No More D&D PDFs, Wizards of the Coast Sues 8 File Sharers

An anonymous reader writes "On April 6th, Wizards of the Coast took all of their PDF products offline, including those sold at third-party websites like RPGNow.com. From the RPGNow front page: 'Wizards of the Coast has instructed us to suspend all sales and downloads of Wizards of the Coast titles. Unfortunately, this includes offering download access to previously purchased Wizards of the Coast titles.' Wizards of the Coast also posted a press release to their website that states they are suing eight file sharers for 'copyright infringement,' and WotC_Trevor posted a short explanation about the cessation of PDF sales to the EN World Forums."

Comments

[Don't] Profit!

[AKAImBatman]

Unfortunately, due to recent findings of illegal copying and online distribution (piracy) of our products, Wizards of the Coast has decided to cease the sales of online PDFs.

Step 1: Point gun at foot and pull trigger.

Wizards of the Coast has instructed us to suspend all sales and downloads of Wizards of the Coast titles. Unfortunately, this includes offering download access to previously purchased Wizards of the Coast titles.'

Step 2: Open yourself up to lawsuits for breach of contract.

(GMSkarka) Typical short-sighted reaction from WOTC, which makes zero sense at all, when you consider the fact that the most widely-spread pirated copies of the 4e products contain printers marks -- which means that their piracy problem pre-dated any purchases.

Speaking as somebody whose entire income is largely dependent on my PDF sales, this really pisses me off.

Step 3: Ignore all evidence and make assumptions in an effort to piss off both the users and the publishers.

Step 4: Lose all profits!

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[erroneus]

I think as people in this economy are becoming increasingly desperate, people are grasping at straws while they fail. Could this be considered a sign that there is failure approaching when a company starts resorting to litigation for income?

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Dotren]

Mod parent up... that had me cracking up

Seriously though, is there a business conference that happens annually now where presenters try to sell the audience on the benefits of alienating your customers by providing sub-par purchasing and product use options? Do they start the whole thing off with a keynote on how to use copyright to extort and sue your customers?

I think, in recent years, its become readily apparent that a company's true customers are it's stock holders and board members. The consumers are just raw material to be milked for money in ANY way possible.

Sorry if that went slightly off-topic, it's just frustrating to see so many product/media providers jump on this bandwagon. Whats next? Some sort of physical DRM for printed copies?

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Richard Steiner]

Wow. I've been toying with the idea of getting PDF versions of the 1st Edition AD&D books to suppliment my paper copies, but I guess that's not happening...

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[TinBromide]

Yeah, i was wondering about how hard they would get reamed for cutting off access to previously purchased goods.

People who play D&D don't seem like the kind of people who will forget a perceived slight against them or their wallets easily and every time someone mentions purchasing a PDF D&D rulebook, they'll be reminded "You remember when WoC cut off access?"

And then they'll fire up bittorrent for something that they would have paid for before.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Loadmaster]

Whats next? Some sort of physical DRM for printed copies?

This D&D guide, if you choose to ren, er buy it, will self destruct in 60 seconds. If you'd like to read page two please return to your local bookstore. . .BRING MONEY!

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[mseeger]

Typical case of "Suicide due to Fear of Death"

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[DragonWriter]

Step 1: Point gun at foot and pull trigger.

WotC is such a small part of Hasbro that there is very little that they could do with through WotC that would be shooting themselves in the foot (and shooting WotC in the foot is meaningless, WotC isn't an independent entity.) I suspect, also, that WotC, or at least D&D, has been disappointing to Hasbro since the acquisition, and has never been profitable enough, and I wouldn't be surprised if they are at the point where desperate moves that are perceived as having some (though low) probability of improving the profitability in that area are warranted prior to simply cutting their losses and moving the resources elsewhere or simply not expending them at all anymore in a cost-cutting move. IOW, this may well be a natural part of Hasbro proving to themselves that D&D (except, perhaps, in the online-game form) simply cannot be salvaged as something profitable enough for them.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Go troll some other topic you asshole.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[MeanMF]

Oh you can still get them..You're just no longer allowed to pay for them.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[cromar]

Well. That sucks. Hey at least they're prolly on a torrent somewhere! Too bad you now won't be able to give WotC your money for it though...

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[ajs]

This is their second salvo, of course. The first was when they decided to yank the rights to Dragon and Dungeon magazines from Paizo, the company that salvaged those two titles from their late-1990s slump and made them popular and useful again. Wizards is no longer the cool company that Richard Garfield and crew took from obscurity to gaming geek super-stardom. Since the Hasbro buyout, they've moved further and further into a campaign of systematically alienating and angering every one of their customers, partners, authors and fans.

It's sad, really. There were (and probably still are) some good people there. Oh well, Steve Jackson will enjoy the business, anyway. They still have plenty of PDFs for sale, and even a few for free!

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Could this be considered a sign that there is failure approaching when a company starts resorting to litigation for income?

Yep, that's what it sounds like to me! Just like how the RIAA and MPAA have completely failed in the past decade or so when they went to litigation for income! Aaaaaaany minute now, they'll fold entirely, just like we keep saying they will!

Any minute...

...yep, that's the last lawsuit they'll be allowed to file...

...nope, nobody else is going to buy their products NOW...

...and they won't get another dime off of beleaguered filesharers after THIS lawsuit...

...oops, I mean the NEXT one...

...erm... the one past THAT...

...this time for SURE!

...crap, is that someone walking out of Best Buy with a purchased CD in his hands? Didn't we put an end to that nonsense when they sued us?

...y'know, tell you what, I'll get back to you on this.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[ShieldW0lf]

Wizards of the Coast are trying to do the same thing with DnD that they do with their card games. Make rule changes constantly that make anything old defunct. It's the ultimate in forced obsolescence.

Just fucking go out of business already. Dungeons and Dragons was finished when I was a little child. Your existence serves no useful purpose. You deserve nothing. Doubly so because you had no part whatsoever in creating it.

I was going to get a copy of those books for my kid next week too... but now that I've read this, I'm going to buy a used set.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

(GMSkarka) Typical short-sighted reaction from WOTC, which makes zero sense at all, when you consider the fact that the most widely-spread pirated copies of the 4e products contain printers marks -- which means that their piracy problem pre-dated any purchases.

I would like to emphasize this point. I have many pirated D&D 4e books. They ALL have printers marks, not pdf seller watermarks.

Also, no matter what your cheapass players tell you, pdf copies on a computer don't work well around the game table. There's a reason that, despite the rampant pirating we engage in, we have still purchased TWO hardcopies of the PHB, in addition to the DMG, Monster Manual, Adventurer's Vault, Martial Power, and Open Grave. Oh, and a D&D Insider subscription.

So, despite the free availability of pdfs, I still buy hard copies- lots. I don't think Wizards is losing much on the pdfs when they halt sales, but it is certainly not going to do anything about the piracy problem (if indeed it is a problem, since it's driven so many of the purchases I've made).

/AC so they don't sue me

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[geekoid]

You really don't understand business do you? WotC is a division of Hasbro. This means that if they don't preform, they get cut. So yes, they have shot themselves in the foot.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[xymog]

If Hasbro is like every other bean-counter-based business, it demands 10-15% growth year over year from its subsidiaries, otherwise no bonuses for executives. Perpetual linear growth is not possible in a finite market, but that doesn't stop the parent company from squeezing the sub (in a decidedly non-sexual fun way).

Maybe we should send a PDF copy of the Cluetrain Manifesto to the execs at WotC and Hasbro....

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[zwei2stein]

So, they remedy their mistake of releasing everything in P2P-ready format which was superior to crappy scans. I say, good call.

What do you expect them to do? Bend over and let p2p fuck em in ass?

And its not like people have slightest justification for doing that:

  * Crappy product? Obviously, you want to p2p it so it has to have some value or you would not waste time searching for it.
  * eeeevil drm? werent those files put to p2p woutht any crack necessary? hell, they went path of least resistance: just crappy watermarks.
  * Prices? Can't afford it? I think I am confused. Is playing d&d some basic need that all humans have inherent right to?
  * Freedom? Get GNU-RPG.

All I see is company that made right moves (which pirate apologists say they want to happen for them to stop pirating) but was fucked by customers.

They will be back eventually. With all the DRM they can pack. And we have 8 assholes to thanks for that.

Here is lesson:

Do not do zero drm. Do not offer quality material. Average person, even smart one will act like douche and offer no thanks. Whole amount of "deserved", "go party with mafiaa", "they r desprit" and such from nerds who discovered that their future d&n books will once again be crappy scans is enough evidence that they did right thing. And

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Maxo-Texas]

Yup.
And it's the only way you can get Gods, Demigods, and Heroes where TSR violated a lot of OTHER people's copyrighted material.

I started with the three book set, greyhawk, and blackmoor after hearing about the "DND" room at a convention.

ADND (i.e. 1st edition) killed my campaign when the DMG came out. Can't remember why. The PHB and MM were both compatible.

2nd edition wasn't my cup of tea and i stumbled on the Cyclopedia version and fell in love.

Lots of home rules later, my 26 year old rules set and Rev 4.0 are actually a lot closer together. I guess we both grew in the same direction. My rules are formatted Cyclopedia style (and probably still have about 40- pages or 10%-15% of Cyclopedia material).

If I had it to do over again, I think I would simplify things and reduce a lot of these feats (like cleave) to the basics: Unless it is a special squirrelly ability (like flying) then it points down to taking more hit points or doing more hit points.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Opportunist]

That's basically what makes me shake my head in disbelief.

First: Those books are no longer in print and WotC is not losing a dime if they get copied. Unless, and I'd consider this highly unlikely if anything, they want to roll the printing press for those items again.

Second: It's anything but hard to get a hand on that copy. Instead of paying WotC for it, you have to hunt for it on torrents. Yeah, you could get sued. How well that works as a deterrent is evident. Not to mention that people will have zero problem with their conscience, since they could not even buy it, even if they wanted.

Finally, and most importantly: P&P RPG enthusiasts are, if anything, packrats. They want the printed copy if there is one available, if the book is good. I've seen books that are readily available in PDF form (from other publishers) go for three and four digit sums on ebay because they can't be bought anymore. I'm in a similar boat, I want my book in my hand (ever tried bringing a laptop to a fantasy RPG session? Talk about mood killer). I won't pay 300 bucks for it, but I'd certainly go to my shop and get it if I could! So any PDF being "ripped" is not a lost sale by any measure. It's about the best advertising you can get. Players don't read the book and then toss it away like a novel. RPG books are used more like encyclopedias, perused and consulted regularely to look up details. And gamers want that in book form. Not laptop, not a copy they tossed through their printer, they want a book!

So where the heck is the lost sale? Where is the damage?

Or does WotC fear that people could find out their latest edition sucks even more than the previous ones and people refuse to buy it entirely, and stick with AD&D 2nd forever?

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[geekoid]

Steve Jackson? gah. Screw GURPS, too many damn specific rules, combat takes to long, and running on a bell curve with their point system make no sense mathematically.

I gave up on that pile of needless complications 4 years ago.
Try savage worlds and have some fun. Play characters that can actually be cool right out of the gate, and only get cooler. There rule book cost 10 bucks.

What's that? 10 bucks too much to try a new game? well then, I suggest you take it for a Test Drive

Do I sound a little fanatical? probably, but I ahve played it since it's release, and still enjoy it, and have played and ran in almost every Genre available.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Opportunist]

SJGames is an example of someone "getting" gamers.

GURPS is about the most flexible and adaptable game system. It allows you to build your own game with just the basic rulebook. Yet there are quite a lot of books, and funny enough, they also get bought. You don't need them. It's not like in other systems where you can't play a ranger without the ranger book because the info you need to make one isn't in the main book. It's not even that those books give you many new rules.

Most of the time, they give you background information.

As an example, take the "high tech" book, dealing mostly with firearms through the ages, from medieval times to now. Instead of just noting down a list of weapons and what stats they have, you get background information how those weapons worked, when and how they were used, generally you get a book about guns. More as sidenotes, you also get their stats and some suggestions how to convert their behaviour into game terms. Instead of "it is this way, take the rules and shut up" you get "this is how it works, and that's how we think this is reflected by stats".

Personally, I feel I get a lot more out of the book that way. I get to know why and how things work, and I get a feel what could work in a given setting and situation and what could not.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[_Sprocket_]

Could this be considered a sign that there is failure approaching when a company starts resorting to litigation for income?

No - this is comfortable re-assurance that the status quo is maintained. TSR / WoTC / Hasbro hasn't been shy with litigation in the past.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what it says about me that I really want to go download all the D&D stuff I can find after reading this.

And I don't even play D&D!

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[MightyMartian]

I'm no fan of WotC, to be sure, but I think it's kind of sad in a way. I am writing a small FRPG for PDF distribution right now. The final price probably won't be more than $10, but it's hard to justify the work if I only get 50 sales, but 5,000 people grab it off a P2P network. Still, that's the march of technology.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hasbro acquired WotC because they were pissed about getting stomped by Pokemon @ Xmas. (at least once, maybe more)

D+D was just a secondary part of the deal.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[mweather]

If I wasn't going to buy it in the first place, it doesn't matter if I download it. No harm, no foul.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[MightyMartian]

Or you could just go with Fudge. The core edition is completely free, and available in PDF and plain text.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[dcollins]

They want the printed copy if there is one available, if the book is good. I've seen books that are readily available in PDF form (from other publishers) go for three and four digit sums on ebay because they can't be bought anymore. I'm in a similar boat, I want my book in my hand (ever tried bringing a laptop to a fantasy RPG session? Talk about mood killer).

Allow me to offer up some counterexamples. I was just at an annual gaming retreat with friends last weekend, where we played classic D&D and other games. (a) I ran an OD&D game, and to my great pleasure, one of the players had bought the OD&D PDFs and printed and bound his own little books from them. (b) I also ran an AD&D game, and instead of hauling the big hardcovers with me, I did indeed have them on a laptop, as I've done before, and it didn't bother anyone (kept below table height on a chair next to me).

Here's the upshot: I was just today going to write my player and recommend he also buy the Supplement I PDF to add to his OD&D books. But now he can't do that. Bizarre.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[ScouseMouse]

>Seriously though, is there a business conference that happens annually now where presenters try >to sell the audience on the benefits of alienating your customers by providing sub-par purchasing and product use options? Well Darl's going a bit short at the moment, so he decided to hit the lecture circuit for a while.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[MaerD]

Step 1: Point gun at foot and pull trigger.

This is so very true. It's been a long while since I've bought a single printed RPG book. Having them avialable in PDF is much much easier. I also wonder what effect if any this will have on the D20 "Open" license.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[geekboy642]

This guy has it exactly right.
One of my friends had a CD of most of WotC's books in PDF that we passed around. As far as I know, nobody actually used the pirated copies for anything but sneakily reading them in class on a laptop. We *all* trouped down to the store at least once a month to buy another book.
Who wants to stare at a crappy PDF when you're rolling dice to kill the dragon? WotC is doing nothing but alienating their paying customers.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Beardo the Bearded]

I have every DnD 4e PDF book. I downloaded all of them without paying for them.

I regularly run a DnD campaign, I'm a DCI member, I run RPGA events, etc. I do own the 4e PHB, but that's because I damaged one at a store and felt obligated to the store owner.

Here's why I pirated all those books, and why I am going to pirate the rest of them:

Because fuck you, Wizards of the Coast, fuck you. When you brought out 4e, it was supposed to be a self-contained series of books. There were three books - the DM guide, the Player's Handbook, and the Monster Manual. I pre-ordered them from my local store (significantly more than at Amazon, but I wanted to support my local store.) and was ready to try out the new system. I was ready to pitch all my dead tree 3.5 books to see what you'd learned from 3 and 3.5.

