This is fantastic!

Most of the questions I have are marketing questions, so I'm hoping that Vincent will also chime in.

The outside of the tri-fold will be the neanderthal and the Pulpy Primer sides, right? Have you tried extending the texture you have with the words "Pulpy Primer" into the rest of the text? It seems like you're onto something there.

I also like that you're calling out orcs as racist stereotypes, and calling out racist stereotypes in the source. I wish blogspot didn't consistently eat my posts so you'd know what I had to say about that. Can you talk about that? You're doing some deliberate things there with some difficult subject matter — the naked slave girl as treasure, too.

I had a game where a "dragon" was an enormous toad, as well!

You know what my favorite Conan story is? It's the one where he's breaking in as a thief to steal some goodie from a cult, and he discovers that their idol is an alien they've trapped there.

… and I just discovered that Howard's Conan stories are public domain now! And are part of Project Gutenberg! You might want to publish some of them yourself!

Also, "jewel" only has one 'l'.

Joshua,

Correct, neandethal and "Pulpy Primer" on the outside. I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but I think the inside is a bit bland at the moment. Version 0.1 had everything inside boxes, which was slightly more interesting to look at, but harder to read.

Regarding "racist caricatures" and "naked slave-girl" I guess what I was trying to do was to explicitly call out the problematic parts of the genre, and identify that, yeah, you can put that in your game, but you'd better be aware of exactly what you're doing. I think that having an entry like "Ape-men" or "primitives" would have run the risk of pretending that this wasn't a racist trope in the genre, and leaving it out entirely would have been whitewashing, I think. The line went through a few revisions. In version 0.1 it was "black people".

I'm pretty happy with the compromise I struck, although I think it leaves the really difficult problem – how to engage with the genre given these problematic areas – up to the group playing the game.

In On Mighty Thews itself I think I've been less able to address the issue well. I've gone with just  trying not to reassert the racist and sexist tropes of the genre, without explicitly calling them out. I'm less happy with that approach.

"The Tower of the Elephant" is a pretty good story. It's probably up there with my favourites as well.

Dan,

Thanks for pointing those out. Duly noted!

A constant source of frustration to me is the way that in fantasy gaming the word "adventurer" has, by over-use and familiarity, lost the edge of danger and mystery it has when it's used in literature. "Adventurer" is exactly what I mean, but what people hear when I say it isn't exactly what I intend. You're probably right that it's got to go.

The trick with writing these entries, I found, was to give alternatives that were close enough to fulfil the same role in the story as the original, while different enough to provoke that "perspective shift" you were talking about.  "Knight" was probably the hardest entry to write in that regard.

I was worried about whether the ad was clearly an ad and not a cover page or something. Any ideas about how I could make it say "ad" more clearly? Maybe a banner or something saying "Coming Soon" or "Buy it now"?

Regarding “racist caricatures” and “naked slave-girl” I guess what I was trying to do was to explicitly call out the problematic parts of the genre, and identify that, yeah, you can put that in your game, but you'd better be aware of exactly what you're doing. I think that having an entry like “Ape-men” or “primitives” would have run the risk of pretending that this wasn't a racist trope in the genre, and leaving it out entirely would have been whitewashing, I think. The line went through a few revisions. In version 0.1 it was “black people”.

I don't get "you can put that in your game if you're aware of exactly what you're doing" from that line in your pamphlet. I'm reading the implied instructions as "use these simple replacements to add some pulp fantasy flavor to your game" not "analyze these things critically". It might be personal taste, but I found the racist caricatures thing pretty jarring with the tone you seemed to be shooting for and the length of the pamphlet (I didn't find the slave-girl jarring, I think because of the "slave" part — I could go into more depth if you want). I probably wouldn't have a problem with you discussing these issues in a different format where you could explain in more depth, but having just a single line in a table like that makes it hard to process. At least that's my feeling.

I was worried about whether the ad was clearly an ad and not a cover page or something. Any ideas about how I could make it say “ad” more clearly? Maybe a banner or something saying “Coming Soon” or “Buy it now”?

I think you need some sort of text at the top that is self-evidently not a title in order for it to not look like the cover of the pamphlet. Maybe an "also by Simon Carryer" or something? It's tough — everything that I think of that would make it more ad-like is the kind of advertising cliche that you'd want to steer clear of in crafting an effective ad.

“Ptera-folk” made me stop reading for a minute to think about what it might mean, which disrupted the reading experience for me.

