A Role Playing Games Blog
Interview
Microlite Interview with Robin Stacey
1March 2, 2010
This interview originally appeared on Polyhedral Dreams, my old RPG blog, on January 17th, 2010. (more…)
Unusual dice
22I recently got word of an interesting eBay shop, where Abraham Neddermann sells a couple of unusual and hand-crafted dice. He currently offers several odd dice (like a d3, d5, d7 and d9) crafted from aluminium and an Ankh D6, where the numbers and the ankh (replacing the number 6) are made out of brass. Wow, this is pretty cool. When I had the opportunity, I asked Abraham a few questions.
Stargazer: Hi Abraham, please tell our readers a bit about yourself.
Abraham: My name is Abraham Neddermann, and I have always wanted to be an Inventor (I’m 28 yrs old). All my family is full of artists (aunts), tech teachers (uncles) and craftsmen (dad & granddad).
I studied electronics because I’m very talented on mechanics. Always dreamed about a mill and a lathe, but could not afford it until recently (1 year).
I have had an awesome luck on which teachers I have met over my life, because they all have taught me the “old school” ways of work, and love for perfection. So in the end, I have evolved into some sort of modern craftsman.
I worked as warehouse assistant and lather as a R+D electronics assistant. But recently, in part due to the recession, they dismissed me (in good ways, there was not that much work).
At that time, I had had just bought mi milling machine.Stargazer: How did you come up with the idea to craft unusual dice?
Abraham: Everything started with me NOT wanting to make a die for a friend. ^^
That friend asked me for a 13-sided dice, but being a good deal of work, I redirected him to a manufacturer I found in “dicecollector.com“. Unfortunately for him, the manufacturer was not taking orders, so he convinced me to make him one. (I had to overcome my natural aversion to charge money for something to people I know). After a few prototypes (one with roman numbers, one too long, and one with off-center numbers) I finally made one he did like. I charged him 22€, but in the end, I really had not made any benefit, because had to buy numeric punches and the aluminium).
At this point, my obsessive/compulsive personality kicks in. Having been a RPG player (and game master) for 12 years now, my mind just wandered over the metal dice, and I asked myself how would a D5 or a D7 look like (on the same style as the D13)
So I started making all the odd numbered dice from 3 to 13. Then, some friends bought some, and about a month later, I just decided to open a eBay shop. (It has low maintenance costs and is easier to manage than other e-commerce options, but is a hell in user friendliness).
At the bottom end, Unconventional Dice exists (Or I want to believe that) to make those dice noone else makes…and to push the “dice” into the future (like the carbon one…).Stargazer: Please tell us a bit more about the dice themselves.
Abraham: My machines are not computer controlled, so each die is made with love and passion (well, in reality, each die is made with good music (from Loreena McKennit to Daft Punk) under my noise-cancelling headphones.
As I said, I am a little obsessive compulsive when it comes to ideas. So when a “theme” kicks in, i just can’t stop to wander over it. That leads me into things like the Carbon Fiber dice, as you can see, the 3 sided dice, pushed to the extreme. In case you wander, the answer is yes, it performs better than the regular 3 sided dice. (because the mass of the dice is so off center, it is less likely to stop on a round edge).
About how they handle on the table. Well, the D3 and D5, are “big” in comparison to other types of dice, but when you get into the D5 and over, all other manufacturers I have seen, just drop the common sense and make big chunks of metal with N sides. In my case, I decided I wanted the dice to be usable, so all them are small (15*25mm) and relatively light.
Of course, their use is limited because we are used to even choices on our games but on the other side, that means that is unlikely that you need more than one of one given die, so you won’t end rolling tons of metal into the table. ^^Stargazer: And what about the numbers on the dice? How are they put onto the dice?
Abraham: Which ones?. The metal dice have the numbers “engraved” (punched) on and then painted by hand to make the numbers readable. The symbols on the plastic D6 are metal fused into the plastic. That gives the die a somewhat special feeling, specially on the steampunk one (gearwheel) because the symbol has this metallic shine that paint has not.
Stargazer: Thanks for answering that questions for us! I wish you luck with your dice shop and I hope we’ll see more of your cool dice at the gaming table in the future!
Abraham has provided me with a couple of photos that, I now want to share with you. Please note that some of the dice shown are still prototypes, so they are not available at the shop, yet.
