Rick Meints

While we won't be doing many more volumes, more volumes might very well happen. I wouldn't have called it "volume I" if I didn't want or expect to do more volumes. I squeeze in these sorts of projects when I have the materials and the time to do something with them. That combination is pretty rare. I have not started on Volume II.

Anyone is free to share whatever thoughts they have on any book in the works. If someone asks Chaosium for an official update on project status, the general answer will be that we will say more when we want to announce it more formally. Too many "you promised" emotions get involved when we mention speculative dates on when something will be completed and for sale.

It has never been out of print since it was first published. Why do you feel it is out of print?

Because I never got it finished.

We tend to shrink-wrap our products for a number of reasons. Those include some books having a loose map tucked into the back of the book, sets of books in a slipcase, boxes with many items in them, books with dustjackets that are more easily damaged, and lastly, because it helps reduce the chances of rubbing damage. We have a number of customers who absolutely positively require their book to be in pristine and unblemished condition.

They do not.

Since we discontinued the program several years ago we have had a few monograph authors reach out to us to discuss the options/status/rights situation of their monograph. Our basic response is as MOB outlined above. A few have done the slight modifications/adjustments needed to get their work into our community content programs on DTRPG. Most monograph creators have just been silent. We have tried to put as few barriers as possible in their way to get their work back into print. Monograph creators have a number of options open to them. It's really just down to them to make one or more of those options happen.

The Starter set rules are a pared down version of the finished complete rulebook. Change/Errata should be very minimal.

It includes a D20 and 6D6, no other dice.

Simultaneous release of PDF and boxed set.

Doing POD in color for some of these titles is on our list. Unfortunately, they are not a priority, especially due to their very low sales volume.

No.

A problem that BRP and MW shards that very few authors submitted manuscripts for those product lines. Chaosium doesn't have that many "in-house" writers who just write whatever they are assigned to. We rely fairly heavily on freelancers, and they write what they have an interest in writing. Every title for BRP and MW sold poorly, at least in terms of being profitable. It's hard to even break even when you sell maybe 500 copies of something. Distribution seldom carried the BRP and MW titles, and even if they did it was in very small amounts. POD is nice, but you make less money printing 10-50 books at a time. It's when you print 1000+ that the numbers start to work. Support is a rather vague word. Even if Chaosium had produced 4-6 BRP/MW titles per year I doubt the line would have prospered. While "support" could also mean marketing, advertising, and similar, Chaosium just didn't have the money to do that 7+ years ago, and we have a pretty limited budget for those things even today. It sucked toilet the hundreds of MW fans know we weren't going to publish additional choices, but that's what the economics of the situation were. We'll see how the new version of BRP goes, and we hope to see it flourish, and we want to support it so it does.

We produce two main types of PDFs from the InDesign files. We export an "interactive" version that creates a PDF with hyperlinks, bookmarks, and such for our customers. We also export a "print" version that creates a higher resolution PDF with everything the printer needs to print the book, like embedded fonts, etc. Those two activities use different export settings, so they are run separately.

The "Kickstarted itself to death" article is accurate, and I said what was quoted.

While I am extremely flattered for you saying that, I refer to the Chaosium of today as "Chaosium." Happy to elaborate on that. Chaosium has existed, as previously stated, with a wide spectrum of owners, managers and staff since 1975. If someone says "Chaosium isn't publishing enough RQ" I view that as a comment on what we are currently doing. If someone says "Chaosium didn't publish enough RQ back in the 80s" I view that as a historical reflection on past performance. While you might find it odd for me to do, I often find myself apologizing for past Chaosium behavior without hesitation, even if it happened decades before I joined the company let alone had any say in its actions. That's my philosophy of what a "company" is. When I talk about Chaosium from any era I find myself more and more just saying "we", as opposed to "they". ps: As the head of Nostalgia at Chaosium I sometimes refer to the company as "The Chaosium", but that's a different story...

As always, if you feel otherwise, do whatever you want in your game. In the RQ books that Chaosium will publish, Herd men are nothing more than simple animals. There is no glimmer or trace of sentience in them. They are not subtley calling out for someone to restore them to being regular people with the power of speech, etc. They don't worship anything. They don't wish they were sentient humans.

All of Chaosium's hardcover books printed as regular print runs (i.e. not POD) have sewn bindings. The new BRP will be a regular print run hardcover.

To be clear, Chaosium cannot just delete things from the discussion thread for an item on DTRPG. It's not available as an option. Publishers are given two options: they can respond to a comment, or they can flag it as "inappropriate". Items flagged as inappropriate are reviewed by DTRPG admin and they decide that will be done. The only other avenue for deleting a comment would be to email DTRPG customer service/admin and make a deletion request, but once again, what happens is decided by DTRPG, not the publisher. We have no access to any sort of change/revision/deletion log of the discussion, so I have no way of knowing what was potentially deleted by DTRPG admins.

We are a few weeks away from having our new Canadian shipping partner ready to process orders.

Jason Durall will let it be known how he wants to capture such feedback and suggestions.

No, we are no longer updating the BRP SRD. It is what it is. The new BRP book uses the ORC license. Use whichever you prefer. No need to tell us which you prefer/love/hate. Both are available.

You have to buy the PDF on Chaosium.com to get a discount coupon for buying the printed book on Chaosium.com. The number one reason is because we have no access to DTRPG sales data for individual customers.

Most of the editing, especially content and copy editing, is best done before the layout starts, often while the art is being created. Typically, the main type of editing done after layout is final proof reading, and layout corrections. The main factor for how long layout takes, provided ALL the art is ready when you start, is the number of pages of layout. The printing is probably the smallest time factor. Shipping is a much larger factor, as we have to get the books to all 5 of our warehouses, and there is always the possibility of a delay from factors beyond our control, like customs deals, ship unloading backlogs, the weather, the Suez canal being closed, etc. Layout usually takes 1-2 months for 128+ page books, provided all text, art and other assets are ready when layout starts. Final review takes one week. Printing takes 1 month, maybe a little longer for a boxed set of items. Shipping to all 5 warehouses takes 2-3 months. Thus, it's about 6+ months for all that to happen, unless some unexpected problem(s) happen.

Chaosium's individual Hardcover books range in price from $35.99 to $59.99. Sets of books would be more, of course, like the RQG Slipcase set or the Masks of Nyarlathotep set.