Praise Universalis

[Eric J-D]

Hi Ralph and Mike,

I'm only a recent poster to the Forge, but I've followed many of the fora for a while now.  Somehow, however, I never managed to get around and checking out this forum.  What finally drew me was a reply from Christopher Kubasik (sp?) in response to a question I posed in the Actual Play forum.  He thought that Universalis might be the answer to my dreams, and it sure looks like it.  Browsing your website I have to say this might just be the game I've been waiting for all my life.

Thanks for realizing this gamer's dream.  I'll be sending some cash your way very soon.

Cheers,

zhlubb

P.S. your current art contest is a pleasure to behold, but what a tease!  The John Harper piece deserves to become the cover of a special hardcover edition of Universalis.  A beautiful game like that deserves the full treatment.

[Valamir]

Thanks, I always stand ready to take gamers hard earned cash :-)

In my day job, we're real big on referrals.  If you do a good job for the client, they'll refer you to the people they know, and so forth.

Probably the greatest pleasure for me, is how many sales of Universalis have been generated by referrals.  Apparently Mike and I created something that pushes some peoples buttons, and those people haven't been shy about letting others know about.  I'm always very greatful for that.

I don't know about a hardcover special edition, but I've talking with John about him doing some promotional posters for GenCon...which I then would like to make available at the site for download both for personal enjoyment, and for anyone who wanted to run demos at a local con or the like.

[Eric J-D]

Ralph,

Thanks for the reply.  I just read your response to my thread over in the Actual Play Forum and I have to agree that I should just fess up to what I want deep down and substitute "as another player" for "GM."  The greatest advantage to this that I can see is not how it liberates the players createively, but that it gives me (normally the GM but now just another player) a far more satisfying and sustained sense of suspense and tension over the outcome of a session. :-)

I am so excited about this game that I dropped the work at hand (reading some research papers) and immediately read both of the Universalis reviews here at the Forge.  I don't recall seeing how old Ron's review was, but he mentions some problems that you might be facing with sales, etc.  Are there any plans to do distribution through stores or are you pretty committed to the direct sales approach?  I ask because there is a gaming store in the Twin Cities area, Source Comics and Games on Larpenteur Ave in St. Paul, that has a good stock of indie games and they seem to move them pretty well.  I got Jake Norwood's The Riddle of Steel there (they had a load of copies and then very quickly sold out of them) and I plan to get all three of Ron Edwards' books there too.  Mineapolis/St. Paul seems to have a pretty lively and healthy gaming community with folks who seem interested in something a little out of the ordinary.  I am not affiliated with them in any way, by the by, so I have nothing at stake here other than seeing your game reach as large an audience as possible.  Hell, I don't even have the rules yet and I already know it is all this and a bag of chips.

Cheers,

zhlubb

[Valamir]

That's a tricky question.  I'll see if I can summarize.

1) I would LOVE to have Uni available on retailer shelves.
2) The format of the game is unfortuneately not one that apparently appeals to distributors (or so I've been told by individuals whose job it is to get games into distribution channels).
3) Meaning, currently the only way to get Universalis to a retailer is if the retailer were willing to order from me direct and make individual arrangements for discounts and shipping and such.

I'm more than happy to do this, but few retailers want to take the time and effort (and I can't say as I blame them) to deal individually with different publishers.  I'm hoping that at somepoint we'll manage to get a central clearing house for indie games (maybe RPGMall can fill this roll) so that retailers can order a bunch of indie titles in 1 stop.  Until then I'd be happy to deal with retailers individually.

When you get your copy if you want to take it to that store and talk it up and see if they'd be interested in stocking it and ordering from me direct that would be fantastic.