Pyramid - an excellent game magazine
Jim Duncan
in the adventure gaming industry. Pyramid moved online almost 2 years
ago as a means of controlling costs since it was too expensive to
publish in paper format. I miss the paper format now and then, but
really believe the online web based format is better.
Pyramid has a new issue out every Friday. The content is well worth the
$15.00 annual subscription fee. Pyramid features game reviews (2-3 each
week), source material and background information for a wide range of
roleplaying games, adventures, and Adventure Pizza's (mini-adventures
outlines with lots of options), John Kovalic's comic strips - Murphy's
Rules and Dork Tower, and lots of other stuff. Roleplaying games
covered include GURPS, AD&D, Feng Shui, Marvel Super Heroes, In Nomine,
Shadowrun, Castle Falkenstein, Cyberpunk 2020, and lots of others. Card
game is a bit more sparse and although they'll cover just about any card
game they've only done a few to date -- INWO, Doomtown, L5R, and Star
Wars come to mind. They're actively looking for more card game
articles, but most of the readership currently seems to be roleplayers,
and the articles mainly come from folks who read the magazine -- though
this includes lots of industry types. Pyramid also covers computer
gaming, miniatures, board games, war games and such. They do an
excellent job of covering industry news and the news is updated daily
as it happens.
Other great Pyramid features:
- Archives of back issues including issues that were previously in
print format (they've got about 13 of the 30 print issues online now and
they add one every few months)
- Steve Jackson Games playtest material which is mostly for GURPS and
INWO.
- A chat area which features weekly sessions with SJ Games staff and
lots of industry folks like Ken Hite, David Pulver, Gary Gygax, Greg
Porter (BTRC), Dan Cope (Uncle Figgy), Scott Haring, Doc Cross, Matt
Forbeck (Pinnacle), John Kolvic, Loren Wiseman, Mike Stackpole, and
lots of others. All of the past chat sessions have been archived and
they make for interesting reading.
To check out samples of Pyramid go to the following:
http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/
If you decide to subscribe, please put me down as a reference, my
username is griffin (I get a free month added to my subscription).
Pyramid is an excellent gaming magazine, so give it a look.
-- Jim Duncan, jdu...@erols.com
On Pyramid: griffin
Karen J. Cravens
>If you decide to subscribe, please put me down as a reference, my
>username is griffin (I get a free month added to my subscription).
That would make this spam, Jimbo. I rather doubt SJGames appreciates the
association.
--
Karen Cravens (sil...@phoenyx.net)
Phoenyx Play-by-Email Roleplaying - http://www.phoenyx.net
Listserver: majo...@phoenyx.net
Sidhain
Sorry but how legitimate is it to charge 15.00 for a non paper 'magazine' ultimately they don't
have to pay for ink/paper or any of the MORE expensive materials in producing a magazine, so
isn't this a bit excessive?
They own the servers already, they do pay for articles, but is 15.00 a year worth it for an
electronic magazine?
Ryan Conner Stoughton
Sidhain wrote:
<QUICK DECISION>
No.
Lizard
<80kgt6$rqh$1...@ash.prod.itd.earthlink.net>:
>Sorry but how legitimate is it to charge 15.00 for a non paper
>'magazine' ultimately they don't have to pay for ink/paper or any of the
>MORE expensive materials in producing a magazine, so isn't this a bit
>excessive?
>
No. They have to pay writers to write, and people to maintain the site.
Skilled techies don't come cheap.
>They own the servers already, they do pay for articles, but is 15.00 a
>year worth it for an electronic magazine?
Yes, without doubt, absolutely. I consider it about the best purchase I've
made online.
They publish one 'issue' a week, which is very content-rich. You pay
twenty-eight cents per issue. Frankly, I'd pay 28 cents a week just for
Dork Tower and Murphy's Rules. The rest is gravy.
Chris Camfield
<ryca...@idirect.ca> wrote:
>Sidhain wrote:
>
>> Sorry but how legitimate is it to charge 15.00 for a non paper 'magazine' ultimately they don't
>> have to pay for ink/paper or any of the MORE expensive materials in producing a magazine, so
>> isn't this a bit excessive?
>>
>> They own the servers already, they do pay for articles, but is 15.00 a year worth it for an
>> electronic magazine?
That's $1.25 a month. Is that really such a huge amount of money?
><QUICK DECISION>
>No.
Well, that's up to you, but I think my Pyramid subscription is one of
my better gaming purchases within the past year. And I don't even
play GURPS.
Good articles, columns, and stuff; discussion groups that I get a lot
more out of than frp.misc. Now, granted, I also enjoy reading rpg.net
and that you can read for free. Chacun a son gout.