Then you wanted $15/month to access your online content.

Then you announced that there were more CORE books coming out. There's a release party every month now. Twelve books a year? Are you insane?

Then you killed the SRD.

You see me as a cash cow. Fuck you. I'm not paying you a thousand dollars to get all the books when the full set was supposed to be a hundred - or just fifty online.

If you had released all this content as one package and said, "this is fourth edition", I would have bought the set.

You're liars, you're fuckups, and I do not reward incompetence with my cash.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[kbielefe]

No harm, no foul.

Thousands of fans who enjoy their legally-obtained pdf copies would disagree with you on the "no harm" part.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[MightyMartian]

I agree completely. Only once did I try to keep my campaign notes and maps on a notebook, and while not a disaster, it just wasn't as convenient as a three ring binder and my books. I gave up on it after a couple of sessions.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[iminplaya]

Whats next? Some sort of physical DRM for printed copies?

Yeah. Like in Mission Impossible, they self destruct after purchase, but before you have a chance to read any of it.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[bruno.fatia]

Step 3: Ignore all evidence and make assumptions in an effort to piss off both the users and the publishers.
Step 3 1/2: ???
Step 4: Lose all profits!

There, fixed for you.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[iminplaya]

They will be back eventually. With all the DRM they can pack.

Oh, please do! All the old DRM has been cracked. It will be like buying a puzzle. Fuck them. Somebody else will always come along to provide new distractions. Pirates created the world you live in. This economy is their design.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[DragonWriter]

You really don't understand business do you?

Yes, I do.

WotC is a division of Hasbro.

Quite.

This means that if they don't preform, they get cut.

Yes, it means if any operation conducted by WotC don't perform as well as an application of equal resources by Hasbro in other areas would be expected to, that operation (in a kind of ideal profit maximization theory, which firms tend to attempt to approximate in practice) gets cut.

If D&D (as a traditional RPG) is already performing near or below that bar, then taking an action which has a low expected direct cost that might, the probability is low,improve it to reach that bar (but is likely to fail) may, assuming everything that appears more likely to succeed which has equal or less cost has already been tried, make sense as a last ditch effort to save the line before shutting it down.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you don't get to goddamned use it. How hard is that to figure out?

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[iYk6]

I think, in recent years, its become readily apparent that a company's true customers are it's stock holders and board members. The consumers are just raw material to be milked for money in ANY way possible.

Did you read the same summary I did? They stopped selling pdfs. The only alternatives now for a digital copy are to buy the books and scan every page yourself, or piracy. They aren't milking their consumers; they are throwing their money back at them.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[LordKazan]

Your entire post is based on a truckload of faulty assumptions. I know people who bought legal D&D PDFs, they're spitting nails. Anyone who likes D&D should be spitting nails.

Hasbro, through WoTC, is not just attacking the illegitimate PDFs but they nuked from orbit all the legitimate ones.

You blabber about DRM - but as someone else pointed out it wasn't users who bought the PDFs that shared them on torrents, etc - it was PUBLISHERS EMPLOYEES: they all had publisher watermarks.

DRM wouldn't have stopped that. DRM cannot stop piracy: it never has and it never will. DRM can only stop technologically inept users from making fair use. Anyone who knows any technologically inclined person (and how many D&D people don't know a technologically inclined person) can get around DRM like the DRM wasn't even there.

4e is nothing but table top World of Crapcraft.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Cruciform]

A good GM with a laptop can really make the game flow quickly, and doesn't break immersion. (Though our GM wasn't looking up PDFs for reference)

Wayyyyyy back in the early 90s, there was a group of us playing the Undermountain campaign, which was huge.

We had two DMs running us. One handled all the party interactions (and with mostly chaotic characters there were a lot) and the other handled combat / creature generation / loot generation.

It was awesome. We spent so little time actually worrying about numbers that we were able to fight amongst ourselves, engage in pointless mischief, and kill each other with abandon.

Note: When playing D&D, it's always fun to liven things up by creating a major flaw for your character. (In the case of my favorite character, he was obsessive-compulsive about drinking anything that looked like a potion.) The more irrational the better :)

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[commodore64_love]

>>>Step 4: Lose all profits!

What's D&D? Was that some kind of Final Fantasy spinoff?

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[YukiKotetsu]

I wasn't going to buy (insert anything) in the first place, it doesn't matter if I (procurement method) it. No harm, no foul.

For example: I wasn't going to buy a Mercedes in the first place, it doesn't matter if I steal it. No harm, no foul.

Just because you can't afford it, or weren't going to buy it in the first place, doesn't mean you're entitled to it for free and there is "no foul" in doing so.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[ubrgeek]

> Step 1: Point gun at foot and pull trigger.

Step 2: Open yourself up to lawsuits for breach of contract.

You forgot 1.5 - Roll for damage.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[moderatorrater]

Exactly. Anyone who thinks that these pdfs are cutting into sales are idiots. Generating a character with a pdf as your only reference is hard, takes twice as long, and is tedious. I'm constantly flipping through the book making sure that I'm getting what I think I am when I take a certain skill, or checking to see how weapons compare against each other before I take a specialization. With a book, it's negligibly easy to flip back and forth, just keep a finger on the page you'll need in the future. With a pdf, you can bookmark it, but then you need to hunt on the screen for the right bookmark, make a few extra clicks, etc. PDFs are useful for finding out if you want to buy a book or as an occasional reference, but for anything resembling a core book or is heavily used by your character (like the expanded psionics handbook), having a physical copy is a necessity for me. Finding out whether it's a necessity or not is the sort of thing you want to see the copy for first. If you're in a bookstore, you can flip through the pages and see if it offers what you want. If you're buying online, torrenting serves the same purpose.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[RoFLKOPTr]

Seriously though, is there a business conference that happens annually now where presenters try to sell the audience on the benefits of alienating your customers by providing sub-par purchasing and product use options? Do they start the whole thing off with a keynote on how to use copyright to extort and sue your customers?

No, there isn't a conference, but the RIAA School of Business offers an entire course on the subject. In fact, you must take this course in order to get any degree there.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[bmorton]

Some sort of physical DRM for printed copies?

That sort of thing has been available for quite some time.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[dave1791]

>Or does WotC fear that people could find out their latest edition sucks even more than the previous ones and people refuse to buy it entirely, and stick with AD&D 2nd forever?

What do you mean? It started going downhill with 2E. 1E FOREVER!!!

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[ubrgeek]

It worked for SCO... Oh ... hrmmm.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[commodore64_love]

>>>a company's true customers are it's stock holders and board members. The consumers are just raw material

Well of course. Hence the change in name from "Personnel" to "Human Resources" which not only applies to employees, but also customers. Makes us sound like cattle on a ranch: "We have 1000 head at the branch office." "Send 500 to the slaughterhouse." "Aye sir." HR embodies how we are all viewed by the corporate.

Down with soulless corporations. Restore proprietorships which are led by a moral human being.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fighting back doesn't mean fighting stupid. All they did was cut off a potential source of income from those fans who might have paid for pdfs. People who were getting illegal copies will still get illegal copies.

There are better strategies for profit (although if this is about pride, rights and morals in their eyes, they can use their last penny to fight what they see as evil). By taking the product off the market to combat the relatively small number of file sharers, they throw the baby out with the bath water. They could have tried some PR and marketing campaign for the official PDF and maybe offer so sort of extra incentive to buy the product that could not be shared. It may be their legal right to stop their own sales, but it is my right to think they are reacting emotionally to unwarranted assumptions about their lost profits rather than making a solid business plan that would maximize their profit notwithstanding the fact that some percentage of the population will always be bastards.

If you can't achieve power over everyone for perfect control of the world, you should try to make realistic strategies to achieve you true goal (treasure)instead of fighting every possible fight regardless of collateral damage and costs to you in the long run.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[internerdj]

"Some sort of physical DRM for printed copies?"
This is Bruno. He comes free with your purchase. Don't make him mad. He is non-refundable.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Runaway1956]

Could this be considered a sign that there is failure approaching when a company starts resorting to litigation for income?

No - this is comfortable re-assurance that the status quo is maintained. TSR / WoTC / Hasbro hasn't been shy with litigation in the past.

comfortable .... reassurance .... status quo ....

Look around you, my freind. Read the news. The status isn't so quo as you seem to believe.

You've heard of Wall Street, and Washington, I presume?

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[commodore64_love]

>>>Like in Mission Impossible, they self destruct after purchase, but before you have a chance to read any of it.

This is why the Atari ProSystem version of MI is impossible to finish. It's literally an unbeatable game. "Dear Atari: May I return this defective product for money or store credit?" "No." Gee thanks. And they wonder why we are tired of being screwed up the ___ and decide to try before we buy (torrent download). At last the power has tipped in favor of the consumer.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Dishevel]

I do. I have a crap load of D&D stuff as well. I don't really like the PDF's. I am at work now torrenting every WotC PDF I can find.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Chyeld]

Minor note: The Cyclopedia is actually not 2nd edition AD&D, it's a republishing of the alternative line they had going when AD&D came out.

It was originally meant to be the 'intro to D&D' rules which would transition to AD&D but ended up being it's own separate line entirely. Prior to being released as the Cyclopedia, it was called the Box Sets as unlike AD&D, the Box sets were sold as paired Player and Dungeon Master guides based on level ranges.

• Basic Set - Levels 1-3
• Expert Set - Levels 4-14
• Companion Set - Levels 15-25
• Master Set - Levels 26-36 (max 'mortal' level)
• Immortals - literally playing gods

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[sexconker]

Except, you know, the whole piracy thing.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[arclyte]

what about the work print copies out there? of course higher quality scans or original working copies are going to be more popular, just as high quality dvd rips are going to be more popular than shaky handi-cam copies of movies. the point is - taking these PDFs out of _legitimate_ distribution only hurts the _legitimate_ users of that product. There will be pirate copies of it up no matter what they do or who they sue. And let's just say that this does help with piracy for supplements and future published books... what about the books that are already being shared? They can't just change the version to make them obsolete... they're already there and they will be shared, there's no going back now. This is just a reactionary attempt to stop people from sharing the files, but as others have said, they're just shooting themselves in the foot with it. And you suggest they come out with a DRM laden copy? Yeah, let's see those sell... Even if i did buy a copy I'd do it just to not feel guilty about going straight to a torrent to get a copy without DRM. Sorry, but this is not the right move at all...

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[digitig]

First: Those books are no longer in print and WotC is not losing a dime if they get copied.

Yes they are, at least as they see it (which is what's going to drive their business decisions). If players can't get hold of the 3.5 material it forces them to buy the shiny new version 4 material -- and everyone who wants to join them in games, so it pushes people who already have 3.5 to buy 4. Or go play some other RPG, of course, but I expect WotC discount that possibility.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[CFBMoo1]

... Whats next? Some sort of physical DRM for printed copies?

You open your new D&D book with baited breath to see it's contents. Make a reflex save vs. pop-up mallet on a spring.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, somebody has some real nerd hate - which is damn funny considering you post on slashdot.

"Prices? Can't afford it? I think I am confused. Is playing d&d some basic need that all humans have inherent right to?"

With that argument, is ANYTHING other than basic survival a need? Guess what buddy - when your core market is 18-20somethings, a price of $50 per book with a 2 book minimum REQUIRED to play isn't cheap. Especially when they change the damn system every few years, and toss out gobs and gobs of materials, each and every one expensive as hell. I have a bunch of the core D&D 3.5ed books, and I'm out around $200 for that investment alone.

"What do you expect them to do? Bend over and let p2p fuck em in ass?"

No, they could do the same thing my local library does quite well - sell a PDF copy with EVERY BOOK THEY SELL that has a DRM license attached to it that authorizes to the user's machine. I get ebooks from my library on pdf thru download and holy shit, guess what? It works like a champ.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[BForrester]

Apparently, Wizards failed their spot check for "detect irony."

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[EastCoastSurfer]

Yes. Just like how MS started tightening the piracy screws right as they started to (albeit slowly) lose market share.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[slaker]

I have never played any version of the pen and paper D&D game in my life. I never had anyone to play with. But I was fascinated by the rulebooks for the first edition game and I bought them all when I was a kid.

I don't really want to play the game, but I've bought the core books just to read them and in some cases so that I could better understand the computer games that I do play, and because I usually enjoy the art.

4th Edition, I downloaded. I don't even remember where I got them. The books are very different as a product with every new release farther away from the old TSR products that I remember. I was really glad that I didn't pay for the new books. Everything about 4th edition D&D seems just an exercise in reaching new levels of lameness.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[damien_kane]

What about the thousands of other fans who already bought the hardcover versions of the various sourcebooks and campaign material that they downloaded?

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[zwei2stein]

Considering reaction of typical slashdotter (which shattered some illusions about this crowd) to this news, i think i am entitled to little rage. ANd its not nerf hate, its self righetous pirate hate.

Yes, d&d is overpriced crap. But:

  There is business competition all over the place.
  There are even great free rulesets.
  Hell, people can play games with homebrewn rules. No books needed.
  Sumplemental materials from any ruleset can be converted to any other ruleset with little imagination. Or people can be creative (they play rpgs, creative is supposedly one of requirements)

Yet people still want D&D while they have plenty of options (and are not shy to rationalize torrenting it)

(And yes, anything other than basic survival is luxury. Even if we raise level, i.e. to "just" powerty or "just comfortable life", spending several hours a week on pricey entertainment IS a luxury. No sympathies here for people who can't afford that.)

I say, publisher followed simple supply/demand law and set price that people would actually pay otherwise they would have gone bancrupt already. As far as being customer goes, simple calculation of buck-per-hour should show you how much value you get.

Yes, they will add DRM, just like your library. And people here will cry and conveniently forget reason why it was added.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory: Stealing != Copyright infringement

You "steal" a car... owner no longer has car
You "steal" a pdf... owner still has pdf

Why do people insist on calling piracy theft? The company may or may not have gotten money... there is no way to know.

Despite my dislike of Apple, they have music that sells just fine without DRM. Steam is another service that works fine in the face of Piracy. They include services that makes the cost worth the price.

Maybe WotC needs to rethink their position. They won't be the only company around that needs to rethink their money machine in the face of a new connected world. Books, pdf's, whatever... it WILL be pirated one way or another. What makes it worth not pirating is a service that ties it to something worthwhile.

Will WotC be another company that fights tooth and nail not to evolve? Time will tell it seems...

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[DragonWriter]

Minor note: The Cyclopedia is actually not 2nd edition AD&D, it's a republishing of the alternative line they had going when AD&D came out.

The "alternative line" had a name: "Dungeons & Dragons", as distinct from "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons".

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

So you become a petulant petty criminal and steal what you think is too expensive.

Great way to send that message asshat!

   

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Richard Steiner]

If Hasbro is like every other bean-counter-based business, it demands 10-15% growth year over year from its subsidiaries, otherwise no bonuses for executives.

Wow, I guess banks must operate under different rules then. :-(

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[kasdaye]

Fuck Wizards. Tons of companies are capitalizing on this bonehead move by offering discounts.

Hell, White Wolf is offering the Exalted core book for free until Saturday.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[lilomar]

How many sales do you think you would make with out the 5,000 (I assume happy with your product) pirates?

$500 is still more than what you would make if only 20 bought your game because of the other 30 never hearing about it from the pirates, or not buying it because they didn't have a chance to try it out for free first.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[_Sprocket_]

comfortable .... reassurance .... status quo ....

Look around you, my freind. Read the news. The status isn't so quo as you seem to believe.

