Rick Meints

I too feel that discussions about "canon" are simply not worth it. In the end they just end up insulting some, angering others, and disappointing the remainder of the people in the discussion. Use what you like, play with whatever works for you and your gaming group, discard what doesn't, regardless of the source. If there is a need to use labels, I'll just stick with "useful to me" and "not useful to me". I'm tempted to also use the label "worth collecting", but that doesn't really narrow down much RQ/Gloranthan material for me, and what's on my shelves.

As for what the MIG3 contains, here are a few sample page spreads:

The working title for that book is All Manner of Chaos: The Complete Guide to Chaosium Products. There are only approximately 750 items on my current list.

It's a 264 page hardcover book that will have sewn binding. The cover is still a work in progress.

And to think that no one has commented on what is lurking at the right edge of the photo...

It has been retired.

We didn't forget.

We had an initial batch printed for Chaosium Con. In all likelihood we will set this up as just a POD title.

While it's nice you agree, as I said, the art is already owned by Chaosium. The artwork was done as work for hire, or done in house. No additional "agreement" needed.

The status of RQ3 ownership is pretty simple: Moon Design owns the RuneQuest Trademark. Moon Design owns all of the RQ3 material done before 1989, and all of the RQ3 Gloranthan supplements regardless of publication date. That includes the art too. So why no RQ3 rulebook and supplements as classics? They don't sell as well as you might think. The RQ2 classic rulebook sold very well, but the supplements sold rather poorly. A few hundred sales just isn't worth it.

I'm not sure that your math is correct. You will be making 50% of the sales price of a PDF as profit. That means a 100 page PDF that costs $10 retail will net you $5 in profit. Selling 700 copies means you would make $3500 profit, which basically equals your overhead, leaving you with no profit beyond covering costs. Thus, is your average price for a PDF the full retail price?

I was the person who updated the files. All I did was replace the 2008 "CHA2020" version's text with the 2010 "CHA2026" version's corrected text. We did not make any other corrections based on any errata or corrections identified since 2010. Yes, I also updated the copyright and legal text as well.

I agree with Nick's solid overview and analysis of what sells on the Jonstown Compendium. Nick diligently tracks and analyzes its sales data on a regular ongoing basis. The numbers are very clear. In a larger sense though, all creators of material for our community content programs should focus on what they enjoy creating, first and foremost. While you can definitely earn some money producing content for the JC, I would caution anyone on setting up their JC publishing efforts with the expectation of earning a living or sustaining a business with the profits. I am not trying to be negative, just realistic. Most titles are only available in PDF format. While you can reasonably expect to sell X hundred of a quality product, once you do the math you will see that the 50% author cut can reasonably earn you many hundreds of dollars, but not many thousands. Yes, there are rare exceptions.

Those are not getting rebranded.

Anything we bring to sell at Chaosium con is going to be sold to attendees. You are welcome to have another attendee buy it and send it to you through whatever private arrangements you can set up. Unfortunately, Chaosium cannot provide such a service ourselves.

Probably in 2023.

The books have been printed and were shipped to our EU warehouse. We are currently shipping them from there to our four other warehouses. Once they arrive to those other 4 warehouses we will announce the book going on sale. We could estimate when they will get to those warehouses, but these days it isn't really worth it, and if they are late we get complaints about broken promises, etc. If I said "April 15th" when that day comes we will get people saying "it's April 15th, why aren't they for sale", then we say "delays", and people ask "why", and the cycle just continues... We respect that people are simply excited to buy the book and just want to know when they can buy it.

1. No additional handouts were added. 2. It's available for free to everyone, regardless of whether they buy the starter set. 3. The adventures have not been "updated" beyond correcting some very minor typos. 4. We have not updated the Keeper Screen in the Keeper Screen Pack.

As I said earlier in this thread, "No updates to any of the contents, please. (other than obvious typos)." If the updates are something someone feels compelled to do anyway, please do it as a separate document for personal use only. I don't know what we will be doing with the files in terms of a reprint, at least not just yet.

What would you expect us to do with the "reserved" copy?

JonL: Please read my response in the kind and calm manner I am writing it with. You seem to be raising problems when there really aren't any. The spirit of the terms is very clear to the vast majority of people. We could possibly come up with 50-100 pages of excruciatingly exact terms and conditions, but that just isn't worth it, and would probably only lead to complaints that it is all too complex and time consuming to comply with. Being compliant with the Questworlds ruleset or the HeroQuest Glorantha ruleset isn't that tough at all. They are, after all, rules light storytelling systems. Updating any HW or HQ1 material to QW/HQG should be quick and easy. As Nick has also pointed out, the HQG/QW offerings in the Jonstown Compendium don't sell very well at all compared to the RQC/RQG offerings. Alas, but there are very very few people actively playing Hero Wars or HQ1 any more, regardless of how much you may or may not love those rulesets. Mental contortions relating to the QW SRD just aren't worth it. Lastly, as always, please remember that we are not out to screw over Community Content authors or fan authors in general. We have CC ambassadors, plus other Chaosium staff, who will happily help creatives comply with our content requirements. If you doubt how easy it is to worth with us, or how successful the process is, please ask some of the existing CC creatives. They are quite active in a number of places, especially on Facebook, where there are groups dedicated to both the Miskatonic Repository and the Jonstown Compendium.

I would very much like to get a proofed ms word file of the text for SiP. No updates to any of the contents, please. (other than obvious typos).

While it would be really cool if a number of RQ3 products could get back into print, they are not a priority of ours. We don't have the text files for most of them. We would have to scan them in, OCR them, clean up the art, and then thoroughly edit the text for OCR errors (and some original errors). Then the art and text have to get laid out again. Add it all up and it is rather time consuming. (I should know because I have done all of that for a number of RQ and CoC classic titles). We have to weigh doing all that against how well they will sell. Sadly, the RQ Classics don't sell as well as you would expect. Yes, the RQ2 rulebook sold very very well. The rest of the RQC line, not so much. Also, I should point out that most RQ3 titles can be purchased on eBay for somewhat reasonable prices, especially if you are patient. All that being said, we did have some fans recreate the Gateway Bestiary for us for free. That was extremely generous (and unexpected) of them, and it is the only reason we now have it for sale as a POD title (and PDF) on Chaosium.com

While we like to provide info on how things are going, we are extremely hesitant to provide specific availability dates. Some people get extremely upset and/or demanding when dates are estimated, and then delays cause them to be missed. It gets rather tiresome to keep responding to "but you said May 1st, so why is it late" types of posts. Some people have even accused us of lying. Weapons & Equipment has completed printing and is currently being shipped to our Warehouses in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. We're fairly close to it being for sale. The GaGoG books are in the early layout stage. Once they have gone to the printer we will update everyone on where we are at.

I would be very cautious about relying on dates or info found on online retailer websites, especially before the book is actually in print and available via distribution. That is not directed at Studio Dead Crows books, but all books. A number of online retailers take pre-orders and give estimated dates, but the current shipping and supply chain problems makes that rather more speculative than it used to be. The best source of info, as suggested above, is to check with the publisher directly. For Kickstarted material the best source is on Kickstarter.