A slight ode to Green Ronin publishing
This is about Green Ronin Publishing, a company that does the absolutely, utterly fantastic super-hero romp, Mutants and Masterminds, an rpg close to my heart. It's got a great point build system behind it that allows it to mimic pretty much every comic book power. It most likely has to stretch the definition of a 'd20' game to the limit under the OGL (yes, the holy six stats are there, and 20s are rolled, but pretty much that's the mechanic kept). It's good, especially second edition, the current one, out for a couple years.
Okay, enough with the good - onto their archaic, archaic, delivery service. And archaic it is. Specifically, stuff I ordered in November (the 30th or so) to arrive (the lovely Golden Age, a 'second setting' besides good old Freedom City called Paragons for some new ideas, and the Time of Vengeance mission set were the paper backs - I did grab some of their pdfs through rpgnow, and that went through fine as always.) took until the 27th to arrive. Admittedly, I did slower media mail, but it wasn't mailed until the 20th! I'm glad I wasn't buying Christmas presents.
I understand they're a small company, but surely there has to be distribution systems to piggy back on. They do lovely books, lots of full-color illustrations on nice stock, so clearly they know a decent bookbinder or three. I'd be less irritated except apparently their customer service took December off for the holidays. Which meant total darkness. Fora indicates a new delivery system's coming. I hope so, I'd like to finally buy Freedom City 2nd ed (which I thought I had, but evidently do not - my Golden Age book was also a replacement for a previously purchased copy, something is eating my M&M sourcebooks) in glorious hardcover, since leafing through is my preferred method. I think, though, I'll wait until they get into the Amazon era.
I know it's minor, but seriously, two and a half weeks to ship this time of year? Apparently that's when a 'batch' of November orders went out. I get better from Aaron Williams (nodwick and ps238 creator) and I'm pretty sure he ishis shipping department.
Okay, enough with the good - onto their archaic, archaic, delivery service. And archaic it is. Specifically, stuff I ordered in November (the 30th or so) to arrive (the lovely Golden Age, a 'second setting' besides good old Freedom City called Paragons for some new ideas, and the Time of Vengeance mission set were the paper backs - I did grab some of their pdfs through rpgnow, and that went through fine as always.) took until the 27th to arrive. Admittedly, I did slower media mail, but it wasn't mailed until the 20th! I'm glad I wasn't buying Christmas presents.
I understand they're a small company, but surely there has to be distribution systems to piggy back on. They do lovely books, lots of full-color illustrations on nice stock, so clearly they know a decent bookbinder or three. I'd be less irritated except apparently their customer service took December off for the holidays. Which meant total darkness. Fora indicates a new delivery system's coming. I hope so, I'd like to finally buy Freedom City 2nd ed (which I thought I had, but evidently do not - my Golden Age book was also a replacement for a previously purchased copy, something is eating my M&M sourcebooks) in glorious hardcover, since leafing through is my preferred method. I think, though, I'll wait until they get into the Amazon era.
I know it's minor, but seriously, two and a half weeks to ship this time of year? Apparently that's when a 'batch' of November orders went out. I get better from Aaron Williams (nodwick and ps238 creator) and I'm pretty sure he ishis shipping department.