Out of Print?

[baxtros0]

Is Fantasy Hero out of print? It says it's 'Available Now' but I don't see it in the online store. It's not available at FRP Games or RPG Shop, either.

Please tell me it's between printings and not going the pdf/CD-ROM-only route.

[Vondy]

Is Fantasy Hero out of print? It says it's 'Available Now' but I don't see it in the online store. It's not available at FRP Games or RPG Shop, either.

Please tell me it's between printings and not going the pdf/CD-ROM-only route.

You could always e-mail Darren or Tina and ask them privately.

[Dale A. Ward]

I keep hearing that it's being reformatted (or something like that) for the new printing company.

I hope they don't go the PDF only route, too. When I buy a book, dammit, I want a BOOK!

[baxtros0]

Tell me about it. Our GM got burned by buying Ninja Hero, and found out that you pretty much have to have the Ultimate Martial Artist, which is out of print. So one of the gang downloaded the pdf, printed it, and passed out copies to the gang. The sad thing is that we all would have bought full books if they were in print, since no one likes hauling around a three-ring binder with hole-punched photocopies.

One $16 download vs. multiple sales of $25 each for the printed book. I just don't understand the business model.

[Lord Liaden]

Last word on the boards from HERO prez Darren Watts, back in October, is that reprinting Fantasy HERO is a high priority, but there's still stuff in the printing queue ahead of it. It probably won't happen before sometime in the New Year at the earliest.

Regarding Ultimate Martial Artist, both Darren and Steve Long have remarked that sales of hardcopies dropped some time ago below the level where the outlay for another print run would make financial sense. However, if and when they have a clear indication that demand is strong again, they would consider reprinting it.

[bigdamnhero]

One $16 download vs. multiple sales of $25 each for the printed book. I just don't understand the business model.

The problem is you can't just print out a handful of books and expect to make a profit selling them at $25; you have to print in volume. So unless they think they can sell large numbers of UMA, it's not worth doing another print run.

And speaking of UMA, I just posted this elsewhere:

I noticed this weekend that my FLGS has three mint copies of Ultimate Martial Artist on the shelf. Since DOJ is out of undamaged copies, I thought I'd mention it here in case anyone has been looking for one.

The store is Bonnie Brae Hobby Shop in Englewood, CO. (S. Denver).
http://www.bonniebraehobbyshop.com/index.html
(303)-806-6526

I didn't think to check the price, but they normally sell Hero stuff at cover price. I assume they ship; if not, PM me and we'll figure something out. Cheers!

No copies of Fantasy Hero, tho. I think ghost-angel snatched up the last copy in Colorado.

Also, DOJ has damaged copies of UMA for sale, and as I understand it what DOJ calls "damaged" beats what some game stores (not Bonnie Brae) call Fair Wear & Tear.

[Teflon Billy]

Tell me about it. Our GM got burned by buying Ninja Hero, and found out that you pretty much have to have the Ultimate Martial Artist, which is out of print. So one of the gang downloaded the pdf, printed it, and passed out copies to the gang. The sad thing is that we all would have bought full books if they were in print, since no one likes hauling around a three-ring binder with hole-punched photocopies.

One $16 download vs. multiple sales of $25 each for the printed book. I just don't understand the business model.

Uh, I hope you mean your gaming group was passing around only one (1) copy of the UMA for use at your gaming table and the original purchaser of the PDF was the one taking it home.

Or there were multiple purchases of that $16 PDF.

That is what you were saying, right?

TB

[sbarron]

edit

[sbarron]

Tell me about it. Our GM got burned by buying Ninja Hero, and found out that you pretty much have to have the Ultimate Martial Artist, which is out of print. So one of the gang downloaded the pdf, printed it, and passed out copies to the gang. The sad thing is that we all would have bought full books if they were in print, since no one likes hauling around a three-ring binder with hole-punched photocopies.

One $16 download vs. multiple sales of $25 each for the printed book. I just don't understand the business model.

There are copies of UMA available on Ebay and Amazon if you really wanted hard copies.

[ghost-angel]

Fantasy Hero is awaiting a reprint. DOJ switched printers after the initial run, so a reprint of FH will cost them as much as a print run for a new book. They're also taking the opportunity it make it "Revised" which essentially updates page references to the main rule book and putting any out of date rules in line with the FAQ and main Revised rules, if there are any.

It's also a 400+ page tome, making that a big deal to both go through and reprint.

As for your "16$ vs 25$" issue: holds no water. What's the difference between everyone buying hardcopy and everyone buying PDF? Hmmm? You shouldn't be handing out PDFs for others to "use" without them purchasing it, anymore than you'd photocopy a hardcopy book for the same purposes.

Yes, FH is available, in the online store under E-Books currently as a PDF.
Yes, Darren has stated mulitple times, they will be reprinting the book
Yes, I snatched up the last hardcopy in Colorado.

[baxtros0]

As for your "16$ vs 25$" issue: holds no water. What's the difference between everyone buying hardcopy and everyone buying PDF? Hmmm?