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You can click on the thumbnails above to see a larger version of the photos. I have to admit that I currently don’t see that many uses for the odd dice, yet, but I love Abraham’s other dice. Especially the Steampunk and Predator dice are pretty cool, and I am tempted to get a set of those dice, when they are finally available in his shop.
Robin D. Laws interview
3September 30, 2009
Recently I started reading Esoterrorists and Trail of Cthulhu again, since I am planning to run a game using the GUMSHOE system. While doing some research on the system, reading playtest reports and listening to actual play podcasts, some questions arose. Although I was very intruiged by the GUMSHOE system, there are a few things that concerned me, so I thought the best cause of action would be to contact the creator of the system to ask him a few question. And luckily enough, Robin D. Laws agreed to do an interview.
Please note: The intervierw was done by email and I added the photos afterwards. So the photos don’t convey Robin’s emotions while answering those questions. It’s just me fooling around with his profile pictures from his Lifejournal account. The photos are used with his permission.
Stargazer: Thanks again for answering a few questions for me and my readers. Some time ago I stumbled upon the GUMSHOE system in general and Esoterrorists in particular. The GUMSHOE system has been designed with investigative scenarios in mind. When did you first have the idea to create a roleplaying game especially for that kind of play?
Robin: Simon Rogers of Pelgrane Press commissioned me to create a rules system that would rethink investigative roleplaying from the ground up. He’d been frustrated in the past by the dead ends that tend to crop up in investigative games and wanted a system that would remove these roadblocks. I started by examining the problem of the failed information-gathering roll that stops the plot, but we wound up with a mechanism that changes much more than just that one classic dilemma. From that simple change evolved a streamlined investigative engine allowing for a focus on clue interpretation over clue gathering. The result are games that more closely emulate mystery stories, from Lovecraftian probings into truths best left unlearned, to TV police procedurals.
Stargazer: And why was a special system for this genre necessary?
Investigative roleplaying has always been one of the major structural forms of roleplaying, but is comparatively under-served compared to the action-adventure gaming that forms the basis of almost all other RPGs, no matter what their exterior genre trappings might be. Inspectres did a great and innovative job in the cooperative storytelling arena, where the entire group collaborates to create the mystery as the game develops. But it seemed like there was still creative room left to explore the more traditional mystery game, where the GM has a predetermined solution and the players piece together the clues to work toward it.
The basic idea behind the game could have been conveyed in a number of ways. I could have written it as a magazine article, as a chunk of rules text for an existing rules set, or as a blog post. All of these choices, however, would ignore the process through which ideas enter the collective gamer consciousness and become part of the established corpus of techniques. To do that, you need a new rules set to garner sustained attention and spotlight your defining idea. That gets hundreds and thousands of gamers to grapple with the concept you’re working to convey, rather than the dozens or hundreds you’d get otherwise.
Once it’s injected into the bloodstream of gaming in this way, your strand of conceptual DNA can then become a permanent part of various GMs’ play styles, and travel from there into other games. A previous example of the same phenomenon would be the way that Feng Shui encouraged players to describe elements of the physical environment and incorporate them into their fight descriptions. In 2009 this sounds like an incredibly minor step toward the shared narrative control that now runs through so many indie designs. At the time it came as an exciting revelation to many GMs, and changed the way they played their other games, too.
So while on a design level, you could easily bolt on the basic concept of GUMSHOE to any existing traditional investigative game, the reception dynamics that determine which ideas get taken up and which ones vanish decreed that it should be presented as the core of its own specialized game system.
Similarly, it’s a simple fact of RPG marketing that you can sell more copies of a product that appears as a core game than you can as a supplement or modification to something else.
The gamer soul is torn when a new game appears. The uber-gamer wants to buy new games, yet does not want to buy new games. Who wants to spend more money on more stuff? None of us, yet at the same time all of us. This sales resistance is understandable, and fuels the online reception to new products as they appear. You have to expect a certain segment of the audience to ask if your game really needs to exist. RPGs are entertainment products; none of them need to exist. The ultimate proof in the pudding is not whether folks question a game’s existence, but whether enough of them buy it, dig it, and keep playing it. And fortunately we’ve reached a point where GUMSHOE has acquired a self-sustaining base of players who see why the game warrants its independent existence and are happy to keep on playing it.
Stargazer: At least for me the name GUMSHOE conjures up images of hardboiled ’40s detectives wearing trenchcoats and fedoras, but no game using this system is actually set into this genre. Was this intentional or are you considering writing a game inspired by the “hardboiled detective genre”?
