Apple lane........deeply saddened.

[Agentorange]

Well I finally bit the bullet and bought the shiny new Runequest - in the slipcase edition no less.

Obviously there's a lot to take in. Some things I really like, some I don't, that's normal


But, oh, Apple Lane, what have they done to you ? Where is the happy little community I fell in love with when I got my RQ2 box set all the way back in 1981. Gone, trampled underfoot by the hobnail boots of history.....is nothing sacred ?

I think I need to enact some kind of heroquest wherein I enter the hero plane return to my youth and purchase another copy of RQ2 with the yellow Apple lane booklet. When I re enter the mortal Plane I shall find Apple Lane has been restored to it's former glory in all editions of Runequest.

Edited February 19, 2021 by Agentorange
punctuation

[jajagappa]

40 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

Gone trampled underfoot by the hobnail boots of history.....is nothing sacred ?

Apparently you didn't get the HQG Sartar Companion book.  There you can learn of the sad events that underlie Apple Lane in 1625. 

41 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

purchase another copy of RQ2 with the yellow Apple lane booklet

You can get the RQ Classics again!  That heroquest is achievable. 🙂

But otherwise it is up to your PC's to restore the placid tranquility of Apple Lane to its rightful place outside the flows of Disorder and Death....

[Agentorange]

15 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Apparently you didn't get the HQG Sartar Companion book.  There you can learn of the sad events that underlie Apple Lane in 1625. 

 

 

HQ/HW never really grabbed me as a gaming system - It's RuneQuest for me. That said i am thinking about buying  up some of the PDF's to get the Gloranthan vibe and back ground from them. If Chaosium could see their way clear to PODing them at a reasonable price I'd probably go far as to buy hard copies as well.

Edited February 19, 2021 by Agentorange

[Rick Meints]

35 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

HQ/HW never really grabbed me as a gaming system - It's RuneQuest for me. That said i am thinking about buying  up some of the PDF's to get the Gloranthan vibe and back ground from them. If Chaosium could see their way clear to PODing them at a reasonable price I'd probably go far as to buy hard copies as well.

Ok, I'll bite, what would you consider a reasonable price for the RQ Classic POD titles? Feel free to give 3-4 examples.

[Agentorange]

57 minutes ago, Rick Meints said:

Ok, I'll bite, what would you consider a reasonable price for the RQ Classic POD titles? Feel free to give 3-4 examples.

Are we talking about RQ or HQ/HW here ? I mentioned HQ/HW though I was a bit vague in my second post.

I'd certainly pay more for RQ stuff because  it's of more interest to me if that makes sense. Mmm....a reasonable price, I guess it's whatever I'm prepared to pay  , I mostly posted that because I knew someone would feel compelled to reply 🙂 . It's a fair question though. Er, softback, hardback ? I've bought some of  the Jonstown Compendium stuff over at DTRPG. I bought Valley Of Plenty ( as we're talking HW ) $35 for the print/pdf combo and I thought that was very good value for money. I actually think it's a great little supplement.  So that's a new piece of work, authors need to make their money back and hopefully turn a profit for all their hard work. As HW/HQ has been out for a while and presumably everyone involved has already been paid ( I hope so anyway ) I wouldn't expect to pay as much for a similiar sized product as a brand new piece of work

I appreciate that's a rather waffly answer but I'll give it some more thought.

 

Edited February 19, 2021 by Agentorange

[Scorus]

My players are enjoying the opportunity to restore Apple Lane to its former glory!

[Kloster]

3 hours ago, Agentorange said:

HQ/HW never really grabbed me as a gaming system - It's RuneQuest for me.

You're not alone.

[Austin]

2 hours ago, Agentorange said:

I'd certainly pay more for RQ stuff because  it's of more interest to me if that makes sense. Mmm....a reasonable price, I guess it's whatever I'm prepared to pay

RQ Classic Apple Lane is available for $10 as a POD. https://www.chaosium.com/apple-lane-softcover-pod/

[Agentorange]

6 hours ago, Crel said:

RQ Classic Apple Lane is available for $10 as a POD. https://www.chaosium.com/apple-lane-softcover-pod/

Which comes out to £7.14 - and that seems reasonable enough. I still have my my somewhat battered original. Might be worth getting a new copy though.

[Rick Meints]

23 hours ago, Agentorange said:

Are we talking about RQ or HQ/HW here ? I mentioned HQ/HW though I was a bit vague in my second post.

