I want a little history

[Clinton R. Nixon]

If it's OK with Ron, if anyone has a copy of the original text file version of Sorcerer, I would consider it a great favor to send it my way. I'm very interested in reading it.

[Jake Norwood]

ooh, ooh, me too, me too!

Jake

[Ron Edwards]

It's OK by me. My copies are all on very old disks in boxes, I'm afraid.

Also, there's an ashcan version that few people have seen outside of the early Gainesville/Orlando playtesting stages, which I actually think is much better than the text file. I still have a copy or two.

Best,
Ron

[greyorm]

I believe I still have the old text files.
This isn't a promise that I do, but if I have them, and given Ron's go ahead, I'll e-mail them to you both once found (assuming someone else knows right where their copies are and beats me to it).

[M. J. Young]

Also, there's an ashcan version that few people have seen outside of the early Gainesville/Orlando playtesting stages, which I actually think is much better than the text file. I still have a copy or two.

O.K., I saw this before, and neither Google nor Dictionary.com were able to shed any light on it. What is an "Ashcan" version of a document or game text?

Thanks.

--M. J. Young

[Ron Edwards]

Hi M.J.,

That's funny, I thought this got defined on the Forge a little while ago ...

The term "ashcan" comes from comics. If you're a comics author or artist, and your book hasn't come out from the printers yet, and you're promoting the title, you often bring a photocopy of some pages, usually in black-and-white or maybe even just pencils. Bring lots of copies, staple each set in the upper left corner, and maybe put a page up front with the title and predicted release date really big. Maybe even a mailing address so people can send letters that you can use in the first issue.

(When I was more heavily into comics, some editors would send me and other regular letter-writers ashcans for such letters, by the way. Sort of "insider ashcans.")

Anyway, so for RPGs, it's come to mean a rough short version of the game in a photocopied form, yet still formatted for distribution and use. You use it both as the game text there at the con and as a promotional device. The one I made for Sorcerer included some bootlegged art, so I never asked money for it.

Best,
Ron