City State of Tarantis Now Available in PDF!

jamesmishler · Post by **jamesmishler** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 7:59 pm

Woohoo! Judges Guild has finally released the classic City State of Tarantis in PDF!
This is the 3rd City State from Judges Guild. Two big 96 books detail the City State of Tarantis and the surrounding campaign area with the history, government, customs, religions, and military of Tarantis. They also cover the shops and courts of Tarantis, The Tarantine Palace, Bard or Fighter Citadel, Ho Chi's Castle, The Azurerain Pirates and their stronghold. This scanned 1983 product includes the large Tarantis Area map, but does not contain the maps for Judges or Players. Enjoy this huge chunk of original Judges Guild goodness.

Though designed using the Judges Guild Universal System, it is easily adaptable to Castles & Crusades and other similar systems.
Click here to get Classic Tarantis at DriveThruRPG!
Click here to get Classic Tarantis at RPGNow!
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Aladar · Post by **Aladar** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 2:37 pm

Thanks for the info James.

I might have to get it. I already have the original in hard copy. Might have to add the PDF as well.

Are there any plans to release the other City States (i.e. World Emperor and Invincible Overlord) in PDF? I always liked these campaign modules and would like to get them in PDF as well.
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jamesmishler · Post by **jamesmishler** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 3:40 pm

Invincible Overlord is most definitely out in PDF, several of the editions, actually.

I'm pretty sure CSWE is also available, or at least, I know the Guidebook is available. I can't check right now as OBS is "down for maintenance." When the site is back up, just go to the Judges Guild page on DTRPG or RPGNow and check out what is available.
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Aladar · Post by **Aladar** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 4:24 pm

Thanks James, I will check it out.
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moriarty777 · Post by **moriarty777** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 4:37 pm

I would love for everything to be available in PDF format.

Hell... I would love a PDF compilation of everything. Maybe an 'authorized' one on CD or something. That would ROCK!

In the meantime, I still have to figure out what was put out in the first place. I just feel I got to Wilderlands party a bit too late sometimes.
M
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jamesmishler · Post by **jamesmishler** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 5:15 pm

Now that OBS sites are up again, I see there is a lot less available than I thought... this must be rectified.
City State of the Invincible Overlord Blue 1999 Edition DriveThruRPG
City State of the Invincible Overlord Blue 1999 Edition RPGNow

The "Blue Edition" of the City State is pretty much equal to the "Orange Edition" Revised Edition, though the original scan and reset (for the printed edition and the subsequent PDF) were apparently off on the page numbers and the original index is now often wrong by a page or two. I can't vouch for the PDF map, as I do not have the PDF of this product.
City State of the Invincible Overlord Necromancer Games Edition DriveThruRPG
City State of the Invincible Overlord Necromancer Games Edition RPGNow

The Necromancer Edition includes everything in the Revised Edition and in Wraith Overlord. Stats are for 3E, but are minimal in the City State portion, so easily converted. The map is very clean, but makes some slight changes (or mistakes, depending on your point of view).
City State of the Invincible Overlord Players Map Revised Edition DriveThruRPG
City State of the Invincible Overlord Players Map Revised Edition RPGNow

Players maps are always good, and a PDF is better, as you can print out the snippet you want or the whole map if you wish. Again, I do not have this PDF myself, so I cannot vouch for its quality.
Wraith Overlord DriveThruRPG
Wraith Overlord RPGNow
Wraith Overlord, personally, I could do without. It was very disappointing, mostly because there is no "Wraith Overlord" and it spends way too much time detailing each and every prisoner in the jail, rather than concentrating on adventure. Still, it has the official maps of the sewers (also included with the Necro edition of the City State). Your mileage may vary.
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http://adventuregamespublishing.blogspot.com/
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Plaag · Post by **Plaag** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 5:22 pm

moriarty777 wrote:
In the meantime, I still have to figure out what was put out in the first place. I just feel I got to Wilderlands party a bit too late sometimes.
M

http://www.acaeum.com/jg/IndexbyCode.html
http://www.acaeum.com/jg/OtherCompanies ... anies.html

ShaneG.

jamesmishler · Post by **jamesmishler** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 5:24 pm

The problem with doing a "one with everything" CD is that the discount that most consumers would require on the price would make the creation of such a CD a losing proposition.

Scanning in these books is highly labor intensive. Even if we could find someone with a copy who would allow us to cut the pages so they could be run through a scanner's autoload system, we still couldn't do it in most cases, as the paper is too fragile; the books are just too old and were originally printed on cheap, flimsy paper.

