Here’s the bad news:
The release of Legends & Labyrinths will be delayed until July 31st. As I mentioned at the end of June, I suffered a rather serious computer crash at the end of last month. Fortunately, all of our data was recovered. Unfortunately, after five days of trying to resurrect the machine, it remained stubbornly dead.
At this point, as July dawned, I was now facing a deadline for Legends & Labyrinths that had moved from “comfortable” to “barely possible”. So I stopped trying to get my main computer rebuilt and focused all my attention on getting another machine set up so that I could access the document files and continue working on the graphics and layout for the book.
… which is when I discovered that the versions of Adobe Acrobat and Quark that I own don’t work on Windows Vista.
Which was, of course, the operating system installed on the new machine I was trying to convert into a platform for production work.
All of which brings me to my current situation: I could probably, if I worked tirelessly between now and next Tuesday, crank out a presentable version of Legends & Labyrinths and have it released on July 15th. (Assuming that I can ever get Acrobat working.) But the question I’m left with is whether it’s better to do it quickly or to do it right.
In the final analysis, I’d rather do it right. Like all of the projects here at Dream Machine Productions, one of my primary motivations for developing and publishing Legends & Labyrinths is that it’s a book that I want to own and to use. (Plus, I figure that, if I want a product like this, there are probably other people out there who want it, too.) And for me, personally, I’d rather wait the extra two weeks and do it right rather than trying to rush the process and end up with a book which isn’t as good as it could be.
GALLEY PROOF PREVIEW: SKILLS & ACTION CHECKS
Okay, so that’s the bad news.
Here’s the good news: We’re releasing the first of our Galley Proof Previews.
A Galley Proof Preview is literally an excerpt from our first galley proof of the manuscript. This means that what you’ll see in a Galley Proof Preview is something like a rough draft: Before seeing publication, our internal production process will take the text through three more complete proof-reading cycles. The Galley Proof Preview also notably lacks the SRS, which won’t be added until later in the process. So what does a Galley Proof Preview contain? A sneak peek at the actual content of the book.
Our first Galley Proof Preview is Legends & Labyrinths: Skills & Action Checks. This preview contains the entirety of Chapter 6: Skills and Chapter 13: Action Checks. This preview gives you a look right into the heart of the streamlining process that renders 3rd Edition down into the lean, mean, fighting machine that is Legends & Labyrinths.
If you’re already familiar with 3rd Edition, you may be struck by all the things that are “missing” from these streamlined rules. But that’s missing the forest for the trees: If the 3rd Edition tries to give you a complete building, Legends & Labyrinths gives you a foundation. If 3rd Edition tries to give you as much support as possible, Legends & Labyrinths lets you run free.
It’s a different way of rolling the dice. Whether it’s what you’re looking for or not is up to you.
3RD EDITION LIVES!TM
ARCHIVED HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Echo 1 Items
JohnnyDM
Not sure if you’ve caught it yet but under “Knowledge” in your L&L Galley Proof Preview you’ve repeated some of the subskills beginning with “Dungeoneering”
As a side note; of my 7 players, one wants to try 4th ed, another just wants to read it and the other 5 won’t touch it with the proverbial 10′ pole. I polled players at Origins and most agreed that it’s a miniatures game with videogame level progression. I read a lot of rules for other game systems and often cherry-pick useful bits for my own campaign. I’m just not seeing much in 4th ed that enhances role-playing.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008, 7:05:18 AM