This PDF cover has to be seen...

[Merkuri]

Here we go:

From the PDF in question:

Alkanet Flower Restore Intelligence 1 0.1
Resist Poison
Light
Damage Constitution

Arrowroot Plant Inherent Traits Value Weight
Restore Dexterity 2 0.1
Damage Luck
Fortify Strength
Encumbrance +25#

Blackberry Inherent Traits Value Weight
Restore Constitution 1 0.1
Resist Shock
Fortify Endurance
Restore Magic

Edit: By the way, I used the "contact us" field on RPGNow to notify them of this.

 

[Fifth Element]

Well spotted. And a new worst thing about it?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yeah...the more I see, the less I am likely to shed a tear that people are all over him.

 

[tenkar]

I saw this as the "Featured Product" on RPG now earlier this week. Not sure which one it was, as I wound up having to look at the page for both products.

I felt like I was rubbernecking at a serious vehicle accident on the other side of a highway.

It's not that its bad. There are lots of products that get published via PDF that are bad. It's not the horrible editing. It's not the derailed-train of thought writing. Nor even the better then I can draw but still pretty awful art. All that for free or a buck would make this negligible in the grand scheme of RPG products.

It's the outrageous prices for these... terminally flawed products... that he is asking. $7.50 for the 22 page "Potions" book, $15 for the Gamemaster's book?

I didn't have to DL a sample: This from the author's own blurb on the Game Master's Fantasy Guide gave it all away:

The Game Masters Fantasy Guide is a compilation of almost everything a Game master or a Player might wish to add to their game system. I have found in my many years of gaming that there is some real cool things in our RPG's but they are unexplained like Alchemy for instance just gives the vaguest of descriptions and has no rules for it till now. This Guide will tell you exactly how to make potions amongst other things that you haven't even imagined. That is only one of the things in this guide it is cram packed full of new things for every adventurer and GM!

If I had purchased this RPGNow would have had their first ever request for a refund from me.

I'm knocking the products. I don't know the author from a hill of beans. He certainly loves gaming, so he's probably a great guy at the game table. These products are NOT going to make him any fans among anyone that purchases them.

Not even addressing the "borrowing" of tables from other sources.

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

Jaerdaph,
Chers! though I got lucky with the drow
slowly getting better, portraiture is VERY hard ot make good, IMHO

skill, innate or earned is moreimportant than the tools
I';ve seen awesome art made with Microsoft's bog -standard "Paint" that comes with Windows!

 

[doctorhook]

...The poses are static. Compare that to the original MM, and you see figures from straight-on, full side profile, and 3/4ths angles and others besides.

Maybe I can use this to voice a complaint about an otherwise very talented D&D artist: Wayne England.

His artwork is generally pretty awesome, but the faces he draws? Blech. Almost every single one of them is 100% straight on, and IMHO, it ruins his artwork for me. Perfectly static, perfectly symmetrical faces seem ugly to me, compared to ones that have even the slightest bit of dynamic to them.

 

[jdrakeh]

I've seen that second picture before. It's an ad or something. I can't place it tho.

PS

Yeah, that was my first thought, too. It looked familiar.

 

[lkjopajdowma]

Oh, no, these are lifted straight from Oblivion. There's no doubt about it.

Arrowroot Plant, restores dexterity, damages luck, fortifies strength...

Glow dust from will-o-the-wisps?

Crab meat?

Edit: If I can figure out how to make this game take screenshots I can post some up that show the in-game ingredients almost exactly match his items.

Well,

We have all played Wizards in our RPG, but to the best of my knowledge there have never been any set rules for making potions. With maybe the exception of the Arcanum and Morrowind, I have not seen anyone take up the task of making rules for Potion Creation. So I was inspired to make some rules using both game systems as a basis. Well that and one of my players wanted to be a Potions Master. So we sat down and created some rules for making potions.

He admits right there he's pulling it from Morrowind (Elder Scrolls III). And apparently Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura as well.

Not justifying the theft in any way, just pointing out that it he basically admits he's lifted this work.

 

[Wormwood]

Well, this "humor" thread sure has evolved into something . . . darkly fascinating.

 

[SiderisAnon]

Well, this "humor" thread sure has evolved into something . . . darkly fascinating.

If we're lucky, at least one aspiring self-publisher will take this thread to heart and have someone who hasn't read any piece of the work read it before it's published so that they can provide an honest opinion. (Just make sure you get someone to proofread who will give an actual opinion. Someone I knew had several us proofread a manuscript he was submitting and I was the only one in the group who took a red pen to it and provided a full accounting. Probably because I do documents for a living.)



So, a stated opinion of the gaming work as presented for sale:

Honestly, in the case of these two products, there is nothing about them so far that would NOT be a reason not to buy. The price point is too high, the cover is awful, the description is poor, and the sample text supplied is so bad I literally could not finish reading the first page. I can't imagine trying to write a detailed review of this product because I'd never get through reading the whole thing. If one of my clients gave me the provided sample pages to edit for them, I would have to return it for a full rewrite of the material.

Putting aside some of the implied "dog-piling" on the author/artist, this product is just not something that should be professionally published. The quality is just too low. At best, it's an example of what not to do when you self publish. In truth, I think that simply carrying it on their website does RPGNow a discredit.

If the original author actually reads this, as was suggested by a previous poster, I genuinely hope that he takes this information to heart and either learns to look at this work being published by his company from an objective view or gets someone to edit for him who can do this. He may actually have some good ideas, but most people will never see them because they are presented so poorly.