POW to be significant enough to make a character think twice about getting the benefit. I guess the point here is that you choose how to effectively administer it. If you want to increase the cost of a spell, do it. 

Another consideration here is that you can always craft consequences that players don't forsee. If you think your players are "abusing" Return Thee To Safety, introduce a new consequence. Players never know and see all. That is an axiom of this game. If your group is new to CoC, it is imperative that they understand sooner rather than later that this is not a "all knowledge, all the time" RPG.

8 hours ago, tehR said:

I'm just looking for one system answer, if such even exists:

I honestly don't think it does. IIRC, both the Keeper Rulebook and Gand Grimoire both suggest many alternatives for failed spell castings, but I don't remember there being a unified way to do it.

Serious question: Why SHOULD there be a unified way to do it?