Robin: We needed a snappy, one-word name that instantly conveys the core idea behind not just the first game, but the system, and GUMSHOE seemed instantly to be the right choice. It was the first name I came up with and we never considered another one.
The hardboiled detective is one of many sub-genres of straight-up mystery that could easily be done with GUMSHOE. A Sherlock Holmes game is another obvious choice. Because they’re medieval history buffs, lots of gamers enjoy Ellis Peters’ Cadfael books,. Thanks to Lindsey Davis, the Roman empire is also an appealing setting for mystery that in its own toga-clad way recalls the classic tropes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.
The question then becomes whether we could sell enough copies to justify doing any of these settings. Traditionally gamers play historical RPGs only if you add a fantastical element to them, whether it’s magic or SF gear or Cthulhoid horrors. You see this logic at work in Mutant City Blues, which takes the modern police procedural and makes it interesting to our audience by grafting super-powers onto it. The smaller base of players who want a straight police procedural can then take the book, ignore the super stuff, and they’re set to go.
On those grounds, it may be that something like Gareth Hanrahan’s Trail Of Cthulhu supplement, Arkham Detective Tales, is as close as we can come to a straight-up hardboiled game.
Sherlock Holmes might be doable as a crossover out of the gaming scene because of the large Holmesian collectors’ market.
(The interview continues after this break…)
Interview with David Bezio
2August 27, 2009
It’s great to read reviews and explore the stuff that someone has written but I always found it even more interesting to get to know the persons behind the games. That’s why I love doing interviews so much. This time I asked David Bezio, author of the SF roleplaying game X-plorers to answer a few questions for me.
Stargazer’s World: Could you please tell my readers about you? What are you doing when you are not designing RPGs and how did you get into the hobby in the first place?
David Bezio: I’m a pretty average guy (great way to start an interview, huh? “I’m boring as hell!”). I work for the USPS as a city letter carrier and have a family, my wife Melissa and two “kids”. The youngest will be out of the house in about 2 years, the oldest is in college. Most people who meet me don’t think I’m that old. I don’t know if it’s because I look young, or if it’s because I’m so immature.
Like almost everything cool (or nerdy, depending on your perspective) that I’m into is because of my older sister Colette. We grew up in the country, so I had nothing better to do than tag around after her while I was growing up. She got me reading Sci Fi and Fantasy, drawing, writing, and eventually playing RPGs. I’m a contact nerd, or something.
Stargazer’s World: When did you decide to start writing an old-school SF roleplaying game?
About 4 or 5 months before it came out…seriously, that’s it. I’ve always liked sci fi role playing, and as a kid, I probably GMed more Star Frontiers than D&D. SF has some mechanical issues though, and I was really tempted to play Mongoose Traveller…but that is just a bit “complicated” for my taste (not to mention the setting is too detailed for me to wrap my brain around). I thought, “boy, wouldn’t it be nice if I had a game as simple as B/X D&D, but for Sci Fi, to fall back on?” So I started writing.
Stargazer’s World: Recently I started reading Swords & Wizardry White Box and I noticed several similarities. Is this coincidence or was this game an inspiration for X-plorers?
David Bezio: S&W: WB was not only a HUGE inspiration, but I also used its OGL. While X-plorers looks about 90% different than that game now, I started the project with the word version of S&W:WB and started adding things, and taking things away. While I’m still a huge B/X D&D fan, I really found S&W: WB liberating and refreshing. While B/X D&D is probably a better all-around game, you can’t beat S&W:WB for really bringing back that old school FEEL when you play. Matt Finch and Marv Breig really did the old school movement a huge favor by releasing this game, and did it with style and class as well. If you’re thinking about picking up a retro clone, it’s my recomendation for feel alone.
Stargazer’s World: It seems a lot of people are having great interest in playing roleplaying games from the "good old days". There are a lot of OD&D retro-clones and your own game has a strong 1974 feel. Why do you think there’s renewed interest in old-school gaming?
David Bezio: I think a lot of people have gotten to the breaking point. Rules keep getting more and more complicated and complete, and settings keep getting more detailed and complex. I think many role players (especially older ones with busy lives) have gotten to the point where they simply want to get together with friends and have a good time, not try to remember 400 pages of rules. I also think a lot of GMs have been feeling stifled by rules and settings that don’t allow as much room for “doing your own thing” as the old school ones do.
