Sorcerer & Sword news

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

It hasn't happened yet, but it's happening this week: the text, art, and covers are going to the printers.

It will print much faster than the main rules because it's not hardcover, so the plan is for the book to be available in the first week of November. This one (as with Soul, in January) is paperback, the same dimensions as the main rulebook, with a similar cover design but different colors. It's 112 pages long.

As we all now know, the rule is to get the thing available (shipped) to the distributor first, so I'll be taking direct orders after this happens.

Important payment announcement: the retail price of the game is $15.00. The profit margin is lower, so I can't eat shipping costs like I do on the main book. If you buy Sword from the website, it'll cost you $17.50 (this is for all orders, international and otherwise; I'm still sharing some of the shipping cost).

That also applies to prepayment people, so they will pay $7.50 if they buy from the website.

Best,
Ron

[joshua neff]

Ron--

Great news! I am really looking forward to the new edition of &Sword--the pdf is one of my favorite supplements for any game, & the previews you revealed at GenCon make me very excited indeed.

[Gordon C. Landis]

When &Sword comes out, I buy it (and Sorceror, of course).

I really should have done it a while ago, but when you hear a new, improved version is coming soon, it's just hard to muster up the motivation to but the old, unimproved product :wink:

Gordon C. Landis

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Gordon,

Seems that some people like the "buy it as it goes" process and others like the "wait until it's spiffy" thing instead. Both work fine for my nefarious purposes.

Best,
Ron

[Ron Edwards]

Update!

Patterson Printing is humming away. Delays on the cover have ensued, but the interiors are being sent to me immediately. I expect that the book will drop into the hoppers toward the end of the first week in November, or sometime toward the middle of the second week.

Then, it ships immediately to the Tundra warehouse, and pre-order copies are slammed into the mail to the distributors. Then it becomes available to the direct-line sales as well.

Best,
Ron

[Ferry Bazelmans]

Hi Ron,

I'm assuming The Sorcerer's Soul is going to be in print as well then? I put off on buying that because I wanted the real thing. :smile:

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ferry,

The Sorcerer's Soul goes to the printer in December and is scheduled to be released in January.

Best,
Ron

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

I'm looking at the bluelines and cover mockup now, and man are they pretty.

This book is damn fine. I would like to explain, as well, that the revised & extensive last chapter material about how to prep scenarios and use Bangs to GM without railroading is now on a conceptual par with the relationship map material in Soul. You know how everyone always snivels about not knowing how to put the map into effect. Well, thereyago - all written up with blood-spattered pulp savagery to try it out with.

Best,
Ron (in his snort-snort pumped-up finally-publishing-it frenzy)

[Blake Hutchins]

Hey Ron,

OK, I can't hold back any longer.  Must order Sword.  How do you want the prepay guys like me to proceed?

Best,

Blake of Melnicromhmarpon

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Blake,

It goes like this. When the BUY button goes up at the website, then the prepay people have to email me (it'll say so). I will supply them with a SECRET webpage from which they can click their own special, cheapo, prepaid BUY button.

None of this happens, though, until the books move from Tundra toward the distributors.

Best,
Ron

[Blake Hutchins]

Great.  Thanks, I'll keep a lookout.

Blake

[contracycle]

Just a question about how Sword works conceptually.  Its clear that in Sorcerer the dynamic between the characters and the demon, a manifestation in a sense of a dilemma the character faces.  In 'Sword, will there be an euivalent sort of structure?  Are the PC's still assumed to be sorcerers, merely in a FRPG environment?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Gareth,

Sword is pretty hard to sum up in a few sentences. The main thing is to remove any notion of a "fantasy setting" in the usual RPG sense. It's strictly about how to CREATE fantasy adventure (settings too) in the context of 1920s-40s pulp fiction. All the rules and tweaks of existing rules, as well as all the new stuff about prep & play, are based on that concept.

Regarding the "what are characters" question, it so happens that most of the protagonists of this kind of fiction are sorcerers, in game terms.

That includes Conan.

While everyone recovers from that, I'll move on. Another key point about this sort of fiction is that magic is not "normal," in the sense of having wizards' shops and priests who worship overt, present-in-reality gods. Most people in these stories react to magical stuff very much as they would in the modern day, with terror and rationalization. There are some exceptions, but not many, and as I say, none of the source settings are "fantasy worlds" as one might expect to see in any modern RPG, with plenty of available magical stuff happening.

I don't know if I've managed to answer your questions, but I tried.

Best,
Ron

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

I thought about the question some more. The fundamental relationship between demon and sorcerer remains unchanged, although Pacting provides for a good compromise between "ordering demon around" and "Binding." People are often surprised at how hard Pacting is (very easy to fail), but they also often miss the fact that the demon WILL do as commanded, no matter what the outcome of the roll.

Immanent demons permit a lot of demonics to be going on without Contacts + Summons; Demon-beasts now have some rules to make them more interesting; and the rules for Necromancy make for some serious magic without necessarily summoning demons. And there's no requirement for a character to start with a demon if it doesn't make sense.

So I'd say the essential moral metaphor of Sorcerer is "softened" to a great degree, although Humanity issues play into all of the above concerns as usual. In place of the direct Humanity conflict, an optional character issue called Destiny may take center stage.

Best,
Ron

[contracycle]

Cool, you did mostly.  I expected all the PC's to be sorcerers or ti use those mehcanics, and I was wondering whether this was intended as an ars magica stylee thing or whether the characters would have their demon-equivalent expressed some other way.  I understand the latter.

Incidentally, anything which brings about the welcome demise of Ye Olde Magicke Shoppe is a good thing IMO - always hated that twee rubbish.