Decks of Destiny - Late April

[ParadoxGames]

I love cards, so of course I am in on this one. I see this is a 35-day long campaign, giving us more time to hit many. many goals!

[philreed]

Originally Posted by ParadoxGames

I love cards, so of course I am in on this one. I see this is a 35-day long campaign, giving us more time to hit many. many goals!

Thank you for joining in to support the project!

[Ulairi]

Originally Posted by philreed

Replace? Did your book arrived damaged?

The corner arrived dinged up but now the binding is kind of coming apart from the threaded red and black part. It’s still usable but I want to make sure I have another one before you guys sell out of them. I’m still a dead tree gamer.

[JLV]

I just want to say here that my personal experience with actual customer service at Steve Jackson Games has always been outstanding. Any time you have something show up damaged as part of your shipment, if you contact Daryll (and, usually, send him a pic of the damage), he'll bend over backwards to make things right.

BUT, if your binding is falling apart after only a few uses, that would seem to be a problem worth bringing to their attention, with pics, so at the very least they can double-check the bindings of future books to make sure it doesn't happen again!

One DIY trick my mother taught me many years ago was (no "your mother" jokes please -- she was a very nice and very smart lady), when you first get a new hardback book, to hold it balanced on its bound edge (the "spine" of the book being on the table and the rest being held up vertically by you) and gently open first the front and then the back covers, running your off-hand down the length of the spine at the point where each cover joins the spine of the book. Then repeat this process with every few pages (10 or 20 at the most) working alternating sides as you do so, and remembering to be gentle about it as you do it (it doesn't take a ton of pressure or anything; really all you're doing is "stroking" the binding with about as much pressure as you would use to rub your dog behind the ears). When you get to the point that you only have 20 or so pages left, split them in the middle, let them fall open, and again gently run your hand down the middle where the binding is. I've done this with every new hard-back I've purchased over the past 50 years, and I think I've had one book that fell apart (after much use) due to binding issues (Mr. Lincoln's Army, by Bruce Catton in a "Book of the Month Club" style edition -- which are notoriously cheaply made -- if anyone cares). Even books from Lightning Source or LuLu (which generally are not known for their outstanding binderies) are still working fine, and even the enormous books that FGG has sent out over the years (Sword of the Air, anyone? Or Grimtooth's Traps Complete?) are still holding up just fine.

It seems that if you can gently "break in" the bindings this way, it makes a world of difference as opposed to simply opening them up and reading them right off the bat. BTW, if you apply this procedure and your binding cracks while you're actually doing it, then there was a major manufacturing fault and you should IMMEDIATELY contact the company, with pics, showing them what happened -- saves you and them a lot of time!

I DO NOT mean to imply that Ulairi somehow "did something wrong" here. I don't think that's true at all. I simply want to share a process that has worked for me for half a century for hard-back books, and only takes a couple of minutes to do. (NB: It doesn't seem to make much difference with paper-back books for some reason; I've never experienced any difference between paper-backs that I've done this with and ones that I haven't, so I generally don't bother with this process for those anymore.)

[philreed]

Originally Posted by Ulairi

The corner arrived dinged up but now the binding is kind of coming apart from the threaded red and black part. It’s still usable but I want to make sure I have another one before you guys sell out of them. I’m still a dead tree gamer.

Please email kickstart@sjgames.com with a few pics of the damages and the team will help you out with a replacement. Sorry that it arrived in that condition; we’ll make that right.

[philreed]

A new stretch goal: $40,000 for a pocket folder featuring the Decks of Destiny cover art.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects.../posts/2494164

[philreed]

And more stretch goals unlocked!

Now with green dice and a new folder featuring the Decks of Destiny cover art.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects.../posts/2494833

[Lord Twig]

Well crap. Now I have to go and increase my pledge by another $3. I'm already getting 2 more each of the red and blue, and I can't have an uneven number of dice! I must have 6 of each!

[Frost Giant]

I worked in the book binding industry for 27 years. Books fall apart today more due to mis-handling than any thing else. Laying a book open, face down can split the spine in a hurry. I see this all the time.

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Frost Giant

I worked in the book binding industry for 27 years. Books fall apart today more due to mis-handling than any thing else. Laying a book open, face down can split the spine in a hurry. I see this all the time.

Yeah, I have to admit; bookmarks are much more my friends than they were when I was a kid. I figure books that I pay a bunch of $$$ for should, theoretically at least, long outlive me and some day in the far future be gathering dust on some elderly Wizard's or Sage's sagging bookshelves...