You've heard of Wall Street, and Washington, I presume?

Oh - I'm well aware of it. But that doesn't mean everything boils down to Wall Street. Litigation is something these guys have done for decades. The point being that there is no indication to believe that this is a sign of the times any more than other times they've gone after "piracy."

(I am, however, being sarcastic with the status quo quip)

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Brian Boitano]

If D&D (as a traditional RPG) is already performing near or below that bar, then taking an action which has a low expected direct cost that might, the probability is low,improve it to reach that bar (but is likely to fail) may, assuming everything that appears more likely to succeed which has equal or less cost has already been tried, make sense as a last ditch effort to save the line before shutting it down.

Incomprehensible sentence hits you for 1d6+1!

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[richlv]

that all sounds quite sad. being a magic the gathering player (and owner of quite a large collection of cards) these moves reduce likelihood of me buying more of them.
though mtg practices in last years also seem to be more milking of the players than providing value to them.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

assuming everything that appears more likely to succeed which has equal or less cost has already been tried,

Crux of your argument is pure speculation. Anyone can make up additional parameters to justify a bullshit argument. You might as well have said that the queen of the drow gave them an ultimatum - stop selling PDFs or her she will teleport the corporate headquarters to one of the planes of hell.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[painehope]

Amen to that. Even though I generally buy the dead-tree versions of all D&D stuff (hey, I love books), it would be nice to be able to download (purchased or not) old adventures and whatnot that are no longer available anywhere.

Why is it that every company that owns the D&D line seems to up and shoot itself in the foot every few years? TSR, WoTC, etc. (I don't feel like digging through my bookshelves to see who had it before TSR - I have manuals dating back to the early 80's).

Oh well...I guess whenever a company starts to do well, they feel obligated to commit the corporate version of seppuku.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Fulminata]

So in other words, you'll use their product as long as you don't have to pay for it.

The game is perfectly playable using the three core books, just as every other edition of the game was. Just like every other edition of the game, they continue to produce more books because that's their business model: sell books.

Also, I'm not a big fan of their online model, but it's not $15 per month, it's $4.95 to $7.95 per month depending on your subscription plan.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Dragoness Eclectic]

> Down with soulless corporations. Restore proprietorships which are led by a moral human being.

This makes me laugh! The best places I've worked were huge 'soulless' corporations that had (required-by-law or legal settlement) civilized employee policies, EEOC policies, ethical policies, harassment policies, etc.

The biggest douches I've seen as bosses over other people were the owners of small businesses--who are legally exempt from most requirements to treat their slaves employees as real live human beings.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[keeegan]

This is why I love America. No matter who you are or what you do for a living, you're entitled to your own opinion no matter whether or not you actually have any experience or knowledge about said subject. P.S. Macs are lame.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[B1oodAnge1]

I can see how that would be hard to watch happen.
Keep in mind though, you now have a much larger amount of people using your game than ever would have before. If it is a good game people will like it.

There are other ways to monetize that advantage.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Chosen Reject]

I say, publisher followed simple supply/demand law

I don't think you understand economics. By all means, let WotC follow the law of Supply and Demand. All digital files are essentially infinite. The intersection of infinite supply with any demand, is at the price point of free.

As far as being customer goes, simple calculation of buck-per-hour should show you how much value you get.

It looks like you really are ignorant of economics. Value and price are two totally separate issues. Price is how much the buyer needs to pay to acquire the item, Value is how much the buyer is willing to pay. Only an idiot would pay more than he values, but everyone will pay less than they value it if given the opportunity. At best, that calculation will only tell the buyer a maximum amount he is willing to pay. However, determining value based on the number of hours has got to be one of the most simplistic and stupid ideas out there. If I'm traveling from San Diego to New York, should I pay more to drive or to fly? Should I pay more for the game Portal, or for Fury? Should I pay more for Gigli (121 minutes) or for Citizen Kane (119 minutes)?

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Joe the Lesser]

What's Final Fantasy?

Some sort of WoW spinoff?

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

So a company is trying to get your money putting out addition material at regular intervals and this blows your mind. Really?

I mean if you don't have every new book they put out, your currently purchased books stop functioning right?

How about to say FUCK YOU to them, you just don't run or in any way shape or form use 4E?

I mean it's like those people who are really screwing over Microsoft by pirating their software
and letting them keep their market share rather than using linux or going to mac and actually doing something that doesn't benefit them.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[GMFTatsujin]

Yeah, because piracy is the hallmark ad campaign of the 21st century. And it's free! YAY PIRATES.

Nice try, guy. I've never had a pirate pitch a product to me that I didn't already own through monetary exchange elsewhere.

I have plenty of NO-CD cracks, etc, sure. I hunted those down for my convenience to preserve the media I'd already purchased, not for dubious "try-before-you-buy" practices. There's usually a "if you like it, buy it" disclaimer in there somewhere, but to me those always seem flat, half-assed dodges toward looking like something approaching respectability.

Software pirates are not team players in the market, dude. Practically by definition.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Basilius]

Whats next? Some sort of physical DRM for printed copies?

If you dig back into storage and find some of those early 1st edition dungeon crawls, you'll find that they were printed in a lightish blue ink.

Mimeograph machines and black and white copiers at the time (I don't think color copiers were commercially available yet) had real trouble with that color ink.

This was intentional. It was, in effect, DRM.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Vintermann]

"Since the Hasbro buyout, they've moved further and further into a campaign of systematically alienating and angering every one of their customers, partners, authors and fans."

I think Dave Arneson cast a curse on D&D, to cause whatever entity which owned it to be hideously mismanaged.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Replace "procurement" with "copy". Of course, comparing p2p with taking photos of a car and then building a copy of it doesn't have quite the same emotional impact as comparing it to theft, but it makes you look like less of a retard.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Vintermann]

He may be getting role-playing gamers, but not all gamers. Munchkin, Ninja Burger, Chez geek, Junta etc. are games that people buy because of the funny themes, but they rarely get played much, because as games they frankly suck.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[rjolley]

Seriously though, is there a business conference that happens annually now where presenters try to sell the audience on the benefits of alienating your customers by providing sub-par purchasing and product use options? Do they start the whole thing off with a keynote on how to use copyright to extort and sue your customers?

They offered a great purchasing option and got taken advantage of so they are taking it away. They aren't suing their customers, if they were I imagine I'd have something in my mailbox asking me to appear in court. In fact, they are suing the thieving bastards who think they are entitled to something for nothing.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[An ominous Cow art]

I want my book in my hand (ever tried bringing a laptop to a fantasy RPG session? Talk about mood killer.

I don't know about that. I have a *lot* of hardcover D&D books, far too many to carry around when I DM. I don't need to have all of them on hand at any given game session, but I like to bring the ones I need to reference. I do bring my laptop so I can run some very nice tools (an initiative tracker, a very comprehensive die roller, a couple other things) I've written, and also to use the d20 SRD site so I don't have to carry around the PHB/MM/DMG/ExpPsi/Epic books.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[dwarfking]

And this excuse continues to come up over and over as well. Since nothing is physically lost, no one is harmed

Ok, so let us say that that is an acceptable argument. If you truly believe that argument, why don't you print your own money? After all, all you are doing is making your own copy, no one else is losing anything. The technology today makes it very easy to do.

Now of course people will jump all over this saying "but counterfeiting is a criminal offense, this is just a civil offense blah blah blah" but the fact is there is no difference based on your argument, so you should be protesting the fact that copying money is a criminal offense whereas copying the work of others without their permission isn't.

So when do you start printing your own money?

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[bughunter]

RPGers are the gamers the GP is talking about. If you're a CCG gamer, then SJG is inferior to names like WOTC, yes. (Though I suggest you try Illuminati - either Deluxe or INWO if you can find it.) SJG's titles sell because they're fun, yes, but also because they were made by gamers for gamers not engineered to marketing specifications. These are: GURPS and In Nomine and even Toon... also the now out of print titles like Car Wars, Ogre, GEV, and the aforementioned Illuminati (Deluxe, not INWO).

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Gorath99]

Nice job being a dick.

When you brought out 4e, it was supposed to be a self-contained series of books. There were three books - the DM guide, the Player's Handbook, and the Monster Manual.

There's nothing preventing you from playing 4E with just the original three core books, just as with previous editions. In fact, thousands of gamers are doing just that, myself included.

Then you wanted $15/month to access your online content.

And how is it wrong for WotC to charge $15 a month for access to all the new optional content they put on their website? It's not like Dungeon and Dragon magazines were free either. Plus they had ads and came out once a month instead of every couple of days.

Then you announced that there were more CORE books coming out. There's a release party every month now. Twelve books a year? Are you insane?

Yes, WotC is releasing multiple core books for 4E. So what? You don't need them to play the game. And I suppose you just forgot that 3E had 2 PHBs, 2 DMGs and 4 MMs. Plus another one of each if you count 3.0 and 3.5 separately. Also, why is it a problem that WotC releases products every month? (The vast majority of which are not, in fact, core books.) You don't have to buy them you know. Are you also complaining when Nintendo is releasing a game every month? Most gamers would be delighted.

Then you killed the SRD.

Granted, 4E is not nearly as open as 3E/OGL/d20 was, but there is still a 4E SRD, and 3E is still open source.

You see me as a cash cow. Fuck you. I'm not paying you a thousand dollars to get all the books when the full set was supposed to be a hundred - or just fifty online.

You had to pay thousands of dollars to get all the books for 2E and 3E too. 4E is no different in that. But just as with those previous editions, you don't actually need any books beyond the 3 original core books. I know I'm having a blast playing with just those and I did pay just $50 for them.

You're liars, you're fuckups, and I do not reward incompetence with my cash.

You're either a liar or an ignoramus, a copyright-infringer, and you have a twisted sense of entitlement.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[toriver]

What is this "Advanced" you speak of? BOXED D&D FOREVER!

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Morlark]

Sad that parent gets modded troll, purely for daring to contradict the slashdot groupthink's mantras, "Copyright is inherently evil", "Corporations are evil", "Criminals who revel in their actions are really fighting for our freedoms"... What rot. If anyone with mod points cares to actually read the parent post before modding, its contents are purely a list of the facts, and then a conclusion (one of many potential conclusions, granted, but a reasonable one) based on those facts.

Look, I'd be the first to say that WotC's decision to pull all the PDF download services is a dumb move on their part, and an affront to their genuine customers. They're being dicks, based on the actions of an unfortunate few. And it may well hurt them financially in the long run too. But are people honestly suggesting that we should feel sympathy for these eight scum who actively and wilfully sought to sabotage the hobby that they claim to follow? Because when you mod down decent and well-meaning posts like the parent, that's certainly the vibe I'm getting. And I say: bollocks to that. These eight chumps broke the law, and then they flaunted it all over their intertubes. WotC's watermarked PDFs obviously paid off, and they caught the blighters. If said blighters didn't want to be on the receiving end of hefty fines, perhaps they should have thought of that before they chose to embark upon a lifetime of nautical adventure.

Oh, and just for the people with mod points that apparently still don't get it: "-1, Troll" does not mean "I do not wish to read your insights, and therefore I shall attempt to bury them". Perhaps rather than burying people you disagree with, maybe you should go bury your own head in the sand, that way you won't have to read things you don't like.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Maxo-Texas]

Yup.
I didn't like 2nd edition.
Cyclopedia (in the red basic, blue expert, teal? companion, black master, and gold immortal sets).
I was still using 3 book set plus PHB during that period but when the hard bound Cyclopedia came out, I switched over.

To me, Basic DnD is about playing the game and the story. AD&D always seemed very fiddly with tables for everything, a rule's lawyer's heaven.
I tend to be more like "Player wants to jump off the cliff on to a monsters back" "Okay- that's dex and challenging so make a dex check -6" "Player rolls- done". I think AD&D finally headed that way after going down the path of "Chart a: Jumping, Subchart a3: Jumping onto monsters, Subchart a3.7: Jumping on to Monsters, Dragons".

The weapon mastery was grossly imbalanced. After a few players in my game took out two purple worms in one melee round with only melee attacks, they agreed it was unbalanced even from a player's perspective.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Vintermann]

I don't play collectibles (neither of the games I mention are that). It doesn't matter if it's made by gamers, most board/card games are. The inside jokes aren't funny the fifth time.

I've tried In Nomine. It had lots of great theme and ideas, but the mechanics weren't of the same quality.

Jackson just doesn't seem to test his games very much.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[jasen666]

Still not a valid analogy. No one is taking that copied PDF down to the store to trade it for real goods.

I can copy all the money I want and it doesn't hurt a soul... so long as it never leaves my home to be used in public.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Chris Burke]

Yet people still want D&D while they have plenty of options (and are not shy to rationalize torrenting it)

And so, logically, they should respond to piracy by removing the ability to pay for a legitimate copy? And you think this will put the djinni back in the bottle and there will no longer be any pirated copies on the internet?

Yes, they will add DRM, just like your library. And people here will cry and conveniently forget reason why it was added.

I'll remember why: Because they were too thick to realize that the initial leaks to p2p came from publishers, not legitimate .pdf purchasers, and that the DRM isn't going to actually do anything to prevent the guides from being available on p2p.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, it just vanishes when used, like any other scroll.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[MightyMartian]

I think part of the problem here is that tabletop roleplaying is fundamentally a very artistic and collaborative endeavor, and thus tends to attract those sorts of people. Those sorts of people also like to add on to games; whether it's new rules, new environments, or even mixing things together; pulling in material from other rule systems or entirely different sources. Obviously, for gaming companies, this can create a number of dilemmas. What do you do when some guy posts on a mailing list or some other forum a port of Star Wars over to the gaming system? What if they put out some variant of Gurps that includes converted D&D spells? So, to some extent, I can certainly understand how companies can be put between a rock and a hard place, and to some extent, have been since the early days of FRPing.

At the same time, the companies that have owned D&D have always been a particular litigious, control-freak, alpha male bunch. People that point the finger at WotC seem to ignore the legacy of fan/customer abuse that has gone on for years. Hell, a lot of games probably got their start because a few roleplayers came up with a kick-ass environment or rule modifications, but didn't dare attach it in any obvious way to the D&D lines. Whoever has owned D&D at any point has viewed their relationship with their customers as very one-sided.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Erie Ed]

Tell me about it now with the changes to the Edition sets coming out every year instead of every other year all this is doing is raising the cost to play standard...it almost seems that extended and legacy might be the formats to play that are actually cheaper.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Chris Burke]

Incomprehensible sentence hits you for 1d6+1!

*DM rolls die*

DM: Okay you take 5 damage, you only have 4 hp so you die.

Me: That's bullshit! Sorcelatony the Sorcelator is an expert in incomprehensibility! He even has the Gibberish and Excessive Verbosity feats! He should be immune to incomprehensibility damage.

DM: Just because he spouts it doesn't mean he can take it.

Me: Bullshit!

DM: Fine, fine, I'll let you try to save for half damage. Roll against a DR of 25 with your int bonus.

*rolls die, comes up 1*

Me: Such bullshit...

Random Party Member: Dibs on his stuff!

I love D&D. :)

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't tell you they are pirates...

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[DrGamez]

Despite my dislike of Apple, they have music that sells just fine without DRM. Steam is another service that works fine in the face of Piracy. They include services that makes the cost worth the price.

A bit offtopic but Steam may operate in the face of Piracy just fine, but they are using DRM just as any other company is - in the end they are only marginally better.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Good old internet econ, eh? Mr, economist, ever got far enough to to learn that supply curve can have negative slope (exact case of computer software and files) and what while supply can be eventually infinite, it will intersect with demand long before "free" happens.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[NotVeryOriginal]

Would you rather have 5050 people playing your game, or only 50? You can't assume that just because 5000 people P2P'd your work that you lost those people as sold customers. To be fair, the number of real customers would be between the 50 and 5000, but probably much closer to the former than the latter.