Stargazer’s World: Your company’s website lists several upcoming books, can you tell us a bit about them? What will be the main differences between Mythic Kingdoms and other games emulating OD&D for example?
David Bezio: ("Company" stiffles giggles) I’m actually thinking about scrapping MK, simply because I don’t want to fracture a small player base any further. There are 5 very good retro-clones of basic and OD&D already…do we really need another one, even if it does make several changes? That and I should really concentrate on X-plorers a bit more for now. I’ll probably consider releasing my setting (The Phoenix Barony) as a supplement for S&W:WB instead…but not right away, too many other things in the pipe.
Stargazer’s World: Do you consider creating another "what if" games like Mythic
Kingdoms and X-plorers? Do you intend to explore more genres in an old-school format?
David Bezio: I actually had 3 lined up. Heretic Warrior, my horror setting, Wild Waste, my sci-fi western world, and Zodiac Sunrise, my Mecha setting. But, again, I have more ideas than time. It’s going to be plenty of work just getting GT out every 3 months (hopefully 
) The good news is, Wild Waste is going to appear in Galactic Troubleshooters #3 along with an adventure on that world. Zodiac Sunrise may see a place in GT as well, with some Mecha add on rules (although I really wish someone else would write them instead of me). Heretic Warrior is in limbo…who knows…
Stargazer’s World: Did you recruit most of your playtesters over the internet or did you do most the testing "in house"? Do you think X-plorers would have been possible without the ‘net?
David Bezio: I’ll be honest, and hope it doesn’t alienate the internet community…Over 600 people downloaded the X-plorers playtest version. Of those people, I heard back from a number less than you can count on my hands. Most of the playtesting was done by my group, and rigorous solo testing (yes, I fought with myself a lot). So, open playtesting wasn’t as productive as I hoped it would be.
No, X-plorers wouldn’t have come about (and won’t continue) without the net. It would just be one of the many RPGs I’ve written over the years for myself and my friends. With all the old school talk, I felt there were a lot of people searching for a game like this, so I decided to share. Unfortunately sharing takes money (most people probably think it’s the other way around when you publish something) and a lot of time. I’m not a pimp, and it takes outside interest to keep me motivated (it might seem easy, but, anyone who has done it probably agrees with me that even a small project like this takes a lot of effort). If the internet community doesn’t get pumped and contribute their thoughts and ideas (and money when they buy products) X-plorers won’t be able to grow and flourish.
Stargazer’s World: Is there anything else you want to talk about?
David Bezio: Yeah, I purchased a house recently, and have a game room in the basement with carpet and everything…but no table to actually play on! 3 stinking months and still no place to play in my new house yet. Sucks! That’s all .
Stargazer’s World: Thanks for answering a few questions for us! I wish you all the best in your future projects and hope we can perhaps do a follow-up interview in the future!
Interview with Wolfgang Baur
2July 20, 2009
Some days ago I managed to arrange an interview with Wolfgang Baur, Kobold-in-Chief of Kobold Quarterly. Wolfgang Baur is a RPG industry veteran and has worked for many companies including Wizards of the Coast, Paizo, Green Ronin, TSR and his own Open Design LLC.
Stargazers World: Please tell us a bit about yourself. What kind of a person is Wolfgang Baur? When and how did you start roleplaying? How did you get into the “industry”?
Wolfgang Baur: I’m a fan from the blue box days of D&D; I really started with the Dungeon board game, and then started DMing at an early age. I wrote my first published work while in high school for Dungeon magazine and continued to write adventures in college as a freelancer. I was hired by TSR right out of college based on the strength of my magazine contributions, and learned the industry from the periodicals side of things. I’d say that still influences how I think of game material today.
What kind of person am I? A mildly compulsive language freak who loves history and gaming, a fan of wild berries and wilderness, and a man growing less patient with fools with every passing year.
Stargazers World: Kobold Quarterly magazine, the KQ website and two Open Design adventures have been nominated for this years’ ENnie Awards, so I think congratulations are in order. What were your first thoughts when you learned about the nominations? And what are your plans for the future?
Wolfgang Baur: It was the first thing I noticed in email on a Monday morning, and I was stunned at 5 nominations. I’m very pleased, of course, and I expect we’ll keep putting the magazine and the adventures out there. I keep thinking that Kobold Quarterly is under a lot of people’s radar, but I guess that’s no longer the case.
