Rick Meints

Yes

We will sell the PDFs at $14.99 when we start selling the printed set for $29.99. Same day.

The Starter set: Book 1: Rules is 64 pages, and has some rules for experience and regaining rune points. Book 2: World of Glorantha is 64 pages. Book 3: SoloQuest is 60 pages, and has ONE soloquest. Book 4: Adventures is 84 pages.

Yes, when the printed book is for sale on chaosium.com.

The RBoM has been printed and is being shipped to all of our warehouses.

The Starter set retails for $29.99. That's less than the cost of the Pegasus Plateau book. The Soloquest is new, and all of the adventures in book 4 are easily used for an existing campaign. A set of 6 dice, the rules, references, and the maps are all easily usable try all. That seems worth $29.99 to me.

1. It will probably be printed in Poland. 2. Nice try. 🙂

Each of our licensees makes that decision for themself. They can certainly choose to translate and publish HotOE as soon as they wish. BtMoM is not written for the 7th edition, so I doubt they would update that book to 7th edition and then translate it.

BtMoM will be $49.99 USD and HotOE will be $89.99. Available for sale on Chaosium.com this month.

We sell the EMPTY slipcase for the Guide on our website. We have for quite some time.

Have no fear, Phil, when I said "usually some sort of loss leader" I meant that we make a lot less on them than we would on other products in the line. I didn't mean we lose money on every sale. We make a little money.

At its current production, shipping, and storage costs, plus some profit markup to make it worth our while, would be willing to pay $20 to get an empty slipcase?

Beyond Starter sets I don't expect to see Chaosium doing many of our RPG supplements as boxed sets. Starter sets are a unique niche and now the momentum of tradition and expectations have set standards many companies don't want to deviate from. The bottom line is that boxed RPG sets have to carry a higher price tag. Starter sets are a bit of an exception because they are usually some sort of loss leader to entice new players to try your game, and then you make it up with ongoing sales of regularly priced and packaged products. There is a market for premium items, but you have to be careful not to confuse the high end market with the main market. It's similar to producing leatherette bindings along with regular bindings. There's a market for both, but if we just sold the book in higher cost leatherette we would be missing out on a lot of sales.

Please allow me to clarify. I should have said "some" instead of "many". The Book of X titles are not going to be switched from POD to anything else unless they get updated for 6th edition. We are not going to just do regular print runs of the whole line as is. As for which Book of X titles may get updated, and when, I don't know. Things change, plans change.

Those remain available as POD.

I'm sorry, I merely thought you were confusing other people and spreading unfounded disinformation that was going to cause us problems down the road.

This is SOME of the competition we are up against. Yes, that includes Call of Cthulhu. We've had some players of CoC who want to try our other games, and a fairly common question is "I liked the CoC Stater set; do you have one of those for RQ/Pendragon/7th Sea?". Especially in our convention booths, we have lots of potential new customers ask about our games. They are often fairly new to RPGs, and have played maybe 1 or 2 other games, usually D&D or similar. They often started playing that game via that game's starter set. Retailers also really like Starter sets. They are designed to teach the game to total newcomers or relative newcomers. Not wanting to just follow along with what other game companies have done, we researched what was in their stater sets to get a strong sense of what is typical, and then focused on how we can do that, while also making our starter sets stand out. Thus, we include a solo adventure that teaches the rules. Very few other starter sets have that. Our box is also a little taller than average, plus it is also slimmer. While a slimmer box may make you feel you aren't getting as much content as one of the thicker boxes, we're actually trying to make a point. Our box isn't half full of air, and it doesn't have a spacer that fills half the box so things don't rattle around. I was actually shocked when I opened the D&D starter set and found out that it was half empty, if not more than half empty. As a side not, shipping is not only done by weight, but also by volume. Who wants to pay extra to ship boxes half full of air. Lastly, for the long time fans, our new boxes are the same size as the classic Chaosium 1" boxes, but more durable. That's probably the last point I want to mention. Our boxes are seen as one of the most durable in the industry. The L5R box, for example, is way thinner and is much more prone to damage. Nobody likes getting a box with crushed corners.

