kcw | journal | 2004 << Previous Page | Next Page >>
So there was an earthquake yesterday in the late morning. A pretty long one too, lasting like 30 seconds. The Oracle building was swaying though when I went to look at the other buildings I couldn't tell if they were moving. These building are built way too solidly. Some people panic but it wasn't a huge earthquake so I just kept doing whatever I was doing.

After basketball today we went to Applebee's in Fremont. Eric and I had the All You Can Eat Riblets. The riblets were not that good. Not much sauce, a little tough, hard to get at the meat. Came with good french fries, so so baked beans, and kind of dry coleslaw. I had a chocolate shake beforehand and it was pretty good, if not exactly very thick. We also had the Spinach-Artichoke Dip and that was good.

The waitress was not that great either. Eric and I kept trying to get some water and it was only right at the end of the meal when she gave us water. I still gave a big tip though maybe I won't be going back to that Applebee's. I have had good meals at Applebee's before. Still had a good time and ate a lot.

So afterwards I played Diablo and finally got the Baal Doll. Combined it with the other dolls to make an amulet. +1 to all skills, enemy resistances at -5%, +83 (based on level) Strength and Vitality, lots of extra lightning damage. Not too bad overall and it frees up a bunch of space in my stash. So now I can go hunt for the dolls to the last set.

Meanwhile I've gotten three of the four pieces I need for Griswold's Legacy. I only need the helmet which I tried but got the Armor of God helmet. The Legacy has lots of open slots and I'll probably be putting lots of extra resistance things if the set makes it to Hell level.
As I've been archiving Pyramid I came across a conversion article. Pocket Fantasy to GURPS. Pocket Fantasy is a PDF RPG based on the PlainLabel rules which is also PDF only. The problem being that Pocket Fantasy isn't being sold anymore since I couldn't find it at all and the links are dead.

PlainLabel itself is sold as the Simply Roleplaying RPG by Microtactix, whose web site has lots of broken links. Another problem is that Simply Roleplaying is already at 3rd Edition and there is no sign of previous editions. That and it's hard to tell what products are what on the Microtactix site. Not so much bad organization as bad descriptions.

So we have two big problems with PDF products: one is that if the company disappears the PDFs disappear. Since PDFs have little resale value or even methods for resale it makes those PDFs impossible to find. Second is related in that obsolete older versions/editions of PDFs just disappear. Both factors make it very hard to collect PDFs, especially from micro-companies that are essentially fly-by-night.

At least with the Hero PDFs I see a certain stability in the company and in the PDFs. Once you have the PDF done, don't keep revising it. New editions are sort of ok, but small revisions just means a lot of different versions of the PDF out there. In general most sourcebooks only have one edition anyways so the multiple-editions problem is not that common. But core books which you get with a PDF-only line... Ack!

Some of the things people are suggesting for Steve Jackson Games' e23 are scary. Partial products and bits and pieces. I want complete books, the kind that companies would publish. I don't want little 32-page books each covering micro-subjects. That way leads to collecting hell for me.
Copyright (c) 2004 Kevin C. Wong
Page Created: October 1, 2004
Page Last Updated: October 1, 2004