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Hello Everyone!

I'm entering the phase of my vacation where I'm going to be out of touch with civilization for a while, so i thought I'd take a second to post some updates. (By the way, if I haven't mentioned it elsewhere, the reason that we're taking such a long vacation is that my wife just finished her residency. We probably won't have time until we retire for such a long vacation again - so we had to seize the moment!)

SK is with the layout guy right now. I still plan on making a few touch-ups and edits, and adding a few more random tables and examples, when I get back. I know that's not the way the big guys do it, but what can I say, I have to play the hand I'm dealt. :)

That means that, in all probability, the hardcopies won't be available for Gen Con. To be more precise, the first ones probably will be. But those are probably going to have to be tweaked for me before I approve them. I want to get this book as right as possible. So, I think it's unlikely that hardcopies in sellable form will be available at Gen Con. That's unfortunate, but I think it's better to have it right than to sell you a product that's not up to my standards.

The good news is that the pdf will be ready by Gen Con. It's looking super. The layout is similar to the Combat Primer. I can't wait for everyone to see all the gameplay that's packed inside. I was looking through the Buildings chapter the other night. Forgive me for gushing a little, but the buildings alone are awesome. I want a thieves guild with a waxworks and training gauntlet! Such a lovely little combo for ruling the underworld of a city. And the buildings are just a tiny bit of the overall game. Along with the Buildings section is the Vehicles section. You can have mammoths with howdahs stuffed full of crossbowmen charging a line of pikemen. You can have siege towers trundle toward curtain walls firing cannon as they go. How about carracks blasting full broadside in harbors fortified with sea chains and cannon of their own? It's going to be great!

How are things looking with the pdf?

Is SK still on for a near GenCon release?

Are you talking on Gen Con or a little before?

Unfortunately, I won't be at GenCon. But I'll be eagerly watching DTRPG and other sites with credit card in hand watching for SK.

Welcome, Kisa! That's a good question. I had originally said $9.99. But now I have to think about that number in light of Pathfinder. I have a lot of respect for Erik, Lisa, and everyone else at Paizo (in fact Erik published a bunch of my stuff back in Dungeon). Selling the Pathfinder pdf at $9.99 is a great move by them.

I still think Spellbound Kingdoms is a better game for a lot of reasons: it's original, it has better support for world-building and narrative, its social encounter system is in a different league altogether, and it just does more (mass combat, economic modeling, reputations, etc.). But, all that said, Pathfinder is a very good game, and it is going to have a lot more custom art than Spellbound Kingdoms (although SK's art is just as good, I just flat-out don't have the budget to compete with Paizo). Also, Pathfinder is a product with tons of hype, an established track record, and a built-in fan base. So the PF pdf at 10 bucks is pretty significant.

So far be it from me to go against the market! I'm going to offer SK for a limited time at $8.99. This will reward the people who are waiting to get their hands on it as soon as possible, and it will also give people a good incentive to buy the gosh darn thing. It's definitely a bargain!

I would definitely go for a bundle... I need a hard copy of SK and would gladly pay extra to get the pdf tacked on.

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/*~Matthew Miller~*\

Not to answer for others but...hell yeah. :)

With a week away, I'm looking forward to buying the pdf.

I don't know what sort of model you might consider doing for such a bundle. Some folks do the print version and give the pdf for free (Rogue Games, Evil Hat) while others will offer the bundle where the combined offer is a discount from what both would be together (I think Pelgrane does this and Catalyst Game Labs has been doing this).

If you did the former, you could just charge the cost of the print version thru DTRPG (I guess, I think Adamant Entertainment is doing something like this with their Savage Mars subscription for extra content). And then just have a separate listing for the PDF offer. Although the only place I have really seen this done is at Indie Press Revolution.

Yep, I've seen it done over at IPR also. I have an email in to the folks at DTRPG, and I think that I will know an answer soon. I'm hopeful that some sort of bundle can happen.

I'm still planning on putting the pdf up Monday or Tuesday night so that people can get a look at it before the official start of Gen Con.

More news as soon as I have it! I'm excited that the day is almost here. Hard to believe!

It's Sunday evening and I'm hankerin' for a new rpg to read. I'm hoping you put this baby up tomorrow night. I've got poor impulse control when it comes to waiting for new RPGs that I'm interested in and you may beat all the other ones I'm waiting for to the punch.

For some reason, the time settings for posts are off by a number of hours so I don't really know when you put up the above post.

And since I don't know where you hail from, does that mean Monday the 10th or Tuesday the 11th?