Fight On! #5 Released!

Great news! I too have to fill a sizable Lulu order tonight.

The premiere fanzine of the old-school renaissance rolls into its second year of publication, battling harder than ever! Joining original Dragon Magazine editor Tim Kask in this issue are Jeff Rients, Lee Barber, Judd Karlman, Gabor Lux, Kelvin Green, Vincent Baker, David Bowman, Michael Curtis, Frank Farris, Baz Blatt, Kevin Mayle, Del Beaudry, Steve Zieser, Alex Schroeder, Akrasia, Settembrini, Chgowiz, Calithena, and dozens of others ready to give your game the potion of super-heroism it needs to take it to the next level! With adventures, maps, rules options, campaign settings, fiction, magic, monsters, and treasure, this issue has everything you need to unlock your imagination and keep fighting on!

Until the end of May only you can get 10% off Fight On! #5 and all your lulu.com purchases by entering MAYCONTEST10 in the code line at checkout. Stock up on back issues of Fight On! or pick up whatever other lulu products appeal to you!

You can buy it here: www.lulu.com/content/7204229

Table of Contents for Issue 5:
Background Professions (Akrasia)………………………3
The Scholar (Zachary Houghton)……………………….4
The Wuuky! (Moritz Mehlem and Frank Ditsche)………5
Distinctive Magic (Houghton, Dörfliger, & Calithena)…..7
The Deck O’ Stuff (Jeff Rients)…………………………9
The Tomb of Ixtandraz (Lee Barber)…………………..11
Delvers Delve: Extended Crawling (David Bowman)…..17
Tables for Fables (Age of Fable)………………………..20
Dungeon Motivations (Paul Vermeren)………………...21
Knights & Knaves (Del L. Beaudry)……………………23
Black Blood (Gabor Lux)………………………………25
Pentastadion (Gabor Lux)…………………………...…36
Creepies & Crawlies (Alex Schröder, Wayne Rossi, Jeff
Rients, Terje Nordin, and Geoffrey McKinney)………39
Tucker & Co. (M. “Chgowiz” Shorten)..………………44
Bad Hair Day (Peter Schmidt Jensen)……...…………...44
Fight On! (Jason Vasché)…...…………………………..45
Education of a Magic User (Douglas Cox)…………….45
A Few for the Road (Michael Curtis)…………………..47
A Giant Dilemma (Frank Farris)………………………50
Clarisseth (Tony Dowler)………………………………53
It Used to be a Hobbit Hole (Baz Blatt)…………….…54
The Barrow of Therex (Erin “Taichara” Bisson)………55
The Devil’s in the Details: Pygmy Folk (Baz Blatt)……..56
Seven Kings Mountains (Judd Karlman)……………….62
The Darkness Beneath, Level 2 (Calithena)…………….67
The Tower of Thalen Garh (John Hitchens)………...…78
Oceanian Legends (Del L. Beaudry)…………………....79
Guest Editorial (Timothy J. Kask)……………………..81
Merlin’s Mystical Mirror (Jeff Rients)………………….83
Artifacts, Adjuncts, & Oddments (Greg Backus,
Terje Nordin, Jeff Rients, and Calithena)……………87

Front Cover by Kevin Mayle (kevinmayle.netaidz.com/main.php). Back Cover by Settembrini. Fight On! and Erol Otus logos by Jeff Rients. Tim Kask photo by Rich Franks. Knights & Knaves and Creepies & Crawlies logos by Lee Barber. Interior artwork and cartography by Andrew Reyes (4,19), Richard Scott/Otherworld Miniatures (5), Andy “Atom” Taylor (7), Jeff Rients (9), Lee Barber (ghosttower. crithitcomics.com, 11,13,14,15,16,17,23,73), Age of Fable (20), Gabor Lux (25,27,30,32,33,36,37), Kelvin Green (26,43,45,52,87), Georges Roux (34), Alex Schröder (39,40,62), Peter Seckler (40), Jason Pierce (jasonpierce.animaldillo.com, 42), M. “Chgowiz” Shorten (44), Peter Schmidt Jensen (44,50), Douglas Cox (45), Frank Farris (51), Tony Dowler (53), Baz Blatt (54), Erin “Taichara” Bisson (55), Kesher (59,61), Carl Brodt/Tita’s House of Games (60), Vincent Baker (63,64,65,66), Robert S. Conley (67), Paul “Bliss Infinite” Fini (www.indieonlycomics.com, 68 ), David Bowman (70), Anthony Stiller (72), Steve Zieser (74,81), Calithena (75,77), Patrick Farley (76), Kevin Vito (77), Pete Mullen (83), James G. Browning (84), and Dan Proctor (85).

I got a message saying that the promotion code had been overused or something like that... is there a new code we should be using?

BTW, I posted the news on my new game blog:

adventuregamenews.blogspot.com/

adventuregamenews.blogspot.com/2009/05/product-release-fight-on-5-now.html

Oh! That sucks! Your only allowed to use the coupon code once!

Apologies to those having to deal with shipping, promotion code, etc. headaches. If I learn anything else I'll post it.

Sometimes with a small company, it's hard to distinguish between huge success and a death spiral - especially on the internet where there is an open invitation to buy product. The reason why success can be deadly: if twice as many people suddenly order books, and you can't print them, you need new printing presses fast. But, say, a new press costs $1000 and only makes $100 per month. This means you take a cash hit of $900 in the first month. A fast growing company can take one cash hit after another trying to keep up with the fact that growth requires investments that don't instantly pay for themselves. They also result in internal chaos as a smaller number of employees try to keep up with higher demand until adding a new employee makes sense. And new employees require training, which can actually take frantically working employees OFF their jobs to train the new people. Executives get overwhelmed with new contracts on those printing presses and real estate to put them in, and negotiating with Amazon, etc.

Success can actually kill a company if they don't have access to borrowed money. This was actually something TSR faced, too, apparently. I think it was Tim Kask who said that they were receiving money on a sixty day lag time, but paying people on a thirty day lag time - with the result that all this phenomenal growth was putting them deeper and deeper into a cash crunch.

I'm not saying lulu is succeeding - in this economy that's rather a leap - but one can't automatically assume it's a death spiral, either.

So...who did the excellent lizardman drawing that accompanies my contribution? Big props to whomever it was, I like it a ton.

I note with embarrassment that the trumpet I drew for the magic items article looks nothing like the description, so I'd be happy to redraw it if the issue ever gets "remastered".

Is it an international shipping thing?
Because it only cost me $5.85.
In fact I've never had expensive shipping from Lulu.

I bought #2 for £4.13 plus £3.75 shipping. #4 cost £6.41 plus £4.36 shipping, which is a bit better, although the economy did collapse between the two purchases, so maybe that helped.

Don't sweat it, dude. It's a groovy little pic.

Yeah! I bought 5 items for 22€ shipping! Call me Captain Stupid.

"Dungeon Motivations" ;D

My Lulu order arrived today (Yay!!!)

Fight On! #5 was missing pages 27-62 (Boo!!!)

Customer support has been contacted and hopefully I'll see a replacement copy headed my way soon. Luckily, I still have Fight On! #4, Knockspell #1 & #2, and Jeff's Miscellaneum to tide me over until then. But still, Booooo!!!!