Anyway, you should create your game because you WANT to create your game. There's no guarantee that even 50 people will buy it much less 5000.

If you want guaranteed funds, you need to provide a service instead of a product. Otherwise it's just a gamble.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[zwei2stein]

Old copies? They will be there, sure. But they will not release new stuff as it was obvious that new stuff will be either leaked or just pirated by "customers". Why continue giving them freebie? Why continue competing with "free as beer" P2P while supplying em with new content at same time?

What would you propose, keep current service as "legacy"? To compete with piratebay? With no future? No profitability? Waste of manpower.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[oldspewey]

This D&D guide will self destruct in 60 seconds.

... unless you can successfully roll for save vs. lawyers

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[MaineCoon]

Savage Worlds (by Pinnacle Entertainment Group) is even more flexible and adaptable, easier to learn, and in my experience offers more roleplaying and more combat options.

It has many good things going for it, including many 3rd party publishers jumping on board:

* Core rulebook is $10 small-format full color book, has rules for nearly any situation, and these rules all follow the same core concepts. Also includes basic equip and monsters for several generic settings (its easy to make more).
* Easy to learn, yet offers a lot of depth and variety
* Easy to GM
* Combat can be tactical w/ minis, or not, at your discretion; it goes fast even if there are lots of combatants.
* Pinnacle sells all of their products as PDF as well; the Settings books are offered in Full and Player Only versions, and have site licenses granting permission to print copies for your players
* Lots of 3rd party publishers are jumping on board Savage Worlds; the next Cthulhu RPG will be Savage
* Lots of homebrew settings available, and it's pretty easy to make one

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[commodore64_love]

In my experience all those EEOC policies mean nothing. They are just there to "look good" while the organization is internally corrupt and cold-hearted. ("Your kid's dog died and you want to take the day off to comfort him? Too bad. Work or get fired.")

i.e. The policies are like a Ford Pinto that looks shiny on the outside, but is internally flawed such that it blows-up and kills people. Why did that happen? Because the soulless corporation decided it was cheaper to let people get blown-up and pay them off, rather than do the moral thing and fix the problem.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Thuktun]

Okay you take 5 damage, you only have 4 hp so you die.

IIRC, don't D&D rules say you're unconscious and will continue to take damage over time until you reach -10hp, whereupon you actually die? Granted, it's been some time since I played, but that's what I remember.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Chris Burke]

Old copies? They will be there, sure. But they will not release new stuff as it was obvious that new stuff will be either leaked or just pirated by "customers". Why continue giving them freebie? Why continue competing with "free as beer" P2P while supplying em with new content at same time?

So you think there's more money in not competing at all, eh? Yeah that's smart. People were buying the .pdfs. And let me repeat, the leaks came from publishers, who could easily create a .pdf to leak to p2p networks when given the book to print in dead-tree format. And barring that, digital copies will still be made. Face it, they will be online and there's nothing you or Hasbro can do about it.

Given that, why would you make the illegal copies the only copies online?

What would you propose, keep current service as "legacy"? To compete with piratebay? With no future? No profitability? Waste of manpower.

Today, you have some people getting copies off of p2p, and some purchasing them legitimately. In the future, everyone who wants a digital copy will pirate it because that will be their only recourse.

How much effort do you think there is in creating a .pdf to throw online once you've already created the book? Is some money more or less than no money?

In their rush to prevent piracy, they are pushing their legitimate customers to it. This is a classic case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[brasscount]

That assumes that any corporate headquarters is not already at least a pocket dimension of hell. Come on man, read the Manual of the Planes. You can get it on PDF... DOH!

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[ColeonyxOnline]

I second your comment. Savage Worlds is a great system.

I started using it after my group complained of the unnecessary complexity of the D20 system. At first, I was going to try the 4th edition of D&D, but once I saw their new and updated license, I looked elsewhere.

I was during that time that I heard about Savage Worlds from the Fear the Boot podcast. They talked about it at length, touting it's easy of use and malleability.

Once I read it for myself, it became clear they were not exaggerating.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[geekoid]

Which in no ways counters my point, which was addressing this:
(and shooting WotC in the foot is meaningless, WotC isn't an independent entity.)

in fact you seem to CONFIRM my point.
Of course your last sentence almost impossible to parse.

"Yes, I do."
  I came here for a good argument.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[geekoid]

That BITCH!

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[geekoid]

true, but I have extensive knowledge of GURPS and Savage Worlds, so I'm not sure of your point.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Chris Burke]

Last time I played enough to quote rules with precision was early 2nd edition, and I believe there 0 hp was unconscious and -1 was dead. A lot of people used a 'house rule' where you would bleed 1hp a round and die at -10. This might have become standard in 3rd or something...

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[bigstrat2003]

Why do people insist on calling piracy theft?

Because it fits the definition of theft: taking something that doesn't belong to you. At no point does the definition of theft require that the good not be in its owner's grasp any more, it just says you're taking what doesn't belong to you.

Or, if you prefer a more snarky version: because we're not trying to play idiotic word games to justify our desire for free stuff.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[geekoid]

"GURPS is about the most flexible and adaptable game system."
Myth. It is not.
It also assumes the mechanics are the game, which is also false.

Yes, GURPS background info can be pretty good. Not as accurate as people mey think.

The real question is: "Why do you need another book just to determine damage?"

Nonoe of this address the fact that the point buy system in GURPS doesn't really make sense if you understand probability.
going from a 12 to a 13 is much bigger improvement then going from a 17 to an 18, yet the 17-18 is vastly ore expensive.

OF course if you enjoy long combats, arguments over which rules to use, listens to some jack-off belly ache how HIS martial art styles should get more pluses(or gun, or tank) along with hardly ever feeling like a star then stick with GURPS, have fun, good luck.
Me, I like getting to the meat.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[syousef]

Sorry if that went slightly off-topic, it's just frustrating to see so many product/media providers jump on this bandwagon. Whats next? Some sort of physical DRM for printed copies?

What would that look like? A large built man named Boris coming over to kneecap you if you copy the work?

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[geekoid]

Munchkin sucks? I think not. It's a great game and plays differently depending on the age. For example when I play it with my wife and kids it's less cut throat then when I play it with my friends.
well, it used to be, my wife and 8 year old daughter totally ganged up on me. heh.

Since this is /. I guess I must add:
This is my opinion, and in no way am I trying to tell you your are wrong for your opinion.
You know, crap most people understand without being reminded.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hasbro, through WoTC, is not just attacking the illegitimate PDFs but they nuked from orbit all the legitimate ones.

Actually, they're only nuking the legitimate ones. There were high quality pdf copies of all the manuals long before WoTC was making them and locking them down, and they will continue to appear.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[geekoid]

GURPS started out fine, but now it is completely engineered by marketing.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[bzipitidoo]

Money has to be in limited supply. It is a proxy for material goods that are by necessity in limited supply, so that we don't have to resort to barter. That money itself can be printed in practically limitless quantities is beside the point. If it's too easy to copy, then it must be changed.

The technology today makes it very easy

Get your head wrapped around that idea. And think, copying will only get easier. DRM is hopeless. They used to call it "copy protection", and it didn't work then either. Copyright is dead, and it's time people understood that. We need other ways to compensate artists and scientists. I've been thinking patronage is the way to go, but maybe not. There's also the services and support model that's had some success, just look at Red Hat and MMORPGs. And the advertising revenue model, which is still of some value though it has been overdone and overvalued. Perhaps a mix of all these is best.

Then people like you could stop chiding the rest of us for "theft", as if you yourself have NEVER EVER committed copyright infringement, and indeed be out there encouraging as much sharing as possible. Because sharing will be the best way to help an artist. Once again copying will be flattery (the sincerest form!), and flattery will be valuable.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[syousef]

First: Those books are no longer in print and WotC is not losing a dime if they get copied. Unless, and I'd consider this highly unlikely if anything, they want to roll the printing press for those items again.

Doesn't that mean Google Books now has the rights? ;-)

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Mex]

This was intentional. It was, in effect, DRM.

Except it wasn't really digital, it was Analog =)

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[bigstrat2003]

Or does WotC fear that people could find out their latest edition sucks even more than the previous ones and people refuse to buy it entirely, and stick with AD&D 2nd forever?

Not possible. 2E was a steaming pile of shit, the game only got good with 3E.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[DMUTPeregrine]

I use "pirated" copies all the time. Sure, I have the physical books sitting around, but full-text-search on an OCRed PDF is MUCH better than trying to find the page manually. Since my gaming group uses as computer and a DLP projector to handle the map getting the PDFs for the GM to read makes things vastly faster and easier. WOTC should be offering PDFs, but of just the rules. No flavour, no art, just easily searchable, indexed rulesets. The use and quality of the books comes from their art and appearance, the use of the PDFs comes from the ease of finding information.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[EvilIdler]

I bet there are scans out there. I've seen people passing around damn near anything printed.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[DrgnDancer]

But WHAT is the evolution. I see this argument all the time: "Dude, it's digital! It's copyable! Companies need to evolve to deal with the "new reality" that everything is going to be free!" OK, so what motivates people to create content in the new reality? You mention two services by name that "work fine in the face of Piracy". One actually uses DRM (Steam), the other is attached to the famously litigious music industry which has scared at least a significant percentage of people into not "sharing" its products. If the RIAA made an announcement tomorrow that it was giving up lawsuits and music was all to be released DRM free I think iTunes would have a harder time.

What is the new way to create content in such a way that people will pay money for it when they don't have to? I've asked this question before and not received any realistic answer: Must all content creation become a hobby? Can people not make money from art (or artisanship, games are closer to that than art)?

I don't know what the answer is. I'm no more a fan of the RIAA or MPAA's tactics than anyone else. I can totally understand the "I can't afford this {book, movie, music}, and wouldn't be buying it normally, it hurts nothing if I download it" attitude. Especially among people who legitimately can't afford the stuff. I'm as annoyed as anyone when talentless hacks make a fortune selling the same song to people across 5 or 6 albums and seem to care nothing for the fans that make them their money. On the other hand, lots of content CAN'T be made without significant capital investment, and even the stuff that can be shouldn't require that the artists making it starve (or keep a second job to actually pay bills). I like books, and some TV, and some movies, etc. I don't want to see these industries fail even if I would like to see of their behaviors modified.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Ashriel]

Let's retry your terribly inaccurate example:

I wasn't going to buy a Mercedes in the first place, it doesn't matter if I instantly create a duplicate copy of one on the spot at no cost to anyone and drive off with it.

That's a much more apt example.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Richy_T]

But the action doesn't fit the definition of "taking". Oh well...

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Impossible Mission, dipshit.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[tigerhawkvok]

Seems to me they really *are* shooting themselves in the foot with this. Consider people like myself:

• Look at D&D rules via OGL SRDs
• Download some PDFs and realize they are a bit easier to find information in, and I enjoy much of the artwork
• Purchase several dead-tree versions to the tune of a few hundred dollars. Cash to WotC.

The 4th ed policies make SRDs harder, and with no PDFs to help draw me to paper versions ... well, they'd entirely have lost customers like me, and several of my friends who did the exact same thing. Bad idea, WotC.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Gorlash]

Part of the concept of commerce or trade is "mutual agreement", which is completely missing in a case of piracy. People insist on calling piracy theft because when you pirate my work, you get the benefit -of- my work, without any agreement on my part. It may not precisely qualify as theft, but you should be glad we refer to it as that, and not as slavery (taking someone's work without any agreement on their part).

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[MRe_nl]

LOLth.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Slavik81]

>I think, in recent years, its become readily apparent that a company's true customers are it's stock holders and board members. The consumers are just raw material to be milked for money in ANY way possible.

The stockholders are management's customers. The stockholders own the company and (indirectly) hire management to run it for them. It's not really a problem, and that's how the system is supposed to work.

Your real issue is with incompetent management not doing a very good job for their stockholders. Who's fault is it? Unclear. If it's a problem with management, corporate governance reform would work, but if the problem lies with shareholders, we're screwed. Short of investing in better public schools, I don't think there's a solution for a general public that can't work in its own self-interest.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Fjandr]

The entirety of their product line was available as pirated PDFs prior to their decision to sell legitimate copies. The service gave WotC a profit from the trade in PDFs of their product and created customers from those who would purchase PDFs but were unable or unwilling to purchase hard-copy books. Before they sold PDFs, they got no profit from PDFs. Now, they will no longer get profit from the trade in PDFs.

PDFs will not cease being traded, nor is the trade likely to even slow down noticeably. The only difference is WotC has fewer customers in the demographic that has little disposable income or doesn't want to be bankrupted buying an entire library of hardcovers every time the rules are overhauled, and they no longer make any profit from the trade in PDFs (which, due to the incredibly elastic supply has huge profit margins in comparison to traditional book sales).

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw GURPS, too many damn specific rules, combat takes to long, and running on a bell curve with their point system make no sense mathematically.

The whole point of GURPS is to provide a flexible framework for a role-playing system.
It is not, in of itself, a "complete" system like D&D, etc.

With that in mind, you're supposed to ignore or change rules that you find "too specific". If combat takes too long than it's your fault for not altering it for your purposes. And same for the point system.

Do I sound a little fanatical?

No, you sound like someone who went to the toy store, bought a set of Lego's, and threw them out because the instructions only showed you how to make one design.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Dexx]

Thanks, that looks like fun!
Going to see about giving it a shot this weekend.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[DragonWriter]

Nonoe of this address the fact that the point buy system in GURPS doesn't really make sense if you understand probability.

Your argument doesn't make sense if you understand the GURPS rules and what they do.

going from a 12 to a 13 is much bigger improvement then going from a 17 to an 18, yet the 17-18 is vastly ore expensive.

Actually, in GURPS, a +1 improvement to a stat or a skill (except for the vary narrow range of quicker advancement in the first few levels of a skill) costs exactly the same, as both attributes at all levels and skills after two levels have flat costs.

Further, an attribute or skill score alone doesn't tell you where you are on the bell-curve in regard to probability of success at tasks that come up in game, since you'd have to know what difficulty level and stat (in the case of skills) or skill (in the case of stats) and other factors would typically apply.

OF course if you enjoy long combats, arguments over which rules to use, listens to some jack-off belly ache how HIS martial art styles should get more pluses(or gun, or tank) along with hardly ever feeling like a star then stick with GURPS, have fun, good luck.

Except for long combats, which IME just isn't true, generally, compared to other RPGs, those problems all seem to be problems with personalities in a gaming group, not game systems.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[pluther]

It was originally announced at $15 per month. It was lowered when they didn't get as many subscribers as they'd thought they would at that price. $7.95 per month would put it at about the price I was paying for my Dragon and Dungeon subscriptions before they got canceled.

I downloaded the 4th ed Players Handbook, too. If I'd had any intention of running a 4th ed game, I would have purchased the hardcopy, though. I agree that claiming you're going to be downloading all the future ones without paying isn't taking a stand, it's being a thief. (And not in the 1st-edition way.)

Sure, it's perfectly playable with just the first books. Although, I found it annoying that they left out certain classes and races with an ad that you could get them online if you subscribed to their service. But, yeah, even if the only thing it included had been a human fighter, it would still be a playable game. But that's not really the point.

