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It's why I stopped playing D20 games. After 4.0 came out with NO open content, I turned and never looked back.

Well, that's certainly stupid.

What exactly do you mean by open content? If you mean you're pissed because they didn't allow people to republish WotC's rules and content verbatim, then I suppose that's a legitimate concern.

But they certainly have opened 4.0 up, and there are plenty of 3rd party products available for it.

I'm curious, which games do you play, since having an open system is so important? Off the top of my head, the only non-d20 game I can think of which has a semi-open license allowing 3rd parties to publish content is Savage Worlds. And their license, while free, is relatively restrictive in that you must specifically get permission from them.

If you want to sell your work, you must contact us at PEGShane@gmail.com with your plan and some samples of your work. We'll work with each company on a case-by-case basis. Once we grant your company the license, you can make whatever you want without submitting it for further approval, as long as you follow the guidelines below.

Be aware that we're looking for HIGH production values--meaning great art, trade dress, and professional layout--as much as we are great content.

I think BESM had some kind of license, but that game is long defunct. All the other stuff I can think of (True 20, Mutants & Masterminds, Pathfinder, SpyCraft) are d20-based.

So I can only think of one current, non-d20 RPG with an open license. You've stated that you play RPGs (plural) and that you no longer play d20-based games. You also implied that you only play games with open content, whatever twisted definition you might have for that term. So what are the other games you play?

we just give up on mmo's and micro transaction based flash games and go back to some good old Tabletop Gaming with friends that uses our brains and some funny looking dice - if you really need a computer, there are excel characters sheets and virtual dice that will run on any platform?

http://www.rpgnow.com/

http://www.yourgamesnow.com/

http://www.paizo.com/

http://e23.sjgames.com/

Or just download OSRIC for free, since it's specifically designed to consist of all the same rules as first edition.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=29401&it=1&filters=0_0_10094

For those hearkening for the good old days of first edition AD&D, check out OSRIC, a free PDF that uses the same rules as 1e but puts them into new words. (Evidently, you can copyright words but not the math behind a gaming system.) They did a good job.

I recommend looking into the Game Publishers Association (GPA). They have several sources to help small publishers get on their feet to do it themselves. In my opinion, do not worry about trying to get another company to publish it for you. If you have the means, you really can do it yourself. You can find artists and distributors and all sorts of friendly people to help you at the GPA. If you do not have much means, you might consider a PDF release on the web. Sites, like RPG-Now, distribute PDF versions of games. Good luck!

Harp
Lejendary Adventures
The Dying Earth

Worlds of Wonder

Harp
Lejendary Adventures
The Dying Earth

Worlds of Wonder

Harp
Lejendary Adventures
The Dying Earth

Worlds of Wonder

Harp
Lejendary Adventures
The Dying Earth

Worlds of Wonder

Harp
Lejendary Adventures
The Dying Earth

Worlds of Wonder

The website www.rpgnow.com sells the old AD&D stuff for $5 per item.

Umm... you do know that 1st and 2nd edition stuff been available for 5+ YEARS in PDF (no DRM) format, right?

http://www.rpgnow.com/default.php?manufacturers_id =4

(posted AC to avoid karma whoring).

I like your description of cold vs cozy.

I love D&D and have tons of pdfs for 2nd edition AD&D. D&D books fit in both Cold & Cozy for me. They are something I enjoy reading but they are also reference material.

Note that the notions of "cozy books" and "cold books" are relative. A female engineer may consider a book about advanced quantum physics to be a "cozy book" for leisure reading, but a middle-aged housewife may consider a romance novel to be a "cozy book".

I especially like this comment because it gives me hope about ebooks. Some cozy & cold books are never published because the target market is too small. ebooks works perfectly for this market and as an example rpgnow , a site that has tons of ebooks for gamers. It is a perfect example of cold & cozy books that probably wouldn't have gotten published or at least not as much without ebooks.

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.

Have you looked at RPGNow? It's an e-bookstore that sells PDFs of various games--some from the bigger gaming companies, others from small companies that you've never heard of, such as this giant robot RPG that was written by a friend of mine. Many of these are just as imaginative, if not more so, than a lot of the stuff you'll find from the larger companies--but since they're so small you'd never have heard of them.

Have you looked at RPGNow? It's an e-bookstore that sells PDFs of various games--some from the bigger gaming companies, others from small companies that you've never heard of, such as this giant robot RPG that was written by a friend of mine. Many of these are just as imaginative, if not more so, than a lot of the stuff you'll find from the larger companies--but since they're so small you'd never have heard of them.

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 DM a regular tabletop game based around a zombie-themed variant of the D20 system called Year of the Zombie (disclaimer: I did some artwork for the book...so buy it and help a fellow slashdotter get some royalty checks) and I've found that the general theme works very well among roleplayers. Specifically, in a lot of the games that I run, I've found that people who can roleplay well get a lot from the games, though powergamers tend to lose interest quickly. I've never let a player actually play as a zombie, and I'm curious as to how the mechanics for it will work in this game (if it is included in the end). What I think could really make the game interesting is if they play up the need to survive. In most of the games that I run, the zombies are more of a complicating issue than the real problem at hand. In general, most of the conflict, and interesting gaming, comes from the need for food, water, and shelter. It would be interesting to set up a system where there are heavily infested cities, and groups of characters have to go on raids to get supplies. PVP also is particularly interesting in this scenario. In my games, players often have to choose between trying to get supplies from heavily infested cities, or try to steal food or supplies from other groups who may be smaller in numbers, but also can shoot back.
I'd love them to make a Mac or Linux port of this so that I could play it...I might even have to consider setting up a windows machine for this game if it looks promising as it gets nearer to launch.

