Barrowmaze II and Rappan Athuk have arrived

So Barrowmaze II, which I also got Barrowmaze the original, and Rpapan Athuk were both at my door today.

Dudes from Frog God, please see if you can use the guys who did the Barrowmaze dice. They look nice and apparently didn't hold up the project.

Your special die is essentially a d6 with the Necromancer Games logo. Theirs is a little more colorful with a few icons.

The shipping packages were both the same type but apparently someone told the USPS dude to go hog wild on the Rappan Athuk boxed set.

The shinny one under it? Yeah, Barrowmaze. Ugh.

So overall, I would do another Indiegogo for the guy who did Barrowmaze. The material arrived on time. The price was reasonable. The goods were neat. Unless Frog God really kicks up its game with its next Kickstarters, I will only buy their product on the shelf or from Paizo when I want the PDF/Print combo and discount and discounted shipping.

I've gone over the reasons why before but a brief recap.

1. Selling it at Gen Con. Now mind you, selling it at Gen Con in and of itself isn't bad. But when miniature companies like Blackwater Gultch and RPG companies like the guys who did Shadows of Esteren, where you could pick up a book with a customized picture in it...

2. Delayed Shipping.  This isn't too bad to be honest. August to October is only two months. Some people were like, "But you get the PDFs and other freebies!" to which I could point out many people who backed it going, "Like the PDFs but waiting for the hardcopies." Mind you, the real pisser for me, is that as a Paizo subscriber, if I ordered from Paizo, I'd get the PDF. I'd also get a discount. I'd also get a better shipping price. Not some of the freebies like the dice, which caused another delay but I'd get the book and PDFs.

3. Shipping Charges. Many of the projects I've backed had no shipping charges. I fully understand that's not always possible. Charging people for shipping well before you have the product to ship out? Simply put, not cool. Not cool at all. If you don't have the package, you dont' send a shipping invoice. Period. End of story. Mind you, I can see the reason why they did it. How are they going to know that they're going to be boned by the dice people? If it had been me? I'd have made the dice people ship out those dice specifically to the customers but that may not have been possible. If they had held off on the shipping charges, are they going to scramble at the last minute waiting for everyone to pay when even now they're waiting on people to pay?

4. The damn thing was damaged. Not huge damage. Not something I'm going to cry about or ask for a refund, but the front corners were crinkled on the top and bottom. Ugh.

'Outside' observation though is that whenever you bring up some disatisfaction someone else will pipe up that they love the company. I'm not saying burn Frog God Games to the ground or anything like that. It could just be the nature of the Internet that some of these posts sound 'angry' or something. But really, s0ome of the time when you mention dissatisfaction with X, Y, or Z and so many people jump in to 'defend' the company, I have to say, applause to you. Fans like you are a great resource for the company to rely on and its great that such fans enable the companies to keep pumping out material.

Both books will go on the bookshelf. The Frog God one will go next to the other two mammoth tomes I have from them while I may put the Barrowmaze ones by the reprinted 'preimum' copies of the AD&D 1st edition stuff.