I downloaded Paizo's Pathfinder game, too (from their web site). That one I will buy when it comes out, because I like the direction they're taking it in.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Even better!

http://www.white-wolf.com/index.php?line=news&articleid=1085

In light of this news, White Wolf (WotC's biggest competitor) is giving away PDFs of the core book of their "Exalted" game.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you looked at the 4e SRD? It's just a list of names, terms etc that can be referenced.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Infinite supply + demand only equals free for Perfectly Competitive markets. The book publishing market is not perfectly competitive. In a perfectly competitve market with infinite supply, if I tried to sell a PDF for $5, someone else would come along and sell it for $4, then someone would sell at $3, down to as close to zero as to cover bandwidth and opportunity costs. But in this case, WotC offers the PHB for $20. No one can legally come in and sell it for less. Sure, someone can sell RPG Brand X for less, but for many people that's not good enough, they want D&D. And D&D costs $20. So instead, we have a monopolistic situation, and WotC sells at a price to maximum price*quantity. Go back to Econ 101.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Aranykai]

Because it fits the definition of theft: taking something that doesn't belong to you. At no point does the definition of theft require that the good not be in its owner's grasp any more, it just says you're taking what doesn't belong to you.

"Noun
theft (plural thefts)
The act of stealing property."

"Verb
to steal (third-person singular simple present steals, present participle stealing, simple past stole, past participle stolen)
(transitive) To illegally, or without the owner's permission, take possession of something by surreptitiously taking or carrying it away."

Those are real definitions. Perhaps you should understand what the words you use actually mean before using them to argue your point.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[SETIGuy]

Unless you happen to be carrying the "Blessed Scroll of the Barrister," you will need to roll 15 or better on 2d6.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[bigstrat2003]

Yeah, that pretty well covers piracy, so I don't know exactly what you're trying to prove.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

hell, i AM a stock holder, and am pissed as hell over this. stupid, stupid, stupid.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

If everyone is sharing, how does an artist profit so that (s)he can make a living to continue producing art?

That is the problem with your argument. People have to make a living, if they can not profit from the work they create because others selfishly take it without any compensation, they will stop making it.

If people can not make a living off their work, then all you'll get is amateur goods or none at all.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

[i]And it's the only way you can get Gods, Demigods, and Heroes where TSR violated a lot of OTHER people's copyrighted material.[/i]

Not quite. First, there was only an issue with two of the pantheons, and since Lovecraft was dead, and many of his stories were in the public domain, including the Cthulhu mythos would have been quite defensible. And they did have an agreement with Moorcock. Problem was he also sold the rights to another company, Chaosium, who was a bit miffed at the idea. But really, a lot of other people? No, not at all.

Not that the current company had anything whatsoever to do with what happened back in the 70s, I doubt there's a single employee remaining who was involved anyway.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dungeons and Dragons was finished when I was a little child

Objectively wrong, and saying it proves beyond all possible doubt that you are literally retarded.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[OrangeTide]

I can copy all the money I want and it doesn't hurt a soul... so long as it never leaves my home to be used in public.

The United States Government strongly disagrees.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Fulminata]

Every edition has had shakeups in the core classes. 2nd Edition dropped a bunch of favorites that were later reintroduced in supplements. 3rd Edition did the same thing.

My comments on the playability of the core books could have probably been a bit clearer: they're just as playable as the core books for any of the previous editions. Every edition of D&D has had a series of expansions for the core books, and I'm not sure why the poster I was responding to thought that 4th Edition would be any different. Heck, there were at least 12 books a year coming out for 3.5 from WotC alone, let alone the number of books coming out under the d20 license and the OGL!

This is the business model for just about every professional RPG publisher out there: release the core book or books and then release a stream of expansions. If they don't do that many gamers will consider the game to be "dead" and won't buy or play it at all.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[myowntrueself]

If Hasbro is like every other bean-counter-based business, it demands 10-15% growth year over year from its subsidiaries, otherwise no bonuses for executives. Perpetual linear growth is not possible in a finite market, but that doesn't stop the parent company from squeezing the sub (in a decidedly non-sexual fun way)

Ok now show me, on the doll, where the bad bean-counter touched you...

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

they all had publisher watermarks.

ORLY? I'd be asking about touhoufag on /tg/ if I were you.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Migity]

I know people who bought legal D&D PDFs, they're spitting nails +1. Anyone who likes D&D should be spitting nails +1.

There. Fixed that for you.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[rdebath]

Next time someone tells you to take a chocolate you better make a copy then.

You're the one playing word games; you're mixing the "take/remove" definition of take with the "take a photograph/take a copy" definition. This is no different to the "He's going to take my daughter" wordplay.

Oooh, does this mean "take her photograph" now means "**** her brains out" ?

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[im_thatoneguy]

I got into DnD through a pirated copy... and then bought books. But I never use them I just use the pirated PDFs. Because I can use CTRL+F to find what I need. You can't do that with the books which I pretty much only have to just have. Also in the circle of friends which started playing based on the no-risk introduction of the world of PDFs... now 3 others have gotten pretty heavily invested.

DnD isn't an easy activity to get into. Asking your customer to invest $50-100 to get started is asking quite a bit. Especially considering DnD's reputation amongst non-PenAndPaper-RPG-fans.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

The internet is the railroad.

Anybody not on the railroad will shrivel up and die.

It's really that simple.

- Ugly American

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Drantin]

Unfortunately, that skill was left out of the latest revision of the rules.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Opportunist]

Nonoe of this address the fact that the point buy system in GURPS doesn't really make sense if you understand probability.
going from a 12 to a 13 is much bigger improvement then going from a 17 to an 18, yet the 17-18 is vastly ore expensive.

Doesn't make sense? Diminishing returns at work, I'd say.

Getting from mediocre to average is a small step, and it certainly offers more chance at success. In GURPS as well as in reality. Take the skill "tech support". Learning how to fix a misconfigured network (wrong netmask, wrong IP address...) is something you will need fairly often and it's anything but hard to learn. It, essentially, is the equivalent of going from 12 to 13 in that skill. Learning all the obscure quirks of various networking hardware takes time and often doesn't make sense, and it is not really something you'll need often (even though it's well paid when it is needed), but it would be the 17 to 18 improvement.

Doesn't make sense? I'd say it makes perfect sense.

And if you let your players argue with you over rules, you're doing something wrong. No matter what system. Get other players.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[daydr3am3r]

According to 2nd edition rules (which are the only ones I'm familiar with),dying at -10 instead of "the norm" 0 hp's was an optional rule. Of course it was convenient and everybody ended up using it. There was even a Dragonlance-specific proficiency that allowed you to stay conscious and active until you reached -10 hp's too, can't remember its name though.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[JosKarith]

Why do people insist on calling Intellectual Property Infringement piracy? Even those who fight against RIAA/MPAA/Whatevaa use the term. Renaming something you dislike is a blatant first shot in the battle ans we just let them gEt away with it. It's like PETA and "Sea Kittens".

At least they didn't rename IPI to B4by R4ping or the like...

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Kelsen]

Very reasonable and well-said. I don't have an answer, but you have echoed my own thoughts on the matter. My personal solution is this: I download what I want, and try it. If I like it or use it a good bit, I buy it - usually. If I don't like it, or don't use it much, I don't. That doesn't answer your question, of how we can make or keep 'artistic creation' something people can do. If creative people have to spend all their time pursuing other tasks in order to pay the bills, at best we'll see only a small part of their potential. It's a conundrum. I wish I had an answer, easy or otherwise. RFT!!! Dave Kelsen -- By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry'...

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Golddess]

Your kid's dog died and you want to take the day off to comfort him? Too bad. Work or get fired.

Which is why you don't say the reason is your kid's dog died, you say that a valued member of the family was suddenly taken from you and you need to make funeral arrangements. Or alternatively, just call in sick. I mean, it's not totally a lie, you are emotionally distraught I would imagine.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Thuktun]

I must have played with house rules under AD&D, but it looks like it was folded into the 3rd Edition and the d20 system.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/injuryandDeath.htm

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Golddess]

If it weren't for my friend's pirate copy of Max Payne, I never would have picked up a legit copy for myself.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[ClayDowling]

I think maybe you've been doing it wrong. Munchkin gets a lot of play around these parts. I know a couple of friends in different gaming groups who make it pretty much a weekly thing. For one group, they don't consider their session finished until they've played at least one game of Munchkin.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[evilkasper]

at best you still take half damage.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Pervaricator General]

The originators of a majority of copyright complaints, the music industry, has been doing this even longer with sheet music.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[bzipitidoo]

How? Read my post again. You write as if copyright is the only way to profit from works of art. I named 3 ways to profit without copyright. That's correct, copyright is unnecessary for these other ways to work. Stop thinking these somehow can't function without copyright. They can. No doubt there are others. Here's the list again:

• patronage
• service and support (hold classes, concerts)
• advertisement and endorsement revenue

The more an artist's works are copied, the more valuable all the above is. Sharing is good for all those. Sharing only hurts systems that depend on monopolizing the ability and permission to copy. Since sharing can't be stopped, anymore than sex can be stopped, the only sensible thing to do is change the system.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[badkarmadayaccount]

s/moral/ethical/g
Moral is something immaterial imposed by culture and/or religion, ethics is a science.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[ajs]

GURPS started out fine, but now it is completely engineered by marketing.

This is going to sound flippant, but I'm being sincere: what does that mean?

First off, are you talking about 4th ed. or 3rd? Did you pick up any of the 3rd ed. supplements? Blood Types is a great example. It's less of a sourcebook (though it is that) and more of a tour of the history of vampirism around the world. It's comprehensive, informative and deeply fascinating. Did you know there was an African variety of vampire that's insectoid and drinks the life force of plants? I've been working on the perfect sort of campaign to pull that concept into for a while now... it's just so appealing and odd.

Now, the new line (4th ed.) is still getting past its core book phase. They've just started publishing a few supplemental books, but until recently they were putting out the Supers, Martial Arts and similar titles that form the ground-work. It's an excellent revision to the game, and anyone who played 3e seriously will appreciate the ways in which the game has changed to support the way it was already used and even moreso: the ways in which it remains the same, which is to say, most.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[cfalcon]

"There's nothing preventing you from playing 4E with just the original three core books" The original three books in 3.0 / 3.5 are the "core" set. This time they have made "core" extendable- the exact opposite of core. Go to d20srd.org and you'll find basically all the stuff from them. But are the 4th content online? I've tried looking at their srd, it's basically unusable. Also note that the druid is absent, as is the monk (the monk still hasn't come out in 4th, the druid is quite recent). I really don't think it's comparable. In a few years, pretty much no one will be willing to play 4ed "core", but 3.5 "core" still has a following, because it's actually complete. "Granted, 4E is not nearly as open as 3E/OGL/d20 was" It is useless fucking trash, and it was designed to be useless fucking trash. Anyone who points to that should answer a few questions: Under "barbarian", there is a class feature called "rage strike". TELL ME WHERE IN THE SRD IT TELLS ME THE RULES FOR THAT. If you can't answer that FUCKING SIMPLE QUESTION, or find the rules text for ANY OF THE FUCKING SHIT, stop claiming it has an SRD. That's not a fucking reference document, that's an appendix. A pdf appendix, to make it worse. "But just as with those previous editions, you don't actually need any books beyond the 3 original core books." You can play 3.5 and 3.0 for free using the SRD.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Intentional, yes, but not for DRM. Like all technology, it has various implications. "Non photo blue" pencils are (or were) popular with copy editors (since their notations won't show on the copy). Engineers would make notations on sketches. Artists like to use them for initial sketching before applying a more permanent pen and ink. Having a non-copyable color is essentially like having a Photoshop-style "layer" in your real-world drawing.

That feature might be applied for anti-piracy purposes, but that's not why it exists.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

An awful lot of players have no problems with a bell curve or point buy.

Please stop projecting your inadquacies onto everyone else.

Re:[Don't] Profit!

[discogravy]

4e is nothing but table top World of Crapcraft.

No, you can still buy World of Warcraft online if you want to.

Does that mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that if they are using D20 dice and they roll a 20, they get out of being sued?

Re:Does that mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, considering that they have the Hasbro legal department behind them, I think they get a few more modifiers than that.

Re:Does that mean...

[SirLurksAlot]

Ah yes, the Litigation Saving Throw. All PCs must roll a 20 unless you happen to be a Rules Lawyer, in which case you only need to roll a 15 or higher. Rolling a 1 on a Save vs Litigation invokes the court's wrath, causing you to be in contempt, whereupon you will be thrown in jail with several burly ogres covered in prison tattoos :-D

Re:Does that mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

But in 4e rules, a natural 20 always succeeds...

Re:Does that mean...

[Adrian Lopez]

Does that mean that if they are using D20 dice and they roll a 20, they get out of being sued?

No. If the defendant rolls a 20, he has to pay double damages.

D&D is dead

[Metapsyborg]

WotC killed it with 4e. These are the throws of a dying organization, just like RIAA/MPAA.

Re:D&D is dead

[TheRealMindChild]

Everyone should get a saving throw!

Re:D&D is dead

[nschubach]

I kind of hoped that 4e was going to embrace the Internet and allow people to create tools for it... I was trying to have high hopes for the future of D&D, but now I wish I could get a refund for my rulebooks.

Re:D&D is dead

[furby076]

No it isn't. I've been playing since 2nd edition. So far 4e is pretty decent. Yes it has some annoying aspects (daily abilities, more limited abilities to choose from) but it also has some nice ones (when you raise your stat scores you get to raise two of them instead of one, magic items are simpler, healing is simpler, etc). So it has it's positive traits and it's negative traits but overall it's not bad. It's also a much faster combat system.

While I hate buying the books over and over again I also realize that WoTC needs to do that every so often to get more sales. I was annoyed from 3.0 to 3.5 because that was a sham (3.5 was fixing 3.0), but 4.0 is a complete revamp so warrants it. There is still plenty of 3.0/3.5 material that you can play that. There are some companies that didn't even change and will continue with 3.5 material.

Re:D&D is dead

[dchaffey]

The sooner they die the sooner their old, useful, materials can be bought up by an wealthy geek and put into the commons.

Re:D&D is dead

[Abreu]

Actually, 4th edition breathed new life into our gaming table. We are very satisfied.

Re:D&D is dead

[Culture20]

Are you kidding? They killed it with 3.0 & 3.5. They stopped selling products and started licensing to third parties (eg ravenloft), then broke contract when the third parties started making too much money. They're finally following this model with their old PDFs.

Re:D&D is dead

[evilkasper]

Odd I know a lot of people who enjoy 4e, then again I heard the same thing when they went to 3.5. I heard the same thing when D&D was no longer owned by TSR, etc etc. Point is it's different and still around. The neat thing is you don't have to upgrade to 4e if you don't want to. Hell if you liked the first incarnation of D&D you could still play that.

Re:D&D is dead

[geekoid]

4e rocks.
And yes, I have played all other version, a lot.

The brought back the 'war game' aspect and maintained the original feel, and improved a lot mechanics.

And I'm a die hard THAC0 fan.

Re:D&D is dead

[evilkasper]

I think a lot of us were. All the online tools they talked of in D&D insider. The collaborative game space program that would let you play D&D with your buddies who've since scattered to remote parts of the world. I know there are programs for this but all the ones my group has tried haven't worked very well. Just try not to let the douchebag actions of WoTC ruin the game for you.

Re:D&D is dead

[geekoid]

there was a lot of 3.0 -> 3.5 errata, and in fact you did not nede to buy new books becasue the difference were all laid out on TSR's web site.

Lets think about this 'sham' a moment.

If you pay full cover(why?) you are shelling out 90 buccks for the core three books.

that's 11 movie tickets. Spread out over a few years.
Considering the books can be found for under 20 bucks, it's even better.

