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I do a few $1 pledges as well. And I get a single web comic or a D&D map in exchange, depending on the creator. A whole dollar is a lot to pay for a web comic, but it does help keep it going and reduces the reliance on advertising on the creator's site. And the dungeon maps eventually go on sale at DriveThru RPG for around $1 each, but that site keeps 35%. And yes, that works out that Patreon's new prices is not a better deal than a store front.

I'll give you a concrete example. Having 444 people contributing a $1 or more per month for what started as a hobby is pretty significant. The real meat and potatoes is when he has enough material to release a new book (electronic and print-on-demand). Having people supporting him along the entire process is helpful and your retort of "big spender here" shows that you aren't really clued into what is going on.

... stopped using the words 'lightsaber,' 'Jedi,' 'Sith' and 'The Force' ...

Normally Disney is quick to license their product, so this is strange. Then again, a license is a right to consume: Staging Star Wars battles isn't consuming, it's creating; and it seems Disney's stopping that shit for good. I wonder how they're going to handle Star wars - the RPG: Once Disney realizes Game Masters are telling stories about their characters, with their trademarked terms, they're going to ... make everyone play the clunky D6 space instead. George Lucas licensed 3 versions of SW - the RPG (each having multiple editions), and even Disney can't undo that.

I'll stick my head in here and mention that the 2nd Edition of the Ninja Burger RPG is now available at DriveThruRPG, RPGNow and SJGames' e23 as PDFs, with a Print-on-Demand option through Lulu.com at RPGNow.

The new edition is based on the PDQ system that's used in the cult hit Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot from Atomic Sock Monkey Press, which is obviously what inspired the current Slashdot Poll.

I know this may shock you, but you can actually BUY pdfs of those books. I googled "pdf rpg books" and these were the first two results. Crazy stuff, the things you find on the Internet.

The problem with lowering the cost of RPG books is the quantities and profit margins involved. If you compare RPG books with, say, coffee-table books or academic works like textbooks ($100+ for 2-400 pages!), you'll find a similar price to pagecount ratio. The reason for this is low-number print runs. Unless you're D&D, the 800-pound gorilla of RPGs, a large print run for RPG publishers is 1000-5000 copies. Once you consider paying the artists, writers, license holders (if any), shippers, distributors, and retailers, it's not really all that unreasonable to pay $40 for a glossy full color 3-400 page hardcover book.

Now, it's an entirely different argument whether full color artwork, hardcovers, and glossy paper are really necessary for enjoyment of RPGs. Some people have come to expect them, but some see them as unecessary window dressing. I think the relative success of the RPG PDF industry (http://www.rpgnow.com/ http://www.drivethrurpg.com/ http://e23.sjgames.com/ etc.) is an indicator of that. By cutting out the cost of printing and distributing hard copy, you can get a searchable, cut and pasteable copy for usually half the cost of a hardcopy (even from Amazon). This isn't a perfect model--there's a lot of complaints about piracy, and most people don't game with a computer at the table. And some of the larger publishers are intentionally sandbagging PDF sales by pricing them at nearly the same cost as the hard copy (Fantasy Flight Games, I'm looking at you).

But as far as the small-press hobby publishers are concerned, I think PDFs are going to be the wave of the future (Add in the rise of very low print run Print on Demand services, and you can get a decent hard copy (softcover, black and white, perfect bound) for much less than you used to).

Much like my friends in electronic music production, technology is seriously lowering the bar for entry into RPG production. There's no equivalent of GarageBand (I guess you could call MS Word an entry-level RPG production toolkit, but it's certainly not RPG-specific), but there's a lot of innovation out there.

I'm the co-author of a small, indie pen-and-paper RPG called SBRPG, and we're donating our September sales to hurricane relief. A couple other small companies are stepping up too, including Amalara, and even DrivethruRPG is helping out by donating 50% of it's White Wolf product sales to hurricane relief.

Sure, Drive Thru RPG still uses them, although they're phasing them out. Go here for the test book.

It supports ENCRYPTION, not DRM.

Sites like http://drivethrurpg.com/catalog/index.php have content that XPDF can not view.

actually Drivethrurpg has a FAQ about how to transfer to PDAs and how to transfer to other pcs.

Adobe might have to get involved, but drivethrurpg gives the number to call to get this done.

actually many of the WW products are sold at Drivethrurpg.

Currently over 343 products from WW are sold there. Here is a more direct link to their products. link

You are correct. I can think of several RPGs that have disappeared over the years. It would be nice if I could legally get them some where without having to bid for it on an auction site.

actually many of the WW products are sold at Drivethrurpg.

Currently over 343 products from WW are sold there. Here is a more direct link to their products. link

You are correct. I can think of several RPGs that have disappeared over the years. It would be nice if I could legally get them some where without having to bid for it on an auction site.