So it has to be scanned in by hand, page by page. As most were printed on newspaper or cheap tan or brown paper, very thin with lots of bleed-through from the back, OCR is very difficult, if not impossible due to the costs involved, and so none of these could be done in cut-and-paste PDF format. Or rather, I should say, they can't be done affordably. At the cost involved, might as well hire someone to re-type straight from the page. And at the price required to recoup those costs, simply for a reproduction of a 30-year old book, the market for the product would be very small indeed...
_________________
James Mishler

Main Man, Adventure Games Publishing
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http://adventuregamespublishing.blogspot.com/
http://jamesmishler.blogspot.com

Breakdaddy · Post by **Breakdaddy** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 5:29 pm

jamesmishler wrote:
Woohoo! Judges Guild has finally released the classic City State of Tarantis in PDF!

You're the man now, dog!

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 5:51 pm

Maybe someone will just rewrite all the old JG products into new PDF's? Clean them up with better lay out, presentation? Correct grammatical errors?
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moriarty777 · Post by **moriarty777** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 6:14 pm

jamesmishler wrote:
The problem with doing a "one with everything" CD is that the discount that most consumers would require on the price would make the creation of such a CD a losing proposition.

Scanning in these books is highly labor intensive. Even if we could find someone with a copy who would allow us to cut the pages so they could be run through a scanner's autoload system, we still couldn't do it in most cases, as the paper is too fragile; the books are just too old and were originally printed on cheap, flimsy paper.

So it has to be scanned in by hand, page by page. As most were printed on newspaper or cheap tan or brown paper, very thin with lots of bleed-through from the back, OCR is very difficult, if not impossible due to the costs involved, and so none of these could be done in cut-and-paste PDF format. Or rather, I should say, they can't be done affordably. At the cost involved, might as well hire someone to re-type straight from the page. And at the price required to recoup those costs, simply for a reproduction of a 30-year old book, the market for the product would be very small indeed...

I completely understand of course. I for one would happily devote my time and resources for this kind of endeavor but, considering the nature of the source material, I know it would be more labor intensive. In terms of scanning though, never underestimate the use of a think blank page in the back to greatly eliminate that bleed through though.

ICE had a similar problem a short while ago, and they wanted to get copies of a lot of their older material. I think went about by asking for copies of it no matter the 'source' from the community. In other words, it didn't matter if the copy was an illegitimate one but any such contributions held no repercussion. Unfortunately, this material is a lot older which means the odds of it existing is improbable at best.

As for legitimate holders of original material, I'm sure a few from the community would be willing to help. I have a couple things myself (though not many) but I'm fairly certain a lot of these already exist in PDF on RPGNow! I can double check though. But if you ever do need free labour to put towards some sort of 'archive' project like this, I'll be more than happy to help!

What can I say ... I'm a bit of an idealist when it comes to something like this.
M
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DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 6:22 pm

Not a big fan of PDF's.

I hate scanned PDF's.

Old, scanned PDF's make me RAGE!!!

gideon_thorne · Post by **gideon_thorne** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 6:30 pm

jamesmishler wrote:
OCR is very difficult, if not impossible due to the costs involved, and so none of these could be done in cut-and-paste PDF format.

Twaddle. Send that stuff to me. Ill take care of it. I have an excellent OCR scanner.

I'll even offer a reasonable rate on re layout work.
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moriarty777 · Post by **moriarty777** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 6:46 pm

gideon_thorne wrote:
Twaddle. Send that stuff to me. Ill take care of it. I have an excellent OCR scanner.

I'll even offer a reasonable rate on re layout work.

Excellent.

M
_________________
"You face Death itself in the form of... 1d4 Tarrasques!"

Partner to Brave Halfling Publishing
http://www.arcanacreations.com

Breakdaddy · Post by **Breakdaddy** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 7:16 pm

gideon_thorne wrote:
Twaddle. Send that stuff to me. Ill take care of it. I have an excellent OCR scanner.

I'll even offer a reasonable rate on re layout work.

No doubt. Abbyy finereader can OCR pretty much ANYTHING. I've even seen it OCR PHOTOGRAPHS of pages of books. It's so amazing that it's amazii.

Aladar · Post by **Aladar** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 8:33 pm

All my stuff is from the old Judges Guild.

I have the old Judges Guild versions of the three City States, plus Tegal Manor and a bunch of the other campaign map areas. I also have the two Ruins(?) and two Castle books as well from Judges Guild, and I think I still have Sea Steeds & Wave Riders also.

I need to dig these out of the boxes in my closet and see exactly what I do have.
_________________
Lord Aladar

Warden of the Welk Wood

Baron of the Castles & Crusades Society

The Poster formerly known as Alwyn

Senior Gamer - Member of the Senior RPG Tour

"NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT - At least not in Yu Gi Oh"
http://www.cncsociety.org/

Troll Lord Games

City State of Tarantis Now Available in PDF!

City State of Tarantis Now Available in PDF!

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