And yes, WotC didn't hire Ninjas to sneak in and destroy all previous version, so no one is forced to move to a new verion. If epople do feel forced to the new version, they might as well say "I'm WotC's bitch"

Re:D&D is dead

[DragonWriter]

The sooner they die the sooner their old, useful, materials can be bought up by an wealthy geek and put into the commons.

You assume that Hasbro is going to sell rights to the back catalog and the trademarks; this may be unlikely. If their attempt to make D&D a profitable as a set of subscription-based online servcies works, they may well just keep all the old stuff to keep it off the market, even if traditional D&D dies completely.

Of course, with their (now abandoned) foray into open licensing, they already let a lot of material out that isn't coming back, and people will continue to build on that as long as there is interest in the market.

Re:D&D is dead

[Metapsyborg]

They are not bankrupt, but what they are doing is shattering their core userbase into many different groups. This is not the same as 1st ed vs 2nd ed players, or the players (like me) who still play 2nd and 3e.

Hasbro/WotC completely dropped support for their OGL that they developed with 3rd edition, but many people still use that. There are many other new, creative RPGs that can easily give D&D a run for its money, and the old powerhouses like Palladium are still going strong.

It's funny that everything you mention about 4e is in the sense of a dumbing-down or simplifying. WotC has always been obsessed with that concept but it is just not in sync with reality. Gamers love complexity and they want a system that has rich options. Why do you think WotCs attempts to turn RPGs into a kids oversimplified boardgame always fail, and the system inevitable ends up becoming more and more complex?

As for the actual content, well WotC will never be able to top the greats of 2nd edition; that is when there was true creative talent in the AD&D universe, with settings like Planescape, Dark Sun and Spelljammer as well as the more "traditional" fantasy settings on Toril, Krynn and Greyhawk. WotC has just been living off those great masterminds and reprinting books of lists (feats, skills, equipment, classes, whatever), not creating anything of its own.

Re:D&D is dead

[furby076]

there was a lot of 3.0 -> 3.5 errata, and in fact you did not nede to buy new books becasue the difference were all laid out on TSR's web site.

Except there was so much errata try getting it all into the correct place. Imagine if you bought Windows XP and MS said "we have patches for it, it's on our website. You can d/l it, but you are going to have to drop the files into the correct sections. You will have to delete the appropriate files before you drop in the new files. We won't help you with this. Or you could buy our NEW version which is really just the fixes to the OLD version". I would have been happy if they offered some discount "send us your old books and get 10-25% off the new ones"

that's 11 movie tickets. Spread out over a few years. Considering the books can be found for under 20 bucks, it's even better.

Bad analogy to compare movies to books. Also, price is not the issue (nor finding them under retail). People had the "option" of getting the fixes for free (and constantly having to reference them which slows up game time...and time is money) or buy the new material at full price which was a fix to mistakes WoTC made.

And yes, WotC didn't hire Ninjas to sneak in and destroy all previous version

I beg to differ. They hired gnome ninja's and their move silently, hide in shadows, and forgery skills are epic!

Re:D&D is dead

[Opportunist]

I'd attack them with a cluewand, but it doesn't work on anyone with an int of lower than 3 or corporations.

Re:D&D is dead

[Jaysyn]

Athas.org is still making sourcebooks (for free), so is Birthright.net.

Re:D&D is dead

[furby076]

They are not bankrupt, but what they are doing is shattering their core userbase into many different groups. This is not the same as 1st ed vs 2nd ed players, or the players (like me) who still play 2nd and 3e.
Hasbro/WotC completely dropped support for their OGL that they developed with 3rd edition, but many people still use that. There are many other new, creative RPGs that can easily give D&D a run for its money, and the old powerhouses like Palladium are still going strong.

They are still the number 1 gaming company. DnD is the staple for RPG

It's funny that everything you mention about 4e is in the sense of a dumbing-down or simplifying. WotC has always been obsessed with that concept but it is just not in sync with reality. Gamers love complexity and they want a system that has rich options. Why do you think WotCs attempts to turn RPGs into a kids oversimplified boardgame always fail, and the system inevitable ends up becoming more and more complex?

Simplifying stuff is good - makes gameplay go too fast. In 3x, at level 12+ we could spend an hour going through one round for a group of 5 people. That is insane. You can still have complexity with options - which magic items, feats, skills, abilities, classes, etc - but they are attempting to make gameplay go faster. I know people who avoid DnD because combat is stupid slow. They prefer GURPs due to the speed of that.

As for the actual content, well WotC will never be able to top the greats of 2nd edition; that is when there was true creative talent in the AD&D universe, with settings like Planescape, Dark Sun and Spelljammer as well as the more "traditional" fantasy settings on Toril, Krynn and Greyhawk. WotC has just been living off those great masterminds and reprinting books of lists (feats, skills, equipment, classes, whatever), not creating anything of its own.

That is 100% complete opinion. Each person has their own preferences. Besides nothing prevents WoTC from reprinting all of those settings (how did you throw in spelljammer, and planescape just barely made it into ad&d - it was more 3.0) in 3x or 4e and apply the new rules.

Re:D&D is dead

[Jaysyn]

Seems like 4e is trying to be a pen & paper version of WoW.

Re:D&D is dead

[spacefiddle]

an int of lower than 3 or corporations.

-1 Redundant

Re:D&D is dead

[Ogive17]

4e is the first time I played D&D (other than some brief extent 16 years ago when I didn't know what was going on). My first and only character so far is a healing Cleric, about to hit lvl 4. One thing I do not like is how easy it is (and maybe this changes a bit as my character progresses) to miss on encounter and daily powers. Sure, sometimes there's an effect that still helps out a little bit.. but when the group is counting on me to keep them up and my encounter power fails and has no effect... that sort of sucks. Plus there really isn't much in terms of healing spells except the Healing Word which every Cleric receives.

Anyway, back on the subject of PDFs. Why not make the PDFs free? I have a couple of them, while they are good quality PDFs it's not nearly as easy as flipping through the actual book to look something up. I think they'd find a good portion of gamers would still buy the book. Maybe they should focus on the continued creation of encounters and make most of their money through that. Possibly develop some official software that makes a touch screen, table top game viable.

Re:D&D is dead

[Beardo the Bearded]

Okay, but everyone gets 3 tries, and you only have to roll 10 or better, and if anyone in your party is still conscious, then you're back up to full health at the end of the fight.

No, really, that's how 4e works.

Re:D&D is dead

[edward2020]

Regarding Planescape - I quit playing AD&D long before 3rd edition came out and very much enjoyed my planar travels thank you very much. A little google "work" shows that Planescape was released some 6 years before 3rd ed.

Re:D&D is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

It's throes, not throws, you dipshit. Learn English.

Re:D&D is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

The people who enjoy 4e are the same kind of bastards that also enjoy World of Warcraft.

As for my MMORPG preference, it's still Ultima Online, thanks to the shards.

Re:D&D is dead

[Sheafification]

Is Palladium still going strong? I recall a few years back that they were basically asking people for donations in order to remain solvent.

Since I played a lot of TMNT as a kid that was a sad day for me. It's good to see they're still around, and I hope that they are going strong, as you say.

Re:D&D is dead

[Gabesword]

Wow. Your point about the creative settings in 2nd and reprinting lists in third is right on. I'm not sure I had thought about it quite like that before reading your post, but I certainly agree. Thanks.

Re:D&D is dead

[ubrgeek]

Can you please share the names of some of the things you've tried? We're trying to find something other than iChat or Skype. If there are tools specifically geared toward it, that would be interesting. Thx.

Re:D&D is dead

[moderatorrater]

The opposite of that can be seen with Palladium, where they've used the same system since time immemorial. The system itself really shows its age. It's not terrible, but it's hard to make characters and it's overly complicated at times. However, instead of putting their time into making a new system, they've instead taken the time to make more classes and flesh out the universe better. It's obvious that they'd do better with the less hard core crowd if they were to make the system easier, but they'd do it at the expense of alienating their fans and losing out on the opportunity to put out another book.

Re:D&D is dead

[internerdj]

Everyone said the same with 3.0 and 3.5. I wouldn't be surprised if the same things were said earlier when it left original D&D, but such things were before my PNP time.

Re:D&D is dead

[furby076]

I think the missing part is because the spell is partly offensive? Get a purely healing ability and I don't think that is a problem? I could be wrong but I am not a cleric.

WIth regards to PDFs - if they are free a lot of people will opt to acquire them and NOT buy the books. I actually prefer PDFs to books. Yes books are easier to read, but they suck for storage and transport. Why try and lug 15-20 books to a game when I can bring my laptop? Why worry about storing 15-20 books in my home (i own a condo so space is premium) when i can use a laptop? I have no problem dishing out the money for PDFs (though they should be cheaper since production costs are cheaper).

Re:D&D is dead

[PylonHead]

Roger that. I'm playing D&D for the first time in 15 years. I decided to dive back in when I saw what they were doing with the 4th edition, and I've been loving it.

Re:D&D is dead

[sckeener]

Hell if you liked the first incarnation of D&D you could still play that.

Know where I can buy a PDF of those? I have fond memories of 1st edition... ;)

Re:D&D is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying the books should have been auto-updating?

Re:D&D is dead

[evilkasper]

Battlegrounds RPG is the one that we invested the most time in trying to get up and running. Several of us did, but there were a couple people in our group that just couldn't get it to work. We tried a couple others I don't recall offhand what they were called. I'll find out when I get home. Ultimately we ended up using Skype. I would be interested to hear if anybody else has had success with any of these virtual tabletop programs.

Re:D&D is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, yes: A project called OSRIC has been rewriting the (non-copyrightable) rules of 1st ed. into new (copyrighted, but OGLed) text.

http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/osric/

Re:D&D is dead

[SScorpio]

Try giving Fantasy Grounds a try. http://www.fantasygrounds.com/

Re:D&D is dead

[evilkasper]

Don't know about PDF but there is always ebay, then you can make your own PDF; just don't tell WoTC. ;)

Re:D&D is dead

[Joe the Lesser]

Bah, back in my day when they said Power Word: Kill they meant it!

Re:D&D is dead

[BSAKat]

I can assure you that Palladium is still around. I'm a staff writer for Palladium, and despite our problems and obstacles, we're still cranking out books. We've already released two books this year (Robotech: the Masters Saga and Rifts: Dyval) and are on track to release two more within the next six weeks (Rifts: Shemarrian Nation and Dead Reign Sourcebook). You're an old player from back in the day? Give us another look, www.palladiumbooks.com.

Re:D&D is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Our group started off in the dorms at college, and now we're all scattered around the country (and one out of the country). We use Fantasy Grounds for online D&D. It's an excellent tool for the job. It does cost $30 to buy, but it's worth it.

Re:D&D is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a java based one that I've used that is pretty flexible. It has a fairly active community and is really close to their next major release (we have been using the dev versions for almost a year).

rptools.net

Re:D&D is dead

[Weedhopper]

Wow, this post dredged up some memories. I didn't even play AD&D but I bought the boxed sets of Plansecape, Dark Sun, and Spelljammer because I found the settings to be so fascinating.

Re:D&D is dead

[Vertana]

Google OpenRPG. I haven't tired it, but it looks interesting and it's made specifically to play PnP RPGs.

Re:D&D is dead

[Inner_Child]

Considering we're talking about a pen and paper RPG, "throws" is actually a fairly apt pun.

Re:D&D is dead

[pluther]

D&D isn't dead.

Paizo's coming out with a new edition in August. And if you buy the print edition, you get the pdf for free.

It's called Pathfinder now. When the two companies broke up, WotC got the name - Paizo got all the content.

(The beta version of Pathfinder is available as a free download from their web site.)

Re:D&D is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as a gamer, no I do not love complexity, and I find 4e to be richer in options than 3 or 3.5 without being overly complex.

Re:D&D is dead

[MynockGuano]

Recently tried OpenRPG. Was okay, but we've since moved to rptools (rptools.net), which is open-source, very actively developed, and fantastic.

How embarassing..

[qoncept]

The most effective part of this move will probably be revealing the names of these 8 file sharers that are playing D&D.

Re:How embarassing..

[mseeger]

They want to prove that there are at least 8 people still playing D&D.

Re:How embarassing..

[Bigbutt]

I play Shadowrun if that helps. Heck, I'm running a game tonight and another one on Sunday.

By the way, the Shadowrun 20th Anniversary Edition PDF is out :)

[John]

Re:How embarassing..

[d4nowar]

Who cares if it's flamebait, this was funny!

Re:How embarassing..

[mundanetechnomancer]

cheers chummer What the frag do they think? That setting up some black ice on their datastores after the deckers have already walked through will keep the paydata out of the hands of fixers?

Re:How embarassing..

[geekoid]

They want to prove that there were at least 8 people still playing D&D.

Won't stop illegal downloads

[furby076]

People will just do what happened BEFORE WotC started selling their rip-off priced pdfs (pdf should not cost as much as the hard-bound book) they will scan them in and put them online.

The moment you release your information to the public you open it up to be copied.

BTW their 4e application (a nice piece of software) requires a subcription to update it (that is fine) my beef with it is if your computer gets reformatted you MUST resubscribe (pay money) to get a full version of it. I think that is crap. If I paid for the software to utilize and decided not to pay for my monthly subscription renewal then I should not have to pay again to reinstall the software.

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[geekoid]

That is crap, and someone should talk to a lawyer.

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[furby076]

Manufacturers can tell retailers to cease and desist from selling their products - electronic or otherwise. If they had a contract which said "Retailer is paying WoTC in advance for 100 licenses of our material for X dollars" then the retailer could say "sure we will stop selling it, but we only sold 20 so you owe us the cost of 80". Otherwise they have no recourse. Yes someone could come up with a lawsuit "I spent 40,000$ creating an ecommerce site specifically for your product which you no longer allow me to sell...you owe me money". But it all depends on the contract they signed. If WoTC had in their contract "we can tell you to stop selling our products at anytime without recourse then you must do so and you can't sue us" well it sucks for the retailer. It all depends on the contract - but to say "that is crap...." without knowing the contract is baseless.

I love it when people scream "sue" without knowing the facts.

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[Sandbags]

Your failure to back up your downloaded software is not their problem...

If you break/scratch your physical copy, would they have any responsibility? Why should they waste the bandwidth without charging you?

If you want a better piece of software though, talk to Wonko... Excel 2007 active spreadsheet and database for DnD4e. includes everything! (about 30 days behind release schedule). It can be found at enworld, rpgsheets.com, and a few other places. I'd link, but I'm blocked from that here at the office... Google for "Wonko 4e" Current version is something like 1.47.h.2.

Oh, and you don't have to "resubscribe" if you are still a subscriber... You CAN redownload it while still a member. The software is not FREE, it's leased while under contract... If youre not paying monthly, you're not supposed to use it (though they're nice enough not to lock it on you if you're not paying) It's SAAS... just offline.

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[Sandbags]

Actually, per the back inside cover in the new DnD 4e books, and per the DnDi website, you're supposed to get a free PDF copy when you buy the hardcover, plus as a subscriber (this part of the service isn't active yet) all the people in your registered game group (who themselves do NOT have to subscribe) can have free online access to ALL the PDF copies anyone in your group owns. They're calling it virtual game table. We're hoping it's up and running this fall. So far, only the character generator is up and running if you're a subscriber.

WoTC doesn't want you to have ONLY the PDF. They want at least 1 person in your group to have a hard copy, then all of you can share the PDFs. I agree with this kind of sharing system as it 1) controls distribution, 2) allows simple gaming over a virtual table (not all players have to come in person to play!), and 3) still gives me access to the PDF to copy/paste material into planned adventures, plus 4) I still get to have a shiny hardcover, which is usually easier to search than an electronic copy anyway.