I'd certainly pay more for RQ stuff because  it's of more interest to me if that makes sense. Mmm....a reasonable price, I guess it's whatever I'm prepared to pay  , I mostly posted that because I knew someone would feel compelled to reply 🙂 . It's a fair question though. Er, softback, hardback ? I've bought some of  the Jonstown Compendium stuff over at DTRPG. I bought Valley Of Plenty ( as we're talking HW ) $35 for the print/pdf combo and I thought that was very good value for money. I actually think it's a great little supplement.  So that's a new piece of work, authors need to make their money back and hopefully turn a profit for all their hard work. As HW/HQ has been out for a while and presumably everyone involved has already been paid ( I hope so anyway ) I wouldn't expect to pay as much for a similiar sized product as a brand new piece of work

I appreciate that's a rather waffly answer but I'll give it some more thought.
 

Actually, I was asking for more information on the following statement you made a few posts back:  

"If Chaosium could see their way clear to PODing them at a reasonable price I'd probably go far as to buy hard copies as well."

You then answer with examples from the Jonstown Compendium. Those aren't Chaosium products. Everything in the Jonstown Compendium has a price that is NOT determined by Chaosium. Those prices are solely up to the independent creator to set. They can make something free, pay what you want, or extremely overpriced.

As for Chaosium HW/HQ items that we do not have as POD items, we probably won't have many of them as POD any time soon. First, we have to clean up their legal text to reflect the current situation. Secondly, we are contractually obligated to remove any and all "HeroQuest" branding from them. Alas, we don't really have anyone working on that. I apologize for reading too much into your statement quoted above. I thought you were saying our current POD offerings, like the RQ Classics Borderlands or Griffin Mountain were unreasonably priced.

[Bill the barbarian]

6 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

I apologize for reading too much into your statement quoted above. I thought you were saying our current POD offerings, like the RQ Classics Borderlands or Griffin Mountain were unreasonably priced.

Isn’t that one of the worst things about the internet. You sir are truly a gent, but it is hard not to misread and make mistakes. Of course you prove my point of being a gent by correcting yourself so graciously which is probably all one can do.

[Agentorange]

On 2/20/2021 at 8:28 PM, Rick Meints said:

Actually, I was asking for more information on the following statement you made a few posts back:  

"If Chaosium could see their way clear to PODing them at a reasonable price I'd probably go far as to buy hard copies as well."

You then answer with examples from the Jonstown Compendium. Those aren't Chaosium products. Everything in the Jonstown Compendium has a price that is NOT determined by Chaosium. Those prices are solely up to the independent creator to set. They can make something free, pay what you want, or extremely overpriced.

As for Chaosium HW/HQ items that we do not have as POD items, we probably won't have many of them as POD any time soon. First, we have to clean up their legal text to reflect the current situation. Secondly, we are contractually obligated to remove any and all "HeroQuest" branding from them. Alas, we don't really have anyone working on that. I apologize for reading too much into your statement quoted above. I thought you were saying our current POD offerings, like the RQ Classics Borderlands or Griffin Mountain were unreasonably priced.

I am now competely confused, possibly because I don't know all the  convoluted history of RQ and HQ/HW and am also rather ignorant of licensing laws.

On the Chaosium website there are a number of HQ products ( PDF'S ) for sale and they very clearly say HeroQuest on them. So...what in licensing terms is the difference between a PDF and POD version. the same author/authors still wrote the material, presumably the  copyright resides with Chaosium  - unless of course chaosium is selling them under license for someone else in which case why can you sell PDF's and not POD's ?

I know a lot of HQ/HW stuff was released by Issaries when Greg Stafford headed to the sunny uplands of HQ/HW....but then he returned to RQ and Chaosium . Did the licenses not come with him to Chaosium or did they remain seperate legal entities ? It all seems rather murky and confused.

But in response to your original question of what would be a reasonable price I did give it a good think and after looking at the Runequest Classics over at the chaosium website I have a tentative answer for you. so here it is......

The RQ classic POD's seem to be going for about twice the price of the PDF's. Some a bit cheaper, some a bit dearer, but on average about twice the price. So that to me would be a reasonable price for POD HQ/HW stuff.

Edited February 22, 2021 by Agentorange

[Agentorange]

On 2/20/2021 at 8:28 PM, Rick Meints said:

You then answer with examples from the Jonstown Compendium. Those aren't Chaosium products. Everything in the Jonstown Compendium has a price that is NOT determined by Chaosium. Those prices are solely up to the independent creator to set. They can make something free, pay what you want, or extremely overpriced.

 

That probably did muddy the waters a bit. I was simply trying to find a HQ/HW product that to me seemed a reasonable price for what it was.

[Lordabdul]

26 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

I was simply trying to find a HQ/HW product that to me seemed a reasonable price for what it was.