There’s some biggish plans for the future; adventures that are not patron projects, a couple Zobeck Gazetteers, and a few surprises that we’ll announce in the next month or two.
Stargazers World: For a lot of gamers KQ is the spiritual successor of the Dungeon and Dragon magazines. Both are available in digital format only. Do you think it was the right decision of Wizards to go all digital and do you consider a similar move for your magazine?
Wolfgang Baur: Well, sure, the big two aren’t magazines anymore, they’re part of a major subscription Web site. I think they are certainly making more money for the Hasbro shareholders that way than they would as magazines, and — after a really shaky start — they are starting to hit their stride as a web site. So I suspect it was the right move from a profit point of view, and perhaps
KQ doesn’t have the resources to create things like the Character Builder or other web tools, so we’ll focus on what we do well: great D&D articles for any edition, interviews with famous designers and artists, beautiful maps and entertaining Ecologies. The free content on our web site does draw a lot of traffic, and I’m happy to keep it free.
Stargazers World: Your magazine is called Kobold Quarterly and you call yourself “Kobold-in-Chief”. So, please tell us, what’s the big deal with Kobolds?
Wolfgang Baur: Oh, I just like the little guys. They are sort of iconic underdogs, and we’re really a small press publisher living in a world of giants and dinosaurs.
We try to be nimble. Sometimes we get crushed. We keep doing more articles and we’ve got big ambition. Our motto is “Small but Fierce”, which conveys the kobold attitude in a nutshell.
Stargazers World: I am sure a lot of people are very interested in the answer to my last question for today: where does Wolfgang Baur get his inspirations?
Wolfgang Baur: Honestly, a lot of it is daydreaming while I ride my bike, sit at the library, or ponder things at the park; a lack of distractions seems to help. Some of it is based on filtering history through a gaming lens, and I do read a fair bit of historical non-fiction. Real life is a rich source of wonderful characters, settings, and legends.
Finally, some of it is just material born of desperation. That is, I improvise at the game table my DM notes have run out — and often that leads directly to something fantastical or terrifying or wonderful. I’m blessed with a hyperactive imagination — the trouble isn’t finding inspiration, but finding enough hours in the day to write and design the best ideas into print.
Stargazers World: Thanks again for answering a few questions for us and good luck for all your feature endeavours!
Interview with Chad Underkoffler
4April 23, 2009
With the release of “Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies” (get it at RPGNow or IPR) a few days ago, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to ask Chad Underkoffler, if he would answer some questions for my blog. He agreed and so I present to you my interview with Chad:
Stargazer: At first I want to thank you for taking your time to answer some of my questions. Can you tell us a bit about yourself? What was the first RPG you played and what made you enter the “industry” so to speak?
Chad: The first RPG I ever played was BASIC D&D, back in 1981. I continued to roleplay throughout junior high, high school, college, and afterward.
I entered the industry in 1998. I had been participating on a GURPS-based mailing list, and was writing/statting various things for posting there. Someone mentioned to me that my writing was pretty good, and I should submit some of my stuff to PYRAMID ONLINE, the Steve Jackson Games magazine.
I did. They accepted it. I got paid. I wrote something else. They accepted it. I got paid.
I kept repeating that, and eventually gained a regular column on PYRAMID. After that, I started branching out and writing stuff for other games and companies.
Stargazer: The Atomic Sock Monkey Press site only lists you as staff. Is the Monkey King doing all the work alone with his two cats or do you have some uncredited Monkey Minions hidden in your basement?
Chad: Well, for the most part (except for artwork and editing), up until the release of THE ZORCERER OF ZO, I pretty much *did* do all the work myself. Writing, layout, the business end… It was a lot of work.
Stargazer: Recently your latest work “Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies” has been released as hardcopy and PDF. Can you tell us what S7S is about? What makes the world unique?
Chad: S7S is all about style — swashbuckling style! While Justice may be blind, Luck definitely keeps a lookout for flashy and fun folks!
It’s a world shaped like a snowglobe, with floating islands hovering within, and skyships travelling between them.
Stargazer: Now that S7S is done, have you already started working on your next project?
Chad: No, actually. I am taking a long break from “writing or game design with an eye towards publication” — instead I want to play more, design for fun, and write for fun. In essence, a short sabbatical.