If you play, you should pay. As a group, 6 or 7 of you should be able to afford a few books collectively, and everyone chip in $1 a month towards the online server (once the virtual game table it's running, I don't recomend it right now. Wonko's 4e character generator, although just a spreadsheet, is superior to DnDi's character generator in many ways.)

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[furby076]

I like this model where they only expect one person in the group to have a copy of a specific book (though many groups have multiples of each). So if I buy the hard cover I also get the pdf? But if they stop the pdfs this is no longer the case.

I don't mind the subscription model for the software (they come out with updates once/month) I mind that I have to resubscribe to get material that I previously got...Also backing up is not possible since when you reinstall you have to subscribe to make it a full version (again pay money).

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[MykeBNY]

Yeah, the Character Builder update thing sucks. And, as far as I've been able to tell, there's no easy way to back up the software. I've resorted to building a VM just for it, and archiving the 2gb disk image as a backup. I'm going to be wiping my computer clean again pretty soon, and running the VM's going to be the way I have to use the CB after that.

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[SBacks]

I love it when people scream "sue" without knowing the facts.

However, the GP never said the word sue. He instead suggested talking to a lawyer. This seems to be the most prudent course of action. The law is a VERY complicated topic, and your explanation here doesn't begin to get into all the nuances of contract law. And, since neither you nor I nor the GP understands these nuances, speaking to a lawyer is the next logical step.

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[bodhi]

It may be within the terms of the contract, and it may be perfectly legal.

However, it's still crap to screw over your retailer, and the customers who PAID for your product.

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[Anonymous Coward]

Its worse than that even if you backed it up. When you reinstall you must login to their web service and have a current account. Otherwise you can no longer use the software. Think of it as an MMO you can save the client all you want. It wont do you any good.

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[julesh]

Of course it would have been exceptionally stupid for RPGNow to sell these continued-download subscriptions without some kind of contract from WotC to ensure they'd be able to fulfill them. If they don't have such a contract, either they ignored their lawyer's advice, or didn't consult one, either of which is particularly dull.

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[seebs]

If I can actually get official PDFs for all the books when I buy them, yes, I'll buy all the books. I find PDFs very useful for looking things up, bookmarking, and so on.

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[metamatic]

I'm sick of lugging dead tree around and searching through rules manually. I just want PDFs (or even better, HTML.)

But if WotC will sell me PDFs, I guess I don't mind that they come with a hunk of dead tree I can leave at home.

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[Anonymous Coward]

Parallax did.... I had Descent on 3.5" floppy, the disc went bad meaning I couldn't install it again. They offered to ship a new copy on cd for $10 and the old floppy discs that i had from the original game. At the time that was basically cost of shipping, cd, labor, and a new manual. So YES I do think something bought online should allow for a couple of extra downloads in the event something like this happens. At the very least DO NOT charge full price all over again...

Just another AC mod down at will :)

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[Anonymous Coward]

While that may be the case in the US, I'd like you to know that here in the Netherlands the law trumps any contract. So if you have any clauses in your contract that aren't in concert with the law they don't hold up in court. Even better, in many cases having 'unreasonably constraining' articles in a contract, everyone can safely sign the contract and simply ignore those articles, and when you try to get a judge to enforce them he will simply throw them out. I wonder if any retailers have contracts with WotC outside the US...

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[geekoid]

I was talking about the customer and the distributor.
I don't give a rats ass what the distributors agreement with WotC is. If the distributor promised to their customer it would always be available, and it get;s pulled, the distributor is at fault, and the customer should sue.

I was areeing with your original post.

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you a lawyer?

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[Sandbags]

The PDF will be part of their upcoming DnDi revisions based around the virtual game table. The PDFs will be downloadable, but I understand there's some back end linking (watermarking maybe) to your account so if you distribute the files you'll be easy to identify. You'll have to be a subscriber to get the copies (for one month, then you can unsubscribe).

I "re-installed" the app to 4 machines i regularly use. All I had to do was enter my existing account information and it worked. If you stopped subscribing, yes, you'll have to pay for one more menth to "reinstall" but you don't need a new account, just pay for 1 month on your existing account.

Besides, you're only excpeced to use the software as an active member... It's to your benefit they don;t retroazctively disable the software if you stop subscribing. If they ever cancel the service, you can continue using the software, at least until your system crashes...

Of course, backup is about more than just files. If you're not imaging the OS itself you're only moving data, not backing up the computer. We call it BareMetal backup. Some refer to it as a "ghost" or image backup. You should do one every 90-180 days or anytime you install new software that can't be "re-installed." Also handy to do just before and then again just after any major patch or upgrade. Keep in mind, images are the whole volume, they're not selective, so you'll want nothing on your C: drive but applications that must be recovered that way. Anything that can be reinstalled later, or that is not required for systemm functionality should be on a D: (apps) volume and data should be on it's own volume. This is not a requirement, but if you've got 100GB of MP3s, putting all that in both your image AND your data backup is a big waste... I have a 700GB data volume, a 150GB apps volume, and less than 20GB on C:... I image monthly simply because I have the storage available on my 2TB NAS.

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[furby076]

However, it's still crap to screw over your retailer, and the customers who PAID for your product.

So other then the retailer who may have based his entire business model on those PDFs (poor business model) how was the retailer screwed by WoTC? You think this is the only time a company tells a retailer they are discontinuing a product?
How does the customer who PAID for this product get screwed? They still have the product.

You need to answer these questions before you can legitimately state WoTC screwed them.

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[Sandbags]

There is HTML, and you don't even need ANY of the books to use it, just a membership to DnDi. It's called the compendium, and it;s a fully searchable web based database of every thing in every currently published DnD 4e book.

I find the books incredibly usefull though. not all my gamers bring laptops, nor do i have the space for 7 people to sit at a table with computers, character sheets, books, and still have enough room to rol dice... A couple of guys bring a PC and sit at a table, the rest of them prefer comfy couches, and use the books as a stiff backing for writing on their character sheets...

I use the LCD TV as a virtual game table with the help of a didital cartography tool called MapTool (freeware). I have a small stack of books I distribulte (PH, FR campaign guide players version, and the adventurer's vault). I also keep a copy of the DMG and MM open in PDF form, an open link to the DnDi Compendium, and OneNote (stores my campaign notes and copied sections of the DMG, MM, and other date relevent to the night's adventure) open on my laptop. I also have a spreadsheet for initiative tracking. I've been using Dicenomicon on the iPhone with a bunch of cusom written DnD4e rolling programs so combat flies by.

Prior to all this, it used to take us about 2 hours to have a typical combat encounter. Now we get through one in about 50 minutes. (typicaly takes 4-6 rounds).

Re:Won't stop illegal downloads

[furby076]

While that may be the case in the US, I'd like you to know that here in the Netherlands the law trumps any contract. So if you have any clauses in your contract that aren't in concert with the law they don't hold up in court. Even better, in many cases having 'unreasonably constraining' articles in a contract, everyone can safely sign the contract and simply ignore those articles, and when you try to get a judge to enforce them he will simply throw them out. I wonder if any retailers have contracts with WotC outside the US...

You are a flat out moron and should not represent your country. Then again if you are correct your country is full of shit and thank god I don't live there. Contracts are a set of legal rules set by at least two entities. It is made to fill in a void the gov't law does not answer. The only times contracts are not valid are when they break criminal law (e.g. a contract to have someone murdered would not hold up in court), or if they are used to supersede "dummy" laws. Dummy laws are laws, civil laws, used to protect (generally consumers) the public and they cannot be suppressed. For example if you sign an apartment rental agreement a dummy law (in Pennsylvania) states that your landlord may not enter your apartment without your consent or it being an emergency (fire, flood, etc). Some apartment owners have you "waive" that right in the contract, however, it is not legal.

TECHNICALLY...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can still get the pdf's...
Of 3rd edition nonetheless. Making it so much better..

I do recall seeing a collection of sorts that hit almost 13 gigs of pdfs on a few select websites..

They might claim it is about infringement

[phantomlord]

What this is really about is them trying to force people to go out and buy 4E material. Having low cost OOP material out there diminishes the value of their current product by saturating the market. D&D is about the story, not about the numbers... so if you have original setting material, it isn't hard to adapt it to current rules.

They lost me a long time ago when then current head of the AD&D product line tried to assert ownership over all third party content, including homemade settings that weren't tied to any particular rule system, claiming that anything that used the AD&D rules was a derivative work.

Re:They might claim it is about infringement

[furby076]

Never heard of that...do you have a link to some articles? Considering they have their OGL and SRD information which is free to the public to use I don't understand how this claim came about.

Re:They might claim it is about infringement

[phantomlord]

It was Ryan Dancy on rec.games.frp.dnd back in 2000, before the OGL and SRD.

Here are a couple links to threads from around that time.

Re:They might claim it is about infringement

[TheSpoom]

Read the Open Gaming License carefully. It talks about derivative works in the definitions, and then says this:

(d)"Open Game Content" means the game mechanic and includes the methods, procedures, processes and routines to the extent such content does not embody the Product Identity and is an enhancement over the prior art and any additional content clearly identified as Open Game Content by the Contributor, and means any work covered by this License, including translations and derivative works under copyright law, but specifically excludes Product Identity.

So it's not entirely clear but one could claim that under these terms, any game played with any DnD book that used OGL material is in fact OGL licensed, kind of like the GPL.

Re:They might claim it is about infringement

[furby076]

So it's not entirely clear but one could claim that under these terms, any game played with any DnD book that used OGL material is in fact OGL licensed, kind of like the GPL.

No offense meant to you, but if it is "not entirely clear" then this is a weak argument. There are MANY big name publishers who produced hard-bound books based on the 3x rule-set using the OGL license. Actually the OGL license was hailed as a break-through in the gaming industry to allow other publishers to add-on material utilizing the same rules set. I highly doubt publishers like Mongoose would create works that WoTC could then swoop in and steal it. I am more willing to bet this means that any subsequent materials they produce is covered in the OGL. So they are not relinquishing the copyrights to the rules but are allowing people to use them. WoTC produces the 3 core books under the OGL. They also produce 100 supplemental books. They want to make sure the OGL does not infringe on their right to not release the 100 supplemental books in the SRD format (which they do not).

Re:They might claim it is about infringement

[furby076]

From your link:

Never take legal advice from Uncle Louie or Usenet. Ryan aint a lawyer and others have disagreed with him about fan material. Besides, Wizards has put up a liberal use policy on their site, one vetted by their pet shysters. It comes down to honor, but lots of folks have decided to take Wizards at their word. Compare the number of Star Trek sites with the number of DnD sites sometime.

Until an experienced copyright lawyer, specifically with intimate knowledge of this license/situation, says otherwise I feel confident that WoTC was not malicious when they created the OGL license. Again, do you think publishers like Mongoose press would spend so much money to create VERY competative products (I believe they are the biggest competator to WoTC who utilize the d20 rules set) if they knew WoTC could just swoop in and take it? Remember these guys *CAN* afford lawyers. They also reference OGL, SRD, and Core rules books in their publications.

Re:They might claim it is about infringement

[DragonWriter]

Considering they have their OGL and SRD information which is free to the public to use I don't understand how this claim came about.

About the same time as the 4e release, they pulled the OGL, because of similar concerns. They can't "get back" the stuff that was already out there (though, IIRC, the initial version of the GSL included a clause intended to get as much of it off the market as they could by dangling participation in the anticipated 4e boom as bait), but they certainly aren't happy that it exists. The 4E SRD is not available under the OGL, only the very restrictive GSL (which essentially replaces the old d20 System Trademark License.)

Re:They might claim it is about infringement

[phantomlord]

Again, this was BEFORE OGL, D20 and SRD... Dancey supposedly came up with them in response to the complaints we had in rec.games.frp.dnd.

But if you read through the entire threads on the issue at that time, Dancey was definitely strongly implying a whole lot of "if it uses AD&D rules, we own it." Dancey even tried to claim copyright on the game mechanics (which everyone knows aren't copyrightable... the expression of the rules, yes, but not the rules themselves).

Not being able to afford a lawyer should they try to assert ownership of my campaign setting (which I had available online at the time), I pulled it and none of it has ever been online again since. In fact, I haven't bought any D&D product since 2000, so Dancey sure did a great job at keeping us 1E/2E people excited about the game as they were getting ready to launch 3E. By the time the OGL came out, I had no faith left in TSR/WOTC/Hasbro and, as the post below illustrates, the possibility that they were still claiming ownership of my material if I used them anyway.

Re:They might claim it is about infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

A license cannot define what a derived work is. When you're trying to decide whether or not you need to license something, you never ever ever read the license first; that can only distract and confuse you. That holds for the OGL, the GPL, or a MS EULA.

Re:They might claim it is about infringement

[geekoid]

They have a long history of that, especially during 2nd edition when the bitch took over.

They tried that crap with me. I paid 100 bucks and got a lawyer to draft a nice letter. After which they left me alone.

Granted I was only making a few thousand bucks a year.

Re:They might claim it is about infringement

[geekoid]

Unfortuantly OGL was a bad thing for the industry.

How much room is there on the game store shelf for another d20 pirate game? another d20 space game?
It made it even harder for small companies to get space.

So while it was considered a break through by many, myself included, in reality it wasn't so good.

Re:They might claim it is about infringement

[furby076]

Not being able to afford a lawyer should they try to assert ownership of my campaign setting (which I had available online at the time), I pulled it and none of it has ever been online again since. In fact, I haven't bought any D&D product since 2000, so Dancey sure did a great job at keeping us 1E/2E people excited about the game as they were getting ready to launch 3E. By the time the OGL came out, I had no faith left in TSR/WOTC/Hasbro and, as the post below illustrates, the possibility that they were still claiming ownership of my material if I used them anyway.

Many people have played 3x, 4e and not had any issues. The campaign I am in, the enWorld story hour is one of the most popular story hours. The DM writes our campaign so well and people go crazy waiting for updates. WoTC is not harassing us at all.

So you did not buy any product since 2000. Did you use any of their products since 2000? Did you use their OGL/SRD products?

Re:They might claim it is about infringement

[phantomlord]

I'm sure plenty of people played 3E/3.5E/4E... Obviously, not everyone did what I did or else D&D wouldn't still be sitting on store shelves. But for me, their impled legal threats were enough for me to walk away.

As for buying new material, with about 60 1E/2E books (full books, not modules) sitting on my shelf, I've been able to continue gaming just fine without buying new material since 2000. That's kinda the point of why they pulled sales of the PDFs, because the real value is in the settings, monsters, etc and not the new numbers in the books for the slightly juggled rule systems.

I've never looked inside a 3E/4E book. I've never touched an OGL/SRD product. They successfully scared me off, shooting themselves in the foot much like the RIAA is doing today. I mean, I bought 60ish books at $20 or so a pop (compared to my players, whom generally had 3-4 books (PHB, PO:S&P, and some class/race books) and relied on my library for anything else). I was one of their best customers until they decided to start threatening us... but once threatened, I don't soon forget, promises of an Open Gaming License or not.

Re:They might claim it is about infringement

[camazotz]

I think 9 years of highly successful SRD/OGL 3rd party products have proven that they did not "shoot themselves in the foot" and you are probably the first person I have seen to show evidence or worry. Now, the current GSL is a bit closer to the kind of concern you are displaying, but even then publishers have moved forward and released 3rd party products under the D&D license. I myself publish for D&D under general copyright laws due to the draconian legal options WotC allows itself in the current GSL, but the original SRD and OGL proved to be in no way whatsoever as malicious as you were worried they would be.

