Recent content by Breschau of Livonia

With regards to the initial query... For whatever reason, I've noticed new releases to Kindle (or any ebook format) seem to have very little fanfare. One day I just discovered the Narnia books were there. Another day the core Tolkien works were there. When did Wizards of the Coast release its...

While the Swords & Wizardry pdfs look excellent, there's something about their pdf encoding that makes page turning an agonizingly slow experience. I've tried reducing the size of the files but there's some strange text artifacts (i.e. a bunch of characters piled atop each other) I run into when...

Out of curiosity how did they improve NPC statting?

I was looking through some Eberron characters from my group's old 3.5 game. As an exercise I was seeing how well they ported to 4e. One thing I ran into was as I was porting the ranger I was trying to figure out if there was a way to port his use of charm animal. That got me thinking I can't...

Yeah I have to confess I kinda miss the D&D is Satanic issue. Made us sound scarier. Though it was mainly considered a nerd activity when I was in middle and high school in the 80s (in Connecticut). No one feared me unleashing Type VI Demons on them. Pity really. I tried so hard to summon them...

Please be careful with generalizations. I've had lots of devoutly religious people in my groups (and am one myself). If memory serves, one of the frequent contributors to Dragon in the 80s, Arthur C. Collins I believe, was a protestant minister. He did some rather neat revisions of 1e psionics.

That's the problem with 4e, it doesn't teach "real magic" as well as 1e did. I tried to mind control my parents into buying me more D&D books and they asked me what was wrong with me, reminding me I've been on my own for fifteen years now. And then they asked if I was still playing that geeky...

Without going into conspiracy theories, I can see how removing the 3.x pdfs could offer some small gain for 4e sales - it might push those holding off upgrading to 4e. However, I imagine at this point it would be a minimal gain. It seems more likely to help Pathfinder. Removing 2e and earlier...

To be honest, the main reason I don't pirate is simple, boring ethics. When I was a poor college student I had a little pirated software and tried all sorts of ways to justify it to myself but I never believed myself... :) Another big reason is as a software engineer, I'm in an industry...

btw anyone with experience in such things... I know WotC indicated they are "looking into alternatives". Assumging they mean selling pdfs themselves - which it may not (for example they may also feel the sales of older editions is hurting 4e sales) - how long would it take to get an online...

I can't imagine you being mistaken in this. If there is one customer who is a pdf-only customer they no longer have a product for him. Nothing to do with a boycott. They just won't sell to him.

I'm kinda confused. I mean I get going after pirates and all. But the hardcopy books have also shown up on filesharing sites. Meanwhile, I've made tons of WotC and TSR purchases on RPGnow without illegally sharing any. So because of crooks I can't purchase any more. To quote my favorite line to...

1981 or 82 - 4th or 5th grade. We had a snow day keeping us home from school. My neighbor showed me this game his brother got for Christmas but none of them could really figure out. D&D Basic set with the Otus cover. Such awesomeness. 25+ years! Eek! Hopefully I'll be doing my part for the...

Regarding the layoffs - ladies and gentlemen, you've got my sympathy - and empathy. I've been there. Back in '02 the tech startup I worked for went under - just a little while after my first child was born. I know it was a rough time for me - worrying about finances, getting a new job in a lousy...

What I might end up doing is allowing it to be used as a mount in places where there would be room for a large mount - in other words, it functions as a companion while indoors but there's not really enough room in most dungeons to use it as an effective mount.