Brand-new Old-school DC sourcebook now out!

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Brand-new Old-school DC sourcebook now out!

Post by Morthrai »

After over three years in the making, and despite various obstacles (to say the least!) the Tampete metroplex can now be seen in detail in this sourcebook. Scott and Alex have finally realised their labour of love, and it's even being released as a GDW product. I feel this is quite appropriate for what will most likely be the last official release for the original edition 8)

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/221 ... e_id=81689
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Re: Brand-new Old-school DC sourcebook now out!

Post by ReHerakhte »

I just bought this and have spent the last 10-20 minutes going through it. It's a massive body of work, well worth the price considering the amount of material it includes.
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Re: Brand-new Old-school DC sourcebook now out!

Post by Phulish »

On the list!
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Re: Brand-new Old-school DC sourcebook now out!

Post by ReHerakhte »

The artwork is great for the product, it's very much in the style of art in the 1st Ed. main books and any art showing robots tends to be so much better than images of robots from original books like the Dark Tek and Dark Minion books.
I said it before but I'll say it again, the volume of material in this sourcebook really does make it a sourcebook that you would use for long term campaigns. New Dark Minions, Dark Lords, Dark Tek, some new careers (some specifically for Tampete but I think they could be converted easily enough), new proto-dimensions, tables for urban encounters, darkling activity, demongrounds, merchants and more, 101 plot seeds and a glossary. This sourcebook provides lots of material and in my opinion can hold it's own against any of the original sourcebooks.

I've only found one thing that detracts from the overall effort and that is one section explaining the background to the pyramid that has risen from the ground in one part of the city (the Fremont Pyramid). It appears to be a layout problem, the section titled "What Actually Happened" has been placed out of order with the start on page 29 and then what I think is the following paragraph as the last paragraph on page 28 with what I think is the main body of the section placed on page 29 but before the "What Actually Happened" starting paragraphs.
I'm still reading through the book and the more I read the more I think that my next DC campaign will be Tampete :D
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Re: Brand-new Old-school DC sourcebook now out!

Post by Morthrai »

ReHerakhte wrote: Fri Sep 22, 2017 12:19 pm I've only found one thing that detracts from the overall effort and that is one section explaining the background to the pyramid that has risen from the ground in one part of the city (the Fremont Pyramid). It appears to be a layout problem, the section titled "What Actually Happened" has been placed out of order with the start on page 29 and then what I think is the following paragraph as the last paragraph on page 28 with what I think is the main body of the section placed on page 29 but before the "What Actually Happened" starting paragraphs.
I shall relay this to Scott McClenaghan ASAP :)
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Re: Brand-new Old-school DC sourcebook now out!

Post by Morthrai »

Scott says thanks and he's fixing it right away 8)
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Re: Brand-new Old-school DC sourcebook now out!

Post by ReHerakhte »

Cheers Lee.
Hey I hope Scott and Alex know that that one flaw doesn't lessen my appreciation of their efforts nor my admiration for the work done. I know Scott has visited this forum a few times so here's hoping he sees this thread :D

And seriously, getting Lester Smith to write a piece to open the sourcebook was a major coup.
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Re: Brand-new Old-school DC sourcebook now out!

Post by Linden »

Looks really good for the money and I'm sorely tempted. Getting the urge to run a DC campaign again but have probably done the UK as a setting to death. Tampete could be just what I need!
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Re: Brand-new Old-school DC sourcebook now out!

Post by scottm »

Hey there,

This is Scott McClenaghan. Alex Williamson and I wrote most of the book you guys were discussing above with a TON of help from a lot of the people in the Dark Conspiracy facebook groups and in this forum.

Guys, THANK YOU both for the time you spent looking at this, the cash you dropped on it, the VERY COOL comments here and on RPGDriveThru, and especially for the constructive criticism on improving it.

The book has had several months to rot under scrutiny and I THINK we've massaged all type-setting and typographical errors out of it. So now's the time to start looking at a print run.

If you folks have ANY SUGGESTIONS on correcting errors or anything else that detracts from the book's usefulness, please let me know asap and I'll get it in.

And thank you all again just for your consideration. Doing this book was a bucket list item for us.
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Re: Brand-new Old-school DC sourcebook now out!

Post by Morthrai »

Aha, that explains Scott's questions on "Ye Booke of Faces" today about print runs etc.

If you can do it, then do it - and I will say right now I'll take a physical copy regardless of shipping costs 8)
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Re: Brand-new Old-school DC sourcebook now out!

Post by scottm »

Lee, yours will be on the house. Obviously.

Just give me a few (ie. a WHILE) to sort out details of what/where/when, etc...