There are no HQ/HW products available in POD. Whatever printed books you can see on the Chaosium website (like, say, this one) are generally discounted because Chaosium is effectively liquidating them. They're not POD, they're just left overs of the original print runs.

So the short version of it is:

• RuneQuest Glorantha is the latest version, and all the books are in PDF and print. You get the PDF free with the printed book if you buy on Chaosium, or at a Bit&Mortar shop.
• RuneQuest Classic books are the "revived" RQ2 stuff, and are available in PDF and POD. The PDF is free with the POD. This is the only official (non-Jonstown Compendium) RQ stuff available in POD.
• Gloranthan Classics books are compilations of RQ2 material plus some light editing and a little extra material. They're available in PDF only, although Chaosium still has a few printed copies left (like this one).
• HeroQuest books are, like I said, pretty much only in PDF, and are for a different game system anyway.

 

Edited February 22, 2021 by lordabdul

[jajagappa]

59 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

I know a lot of HQ/HW stuff was released by Issaries when Greg Stafford headed to the sunny uplands of HQ/HW....but then he returned to RQ and Chaosium . Did the licenses not come with him to Chaosium or did they remain seperate legal entities ? It all seems rather murky and confused.

You have to go back in time regarding licensing.  While originally (late 70s/early 80s) there were plans by Chaosium to produce a HeroQuest game, they never did.  Don't recall if they ever licensed it then or not, but at some point the license was acquired by another company which produced a HeroQuest boardgame.  That company was acquired by Hasbro, but the trademark for HeroQuest lapsed.  This was after Hero Wars came out, and Greg took the opportunity to gain the trademark and Hero Wars was rebranded as HeroQuest, and sold by Issaries/Moon Design/Chaosium over the years.

Fast forward to 2020.  Hasbro wants to reissue the HeroQuest boardgame.  I believe they still held the trademark in some countries, but not US and certain other countries.  They made a deal with Chaosium to fully regain the trademark to put out the boardgame.  By doing so, Chaosium agreed not to resell anything HeroQuest (which would conflict with trademark/licensing).

So, Chaosium legally cannot sell anything that is labeled HQ at this point (aside from clearing warehouse inventory).  To sell the contents that were HW/HQ, Chaosium will have to completely rebrand the pdf's as QuestWorlds (which is their new trademarked name for the line). 

 

[Agentorange]

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

You have to go back in time regarding licensing.  While originally (late 70s/early 80s) there were plans by Chaosium to produce a HeroQuest game, they never did.  Don't recall if they ever licensed it then or not, but at some point the license was acquired by another company which produced a HeroQuest boardgame.  That company was acquired by Hasbro, but the trademark for HeroQuest lapsed.  This was after Hero Wars came out, and Greg took the opportunity to gain the trademark and Hero Wars was rebranded as HeroQuest, and sold by Issaries/Moon Design/Chaosium over the years.

Fast forward to 2020.  Hasbro wants to reissue the HeroQuest boardgame.  I believe they still held the trademark in some countries, but not US and certain other countries.  They made a deal with Chaosium to fully regain the trademark to put out the boardgame.  By doing so, Chaosium agreed not to resell anything HeroQuest (which would conflict with trademark/licensing).

So, Chaosium legally cannot sell anything that is labeled HQ at this point (aside from clearing warehouse inventory).  To sell the contents that were HW/HQ, Chaosium will have to completely rebrand the pdf's as QuestWorlds (which is their new trademarked name for the line). 

 

Ok, that clears things up a great deal, but.......can you ever run out of stock of a PDF ? After all it doesn't exist physically ( as it were ) it's a data file.  there is no warehouse inventory as it were.

and........

last time Chaosium made an agreement with a Hasbro company ( Avalon Hill ) about licensing a chaosium product eg RuneQuest it didn't work out well for anybody. Given that most people associate HQ/HW with Greg  Stafford/Issaries/Chaosium lets hope this time works out better.

 

[jajagappa]

25 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

Ok, that clears things up a great deal, but.......can you ever run out of stock of a PDF ? After all it doesn't exist physically ( as it were ) it's a data file.  there is no warehouse inventory as it were.

It has "HeroQuest" written everywhere.  The cover, the back, etc.  They legally cannot sell a PDF with that content at this point without violating trademark. 

And to clarify, this is not "licensing" the Chaosium product line.  The trademark/license to the name "HeroQuest" was sold.

Edited February 23, 2021 by jajagappa

[Nick Brooke]

13 hours ago, lordabdul said:

There are no HQ/HW products available in POD.

Heh. Lucky you aren't a Humakti, Ludo. Here's the POD edition of Sartar, Kingdom of Heroes for HeroQuest.

