The Gaming Den

Yeah but does that same also apply to the other stuff that people have added in to the pdf? Like all the [skill] feats and stuff.

It does.

I don't think we've ever openly discussed it here, but it seems that the crowd here doesn't mind if you use their things. You probably can't go wrong with including a credit, but I don't think anyone objects to their things being used.

if anything I created ever got added to the pdf, and someone used it, I'd like a credit, but it's honestly not a big deal.

Also none of my stuff has ever been added.

Please note that because of the restrictions of our current hosting, all of our content is currently licensed under the CC BY-SA. If authors are uncomfortable with this, please let someone with commit access know and we will remove it.

This means that people can only redistribute material and modify if it is licensed under the same license, and credit is given.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_C ... l_licenses

I think the only thing I have in there is the Storm Lord, but I officially don't give a fuck if I get license.

I would like people to not sell my work, but if they want to just say "It was created by someone, you wouldn't know them." That's fine by me.

I don't intend to sell stuff, just make a big PDF game book thing and then put it on a page for folks to download and use.

...Like we do on TGD, except that I'm lazy, and slow to work on it, and I started GMing Earthdawn 3e recently, and ED is super super awesome so I'm not gonna switch my players so I wouldn't have any playtesters so there's minimal desire to work on it and people aren't going to do the work for me so there's no reason to make a big deal about it, and so on and so on and so on.

However, on the subject of licensing, it sure seems like the awesometome project is in violation of the OGL in the first place. And you could kinda maybe get around it a bit by declaring all new work to be Product Identity and then license that PI under the CC license, but... I mean I dunno.

CC BY-SA explicitly allows others to sell for money if they want to Kaelik, as long as credit is given. It's somewhat unlikely given the size of the project, but possible. If you're uncomfortable with that we'll need to pull it.

I'm browsing through the 0.5.1 version right now and I like it a lot. Expecially the classes are a fun read and I consider using some of them in my irregular d20 game, but I have one question regarding the knight: why isn't he allowed to sell magic items by her code of conduct? I fail to see the point. Is it because commerce itself is considered dishonorable or because of the magic (and if so, why)?

Because hording magic items is important for accumlating power and the defence of the realm - I think

Happy to be corrected:)

It ties into the Tome discussion about honour, I'm not sure how, exactly, but I know it's related, so read that (I think it's in one of the combat or alignment related ares) and see if it helps.

Page 35-36 in Tome v07.rev139 indicates that the Knight's code of conduct is essentially arbitrary. It also needs to be updated to reflect the actual code of conduct that the Knight class has, but that's a sword of a different energy (probably Stupid).

You might ask Frank or K why the Knight cannot sell magic items for any other reason than "because knights have retarded codes of conduct."

Aktariel wrote:Page 35-36 in Tome v07.rev139 indicates that the Knight's code of conduct is essentially arbitrary. It also needs to be updated to reflect the actual code of conduct that the Knight class has, but that's a sword of a different energy (probably Stupid).

You might ask Frank or K why the Knight cannot sell magic items for any other reason than "because knights have retarded codes of conduct."

It's talked about in Races of War. Essentially, "honorable activities" are those that reinforce the systems that keep the powerful in power. Hence creatures bigger than Large being dishonorable, because dragons and shit threaten mortal kingdoms. Likewise, because the powerful are kept in place via magic, destroying magical items or distributing them to the peasants directly threatens the power base of the rulers and is thus dishonorable.

The version is up to 0.7?
Should... this thread be update?

I think you just did. No one who worked on the PDF does so actively (at all) any longer. Aktariel hasn't posted since 2011, Surgo hasn't worked on it since before even that (though he's still here), and I haven't done anything to it since 2010 (went by Utterfail, took a hiatus).

Though I must say how happy it makes me that 0.7 got downloaded over 6000 times.

Anyone who for some reason wanted to take up the project could get the source from the google project and work on it.

I was just a little confused because the stuff linked in the main post was several versions behind. So I wasn't sure if the Google project was a separate entity or if it was the most recent.

I much prefer the PDFs over the wiki because the wiki is a pain in the ass to navigate on anything except a PC. xD

Thank you for the explanation.

It doesn't seem difficult to just pick up the google project and re-pdf the file every once in a while.

What would need to be done?

