And now for some griping....

Lately....lately as in the last three years, I've become somewhat of a rules junkie. I think I am looking for the holy grail of rules for all games modern: land, sea, and air. Recently, I came across a set of rules that sounded intriguing.

"I must have them!" I cried.

Well, maybe not, and here is the gripe. They rules themselves are not unreasonable in price, but it was the cost of shipping. The shipping cost was more than the cost of the rules themselves! And it wasn't like they were overseas, either. I kept mentally factoring in postage of a larger-than-letter parcel, plus maybe gas to drive to the post office, etc. Despite all that, I couldn't see the cost being so high. So, as much as I wanted to, I will have to say no to them, until the author of the rules gets a better distributor and/or brings the shipping price goes down.

This is sort of unusual because compared to other businesses that ship their goods through the mail, gaming companies seem to have reasonable shipping costs. For example, I use a lot of technical drawing pens for my research. I have to draw illustrations of the specimens that I study. These pens are expensive, but they weigh about the same as ball-point pen, in fact probably less given they are hallow inside (you have to fill them yourself with ink). Nonetheless, on-line art companies charge same high amount for shipping for these little pens as they do for about a pound of art paper. Why this disparity? It because they base the shipping on the cost of the item, not the weight! To me, they are double-charging you for the item. Unfortunately, good art supply stores around where I live are about as rare as wargaming shops, i.e. non-existent. Its, just my opinion here, but if a company wants repeat business, they are not going to get it by doing things like that.