$9 per copy? And that's provided people even want a pdf version.

The issue at hand is that the people in our group don't like this new concept of 'pdf gaming'. If pdfs are the future of gaming, we'll all take our dice and go home.

We're old guys and as such, we're old-fashioned. We've all been gaming for more than 20 years. We like books. For us, $35 is not too much for a bound book on good paper with a decent cover; $16 is too much for a mere source of unprinted pages. And nobody likes having a three-ring binder-book. Heck, we all even bought the bound version of Tri-Stat dX, even though we knew it was online for free.

Our group is in transition right now. We've all pretty much had enough of class/level gaming (d20/Palladium) and we've been looking for a generic skill-based system. The GM and I have been trying to push the Hero system, but if everything keeps going pdf, we're gonna get stuck going to GURPS 4 because all of their 4th ed. books are actually in print.

That is the point our Hero people are currently having a great deal of trouble arguing with.

You shouldn't be handing out PDFs for others to "use" without them purchasing it, anymore than you'd photocopy a hardcopy book for the same purposes.

Yeah, well...that wasn't our idea and the GM wasn't too happy about it. The GM has since obtained a hard copy from eBay, but if we all have to scrape the internet just to buy a source book, we're probably going to just hang the whole idea. The martial arts issue was a score for our GURPS people: UMA has essentially dried up, while GURPS Martial Arts supposedly comes out in March. Plus, just the principle of Ninja Hero in print/UMA out of print left a pretty bad taste for some people.

I'm glad to hear Fantasy Hero is being reprinted. That was pretty much our Hero people's last stand. If Fantasy Hero went out of print, our side would have surely lost. We still have a fighting chance.

I look forward to getting a nice, fresh copy.

[Lord Liaden]

Also, DOJ has damaged copies of UMA for sale, and as I understand it what DOJ calls "damaged" beats what some game stores (not Bonnie Brae) call Fair Wear & Tear.

I can confirm this, having bought a number of damaged books from the Online Store here. For most of them the damage was no greater than minor shelf wear - small cover creases, scratches, dents and the like - and sometimes I couldn't even find the damage. In all cases the pages were clean and perfectly legible.

The damaged book reduced price is a plus to buying these books from DoJ, as is the fact that shipping is free to anywhere in the world.

[ghost-angel]

The GM and I have been trying to push the Hero system, but if everything keeps going pdf, we're gonna get stuck going to GURPS 4 because all of their 4th ed. books are actually in print.[B]

Hero isn't "going PDF."

All new books are coming out in hardcopy, only UMA is officially out of print, Hero has Hardcopy of everything else. There are a few that are out of stock awaiting a slot in the printing schedule to be reprinted, like Fantasy Hero.

[arcady]

Also, DOJ has damaged copies of UMA for sale, and as I understand it what DOJ calls "damaged" beats what some game stores (not Bonnie Brae) call Fair Wear & Tear.

Yep. I can vouch for this. I have managed to visit Hero games and rifle through the 'damaged' stack twice, and on both occasions combined I only managed to find one book that was in worse condition than the new and shrink-wrapped books on the shelf at the local store 7 blocks up the road...

With Hero, it is always good to try the damaged books out.

The problem is not that stores won't sell books in vastly worse condition, but the distributors return the boxes to Hero if it gets damaged en route - or something like that - and often most of that box's contents are barely nicked. Comic books labeled mint are sometimes worse off for wear...

[arcady]

The GM and I have been trying to push the Hero system, but if everything keeps going pdf, we're gonna get stuck going to GURPS 4 because all of their 4th ed. books are actually in print.

That is the point our Hero people are currently having a great deal of trouble arguing with.

Yeah, well...that wasn't our idea and the GM wasn't too happy about it. The GM has since obtained a hard copy from eBay, but if we all have to scrape the internet just to buy a source book, we're probably going to just hang the whole idea. The martial arts issue was a score for our GURPS people: UMA has essentially dried up, while GURPS Martial Arts supposedly comes out in March.

The best way to convince people that GURPS is a bad choice is to force them to play it...

I went through GURPS right after 4e came out. I'm a long time GURPS fan, or was, until 4e. I started with 'Melee' of 'The Fantasy Trip' back in 1982 - 2nd RPG system I ever owned, only because I thought it was a DnD module and I was, well, 11, and didn't know better.

But GURPS 4e has just enough added options to remind you on a constant basis that you be playing Hero where could tweak this or that just a bit more and change it from 'close but not quite' to 'just right'. The whole game makes you feel like Goldilocks in the three Bear's house after Ma and Pa got a divorce so you're only left with Pa and little bear...

You know Ma is out there, and you can constantly feel that this house just ain't hers anymore.

And where it limits, ack... it really limits. Slamming up against the walls of GURPS can be painful.

Of course, the end result when I started feeling this way was a group split - as half the group refused to even try Hero, and got very angry when it was suggested that we stage two games biweekly - one GURPS and one Hero - to compare... It was a four person group, two ex-DnD players for GURPS and two fans of many systems for Hero.