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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: "RazorGirl ." <chumlikin@*******.COM>
Subject: Sourcebook Names
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 11:41:25 PDT
Since when has the name of a sourcebook been important. Would you not
buy the new magic rules if it wasn't "sexily" titled? Doesn't the
content out weigh the package?

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." That dead brit new what
he was talking about

"You came in that thing? You're braver than i thought."
Star Wars was funny on so many levels.


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Message no. 2
From: MC23 <mc23@**********.COM>
Subject: Re: Sourcebook Names
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 14:56:31 -0400
Once upon a time, RazorGirl . wrote;

>Since when has the name of a sourcebook been important. Would you not
>buy the new magic rules if it wasn't "sexily" titled? Doesn't the
>content out weigh the package?

If it looks like a piece of amateur trash, yes I would pass.

Of course I think people already have an idea about how I feel about
Names.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Ancient cultures believed that names held great power, personal names
more so and they were guarded very closely. To protect themselves, they
answered to another name, because if another discovered their real name,
it could be used against them.
History repeats itself.
Welcome to the Digital Age.
I am MC23
Message no. 3
From: "Mark C. Farrington" <alareth@*****.DWEBS.NET>
Subject: Re: Sourcebook Names
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 15:10:44 -0400
>Since when has the name of a sourcebook been important. Would you not
>buy the new magic rules if it wasn't "sexily" titled? Doesn't the
>content out weigh the package?


You mean don't judge a book by it's cover? I agree that this entire
argument is rather pointless. I can't see anyone out there NOT buying a
source book just because of the title.
I think the "Target:***" line of titles is rather silly but I still
have my T:SH sitting right here.
There will never be a happy medium where everyone is satisfied, so just
get over it and move on.

Alareth - Acolyte of the First Church of the Squooshy Ball
The Shiny Happy Gaming Group - http://www.dwebs.net/~alareth
ICQ UIN - 11468823
Message no. 4
From: Brett Borger <bxb121@***.EDU>
Subject: Re: Sourcebook Names
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 15:09:15 EST
> Of course I think people already have an idea about how I feel about
> Names.
>
>
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
>
> Ancient cultures believed that names held great power, personal names
> more so and they were guarded very closely. To protect themselves, they
> answered to another name, because if another discovered their real name,
> it could be used against them.
> History repeats itself.
> Welcome to the Digital Age.
> I am MC23

(.sig left because of relevance)

Wow. I think that is the greatest instance of rhetorical power
through implication I've ever seen. Well done.

-=SwiftOne=-
Message no. 5
From: Erik Jameson <erikj@****.COM>
Subject: Re: Sourcebook Names
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 16:37:22 -0400
At 03:10 PM 8/13/98 -0400, you wrote:
>>Since when has the name of a sourcebook been important. Would you not
>>buy the new magic rules if it wasn't "sexily" titled? Doesn't the
>>content out weigh the package?
>
> You mean don't judge a book by it's cover? I agree that this entire
>argument is rather pointless. I can't see anyone out there NOT buying a
>source book just because of the title.

Oh please.

We're not saying that we won't buy the books just because they may or may
not have a lame title.

What I am saying is that a "sexy" title is an excellent attention grabber
and can actually boost sales.

Look at movies and regular fiction. "Armageddon" is a pretty good title
that has some amount of appeal to it. "Asteroid Hurtling Towards Earth"
would be a really dumb-ass title and it wouldn't attract viewers.

There have been examples in Hollywood in which a good movie was totally
overlooked because of a lame title. Off the top of my head, the little
Hugh Grant film "The Man Who Went Up A Hill and Came Down A Mountain," a
film about my favorite people, the Welsh. A pretty cool little film if you
can handle a film without guns and violence. But the title was so lame (if
very descriptive of the story) that it didn't do as well as it could have.

It's a bit like the guidelines for writing newspaper articles and press
releases. You've gotta have something that reaches out and grabs the
reader/listener/viewer. Once you've got them you've gotta hang on to them,
which is difficult, but if you don't grab them right off the bat, they
won't read it anyway.

Something like the "Cannon Companion" is likely to sell well because it's
got everyone's favorite gaming subject, guns guns and more guns. You could
call if "Dorf on Guns" and it would still sell well.

Other sourcebooks, notably the location ones, badly need sexy titles to
grab the consumer dollars of the less-than-hardcore SR players. *I* buy
nearly anything FASA puts out for SR. Many others don't however.

Erik the Really Impatient
Message no. 6
From: "Mark C. Farrington" <alareth@*****.DWEBS.NET>
Subject: Re: Sourcebook Names
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 07:58:09 -0400
From: Erik Jameson <erikj@****.COM>


>call if "Dorf on Guns" and it would still sell well.


Now that's something I'd really like to see.....

Alareth - Acolyte of the First Church of the Squooshy Ball
The Shiny Happy Gaming Group - http://www.dwebs.net/~alareth
ICQ UIN - 11468823

Further Reading

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These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!