A good friend of mine writes RPG books, and I figured I'd mention some of them here. He's written some great D20 based SciFi stuff, Dead Stars, and the followup Universial Decay. I helped playtest these, and they're great fun. The item creation system is a lot of fun, you can customize pretty much any of you gear. In the two campains I played in, I played a hacker/technogeek in the first, and a tough gun-toting cyborg. It was a lot of fun, I enjoyed it more then any other RPG i've played in. The Dead Stars rulebook is free, and Universial Decay is inexpensive. Please check it out if you have a chance, it's worth your time.

A good friend of mine writes RPG books, and I figured I'd mention some of them here. He's written some great D20 based SciFi stuff, Dead Stars, and the followup Universial Decay. I helped playtest these, and they're great fun. The item creation system is a lot of fun, you can customize pretty much any of you gear. In the two campains I played in, I played a hacker/technogeek in the first, and a tough gun-toting cyborg. It was a lot of fun, I enjoyed it more then any other RPG i've played in. The Dead Stars rulebook is free, and Universial Decay is inexpensive. Please check it out if you have a chance, it's worth your time.

It was part of the "S" modules series which were all special in some way. For example the Tomb of Horrors in which the players mainly fought deathtraps or the The Lost Cavern of Tsojcanth which came with its own mini-monster manual for monsters found only in that module (at the time...)

Good times.

It was part of the "S" modules series which were all special in some way. For example the Tomb of Horrors in which the players mainly fought deathtraps or the The Lost Cavern of Tsojcanth which came with its own mini-monster manual for monsters found only in that module (at the time...)

Good times.

It was part of the "S" modules series which were all special in some way. For example the Tomb of Horrors in which the players mainly fought deathtraps or the The Lost Cavern of Tsojcanth which came with its own mini-monster manual for monsters found only in that module (at the time...)

Good times.

1 - WotC has put out a "Basic D&D Adventure" type game or somesuch. It retails for about $20. There is kind of a love/hate relationship in the d20 community about this one. It's graphically the slickest, but most feel it's "dumbed down" in all the wrong places, and a lot of people dislike the miniatures tie-in (which the other two options don't have).

2 - Troll Lord Games has put out a "Castles & Crusades" type basic game - Link here the player's guide will run you about $20 and I don't know if they have the DM's guide out yet. Nifty nostalgia factor: Can get this in a "boxed set" complete with dice and crayon... a lot of people like this one.

3 - If you're willing/able to "print your own" there is a "Basic Player's Guide" PDF available at RPGNow.com (a mostly-PDF site). It runs about five and a half bucks. It's the cheapest option by far, but no DM guide here, either (though the author has said he is working on one). Most who have commented about the product on RPG.net or ENWorld.org have given it good reviews, too.

YMMV.

I don't think you'll find the 1981 version here, but the basic rules are there...

they also have 1st and 2nd ed.

Yeah. progress sucks. But look on the bright side-- you can download each and every one of those original books...!

Only problem is they only have the crappy "Legends and Lore", not the original "Deities and Demigods" with Elric and Cthulu.

God. I really haven't grown up one bit in the last twenty years.

Did anyone's DM ever complain that there was no way it would all fit?

Most ignore it because it is difficult. Most fantasy games do get around this problem by extra-dimensional spaces such as bags of holding or a Portable Hole Full of Beer

The one problem you do run into in most paper & pen games is space. Weight is usually in some table, but dimensions of the item are usually rare. How to keep track of both is the hard part.

1. Involve a patent/IP lawyer from the outset so's you don't get ripped off.

I have a mod point left, but there's no rating for "Amateurish Bad Advice." I often hear this paranoia about IP theft from unpublished writers, but in my 19 years as a professional game designer in paper and computer games, I've never seen any IP theft of any kind. It's a combination of (a) small stakes (at least in the paper game business); (b) wide reliance on work-for-hire contracts that let a publisher buy all rights anyway, legally; (c) a tight, clubby industry in which a bad rep would get around instantly; (d) generally small publishers who can as little afford a legal battle as you or I. Etc. If you think a printer has time or bandwidth to pirate game ideas, think again.

As for "use places like WOTC, etc. as distribution channels" -- maybe you're confusing publishers (Wizards of the Coast et al) with distributors (Alliance, Diamond, et al), or maybe you're thinking of the Wizards retail stores. But in any case, this is misstated advice. A small publisher makes distribution agreements with regional distributors or, for very marginal operations, publishes in .PDF form for download from online sites such as the highly regarded RPGNow.

A prospective publisher would do well to attend one of the big gaming conventions, like Origins, Gen Con, Toy Fair, or the GAMA trade show in the US, or the Essen fair in Germany -- the world's largest game show. Ask around, get the basics. It's not hard, and the advice will be a lot better quality than you'll get on Slashdot.