If you want to know what the RQ Starter set will be like, it will have the same quality of box as the Call of Cthulhu Starter set. Being a 1 inch (2.5 cm) thick box, it will be rather full of booklets, maps, and such. The starter set is packaged in a box set because that is how most starter sets for RPGs are done. We aren't trying to appeal to veteran players who like a shelf full of hardcover books in slipcase sets. We are trying to appeal to new players who might have bought the D&D Starter set, or the Star Wars starter set, or the WFRP starter set, all of which are boxed. This isn't a strange turn in policy. Many gamers who are relatively new to roleplaying are very willing to try another game system IF they don't have to invest too much time or money in trying it AND get everything they need to give it a try. Thus a $29.99 starter set with everything they need to quickly get playing (including some dice), that teaches them the rules, and has a solo adventure so they don't even need a group to get started, is what THEY want. Expecting them to buy a $55 rulebook, etc. is often a hard pass for the "curious about the game". Yes, we have a quickstart, but that's not the same thing, and many feel it doesn't go far enough. It isn't a solo adventure, nor does it have 3 additional scenarios, or maps, dice, etc. We learned a lot from the Call of Cthulhu Starter set and are trying to replicate that for RQ. Should we have done the RQ starter set earlier, probably, but here is where we are. I'm a bit surprised you would think we might repeat the same mistakes Avalon Hill made. Neil, Jeff, Mob, Jason, and I, like you, lived through all that and complained enough then and since. I'm surprised you aren't worried that we'll go back to using Dobyski to do art too... Lastly, when it comes to distribution and sales, we don't want to sell any item until it is at least in our US, EU, and UK warehouses, if not in all 5 warehouses. The reason is very simple: We get way too many complaints and too much confusion if we do otherwise. Answering emails accusing us of "why are you abandoning the UK" or "why do Canadians have to get gouged for postage" are not fun to answer. PS: All distributors buy our books from our US warehouse. There is no "European distributors get first crack because they buy from our EU warehouse" situation.

JG #780 - Pegasus #4, 1981. Runeletters, Jaquays, pgs 25-26. A Griffin Mountain supplement containing a very detailed Clans of Balazar table, clan animosity table, and a brief write-up of the cult of Votanki, including the 3-pt. rune spell Summon Son of Votanki.

We have no control over when, what or how much distributors order. Nor do we have any control over how or when they sell the product to game shops.

Thank you for sharing that link. I hadn't been to the DunDraCon website for a few years and they have added a few more scans since I was last there.

It might have been a mistake, but if the book was supposed to be without that white border, it would be a very odd paper size. Chaosium only formatted things for US paper sizes. Yes, foreign licensees could reformat to a different paper size, but Chaosium never did so for its own publications and printings. If you eliminate the white border the book would have been oddly smaller than expected, and doesn't line up to any typical paper and trim sizes.

Just waiting to get it into the Polish warehouse. Any day now.

I wrote this up last year: Issaries and Argan Argan, being friendly trade rivals since before the Dawn, long ago agreed that a respectful token would be included in every Ransom. Thus, there is always one Bolg and one Clack in every ransom paid, usually in excess to the amount required. To not do so shows that the Ransom is not blessed by either party, and suspect to subterfuge. Legend has it that the Bolg will turn pitch black and taste bitter to any troll biting it as proof that the terms of the ransom will not be honored, as well as that the clack will not sink if placed on still water, for the same reasons. Ransom is a ritual, based on an oath, and not a mere transaction. PLUNDER ITEM: Ransom coinBased on the above, some Argan Argar and Issaries High Priests would specially prepare blessed ransom coins for use in sanctioned ransoms. Trolls would bite a clack and bolg to “crimp” the two coins together, while Issaries priests would use a hammer to achieve a similar effect. The rarest Ransom coins are bi-metallic, and stamped specially in a communal ceremony in a Great Market. It is said that placing such a coin in the mouth of a dying priest of either cult is a sign of respect, and aids in their passing to the underworld. Such coins are rumored to be an adequate payment to a ferryman for a journey across the Styx. It is unknown whether Issaries has such a coin with him on The Lightbringer Quest.

My BRP quickstart has that same white border.