[Nick Brooke]

11 hours ago, jajagappa said:

They legally cannot sell a PDF with that content at this point without violating trademark. 

Clearly incorrect, but never mind that; there will be a point after which they can't do that any more. And Chaosium doesn't have any "un-tainted" versions of the old HeroQuest-branded books that can simply be dropped into a POD workflow. This stuff takes a lot of work to set up and get right: remember the long wait for the POD RuneQuest Classics? And those were supporting a major Chaosium brand.

[jajagappa]

22 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

Clearly incorrect, but never mind that; there will be a point after which they can't do that any more.

Yes, thanks for the correction. 

[Rick Meints]

17 hours ago, Agentorange said:

I am now competely confused, possibly because I don't know all the  convoluted history of RQ and HQ/HW and am also rather ignorant of licensing laws.

On the Chaosium website there are a number of HQ products ( PDF'S ) for sale and they very clearly say HeroQuest on them. So...what in licensing terms is the difference between a PDF and POD version. the same author/authors still wrote the material, presumably the  copyright resides with Chaosium  - unless of course chaosium is selling them under license for someone else in which case why can you sell PDF's and not POD's ?

I know a lot of HQ/HW stuff was released by Issaries when Greg Stafford headed to the sunny uplands of HQ/HW....but then he returned to RQ and Chaosium . Did the licenses not come with him to Chaosium or did they remain seperate legal entities ? It all seems rather murky and confused.

But in response to your original question of what would be a reasonable price I did give it a good think and after looking at the Runequest Classics over at the chaosium website I have a tentative answer for you. so here it is......

The RQ classic POD's seem to be going for about twice the price of the PDF's. Some a bit cheaper, some a bit dearer, but on average about twice the price. So that to me would be a reasonable price for POD HQ/HW stuff.

Agentorange: I will politely and respectfully point out that every answer you seek is available in these forums and also on the internet. 

Because I want to be helpful, here's some info: Hasbro purchased the HeroQuest trademark from us and part of the deal was that we can sell our remaining stock of books for ONE year. We haven't reached that deadline yet, but will soon. Thus, printed books are on sale, and we also still sell PDFs for now. This was announced on the Chaosium website. This was discussed here. I would imagine if you did a search of these forums for "Hasbro" you would find these announcements and discussions in minutes, if not seconds. Also, while we would like to rebrand the HeroQuest products so we can keep selling them that isn't as easy as it sounds. We don't necessarily have all the early layout files. Even then, that would just make it easy to adjust and sell the PDFs. As has been said, creating POD ready files is time consuming, and many times the layout files used for a conventional print run need to be adjusted for a POD print run. Lastly, and probably more importantly, the future sales of such old, outdated, and "sold for years" publications is relatively low. Investing a $1000 of our time to get a POD product ready for a few dozen potential sales is a bad business model, especially when it could slow down work on a new product that will generate a lot more in sales.

In the end: I would absolutely, positively love it if we had every product we have ever produced available as a PDF and as a POD item. Anybody who knows me knows I have been chipping away at making that happen for quite some time now. It's why the RQ Classics are available. It's why we have a number of older Call of Cthulhu products now available again. I guarantee you it is not because we don't care, can't be bothered, or are mean spirited. If something isn't available in print or PDF it is for a legitimate reason.

[Agentorange]

2 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

Agentorange: I will politely and respectfully point out that every answer you seek is available in these forums and also on the internet. 

 

 

No doubt, but like Donald Rumsfeld  if I don't know what I don't know....then how do I know what to search for to enlighten myself ? I had no idea that there even was a boardgame called HeroQuest, the only context in which I know the term is Glorantha, Issaries and Greg Stafford. So the whole  Hasbro  connection came as a surprise. Yes i could search around on the internet for information about this topic.....but  the best place on the entire internet to seek information about  Gloranthan doings is surely right here on this very forum ? But again I need to have some idea of what it is I need to look for.

There are just over 45 THOUSAND  gloranthan posts here and over 3 thousand Heroquest posts. Even if i use a search engine and know what I'm looking for i could be after the answer for some considerable time before I find it.

Or I could ask and someone may well go "ah, read THIS post and all will be revealed" or " well, in a nutshell the answer is.......  " Which is pretty much what has happened.

You really don't need to be respectful, if you think I'm being a lazy arse you can say, I probably am and I've heard far worse in my time.

[Agentorange]

5 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

 

Because I want to be helpful, here's some info: Hasbro purchased the HeroQuest trademark from us and part of the deal was that we can sell our remaining stock of books for ONE year. We haven't reached that deadline yet, but will soon. Thus, printed books are on sale, and we also still sell PDFs for now.

 

So basically if i want to buy it........buy it soon !