Chris
William Barnett-Lewis
subscriptions. I guess the real question is - did you like the old paper
mag? If you did, this will be worth the cost; if not well, it's still the
same magazine.
I don't care for GURPS really and only got involved in it due to the recent
GURPS: Traveller material. That said, the online magazine as been a wealth
of goodies for me to use in Runequest, my homebrew fantasy system, and
classic Traveller. That and it's so exquisite to get to my office on Friday
each week and be able to pull up a new Dork Tower. That alone is worth the
price! :>
In the end, if they have paid off their servers or not is irrelevant.
There's this little economics tidbit that claims that a price will become
what the market will bear. If $14 a year is too much for you to spend, you
won't spend it. If enough others agree with you, SJG will either a) lower
the price or b) cease production of Pyramid. As their numbers are increasing
(I want to say in the neighborhood of 3000 subscribers now), I'd think that
enough find it to be a good value at that price. For me, well, I paid 12.95
for _1_ issue of "Megatraveller Journal" back in 1992. 'Nuff said.
in article 80kgt6$rqh$1...@ash.prod.itd.earthlink.net, Sidhain at
sid...@earthlink.net wrote on 13/11/1999 2:13 PM:
> Sorry but how legitimate is it to charge 15.00 for a non paper 'magazine'
> ultimately they don't
> have to pay for ink/paper or any of the MORE expensive materials in producing
> a magazine, so
> isn't this a bit excessive?
>
> They own the servers already, they do pay for articles, but is 15.00 a year
> worth it for an
> electronic magazine?
William
--
Live without fear; your Creator loves you | William Barnett-Lewis
as a mother. Go in peace to follow the good | mailto://wle...@mailbag.com
road and may God's blessing be with |
you always. |
St. Claire |
Carl D Cravens
> Sorry but how legitimate is it to charge 15.00 for a non paper
> 'magazine' ultimately they don't have to pay for ink/paper or any of
> the MORE expensive materials in producing a magazine, so isn't this a
> bit excessive?
Just how much is fifteen bucks? It's half a roleplaying game nowdays.
With Pyramid, you get new articles every week... as a weekly 'zine, that's
only twenty-nine cents a week. Twenty-nine cents for three to four
articles, two to three columns/editorials, two comics, and two to three
reviews every week. What other magazine can produce twelve full reviews,
twelve or more articles, eight comics, eight columns or editorials every
month?
And then consider that the paper magazine doesn't provide instant-feedback
polls, a convenient rating tool on the articles, a chat area with industry
names, a discussion area via web or news server (not just Pyramid or SJ
Games specific... there are several generic discussion areas), access to
SJ Games playtest materials and every electronic back-issue of Pyramid
plus about half of the paper-printed back-issues (with the rest to come as
they get entered). Fifteen bucks and you get *years* worth of Pyramid.
Their payment rates are the same as the paper magazine. And the volume of
material is greater than that of the paper magazine. I think it's worth a
measley twenty-nine cents a week just to have access to the spam-free,
more-intelligent-than-average discussion areas... I can consider the
articles gravy.
They are't as heavily supported by advertising as the paper magazine and
their readership is significantly smaller. (No gamestore sales...
subscription only.)
> They own the servers already, they do pay for articles, but is 15.00 a
> year worth it for an electronic magazine?
They also pay for art (yeah, the articles have art), editing, management
of the Pyramid part of the site, management of the forums and news server,
management and hosting of the chat server and chats, writing of the daily
news updates, additional bandwidth and server horsepower (which isn't
free, as you seem to think).
It's just fifteen bucks... try it out for yourself. I've never regretted
my subscription.
--
Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
Where am I . . . and why am I in this handbasket?
Carl D Cravens
> I don't care for GURPS really and only got involved in it due to the recent
> GURPS: Traveller material. That said, the online magazine as been a wealth
> of goodies for me to use in Runequest, my homebrew fantasy system, and
> classic Traveller. That and it's so exquisite to get to my office on Friday
> each week and be able to pull up a new Dork Tower. That alone is worth the
> price! :>
Just to be clear, Pyramid isn't a GURPS magazine... it has articles on
many different games, including D&D (rarely, but it happens, and the last
one was fairly generic and didn't need to be about D&D at all). Ken
Hite's column isn't system-specific... it's just a lot of ideas for
running weird games. (He's a conspiracy/weirdness nut.) The
gamemastering column is GMing advice (to be taken with a grain of salt)
independent of game system. Adventure Pizza is always generic.
Supporting Cast is often in GURPS terms... but it generally isn't hard to
convert the characters you want to use to another game system.