Stargazer: For S7S you worked with Evil Hat Productions who are publishing the game for you. When I am not mistaken you self-published all your other games, so what lead to the decision to cooperate with Evil Hat this time?
Chad: I discovered a few years ago that the business and production details weren’t as fun for me as they used to me. I’d gleaned all of the fun and interest I could out of them over that time, which was a useful education.
Also, I realized I just wasn’t as *good at it* as other people… So I went looking for people who are good at it. Thus, my new association with Evil Hat.
Stargazer: When I first read the PDQ rules some time ago, PDQ’s qualities reminded me of a lot of FATE’s aspects. Another system with similar mechanics is S. John Ross’ RISUS. Is this coincidence or was PDQ inspired by FATE and/or RISUS?
Chad: RISUS was definitely an influence on PDQ, if not exactly an inspiration — I’d already banged together a few ideas (inspired by OVER THE EDGE and possibly on misremembered elements of FUDGE, FATE’s precursor) for PDQ on my own before I came across it. But yes: RISUS helped.
FATE — along with ADVENTURE! — has had a couple effects on PDQ, mostly after I read SPIRIT OF THE CENTURY. You can see the influence on the basic game engine of PDQ when you look at PDQ#, the freebie version of S&S’s rules.
Stargazer: PDQ has a quite interesting damage mechanic. Can you tell us a bit about that and how did you come up with the idea?
Chad: Hit Points are boring. I wanted something that was not boring. I also wanted some player choice in assigning damage. I wanted a player to be able to sacrifice elements to keep going. I didn’t want an immediate death spiral.
When you take damage, you reduce one or more of your choice of Qualities. This permits a player to attempt to keep his or her character’s effectiveness optimized for whatever conflict the character is in as long as possible. (As Rob Donoghue has thumbnailed it: “You can punch Spider-Man in the girlfriend!”)
Stargazer: S7S is not the only game that uses the PDQ rules. Could you give us a small overview over the other PDQ-driven games?
Chad: From ASMP:
Dead Inside – You’ve lost your soul. What will you do to regain it?
Truth & Justice – Simple. Speedy. Super.
Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot – A simple, silly fighty game.
The Zorcerer of Zo – Fairy tale adventures in the zantabulous land of Zo.
From other companies:
Ninja Burger – The world’s only fast-food chain run by ninja is looking for new recruits!
Questers of the Middle Realms – The lighter side of fantasy gaming. In less than 80 pages.
Jaws of the Six Serpents – Sword and sorcery, and the darker side of fantasy.
Stargazer: With S7S you took an Open Design approach and blogged about the development process. How did this approach change the way you work on a new game? Are you going to post about your next project, too?
Chad: The biggest change, I think, was a certain reduction of the pressure I put on myself. You know, keeping my next secret project secret, and stressed because I couldn’t really talk to anyone about it. All that, and I sometimes got really useful comments!
When I get back to it, yeah, I probably will.
Stargazer: During the last years a couple of companies have jumped the OGL bandwagon and released their rules system under Wizard of the Coast’s Open Game License. PDQ is still pretty much closed although you give away the core rules for free on your site. Do you have plans to release the PDQ core rules under an open license in the future?
Chad: Actually, it’s better to say that PDQ is a FREE BUT CLOSED license at this point. That means that basically I need to see what the heck people want to put out commercially under it, before I give permission to do so. Add in system credit and a free ad page for ASMP, and that’s all I ask for.
However, for my part, I give licensees several things: access to a private email list of other licensees or potential licensees, my personal insights into gaming and game design, an established game brand, and whatever attention I can bring to their work.
Stargazer: And what is your stance on fan-created works based on PDQ?
Chad: Love them. Buy if you want to sell something, drop by and ask for a license.
Stargazer: Recently WotC stopped all PDF sales because of piracy. Have you had any problems with piracy of your products so far and are you thinking about going print-only, too?
Chad: I have no idea if ASMP’s PDFs have been pirated. Most of them are pretty cheap as it is. But it’s possible.
Listen: you’re not going to be able to stop pirates from pirating. So why blow a gasket about it. Stop it when it comes to your attention; defend your IP; but no measures will stop someone from scanning a hardcover book if they really want to.
Going print-only would be economic suicide for a micro-publisher — make that a NANO-PUBLISHER — like me. PDFs are the most cost effective products I make.
Stargazer: Thanks for answering those questions and enjoy your sabbatical!
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