Mythic Russia

[Mark Galeotti]

Comrades!

I hope you'll allow me a moment's shameless and blatant plugging, as I am delighted to announce that Mythic Russia, the HeroQuest-engined game of medieval Russian adventure, is close to going to the printers and -- all being well -- will be launched at the excellent Continuum gaming convention in Leicester, 29-31 July (www.continuum.uk.net).

It has turned out to be a truly epic book, fully 320 pages long, and will be published both as a standard softback and a limited-edition hardback. It is fully standalone, with no need for the HeroQuest rules on which it is based, packed with background information, keywords and cults (not just for the Russians but also Lithuanians, Siberian tribesfolk, Mongols, Byzantine Greeks, Western Europeans, Teutonic Knights and Cossacks), optional variant rules and much more! (The table of contents is @ http://www.firebird-
productions.com/table_of_contents.htm)

So, the Firebird is now taking pre-orders. All orders placed before the game's launch at the end of July will get a 10% discount and also be protected against any possible price rise.

These discounted rates are:

US sales:

$36 + $5 S&H (softback)

$54 + $7 S&H (hardback)

UK sales:

£26.99 + £4 P&P (softback)

£35.99 + £6 P&P (hardback)

Euro-zone sales:

€41 + €8 P&P (softback)

€56 + €12 P&P (hardback)

(Ask about pre-order rates elsewhere in the world, through the webform @ http://www.firebird-productions.com/contact.htm)

There is an additional bonus for anyone attending Continuum, who can pre-order and collect their copies there, with no P&P costs. In addition, they will automatically be enrolled in the CRITICAL HIT contest. In the HeroQuest/Mythic Russia game system, a roll of 1 on a 20-sided die is a critical success, so 1 in 20 of all orders by Continuum attendees (at least one, in any case) will be randomly selected for a full refund!

How to Order
After the game is released, you will be able to buy Mythic Russia from a variety of internet and bricks-and-mortal shops.

At present, to pre-order, you

1. Use PayPal (www.PayPal.com) with either an existing PayPal account or a credit/debit card: send the appropriate sum to the account mark AT galeotti.fsbusiness.co.uk (replace AT with @) -- please make sure you include your address.

2. Send a personal cheque in UK£ or US$ -- contact me via the webform @ http://www.firebird-productions.com/contact.htm for the appropriate address to use.

Of course, if anyone has any questions about the game, please do ask!

All the best,

Mark

[Mike Holmes]

I've been lucky enough to be privy to Mark's work to some extent, and I can say that the material is gorgeous. Mark obviously knows the setting material extremely well, and I think that he's delivered it in superior fashion in the book. It would be hubris to say that I know that this game will play well without having actually tried it, but I can't think that it's going to absolutely rock from what I've seen.

Especially if the setting speaks to you, but in any case, consider taking a look at Mark's site, and seeing what it's about.

Mike

[Mark Galeotti]

Thanks for the kind words, Mike. I should add that the final version of one of the chapters is now up on the site (http://www.firebird-productions.com) as a free sample, as well as the cover.

All the best

Mark

[joshua neff]

And that preview chapter looks very, very nice.

[Alexandre Santos]

Hi Mark,

I'm interested in your work, and I'm happy it will be released soon. I would like to take the chance to ask you two questions:

1 - In other threads it has come up that HQ rules examples do not really fit with the style of play that is more prevalent in the Forge. Mike Holmes even wrote an article on the specific style of rule interpretation and how it differs from the "standard" style.

Since you are apparently aware of the approach prevalent here, I was wondering if Mythic Russia rules examples will take that into account?

2 - The second question is not related to your work per se, but rather to the european pricing. I suppose the book is being printed in the US, and I understand that european transport fees are higher. What I don't get is why the book itself is significantly more expensive (specially when you consider the euro/dollar exchange rate). I'm asking because maybe since you are the author you may know how this comes about.

