Sometimes even the wicked can win!
As I have mentionwd before, I have begun (painfully slow) work on one of my,back-burner dream projects: the collected magazine careers.
That is to say that over the years- especially when I was playing Traveller almost exclusively- I used to pick up a gaming magazine or a fanzine if it had alternate careers for Traveller in it I have always wanted to compile those careers into a single "book" of sorts. Way back when, I figured I would just xerox them and out those copies into a notebook. With the advent of computers and scanners and all that, I figured I could make a digital document.
A couple of things:
I do not believe that this is any sort of infringement as I own the source material. Legally, you are entitled to own or create one backup of a thing that you own; I just opted to not back up the whole thing, and to put all those backups into one document.
Second, this is for my own reference. It is not going to be distributed or archived on the internet. It is for use at my table, with my players, where I could just as easily toss down the original magazines and have the players thumb through them.
Third: No; I dont own even a tenth of every gaming magazine article or fanzine career ever published. I dont think anyone could. I do own enough of them, however, that this document makes sense to create.
Fourth: I have collected most of the digital magazine published by Mongoose (Signs and Portents), at least those that contained Traveller careers or "life paths." I also have a few articles from the COTI electronic fanzine (which cover careers /life paths), and I am including excerpts from them, too (because they are not too terribly hard to convert to Classic Traveller).
There are a few places where I have taken screenshots of scans posted online (I assume illicitly), but only in those cases where I actually do own the original print copy. To explain: my computer is dying, and I cant replace it right now. Doing a single,scan- even at 60 DPI- takes about an hour per page. I am not kidding when I sat it is dying.
Where scans could be found online, it was much more time effective (by factors!) To snag screenshots and not have to endure the scanning lag.
Screenshots will work fine, as I have no intenttion of ever printing any of this: it is literally just backups of articles that I dont want to lose, stored conveniently in one place.
Now as I was culling through my meager holdings (it isnt like we knew back then that we would still be using these magazines 40 years later, after all), and I realized that there were at least two magazines missing (probably more, but there were two that I remembered well enough to call by name). I sat about culling through the resale and collector's market and found a seller selling a nice Traveller collection (it was a clearinghouse for estate items that fly lower down than jewellery, tools, and major appliances) and was selling in lots (both large and small).
There was a lot of four magazines that contained _both_ of the magazines I was looking for, plus two others one of which I discovered (after I received it) also had a few careers in it; the other did not. Sweet!
I ordered the lot (20 bucks plus shipping) and waited.
Two days later, I received an e-mail telling me that I would not be receiving the material, as one of the books was missing (Different Worlds 15, which was one of the two I had been searching for). Ah, well. I had found them elsewhere as individuals, but a bit more pricey. I would just pick the two I wanted up that way.
The next day I received an e-mail stating that the seller would be glad to ship the three books for ten bucks and shipping, or would I prefer the seller select a replacement item and the three remaining books for 20 bucks?
Well, I knew nothing about two of the three, so I figured I would take the discount- effectively ten bucks for the one book I knew I wanted, and consider myself lucky, as this was still a better price for the one than I had found elsewhere.
I sent a reply stating my preference, the seller thanked me, and I resumed waiting.
Four or five days later, I received the three magazines, and discovered that one of the unknowns also contained careers. Excellent!
Two days after that, I received Different Worlds 15- from this same seller. The missing book.
I was confused, but took it as a win, figuring the seller had found it, perhaps the day he sent the order, so I would loose my discount but gained the magazine I thought I wasnt getting, things were looking _way_ up!
The day after that- from the same,seller- another package (postmarked the day of the first shipment) with a note "please accept this substitute item with my apologies." I was a bit confused, as the missing book had been found, but I finished removing the packaging, and discovered--
GURPS Traveller!
Chris knows this already, but for those who don't, I don't-- didnt-- yet own that particular work. I was confused, and knew there had been some sort of mistake, but I allowed myself a few minutes to be extremely delighted, because not only was this GURPS Traveller (which I can't find for less than 30 bucks in even poor condition), but it was _near mint_ AND it was hardback!
I giggled like a little kid for a few minutes and carefully thumbed through the book. I am calling it near mint (though it showed _no_ signs of ever having been,opened before I did it myself) and not mint because it seems to have suffered that most criminal of things one can do to a hardback, and shelf it standing up instead of laying flat. The bottom corners and spine are solid, but a bit malformed (one corner being almost squishy) and the upper spine shows just the slightest signs of strain from supporting the pages.
I marvelled over it for nearly an hour and read what I could here and there without opening it more than just a few degrees. Yeah, it sounds like overkill, but I knew I would have to send it back, so I was careful to the point of wiping it down with alcohol before slipping it back in the baggie / sleeve things in which it had been wrapped.
Satisfied, and still tickled with having held it (I didn't even know there was a hardback version). I had gotten my bank statement, showing I had only been billed what amounted to ten bucks (the discounted price) plus shipping, and in spite of the court ruling that if you get it on the mail, it is yours... Well, that isn't who I am; a mistake or to two had been made, and I wanted to make it right: either bill me for the other items, or let me send them back. Ideally, let me send the surely-expensive hardback back, and bill me for Different Worlds 15.
The response I got was "yes; I had a large volume of inquiries and sales over that entire estate, and I completely mishandled your order. Thank you for your honesty and your concern, but it isn't worth shipping it to you and back, and I can't ask you to pay for my mistake. I am not going to charge you for the fourth magazine. Keep them both as my apology for the entire debacle."
I liked the use of the word debacle, so I gratefully accepted.
Just a great experience all the way around.