That is very, very good. That's you, Dan, getting more involved in what the author, Simon, is writing. It's becoming a thing in your imagination, not just a replacement word.

I disagree, I felt it was creating more distance between me and the author. It pushed me out of imagination-sparking mode and into "am I reading this right?" mode.

Joshua, I think what Dan's saying is that "Ptera-folk" made him go "Wait… what folk?" rather than "Is that a person with a pterodactyl head? Wings? Do they fly about and live in cliffs?". Like, it was an issue of not being clear of what the text was saying, rather than imagining what the text meant.

As for whether that's a problem, I'm not sure. I'm not sure "Ptera-folk" is the strongest entry. I lent kinda heavily on the animal/human combinations in that section. I like "Leech-women" the best, because I think it sparks the imagination nicely. You don't know exactly what they are, but it's fun to think about.

I'll work on the ad and come back with some different versions.

I'm seeing those white boxes as separate and not part of the design. Is there a way to integrate the text into the design like you did with the title and tagline? Oo, or maybe you can get the grass to turn to solid black at the bottom and use white text?

I think you might want to make it clear that this isn't the game. Maybe, "A game by Simon Carryer. Coming August 2010"

Do you have a domain set up?

I don't really want to set up a website for my game, though it's probably a good idea. SO BORING though.

How are you planning on telling people about your publication?

More versions! I've put them in the context of the whole thing this time.

Here's one where I've done what you suggested Joshua, using the grass to make the whole bottom section black. I think I like it.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/116449…..mer0.3.pdf

Dan, I basically agree with you. It's still pretty cover-like. Here's a version where I've tried to fix that by making the ad smaller and putting some text above it:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/116449…..mer0.4.pdf

I'm less sure about this one. I like that it looks less like a cover, but I had to sacrifice a lot of information from the ad. The text feels a little redundant to me also.

I agree that I like the bigger ad. Can you try moving the "On Mighty Thews" down to the bottom, and then put some abbreviated ad copy at the top? I think it would need to be something really short and punchy so you can make the text nearly as attention-grabbing as the On Mighty Thews, so the On Mighty Thews doesn't look like the title of the page. The ideas I'm coming up with are kind of cheesy and a little long, though (a big "'Pulp added' not enough?" at the top with a smaller "Go to simoncarryer.com for the real thing" underneath it). The message of your ad should be "go to my website", not "here's what the game is about". Once they're at your website you can hit them with all the "action-packed" and "blood-soaked" stuff. I don't think you're ever going to be able to deliver as much copy as you've got in v4 effectively in an ad, especially one this small.

Oh but I do have the leisure, meanwhile, to say: I love, love, love the lists.

I have to warn you, it's pretty nuts.

I think that the naked slave girl is perfect for her place in the list, because of the figure of power that a naked slave girl is. Look at the other items on the treasure list: how many of them, for instance, can you really own? How many of them instead command your respect, or your wariness, or even come to own you? Even if you treat her without humanity, she's "treasure" to be reckoned with.

But you don't have to be a hack! Consider her human and she shines brilliant light on precisely the moral questions the genre loves: in what ways are civilizations barbarous, and in what ways are barbarity civilized? What is the obligation of power to powerlessness? And taking her to be a character in her own right (which she fully deserves to be): what IS powerlessness, and what is power? If someone with might takes away everything that you have, do they thereby take away your power as well? If someone treats you shamefully, do you become shamed, or do they?

If nothing else, Conan's been a naked slave, and he's been saved from death by naked slaves. As far as I'm concerned, she's every inch Conan's equal until proven otherwise. She's in bad circumstances but that's the point: who we are when we're in bad circumstances is who we really are.

I see her on that list and I'm delighted that she's there, because she deserves to be, and because the genre deserves everything she can bring to it. I can't wait to play her as an NPC, and you know that when I do she's not going to be a sexist caricature.

The racist caricatures, though, not so much. They're the false note on the list, the one element I'd never choose to use.

Still, I like it too that you're calling orcs out as racist caricatures. How come Tolkein fans aren't as ashamed as Howard fans? They oughta be AT LEAST as ashamed.

Hey, so, since I'm asking how come. How come the leech-women, who are far more yikes than the naked slave girl, don't count as calling out the genre's misogyny? Are you rehabilitating the Skraelings by making them elves, or what? If so, how come you aren't also rehabilitating the Khitani, the Kushites, the Picts, the Shemites, the Stygians…?

Pretty nuts!