Cheers,
Alex

[Mark Galeotti]

Hi Alexandre,

I'm interested in your work, and I'm happy it will be released soon. I would like to take the chance to ask you two questions:

1 - In other threads it has come up that HQ rules examples do not really fit with the style of play that is more prevalent in the Forge. Mike Holmes even wrote an article on the specific style of rule interpretation and how it differs from the "standard" style.

Since you are apparently aware of the approach prevalent here, I was wondering if Mythic Russia rules examples will take that into account?

Hmm. Yes and no. To be honest, the Forge approach, while interesting, is very much a minority strand within both roleplaying in general and HQ play in particular. The examples of play in MR are rather different in tone and content to those in HQ, even when illuminating the same point, and while they -- and the guidelines for narrators -- do both raise several of the underlying theoretical issues explored in the Forge (albeit without using such specific terms as 'bangs') this is presented as one way or approaching the game rather than necessarily the right way. The right way is, after all, whichever way suits the gaming group in question.

2 - The second question is not related to your work per se, but rather to the european pricing. I suppose the book is being printed in the US, and I understand that european transport fees are higher. What I don't get is why the book itself is significantly more expensive (specially when you consider the euro/dollar exchange rate). I'm asking because maybe since you are the author you may know how this comes about.

It's really a matter of what the market can bear and the fact that not only do I lose a little in converting euros, and the shipping costs are disproportionate, but I need to fix prices which allow for probably future currency fluctuations -- it is not viable to keep changing the price, and while the dollar is presently very weak, there are suggestions that it will firm up. Thus, the book seems relatively cheap for Americans in particular, but that is above all a product of an artificially weak dollar. Ultimately, I would suggest that the best comparison is not EU vs US prices, but how Mythic Russia compares with similar products. I had a quick check on prices for the core HeroQuest rules and the prices seem to vary between 40e (Faerie.fr) and 47.50e (Tradetalk). In that context, 45e for a book which is rather larger than HQ and also is being printed in smaller numbers does not seem to me to be that unreasonable.

As is, I don't expect to make any real profit on MR. I'm publishing it because it's something I wanted to do. I should be able to recoup my costs. I might make a little money, but compared with the time spent writing a 300,000-word book, please don't suspect me of any profiteering!

All the best

Mark

[Alexandre Santos]

Hi Mark,

please don't suspect me of any profiteering!

I was concerned you might interpret my question that way, but it's not at all the case (money will allways be a sensitive issue). I have seen these price imbalances in many kinds of products, so it's not something specific to Mythic Russia, I was just thinking that you, being the author, might have a clue on the reasons behind it. I certainly don't feel ripped off by the book's price. A restaurant evening with the family would cost more, and as you say, the book's price is comparable to others (I was recently in a shop to check local prices).

Anyway, it's good to know that the price differences are due to uncertainty and speculation on currency fluctuations, which is actually very interesting for me.

Frankly, I don't know the state of the RPG publishing market, but it seems to me that it takes courage to try to publish something nowadays, and it's certainly not the shortest path to richness. So I don't suspect you of greed, but more of uncompromising optimism :)

I have checked the Lithuania chapter, and I found it really good, and look for more. I was hesitant about buying the HQ sourcebook, because I already have tons of RQ books, and for the moment am not intending to play in Glorantha. With your book I get the dusted out HQ system plus an entirely new setting which is of interest to me, since I have a fascination for Middle Age Russia history (some of the largest European towns of the time where in the Rus world, which is usually not widely known) and folklore (I have dug a lot of info on Baba Yaga and Kochei, and am interested in other figures, as they are less known than western and ancient mythology).

Thanks for answearing the questions, and I look forward to see your work!

Alexandre

[Alexandre Santos]

Just for the sake of completeness: now that I got that the differences in price are due to accounting for currency exchange uncertainties stemming from printing in the US and selling in Europe, I noticed that other people have been confronted with the same problem, and suggest the possibility of printing directly in Europe for the european market (which makes more sense than shuffling around paper over the Atlantic).