Then there are articles on various things like card games, new ways to
play Killer, etc. They card game articles are infrequent enough not to
bother the non-CCG player, I think. (Or at least this one.)
--
Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
Dogs crawl under fences, Software crawls under Windows.
Doug Berry
stone tablets, which when translated read:
>They publish one 'issue' a week, which is very content-rich. You pay
>twenty-eight cents per issue. Frankly, I'd pay 28 cents a week just for
>Dork Tower and Murphy's Rules. The rest is gravy.
Ken Hite's _Suppressed Transmission_ is more than worth the cost
of admission. I have gotten more evil ideas, both for gaming and
my own research, from that column than from any other resource I
can think of.
Having access to all the back issues without digging through the
closet is a nice touch also.
--
Douglas E. Berry grid...@mindspring.com
http://gridlore.home.mindspring.com/
"We are GURPS. You will be assimilated. We will add
your distinctive setting and background to our own. |
Resistance is futile."
Doug Berry
read:
>> They own the servers already, they do pay for articles, but is 15.00 a >>year worth it for an electronic magazine?
>
><QUICK DECISION>
>No.
Howzabout 28 cents an issue for up to date industry news, two
cartoons (including Murphy's Rules), access to the SJG playtest
files, at least six new articles a week.. Compare that to any
paper mag remaining on the market.
James Wallis
<sid...@earthlink.net> writes
>
>
>
>Sorry but how legitimate is it to charge 15.00 for a non paper 'magazine'
>ultimately they don't
>have to pay for ink/paper or any of the MORE expensive materials in producing a
>magazine, so
>isn't this a bit excessive?
>
>worth it for an
>electronic magazine?
Speaking as someone who earns his real income from 'real' magazines...
absolutely. Pyramid does a knock-out job. It's weekly, it has
interesting content, its back-issues are available on-line, and it makes
use of its net-nature by organising on-line chats and the like.
If you can get 52 issues of a print magazine about gaming delivered to
your home for $15, then go for it. Otherwise, fork out for Pyramid. It's
worth every penny.
--
James Wallis
Director of Hogshead Publishing Ltd (ja...@hogshead.demon.co.uk)
Posting this from his home address (ja...@erstwhile.demon.co.uk)
Check out our somewhat groovy website: http://www.hogshead.demon.co.uk
David E. Smith
[Yo, Sidhain! They're called 80-character margins. Reformatting applied.]
> Sorry but how legitimate is it to charge 15.00 for a non paper 'magazine'
> ultimately they don't have to pay for ink/paper or any of the MORE
> expensive materials in producing a magazine, so isn't this a bit
> excessive?
IMO, not at all.
> They own the servers already, they do pay for articles, but is 15.00 a year
> worth it for an electronic magazine?
$15 a year is comparable to many print magazines (though not many
gaming-oriented print mags that I know of). And if you take a month's
worth of Pyramid, you have a comparable amount of material to many of
those monthly print mags.
I couldn't care less from paper. I'm primarily interested in the content.
And that, Pyramid delivers. I'm willing to pay for their content, even
though I'm not a big GURPS fan.
...dave
Glen Barnett
>
> Sorry but how legitimate is it to charge 15.00 for a non paper 'magazine' ultimately they don't
> have to pay for ink/paper or any of the MORE expensive materials in producing a magazine, so
> isn't this a bit excessive?
>
> electronic magazine?
Well, actually, $15 per year is far, far too cheap. For what I
have been getting, I'd consider $1 *per issue* good value. At
about a quarter of that price, it is exceedingly cheap.
Ken Hite's column is worth the purchase price. The comics, reviews,
news and editorials are worth twice the purchase price between them.
Then there's the other columns. Generally, there's at least one
article worth at least the purchase price again, sometimes two or
three of them are that good (this is for a non-GURPS player,
remember - many articles aren't GURPS-related at all). Then
there's all the other stuff you get besides the magazine itself -
again, easily worth the purchase price. That's about 5 times
the purchase price. I imagine GURPS players would rate it
even higher, because of the regularity of GURPS content.
You don't need to play GURPS to get value from Pyramid. I have
never played GURPS (though I own a number of GURPS source books
for use in other games). It does publish GURPS stuff, because
that's what people send in - but it publishes everything else
as well. RPGs, both specific and generic. CCGs. Board Games.
All kinds of stuff.
I used to buy Pyramid about half the time when it was a paper
magazine, and generally thought it was pretty good. It didn't
have half the value to me that Pyramid does now. My biggest
problem is that I get more stuff I like than I can possibly have
time to use! At least I don't have to store it all.
