Hells yes Patman! Ranged Touch Feat=Ultimate Gross-ness. That little monster started in those Relic and Ritual books and the idea got snatched up by WOTC for complete devine right quickly! Now I believe they cost turning attempts to use but no matter.
I just snatched up a vintage copy of Mines of Custalcon for $5 from a friend the other day. I have Fortress of Badabaskor as well. Sadly some of my other oldie stuff was heavily used and is thus in pieces.
I've known all along that Necro doesn't have the widest appeal, even when I started writing for the Frog and Goat about 6 years ago but it doesn't matter to me. I get creative freedom. I get my name included in the Copywright (something other publishers won't give you). When they buy your manuscript, they BOUGHT it. Necro doesn't do you like that which is why I will write for them for the indefinite future!
BTW I think its great when I read stuff on this and various threads about "Wish I had an adventure on some haunted cannibal filled island of doom" or something of that ilk." It goes to show that our die-hard fans know all about us and that others have no clue that say... we've already done that.
You read all variety of things like this:
"I want an adventure with antagonistic parties seeking the same goal with a kick butt multi sided melee at the end to decide the fate of civilization".
Done that too!
"I want a campaign world different from things seen in the past, something that cleaves mildly to Fantasy fiction's semi science fiction roots, that reminds me of flicks like Krull, Conan the Barbarian, Anime, Thundarr the Barbarian, Xena and my little pony!"
Yep, Wilderlands.
"Wilderlands you say? Isn't that some nostalgia stuff? I hate nostalgia stuff." LOL, that cracks me up. If your still playing RPGs with dice and paper instead of wired to your computer 8 hours a day playing world of warcrack you love nostalgia and just don't know it. If instead you sit and think out challenges, adventure hooks, and different ways to enthuse your TT group or even HAVE a TT gaming group, you are a total nostalgia freak! Revel in your freakiness!
"I need meatier monsters to challenge a party of high level characters with and im not happy with MM II-IV and their "size makes right" and 6 round combat methodology, everyone in the group has those books already and metagames the crap out of the encounters! I need some REALLY wierd stuff that will challenge them and make them think."
Hmm, done that 3 times now.
"Necromancer Games? Tome of Horrors? Never heard of them. Wait, don't they do that more of that "nostalgia" crap? I hate nostalgia."
LOL
"Necromancer Games... isn't that Scarred Lands? I thought Scarred Lands (Sucked/Was Cool) is a dead setting. Why would I want a dead setting?"
Um no... used the same imprint and distribution chain, not the same setting. Technically Necro doesn't have a default setting. Our stuff is explicitly designed to fit into YOUR default setting of choice as seamlessly as possible. The confusion was absolutely understandable. Heck, even when I started writing for Necro, Clark would e-mail me notes all the time saying "dude, we aren't scarred lands, so don't use so much SL stuff!" About 6 months of drilling that into my head finally made it click! LoL. Even retailers were confused by this. I wouldn't say it's totally hurt or helped Necro over the long run but I understand the confusion!
"Who the heck are these guys at Necromancer Games, I haven't heard of any of them and don't recognize their names as any former employees of WOTC, how did they start a D20 company without any street cred?"
Necro are mostly all guys and girls with day jobs who love gaming as much as you do! Started by guys who jumped on board early with the d20 license and have clung to it like a brain sucking mind flayer. Guys that never worked for WOTC or any other game company! Thats pretty much the core of Necromancer Games, starting with Bill and Clark and working its way down the list of fellow contributors, authors and the rest.
Bill and Clark had Mike Mearls do a book for us back when he was still part of Firey Dragon. We all know who he works for now! Currently we have a cool adventure (Doom of Listonshire) from Ari Marmel who freelances for WOTC, and if I'm not mistaken we have another cool project of his in the pipeline with some awesome stuff contributed by Rich Burlew and others. We re-released and 3ed'ified Gygax's Necropolis, introducing that cool adventure/setting to a ton of people who had never heard of it before! Some of the old and some of the new! Not bad at all.
"I just read that someone bid $520 to hang with Necromancer Games at the Ennies! Thats crazy, what have they produced? Have they ever actually won anything at the Ennies? I thought Malhavoc, Piazo and Green Ronin won everything, so whats the big deal with this company I have never heard of?"
Good question. I would say we haven't done too bad at the ennies over the years. Typically not the 1st place winners but some 2nd's here and there of which we are always very humbled and very thankful. We are blessed with a FANTASTIC core fan base that keeps our fires fueled! Last year our fan and fellow cohort Shane G. Outbid the rest of the field. This year MasterArcanist bid $520 for Rappan Athuk 0001 signed, a seat at the ennies and the WW party plus some other very fine perks! For us it isn't so much about what we "get" at the ennies, it holds a lot about what we Do for the ennies. Something that is very important to all of us. Not that we really "do" anything other than offer our fans some of the cool. They are the ones that feel it is worthwhile enough to bid it up and help out! That is awesome awesome awesome!
So yeah, alot of people haven't heard of us, or see the "1st edition feel" slogan and figure "not worth my time". No worries. There are plenty of things that appeal to those folks and they are totally entitled to find and consume products that meet their needs! Honestly, anything that keeps people interested and playing RPGs helps all of us!
If by chance some of those fine folks decided to give our stuff a 2nd look, or in many cases a 1st look I would bet alot of them would be surprised at the sort of things we have offered over the years and how well they actually DO match up with things they dig about RPGs in general and D20 style D&D in specific!
Thanks for your time! Hope to see a ton of you at Gen Con next week.
Peace
Case