None of you guys has made a publishing & printing proto-dimension yet? Slackers. Slackers one and all.
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Re: Brand-new Old-school DC sourcebook now out!

Post by Morthrai »

scottm wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:56 am Lee, yours will be on the house. Obviously.
Like I say I am willing to pay the postage, which reminds me I need to get to the post office for some reason ;)
scottm wrote: Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:56 am None of you guys has made a publishing & printing proto-dimension yet? Slackers. Slackers one and all.
A publishing protodimension? Man, there are some things too dark even for DC! :twisted:
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Re: Brand-new Old-school DC sourcebook now out!

Post by ReHerakhte »

Hmmm, print copy :D

Forgive me the preamble...
At the request of some friends who are new to gaming, I've started them on a 5th Ed. D&D campaign but not having the money to throw around on the main books**, I bought the basic set and a number of PDFs of material from earlier editions.
For as much as I like the convenience of PDFs when I'm writing up the adventure, I have come to really, really, really, REALLY! hate using a tablet and PDFs at the game table. Give me the printed book every time. I don't care how wonderful the technology is, when I'm familiar with the book I can find the pages I want much faster than I can on a PDF.

** minimum of Aus$60 just for the Players Handbook - approx GBP35 or US$49 when in those two countries it sells for GBP26 and US$40 respectively.

So yes, if a printed book version of Tampete comes on sale, I am definitely interested and if I am exceedingly lucky, I'll be starting a part-time job in my friendly local game store very soon and if that comes to pass then I'll try convincing the boss to stock some copies (particularly so I can buy one - yeah yeah I'm being totally selfish!)
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Re: Brand-new Old-school DC sourcebook now out!

Post by Linden »

ReHerakhte wrote: Sun Jan 28, 2018 2:43 pm ot having the money to throw around on the main books**, I bought the basic set and a number of PDFs of material from earlier editions.
For as much as I like the convenience of PDFs when I'm writing up the adventure, I have come to really, really, really, REALLY! hate using a tablet and PDFs at the game table. Give me the printed book every time. I don't care how wonderful the technology is, when I'm familiar with the book I can find the pages I want much faster than I can on a PDF.

At the risk of taking this thread off topic I find I'm in a similar position with PDFs and tablets. There is the convenience of not having to hump heavy game books around, but the other side of the coin is it's a right faff trying to find anything while actually in game. On the whole I think I'd prefer hard copies.

I did see on another rpg forum that some members made use of Lulu to print out all their pdf books (usually when they've got a discount code). This doesn't seem to be what Lulu is for, and it seems to me there's potential copyright infringement so I did wonder how practical it was. Has anyone done anything like this?

Mods - possibly this sub-topic could be split off into a separate thread: "Practical Gaming" or something similar?
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Re: Brand-new Old-school DC sourcebook now out!

Post by ReHerakhte »

At the risk of angering the copyright gods in other countries...
Here in Australia there doesn't seem to be any particular problem with getting a copyrighted document printed and bound in a few copies for limited use and more importantly, non-profit/non-promotional use. I believe that this is because it is thought of as "personal use" without any intent to profit from it and so it is considered as not violating the intent & spirit of copyright protection. I can't answer for other countries and so, to use a phrase, your mileage may vary.

So for example, one of my gaming group used to be an organizer for the Pathfinder Society and he had a number of PDFs printed & bound for the club to use on game days. These were documents such as game adventures, character creation pages from the Pathfinder book and so on.
Also, one of the game shops in my area gets the D&D Adventurer's League adventure modules printed & bound for the use of people running games in the store. They are not allowed to keep them or buy them, they are store property in that regard and the intent was to have the document as a hard-wearing booklet rather than some photocopied pages held together by a staple or paperclip.

Now that I've got a D&D campaign running for my game group, I am very much looking at doing this myself for some items I want at the game table so that I can have more than one copy of for example, the character creation pages or the lists of magic spells and so on. At the moment we have just the one Player's Handbook (which I bought two days ago because as mentioned, I dislike having to use PDFs at the game table).

So for my own use, if I am able to get a print copy of the Tampete book, I am committed to buying it at whatever point I have the funds to do so. If it is not an option, then I would definitely look at getting it printed and bound at one of the local print stores so that I can have it at the game table in a format that isn't based on the screen size of my tablet or phone. This also applies for me to the documents released by 3Hombres, I'd love to get all of them as physical copies I can use at the table (particularly so I can brag and point out my small contribution to one of the adventures! Hahaha)

So yes, while I like the convenience of PDFs at home, they are not so convenient for me at the game.
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