Purchasing Question

Any and all discussion about Dark Conspiracy, the RPG of modern conspiracy horror

Did you purchase DPI's Dark Conspiracy 2nd?

Yes, but only the core books (Players & Referees)
8
33%
Yes, both the core books and the Sin City adventures (the 3 published anyway)
4
17%
Yes, but only the basic edition
1
4%
No, although I was keen to
7
29%
No, and I wasn't really interested
4
17%
 
Total votes: 24

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Marcus Bone
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Purchasing Question

Post by Marcus Bone »

Hi All, a simple poll about the success of Dynasty Publishing's 2nd Edition of Dark Conspiracy.

As a request:

- if you do select any of the YES options, please add a comments and thought about the edition below.

- if you select NO, can you add a brief comment on why not?

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Linden
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Post by Linden »

I voted no, and not interested. That's not quite the full story though. As I recall there were two books, Player's and GM's guide, incorporating a lot of material from the 1st edition source books; dark races, proto-dimensions etc. They sound like a good deal but...I was put off by the unusual format (i.e. quite small, like standard paperbacks?) and the allegedly poor print and paper quality. Plus GDW editions seem considerably easier to get hold of.
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Post by Zvezda »

I bought the core books because it was impossible to purchase the Sin City books, otherwise I would have bought them too.

Quality:
As for the poor print and paper quality I support Linden’s statement. Some parts of the books can not be deciphered at all. They looked like free-of-charge fanzines but where as expensive as Hasbro’s “glossy brochures”. The good point was that they did not fell apart as fast as the original book which crumbled from sternly looking at it.

Availability:
Distribution of the books was not too good. They where available at (-/S) at the best. I guess it will be very similar with DC3 though now we have Amazon and ebay. And I have the proper contacts!

Contents:
The contents on the other hand was good. All information you possibly need in a very compact form. It came as an advantage that the book was split in two since I hardly ever need the players handbook.

I use the Dynasty books all the time since they are easier to transport and more endurable than the GDW core book. I also use the last version of T2K since the book is better organised than the DC book and things are faster to find. Most of the old DC stuff has not become obsolate by the new publication. I still needed all of the old books despite buying the new ones. As far as I can remember there was nothing new in the DC2 books.
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Post by eyalfein »

I bought the core books and the sin city adventures, direct order from DPI.
Since I did not have the opportunity to actually have a look at the books before I purchased them, I put my trust in DPI. the least I could do to keep DC alive.

I started a new DC group at that time, which lead to to conclusions:
1.splitting the core book (+expansions) into two core books is a good idea.
2.only one book should have the dimensions of the bible, and that's the dictionary.
I did not use the sin city settings, but borrowed some ideas.
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Post by Morthrai »

I voted No but was keen to. In actual fact I never did manage to get the rulebooks but I do have the three Sin City books (presents from the authors no less :))
There are some issues with quality and typos, and as I recall two of the three books had the same serial number :P I don't have them with me right now so I'll give them another look when I get home in case there's anything I forgot to mention.
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Post by mchesebro »

I bought only the core books, but got them via an online second hand game store. I missed the original release of the books due to some time I had to spend overseas and off the net. I was pleased with the amount of information contained in the books and the way they were divided. However, the general quality of the writting and copy editing was very poor. For what the original prices were one should not have to worry about typos that affect the meaning of the text. Also, to much of the text looked like cut and copy between the books or from other sources, sometimes one version of a rule was stated in one place and another version a couple of paragraphs later. Very little thought to consistency or readability. Had the core books been done better, I might have thought about getting the Sin City series. By the way, when I checked with my local gaming store, they could not even find a listing for the game or books, even with the publishers info in any of the industry stuff they had, not even in the older material.
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Post by Fiannaidhe »

When i was scouring the internet, ebay, and amazon for DC materials, i came across the second edition and chose not to buy it for 2 resons:

1) The items I saw for sale were too expensive for me at the time. They wanted $50 per book for outdated material.