There are very few advantages I can think of for a paper magazine.
- the news is always weeks or months out of date in a paper magazine
- it costs at least 10 times as much per useful article in a paper
magazine. Usually more.
- I can print out the articles I want from Pyramid to read on the
train - so paper magazines don't win out there either.
- I don't have to keep paper copies of articles I'm not ready to
use yet - but I can access them any time later.
- I can talk to people from all over the world about issues raised
by the magazine. If I think there's a problem or a mistake, or
just something I disagree with, dammit!, I can talk to people
about it... and the editor of the magazine will see what I say.
- I get access to lots of back issues - even ones I never paid for
- I can search for articles on particular topics. If I want to find
all articles on a particular game, or all articles by a certain
author, blam, there they are. No searching through piles of
magazines for that one issue that you later discover has gone
missing.
I'll take Pyramid any day. A paper magazine would have to be *very*
good to induce me to buy it now. I haven't seen any that come close
lately.
Glen
Jeff Stehman
Pity it started from spam, but this discussion has gotten me to
subscribe. Interesting line in Pyramid policies:
Any posting not carrying an explicit copyright notice is also
assumed to be a contribution to Steve Jackson Games, for any
use the company sees fit, including later publication in whole
or in part under the SJ Games copyright.
An on-line message board seems quite a different forum than a letters
to the editor department. Comments on this policy?
--jeff
Mark Baker
>Speaking as someone who earns his real income from 'real' magazines...
>absolutely. Pyramid does a knock-out job. It's weekly, it has
>interesting content, its back-issues are available on-line, and it makes
>use of its net-nature by organising on-line chats and the like.
>
--
Mark Baker
Web Pages: http://www.lange.demon.co.uk/Index.html
Paul Jackson
Its possibly a little broad but its not as unreasonable as
it first appears to be.
1) Lots of the boards are explicitly commenting on playtest
material and SJG certainly needs to have clear legal right
to any playtest comments.
2) the pyramid board is about as close to letters to
the editor as pyramid has and so also probably needs this.
3) As is the norm on the net conversations very quickly
go off topic and one can therefore sometimes find things
that SHOULD belong to SJG (eg, playtest comments) on
other boards.
4) SJG employees read the boards and SJ has to protect itself
from the potential problem of several people independently
coming up with the same idea. The last thing SJG needs is to
be sued by somebody claiming that they stole the idea that
was posted on chatter.
5) At least they ARE quite explicit about their policy, including
giving a very easy "out" if you post something that you care
about
Disclaimer - I have no relation at all with SJG except as
a customer.
Karen J. Cravens
<uMVX3.12730$YI2.6...@typ11.nn.bcandid.com>:
>Pity it started from spam, but this discussion has gotten me to
>subscribe. Interesting line in Pyramid policies:
Well, as long as you gave Carl as a reference and not the original poster,
it's okay...
George Herbert
>> Any posting not carrying an explicit copyright notice is also
>> assumed to be a contribution to Steve Jackson Games, for any
>> use the company sees fit, including later publication in whole
>> or in part under the SJ Games copyright.
>
>law it would not: any transfer of copyright has to be explicit. I'll ask
>a couple of lawyers about it later.
You can impose an explicit licensing agreement on the forum.
You can't grab copyright except with explict agreement of the party.
But saying "we can publish or use as we see fit" isn't them taking
copyright, it's just giving them an unlimited use license to your
posted (and automatically self copyrighted) work.
-george william herbert
gher...@crl.com
Brett Evill
>
> Pity it started from spam, but this discussion has gotten me to
> subscribe. Interesting line in Pyramid policies:
>
> assumed to be a contribution to Steve Jackson Games, for any
> use the company sees fit, including later publication in whole
> or in part under the SJ Games copyright.
>
Would this hold water legally? My impression is that under Australian
law it would not: any transfer of copyright has to be explicit. I'll ask
a couple of lawyers about it later.
Regards,
Brett Evill
A.F. Simpson
> >> Any posting not carrying an explicit copyright notice is also
> >> assumed to be a contribution to Steve Jackson Games, for any
> >> use the company sees fit, including later publication in whole
> >> or in part under the SJ Games copyright.
> You can impose an explicit licensing agreement on the forum.
> You can't grab copyright except with explict agreement of the party.
> But saying "we can publish or use as we see fit" isn't them taking
> copyright, it's just giving them an unlimited use license to your
> posted (and automatically self copyrighted) work.
However, the phrase, "for any use the company sees fit, including later
publication in whole or in part under the SJ Games copyright." does
indeed seem to be claiming the copyright.
