Quote from: Panjumanju;825458I remembered hearing at they would do something with Roger Zelazny's Amber, or the Amber Diceless system - one or the other or both, but it never came to anything. I'd love to hear the rest of that story.

//Panjumanju

There wasn't much of a mystery there.

Mark MacKinnon and Jesse Scoble were hardcore Amber players. When Erick became unable to sustain the ADRP line, they took over fulfillment and distribution for a while, selling ADRP and associated merchandise (back stock of the core books, Amberzines, and tee-shirts) at conventions for Phage.

They had the rights to sell the ebook version of it it for a while, and eventually the rights passed to Diceless by Design, as part of some convoluted rights shuffle involving the Tekumel RPG. I'm a little fuzzy on specifics.

Neither GoO or DbD had/have the rights, technically, to do a new edition of the game, as I understand it from unofficial discussions with a representative of the Zelazny Estate. The core books can be sold as ebooks and reprinted, if desired, but Amberzine was limited to the 1000-copy print runs.

DbD does have the rights to Erick Wujcik's diceless system, which was licensed by Rite Publishing for Lords of Gossamer & Shadow. Some percentage of LoG&S sales go to DbD and another portion to the Zelazny Estate.

A new edition of ADRP would require renegotiation with the Zelazny Estate, and I suspect that it's simply not going to happen. I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Quote from: Gabriel2;825450GoO delivered what the fans asked for, and went out of business at least partially because of that.

GoO went out of business because of the plummeting US dollar vs. the Canadian dollar... an absurd exchange rate drop. All their expenses were in CDND, and the majority of their profits were in USD.

I was still owed money on some freelance with them at the time (something for the A Game of Thrones RPG, IIRC), and to his credit, Mark tried to make sure I was paid back at least part of what was owed after they went under.

Quote from: Jason D;826097There wasn't much of a mystery there.

Thanks for the story!

//Panjumanju

Quote from: Gabriel2;825450BESM3e was bittersweet.  The introduction basically says that BESM started as the game Mark wanted, and BESM3 was the game the fans wanted.  GoO delivered what the fans asked for, and went out of business at least partially because of that.

I take away a very dark statement about the RPG biz because of that.

   I'm not sure that the conclusion follows, since Guardians of Order went under before they could publish BESM3. The print run was fulfilled by WW under their Arthaus imprint, and IIRC, a key reason was because GoO had already taken money for preorders and someone in charge felt the fans were owed the product. They only did the one run, which is why it's so expensive on the secondary market.

  Since they did, for all intents and purposes, go out of business before delivering "what the fans wanted", I"m not convinced it was a factor.

Was Tekumel the last thing they published? I bought pretty much every hard copy they made, and that was the last thing I saw on the shelves. Disappointed BESM 3rd wasn't available in print...if it was/is, I'd like to get a copy.

Brad--Just checked, and it's available in POD from DriveThruRPG. Probably cheaper and easier to find than the Arthaus run.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;826403Brad--Just checked, and it's available in POD from DriveThruRPG. Probably cheaper and easier to find than the Arthaus run.

Yep.  About half as cheap as hunting down a good quality copy nowadays.  I even ordered one as a spare.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;826403Brad--Just checked, and it's available in POD from DriveThruRPG. Probably cheaper and easier to find than the Arthaus run.

For $60, how's the quality? I also saw a few other things I didn't have, some of the d20 books. Heard those sucked, though.

From what I understood at the time, GoO was trying to negotiate the Amber rights; though probably would never have gotten them, based on what we know now, even if they had survived as a company.

Quote from: RPGPundit;826804From what I understood at the time, GoO was trying to negotiate the Amber rights; though probably would never have gotten them, based on what we know now, even if they had survived as a company.

Mark McKinnon, co-designer of BESM, was a huge Amber fan.

Loved BESM, Uresia, Ex Machina, Tekumel, Dreaming Cities.

They didn't keep an eye on the exchange rate changes and went down in flames. That's capitalism, and he tried to pass on as much to others to keep going, hence BESM 3e from Arthaus.

Shame gamers are such twats about business and think they are run as charities by infallible deities, and if not then they are EVIL and worthy of endless flaming.

I *miss* GOO..

Quote from: Brad;826401Disappointed BESM 3rd wasn't available in print...if it was/is, I'd like to get a copy.

It was in print briefly; I have a physical copy.

Quote from: TristramEvans;826813Mark McKinnon, co-designer of BESM, was a huge Amber fan.

Mark originally showed Erick Wujcik the in-progress version of BESM. Erick's advice was to print it "backwards", manga-style (on cheap paper, IIRC), and fill it with untranslated pages of manga art, captions and all.

Probably wise that they ignored his advice there.

Quote from: Brad;826406For $60, how's the quality? I also saw a few other things I didn't have, some of the d20 books. Heard those sucked, though.

I just got my POD version from RPGNow.  I've done a quick comparison to my copy I bought back in 2007.

If you were just to look at the covers, they are nearly indistinguishable from each other.  The only visual difference is there are two UPC bar codes on the original version as well as price information (the code 53999 indicating a $39.99 price).  The RPGNow version only has one barcode and nothing to indicate price.

Examining the cover a little bit more and comparing the books side by side, the binding on the POD version feels very slightly thicker.  The POD version is also a very slightly thicker book, because it is printed on different stock.  I'm not talking a considerable difference here.  It's only about two millimeters difference.  The POD version is also slightly taller and wider.  It's about 7 millimeters taller and 4 millimeters wider.  They'll look different if they're sitting together on a shelf, but otherwise you can't tell by a casual glance.

Inside is where the difference pops out.  The POD version is full color, but the paper is not glossy like the original.  It's a matte color print.  The original can open and lay flat.  The binding on the new version is not like this and there is a very noticable gutter.  These are not necessarily flaws.  They're just notes on how the original and POD version differ.  In fact, my first impression is that I like the matte color interior better.  The binding on this POD version also feels a bit more sturdy to me.

The POD version seems to have absorbed the errata.  I only have two pages of errata for the original version.  Pages 154 and 168 had tables which were fubar in the original.  These tables are fixed in the POD version to match the errata pages I have.

There are a few extra pages at the end of the POD version labeled "Notes" which my original copy does not have.  On one of these extra pages there is a UPC barcode.  I presume this is just an artifact of the POD vendor.

If you want BESM3e, then I'd say the POD version is definitely worth the money, and an excellent alternative if you don't want to pay $100+ for an original printing.  I am definitely pleased, and may buy another POD version in the future.

I loved BESM, sad I missed out on 3e.  Wish that Arthaus had sold the PDFs, but then again, that was where White Wolf put things that they wanted to die in.

The best book for me was the Sailor Moon one.  And I HATE Sailor Moon, but it was written in such a way that actually was fun, and I'd have been willing to run a game in that setting, just because of the author's skill at evoking ideas.