2)I couldn't find any support material; adventures, additional equipment books, etc. Since I had recently purchased first addition adventures and such, and could not find any second edition things, I saw no reason to spend $100 on core rule books that were not totally compatible to first edition....which is what i was, and will be using in the future.
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Post by ReHerakhte »

I answered Yes for the basic books only but I bought them from eBay a few years ago because I didn't like the cost of them when they were for sale in the shops at the time. I wasn't very pleased with the quality either and so I felt it was pointless buying doubles of material I already had (that was generally of a better quality too).
I was already using the Twilight: 2000 Ver 2.2 rules so I didn't need the rules update.
By the time I decided to buy the Sin City adventures, the DPI website was no longer offering them for sale (and they didn't seem to get released in Australia in any sort of number, if at all)
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Post by Morthrai »

ReHerakhte wrote: By the time I decided to buy the Sin City adventures, the DPI website was no longer offering them for sale (and they didn't seem to get released in Australia in any sort of number, if at all)
According to my old pal Geoff Skellams there were less than two hundred copies of the third Sin City book ever printed, so those of us who do have them are definitely in the minority. In fact it might even be less than that number :?
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Post by Zvezda »

Will there be a re-lauch of those books as well?
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Post by Morthrai »

Zvezda wrote:Will there be a re-lauch of those books as well?
As far as I am aware Marcus and TGC only have the rights to the original GDW material. The DC 2 and Sin City stuff was published by Dynasty so I believe that isn't part of the project. Shame really as the Sin City books were pretty cool 8) but then I would say that as they were written by my Demonground colleagues!
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Post by Kellhound »

I only ever saw here (Spain) one of the books (Player's book, I think), and luckily the owner of the bookstore let me take a look at it before deciding.
All I saw was on the good old 1st ed. book by GDW, and I really didn't see the need for buying again what I already had, and looking as if it had come out of a cheap printer and glued together without care.

Besides, I had already adapted the "House System" to it.
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Sin City books

Post by ReHerakhte »

As a new owner of Sin City Volume One and Volume Three (I bought Vol 3 from an Amazon listed bookseller less than two months ago and found Vol 1 on eBay the other week) I must concur with Morthrai's earlier comments. Good material by Mike Marchi and Geoff Skellams badly let down by Dynasty Presentations poor presentation (pun intended -- the books look like they used the cheapest paper they could find) and specifically let down by Tony Lee, the person who supposedly did the proof-reading.

I really liked Dynasty's idea for Sin City as voiced by Ken Whitman in the Foreward of Vol 1 but Damn! those books just feel cheap & nasty. Within a week the cover of Vol 3 had started to curl up at the corners and I'd only left it sitting on a bedside table in the closed position!
From what I've seen of DC 2nd Ed. (I have the basic Player's and basic Ref's books and they too look cheap & nasty), they simply rehashed everything from 1st Ed. and just updated the rules to more closely fit GDW's in-house rules. I don't see any real need to republish anything from the rulebooks but the Sin City adventures would be a good addition to 3rd Ed. (if it was possible to get publishing rights).

Anyways, rant over, I'm climbing down from my soapbox now :roll:

Cheers,
Kevin
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Post by Morthrai »

Actually, the more I think about it the more I personally would like to see the republishing of the Sin City adventures. Maybe some investigation is in order 8)
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What 2nd-Ed.

Post by manodogs »

I honestly had no idea there even was a 2nd-ed. until 2005, when I scoured the Web, looking to see who owned the rights so I could paste the little "This is not official" legalese on my stuff. Once I discovered there was, I could not find anything else about it online - anywhere! And I looked high and low...

That being the case, I assumed there wasn't much to it and didn't bother with it. According to what others have said here, I'm not going to. Typos and bad grammar are rampant in RPG material and my personal bane; I'm one of those who literally White-Outs and corrects his books! (I'm so anal.) I really do - it's such a turn-off and can be completely detrimental to gaming; I don't remember which game/book it was, but one popular game system confused everyone who read it, thanks to an important and lengthy example which had several typos in the numbers! Inexcusable.

I prefer all my RPG material be online now, I just wish there were a more convenient delivery method... monitors make good GM screens, though. Still, I'd rather spend $5-10 printing out some core rules for convenience and having everything else in HTML, where it can be quickly addended, edited, and changed as needed without me having to purchase another "edition."
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