> -george william herbert
> gher...@crl.com
love
Anna
Jeff Stehman
> Well, as long as you gave Carl as a reference and not the original poster,
> it's okay...
You know me. I'm not likely to help out anyone.
--jeff
Jim Duncan
> Sorry but how legitimate is it to charge 15.00 for a non paper 'magazine' ultimately they don't
> have to pay for ink/paper or any of the MORE expensive materials in producing a magazine, so
> isn't this a bit excessive?
>
> They own the servers already, they do pay for articles, but is 15.00 a year worth it for an
> electronic magazine?
And where do these free servers they own supposedly come from? How do they pay for them? What
about backups, maintenance, power, SysAdmin, web admin, the internet connection.
Then of course, there's the thing about paying writers and artists *PROMPTLY* which unlike some
other folks in the industry, Steve Jackson Games has pretty much always done.
$15 is certainly worth the service provided if you are into the type of games covered.
-- Jim Duncan
Niccolo Machiavelli
Lizard <liz...@mrlizard.com> wrote:
>sid...@earthlink.net (Sidhain) wrote in
><80kgt6$rqh$1...@ash.prod.itd.earthlink.net>:
>
>>'magazine' ultimately they don't have to pay for ink/paper or any of the
>>MORE expensive materials in producing a magazine, so isn't this a bit
>>excessive?
>>They own the servers already, they do pay for articles, but is 15.00 a
>
>made online.
>
>twenty-eight cents per issue. Frankly, I'd pay 28 cents a week just for
>Dork Tower and Murphy's Rules. The rest is gravy.
And the playtest files are pretty good, too. I could never afford
to buy all of the books that I'd like to read, especially since I know my
gaming group won't use most of them. I can download the playtest versions
and take out whatever I want for my campaign without cluttering my small
apt with tons of books. If I lived in the states this wouldn't be as much
of a benny, but even there, a lot of stores shrink wrap their stuff so you
can't thumb through them before you buy 'em. And while it isn't exactly a
glowing recommendation, John Wick had a really could column in their most
recent issue, easily worht the $.28 I paid for the rest of it.
--
Dave C.
iN*T*x
johnc...@my-deja.com
> > I don't care for GURPS really and only got involved in it due to
the recent
> > GURPS: Traveller material. That said, the online magazine as been a
wealth
> >SNIP(some details of content of Pyramid)
I was wondering how much CAR WARS material Pyramid has (per issue and
the archives). I haven't even looked at pyramid or the hardcopy version
for over four years specifically because I felt that the hard core CW
players have been treated badly by SJG for years, which was a bit
rotten when CW was the major money spinner when SJG was fighting it's
law suit with the secret service (I was encouraged in an issue of
Autoduel Quarterly to go and buy some CW material to keep SJG in
business, I dutifully went and bought £50 worth of stuff). I got the
first issue of pyramid and felt the CW content of very low standard. A
few months later I found that a system that had supported a 56+ page
magazine had been relagated to only two pages
Would anyone like to counter my thought that Car Wars got dumped on
because it was too violent? I remember that SJG were heavily involved
in the first of the FALLOUT series of games, but were sent scurrying
behind the sofa as soon as Black Isle Studios showed them how gritty a
post-apocalypse world could be. SJG promptly pulled out and left them
to it (which was no bad thing).
PS I'm still waiting for the 'Chassis and Crossbows' source book!
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Carl D Cravens
> Would anyone like to counter my thought that Car Wars got dumped on
> because it was too violent? I remember that SJG were heavily involved
Car Wars has petered out... there isn't much left to write about without
just adding more and more weapons and junk that it already has too much
of. (I think the latter years of new weapons and accessories helped
contribute to Car Wars demise.) There are plenty of arenas and race
tracks. We might be able to use some more scenarios, but they generally
all come down to killing another vehicle and don't require too much
creative thought. In the end, there isn't much Car Wars material in
Pyramid because nobody's writing any. They can only publish what people
write and nobody writes Car Wars despite being encouraged to.
IMO, if you want to revive Car Wars, rewrite it. Not necessarily to make
it more "realistic" but to smooth out all the years' worth of
discrepancies that have crept in. Torpedos and advanced guided missiles
compared to the trusty old Large Rocket... the LR just isn't worth
it. Car Wars is a huge series of patches, and while they *did* rewrite
some stuff for the Compendium (2d crash tables are my addition,
appropriately mangled by the editor soas to barely resemble my more
reasonable approach.) they didn't fix any of the weapons and accessories
discrepancies.
--
Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
Hey! Don't pick up that Dog! !@#$*!?% NO TERRIER