Of course I don't know how much trouble it is to do a printing run, and if it's worth it for an independent author to go through it two times instead of one, but at least some people are discussing about it.

This is just a side note, I would not expect you to do it so late in the game with Mythic Russia. But maybe in the future, who knows?

[Mark Galeotti]

possibility of printing directly in Europe for the european market (which makes more sense than shuffling around paper over the Atlantic).

Of course I don't know how much trouble it is to do a printing run, and if it's worth it for an independent author to go through it two times instead of one, but at least some people are discussing about it.

Printing in Europe is a lot more expensive than printing in the US, I'm afraid, and given that a large proportion of the cost is in setting up the print job rather than the physical printing and binding of the book, having multiple printings really doesn't work (well, maybe if you are Mongoose or the like -- but they probably print in China, Brazil, etc).

All the best

Mark

[rafial]

Is anybody going to be selling this book at GenCon?

[Mike Holmes]

1 - In other threads it has come up that HQ rules examples do not really fit with the style of play that is more prevalent in the Forge. Mike Holmes even wrote an article on the specific style of rule interpretation and how it differs from the "standard" style.

Since you are apparently aware of the approach prevalent here, I was wondering if Mythic Russia rules examples will take that into account?

Actually, I'm not sure that I'd agree that the examples in HQ don't match our theory here. Yes, it's true that the examples seem to be about a "party" of characters to some extent. But, interestingly, HQ does provide room for an automatic centralizing method for play that is not strictly "party play" that being hero bands. In fact, one of the examples is about the group making up a hero band.

Add that to the fact that the other examples seem to rotate focus on different characters (as opposed to being "party hooks"), and I'm seeing just some complex forms of prep. What I'm not seeing in the examples are scene-based adventures. Or anything else we'd avoid. Given that the HQ design didn't aim directly for the sort of play that we espouse, I think it's amazing how close the text comes to it simply in terms of how it encourages things like dramatic technique ("No, but...." and all that).

Now, that said, there are example scene-based adventures in the HQ text, yes. I think that these are, perhaps, the worst "offenders" to our methods of play in the book (and even they are not that bad). But given what Mark says above, and what I know about his project, I don't think that there'll be anything in Mythic Russia that's going to make it seem to be at odds with the sort of bent that we have here at The Forge. In fact, I think rather the opposite.

Mike

[Mark Galeotti]

Is anybody going to be selling this book at GenCon?

Almost certainly not, I'm afraid (unless it just happens to be part of the stock of a distributor)

All the best

Mark

[Mark Galeotti]

But given what Mark says above, and what I know about his project, I don't think that there'll be anything in Mythic Russia that's going to make it seem to be at odds with the sort of bent that we have here at The Forge. In fact, I think rather the opposite.

I'd add that the very nice sample scenario, written by Neil Smith (and run at various cons), is explicitly written not as a scene-by-scene story but a series of conflicts and character dilemmas. I did, I confess, ask him not to use the word 'bang' as I didn't want to have to go into a full explanation of the jargon, but I think people here will be comfortable with its underlying approach.

All the best

Mark

[Mike Holmes]

If it's any reassurance, I believe that I gave Neil some comments on said scenario, and, yeah. Nothing to worry about in that department. In fact, he, Rob Davis and I have been working on presentation of such scenarios in general (working on demos for the MOLAD demo team), and have been trying to come up with an improvement to the "Well of Souls" level of presentation. I think we've made some substantial headway. Some of this will show in the adventure in question, Neil had some great ideas.

In fact, I'd be tempted to run said scenario at GenCon this year if people are interested and Mark gives me the OK to do so.

Mike

[Mark Galeotti]

In fact, I'd be tempted to run said scenario at GenCon this year if people are interested and Mark gives me the OK to do so.

I'd be absolutely delighted!

All the best

Mark