You really only need two things: An SVN client so that you can handle multiple revisions, and a LATEX editor. You'd need to grab the files from the read-only source the google project provides, and rehost it on your own google project (I no longer have access, and as I said, Aktariel isn't around any more).

That's pretty much it, LATEX is fairly easy to learn, I knew none of it before doing some of this. If you need some help setting it up, I'd be glad to.

This community is pretty difficult to keep up with. What standard were you guys going by when making revisions and clarifications?

Or was it all just reformatting things?

There really was no standard for what material should be included, per se. If one of the two of us wanted to include something that we felt was up to snuff, we just did if we had the time. Once you're familiar with LaTeX formatting a class can take anywhere from half an hour for simple ones, up to two or three hours for a complicated one like the gadgeteer.

The Core Classes in the PDF were the ones we felt that, when played together as the only classes, worked out well together and didn't cause problems. Anything in the "Additional PC Classes" section was all "Your mileage may vary" stuff.

We also tried to include all of Frank and K's advice articles, though there are places where there are formatting errors.

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If you want to just add things to the document in the same sort of format, or even make new documents for your group that only include certain parts (this is very easy to do, at one point I compiled a document for my group that only included the parts relevent to us) then learning LaTeX and doing some editing is the way to go.

If, on the other hand, you really want to produce some sort of master document that would bring all of the Tomes material together in a publishable format, I think the whole thing should be redone from the ground up using some form of real publishing software.

I'd be willing to help with either.

I may take a stab at reorganizing the project, then. Would a web-form that spits out pre-formatted code for things like classes help at all? Meaning you open a page, it has inputs like 'class name', 'class skills', 'hd', 'flavor text'... you fill them in and submit, then get all that data latex-ified.

Would it help for data entry? Maybe slightly, but from personal experience I worked with a template that already had the latex tags and placeholder text because all of the classes adhere to a standard format already.

What would help would be a web form that would output class tables in latex format, the tables are by far the most time consuming aspect, because in most cases they aren't standardized. Many classes have columns that are unique to them, possibly in combination with a spell progression.

Before any formatting gets done, I'd say a more important thing to do would be to identify what you actually want to format for inclusion in the PDF. The magic item system is famously half finished, the feats are sort of a mess, and the Tome weapon system is just an idea.

Do you just want to format more classes? If so that's a pretty small and manageable project, and we could even spin off a PDF that only contained classes.

I suppose you could ask Koumei how she does her handiwork.

Koumei? Little help here? You've done some nice-lookings PDFs. How do you do it?

I have a problem with the Tomes' tone. The snarky tone is mostly excellent as entertainment, and also to convince people who followed D&D's metagame that the default assumptions are shit and need to be changed.

However, it ends sounding pointlessly aggressive both to new players and to those who never actually cared that wizards are too strong and fighters are too weak or otherwise didn't notice the problems with 3.X.

I've experienced this personally when trying to pass the Tome for my group. They're not people who frequented D&D forums, so the snark got lost on them.

nockermensch,

This is assuming that you're the DM for the group.

Honestly, it's not that hard to lead a group to Tomes. It will also reduce the amount of books that you have to haul around.

The best solution is to print out a copy or two (ideally 4 PDF pages per printed page side; to save on paper) and bring them to the table; and bring only a DMG and Monster Manuals for yourself.

Having physical copies helps a lot with getting people using this content.

For the After Sundown game that I'm running; I've got 3 binders with fully printed pages; and about 4-6 or so "4 to 1" printed copies as well. Having physical rulebooks at the table helps a lot.

Then ban anything else, unless approved by you on a case by case basis.

Also, encourage players to play monsters.

Judging Eagle is right on introducing new players to Tome games. I've got three friends who played Tome as their first TTRPG, and they now play various incarnations of 3e/3.5/Pathfinder, but still love the Tomes. I printed out all of the player relevant stuff, let them pick their classes, and actually printed out a copy of each class the player was playing, and the relevant feats, for them to keep with their character sheets.

If you wanted to turn the tomes into a completely new player friendly thing, you'd probably want to split it into multiple documents. One document similar to the PHB containing races (not just the exotic races), the 'core' tome classes, skills, combat, spells, etc. One containing supplemental things for 'advanced' players. One containing DM oriented stuff. And one containing Frank and K's advice/rants.