Re:They might claim it is about infringement

[phantomlord]

and again, the "derivative work" threats from Ryan Dancey predated the creation of the OGL. All I could go buy was their previous history as T$R under Lorraine Williams and the implied threats of their product manager. Hindsight may be 20/20, but you have to make decisions with the information you have at the time.

As for shooting themselves in the foot, we'll never know how many 1E/2E players never bought any 3E+ material. It might have only been a dozen of us out of the hundreds or thousands that were reading rec.games.frp.dnd at the time, but that doesn't change the fact that their implied legal threats did scare off some (at least one) previous customers from buying their products, not to mention pulling campaign material off the net. I do remember other people doing the latter at the time, whether or not they ever put it back up, I don't know.

It does hurt the bottom line to scare off people that literally have bought thousands of dollars worth of your products by implying legal ramifications even though you never follow through on them. It was a completely pointless campaign by Dancey that could do nothing BUT hurt the company's image.

Re:They might claim it is about infringement

[Fulminata]

It had its pluses and minuses. It got some good companies into the business, like Green Ronin.

Looking beyond the retail shelf to the RPG industry as a whole, there was an explosion of indy RPGs like Burning Wheel and Dogs in the Vineyard right at the same time that the OGL was at its height. Probably some of the most innovative systems ever created in the shadow of the OGL behemoth.

oh noes

[Anonymous Coward]

realizing people pirate anything not nailed down and then respond to it by screwing customers was a hip business model like... in the 90s.. good luck with that

Re:oh noes

[furby076]

realizing people pirate anything not nailed down

Great you just gave WoTC a new business model. Whenever you buy one of their books you must buy the installation package which will have a WoTC technician come out and nail the book down into your coffee/gaming table.

Re:oh noes

[Aerynvala]

I bet they would if they could reasonably afford to do it, or you know, pass it off as a special feature to customers.

Re:oh noes

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a glass coffee/gaming table you insensitive clod!

Re:oh noes

[MegaMahr]

Great you just gave WoTC a new business model. Whenever you buy one of their books you must buy the installation package which will have a WoTC technician come out and nail the book down into the folding table in your mom's basement.

Fixed that for you...

Re:oh noes

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another half-arsed approach to stopping piracy. I'll put a scanner (upside-down) on my nailed book, scan, p2p.

Wait. No, I won't. Because we stopped buying new D&D books when the group realised how un-fun it is to adopt a new ruleset (lose old characters and campaign) every time WotC come up with a new version.

Re:oh noes

[PMuse]

Seen on a gamers' button:

"All I want is what's mine.
If it isn't nailed down, it's mine.
If I can pry it up, it wasn't nailed down".

(attributed to Collis Potter Huntington, a railroad baron who helped found the Union Pacific Railroad in the later 1800s)

Re:oh noes

[Anonymous Coward]

Given how many gaming books I've misplaced over the last decade, this immediately strikes me as a useful service.

Hello Slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

summary not available

.

You keep it real, I'll keep it frosty.

AC, keeping Slashdot frosty since 1998.

Quite a shame...

[ghostgrave]

I never understand the intelligence behind actions such as this.. For some reason companies tend to phaze out useful parts of their businesses in favor of "piracy" diversion.

Re:Quite a shame...

[Chyeld]

TSR was the love child of two people with a creative idea and the willingness to put it on the line to see it bloom.

Unfortunately, like most companies formed this way, the business aspect was ignored in favor of the 'beloved product'.

They never really had a business plan, and if you viewed the history of the company since it's inception, you'd notice that the way they 'made money' was simply coming up with new ways to repackage their idea. And then the founders got into a fight and lost pretty much the whole deal to a numbnut who didn't even like gaming.

Is it any wonder, when they were purchased by Wizards of the Coast, a company that had a similar history, that the business plan never changed?

And when Hasbro purchased WoTC, they weren't doing it for D&D they were doing it for Pokemon and to a lesser extent, MtG. They also haven't put any thought into what they should be doing with the older, legacy, properties that came along with the purchase.

Unlike TSR or WoTC though, Hasbro is a bona fide corporation, they have cube farms and quarterly meetings, middle management and legal divisons. And unlike TSR or WoTC, Hasbro isn't in this for any 'love' of anything other than money. It shouldn't be any surprise that of the three, Hasbro has been the most willing to screw over fans and partners while doing it's double takes and meandering in an attempt to realize a profit on D&D. Not that TSR or WoTC have ever had a history of not doing so, simply that their actions were usually the result of infighting between people who actually felt they had a stake in things instead of some impersonal jackass looking a bottom line on a report.

Re:Quite a shame...

[Opportunist]

1. Shut down online distribution (after shutting down printing before)
2. Wait for people to distribute what can't be gotten anymore any other way.
3. Sue.
4. Profit.

What's hard to understand?

Re:Quite a shame...

[azgard]

TSR was the love child of two people with a creative idea and the willingness to put it on the line to see it bloom.

From what I have heard, TSR was pretty sue-trigger-happy even in the 90s. Some people here in Czechia wanted to translate and license their rulebooks after the Velvet Revolution, but TSR didn't allow it. So they created their own independent system, which had large majority of the market probably till 2000 (because they were the first RPG and in Czech).

Re:Quite a shame...

[korbin_dallas]

Yup, Hasbro is severely f(*&ed as a company.
Crap all they need to do it 'print' Squad Leader, Tobruk, or Arab-Isreali Wars and make money.
You know like Disney does with old movies, just print one title every 3-4 months.
They are sitting on about 800 titles from Avalon Hill, SPI and others. But they have no clue what to with them.
It not like they have to do any work, just print the things.

Re:Quite a shame...

[NoobixCube]

I've been meaning to get into D&D for a while now, but I'll be damned if I'm going to go and blow the equivalent of my university textbook budget on rule books just to decide I don't like it. I'd much rather pirate it, play a few games, and then decide if I want to buy the materials. And I would buy them too, the tactile feel of paper in a bound book is so much better, to me, than a PDF on a screen. That's 90% of the reason I don't like reading ebooks on my computer (the other 10% is that I usually read to get away from the drone and glow of my computer).

Re:Quite a shame...

[Enerla]

While what you say is reasonable, there is an interesting side effect. Hasbro is a huge company, with a lot of money to lose. The story is now on slashdot, soon it can be on a few portals, and if the conclusion will be: "hasbro makes games you can't play as designed without breaking law then sueing kids for playing them" and some groups will suggest boycott against hasbro then the losses on this move would be pretty nasty since it can influence all hasbro brands and products. WOTC is a small thing for them, and D&D is small even for WOTC.

The problem is: they encourage online play, but in online play some of the copyrighted material (handouts) will be shared in all cases. They encourage inviting new people to play with them, and letting them buy the game later. For this you need to send rules to them. It means you should share files for an encouraged behavior.

And this is enough for most kids to believe they could and should do this. For kids sending file when you have to use it with a friend isn't "copying" and isn't something to do with copyright. For them it is how the game is designed to work.

A such legal trap and sueing minors, sueing people who pay reprogrphy fee for making personal copies, sueing people from poland, etc. in USA, etc.

Not something you would want from a toymaker. If they intentionally add a legal risk to their toys and games, would you let your kids play with any of their products?

This question can cost them a LOT of money. And I hope it WILL cost them a LOT of money and make them think twice before any attempt to sue kids...

(Sadly I don't want to quote my blog for more details, but don't want to link it, since it could be too much traffic, not sure how to share my other thoughts about the case)

The Who Did What Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is all so mind-blowing !

Not quite like Suzi

This will yield opposite results

[Duane13]

So instead of making still LOTS of money off of legal PDF sales, now EVERYONE who wants PDFs will find them on torrents. This will make the torrenting of them more prevalent.

Re:This will yield opposite results

[dword]

Oh, no! People won't torrent, because they sued 8 file sharers, didn't you read about it on the 'Net? [like anyone would believe that]

Re:This will yield opposite results

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes it easier to prosecute when the only copies available are known to be illegal copies. Kind of makes it hard to use the "how do they know this copy is an illegal copy and not approved" argument a lot of people here like to make.

I am amused at the false outrage of the thieves that have been stealing this material now saying "I guess I just have to steal it", when they know damn well they were stealing it before.

Hopefully, they go after these criminals and find enough stuff on their hard drives to put em away for 20 years.

How dare WotC for trying to stop the criminals that are stealing from them.

   

Re:This will yield opposite results

[Anonymous Coward]

+10 Absolutely fucking correct.

I have bought a number of classic D&D, AD&D (1st Ed) and Gamma World PDFs, because I simply can't get my hands on the physical books.

I've seen other PDFs of the same books - the illegal ones ... y'know, scanned with image enhancement; the text/image match-up is actually right; ToC and index hyperlinked. As opposed to my legitimate "hey look we scanned this old archive copy that's been sitting under Joe's coffee mug".

Still, I bought the PDFs because - hey - that's the right thing to do.

Guess now the only way to access this effectively orphaned material is via P2P. At higher quality. What a bummer.

Re:This will yield opposite results

[Opportunist]

I hold here in my hand a list of eight people...

Makes perfect sense

[tsstahl]

Now the only avenue of ownership for their digital content is unsanctioned file sharing.

All future unsanctioned copies will bear the same (at least) 8 watermarks losing TOS abusers in a sea of anonymity.

Best viral marketing move for an RPG ever.

----

And just when you thought they 'got it'...

Re:Makes perfect sense

[furby076]

You didn't own the pdfs, you licensed them. There is a difference.

Re:Makes perfect sense

[Anonymous Coward]

This distinction has almost no practical value. If I bought something, I own it. If I leased something, I dont. "Licensing" fits neither of these two categories, as it basically says "you bought it, but its treated as a lease."

Re:Makes perfect sense

[furby076]

This distinction has almost no practical value. If I bought something, I own it. If I leased something, I dont. "Licensing" fits neither of these two categories, as it basically says "you bought it, but its treated as a lease."

Actually you are wrong on all counts.
1) Licensing information has value. Many companies license material and while they are using it the material is providing them value (think eLearning)>
2) The difference between leasing/owning is that one you have to return at the end of some period and the other you keep
3) Licensing fits this category nicely. Per the licensing agreement you get to keep the product for a term of X where X can be "forever", however, unlike ownership you cannot do things such as make copies and sell/give those copies out to other folks legally (unless the license allows you do do it).

So you paid money to license it. Buy is just a generic/global term used at the store "Hey you bought a new book, congtulations"...except you are not allowed, by law, to copy and then distribute that book.

But if you think you are so correct I highly recommend you hire a lawyer (I am sure some public group would provide you with a free attorney) and make history. The person who can use your argument in a court of law and *win* would set massive precedent. You would definitely get your name in news and probably make a ton of money on the lecture circuit.

Re:Makes perfect sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay if they kept the current system but just went after any future TOS Abusers in the courts, you peoiple would still whine and complain about them "suing their customers" and "not getting it".

WotC wants 3e DEAD! At any cost

[swordgeek]

Recently I went looking for some 3rd edition books, since I thought they'd be getting scarce soon.

Scarce? I was mistaken. 3.0 and 3.5 are GONE. Every local gaming store, every local used book store, every online store in Canada, and everywhere else I checked were out of old editions.

Especially curious was the fact that one of the gaming stores had about 15 full sets of 3.5 at Christmas, but by the second week of January, didn't have a single copy of any sourcebook from that era. Nada.

Does anyone know if WotC has done a big buyback? It almost seems like someone has been scouring the bookstores methodically, snatching up everything that would suggest an older edition ever existed.

Ah well, screw 'em. I'll play what I want, and if I can't buy the material, I _will_ download it. Way to go, Wizards!

Re:WotC wants 3e DEAD! At any cost

[furby076]

I don't know if Wotc did but it would be smart for them to do it and smarter for the bookstores to sell it (gauranteed sales). I doubt Wotc did - WoTC is not in the habit of buying their products. More then likely it is someone who wanted to do the same thing as you.

You may want to try ebay, amazon, borders, etc. Doing a quick search on amazon dungeons and dragons 3.5

There are no shortages of books. You can also get it cheaper online.

Re:WotC wants 3e DEAD! At any cost

[TheSpoom]

Trying to take things off the internet is like trying to take piss out of a pool.

The sooner companies learn that, the better.

Re:WotC wants 3e DEAD! At any cost

[Anonymous Coward]

Gone? Ever heard of Amazon?

Re:WotC wants 3e DEAD! At any cost

[Abreu]

I don't think so. A lot of game store owners and employees frequent the gaming forums and if WotC were implementing a "third edition buyback" program, a big fuss would have been made in the forums (with the subsequent Streissand Effect)

I just believe that there was enough demand for those books and they were all bought. Which is good news for people like Paizo who are supporting those players.

For my part, I was already a little tired of the third edition rules and I'm quite happy so far with 4th edition. However, I think "edition holy wars" are just stupid. People should play whatever game they like and stop trying to evangelize...

Re:WotC wants 3e DEAD! At any cost

[geekoid]

Huh. Here in Portland Oregon I see them in every hobby store, and in used book stores. can't get rid of that crap fast enough.

I mean..um.. yeah there scarce how much, exactly, would you pay for these 'scarce' books?

Re:WotC wants 3e DEAD! At any cost

[222]

Not to piss on your parade, but we have the technology. http://www.infoniac.com/science/nasa-buys-russian-hi-tech-toilet-that-turns-urine-into-drinking-water.html

Re:WotC wants 3e DEAD! At any cost

[Anonymous Coward]

I run a gaming store and all our 3.5 product is gone (we still have some used 3.0 stuff). Wizards did a buy back at the distributor level, so it's impossible for stores to restock. Considering how 4.0 is a different game that appeals to a completely different (and much smaller, at least in my store) audience, this has caused sales to plummet. Most of my clients are eagerly awaiting the release of Paizo's Pathfinder system.

Re:WotC wants 3e DEAD! At any cost

[asdf7890]

Does anyone know if WotC has done a big buyback?

I don't know how WotC work, but I know that it was said of Games Workshop (in the UK) a number of years ago that if shops continued selling old ranges of books/miniatures/anything from that company after new stuff was released, they would find it very difficult to get hold of new stuff to sell because they would not be on the list of "preferred distributors" who got first pick when availability was limited (artificially or due to physical production issues). I'm told that a local model shop (now long since closed down) stopped stocking any of their stuff for that reason.

Of course this is all hear-say, if it did happen that way it was well over a decade ago and may well have changed now, and doesn't apply to the company in question, but that sort of behaviour does still happen often in retail sectors despite the questionable legality of such "don't sell X and we'll help you with selling Y" inducement in many territories, and would explain the abrupt stock changes you have seen.

Of course a less tin-foil-hat interpretation is that the physical stores don't want to give shelf & warehouse space to the older material because they doubt it will sell well enough and therefore the space would be better used for some other product(s) such as the new editions.

In either case, the old stock would have been flogged to a remaindered stock handler rather than sent back to the manufacturer.

Re:WotC wants 3e DEAD! At any cost

[ultranova]

Does anyone know if WotC has done a big buyback? It almost seems like someone has been scouring the bookstores methodically, snatching up everything that would suggest an older edition ever existed.

It seems somewhat illogical to buy back a book just to sell another book, rather than just discontinuing the old book. Besides, isn't the whole reason to publish a new edition that old edition wasn't selling anymore? So why expend money towards removing books books no one wants anyway?

Re:WotC wants 3e DEAD! At any cost

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure about a buyback, but yes the 3.0/.5 books have become few and far in between.

However, there is a small chain close to where I live that I was even able to buy a few 3.5 modules.

Re:WotC wants 3e DEAD! At any cost

[bughunter]

Sounds to me like Hasbro/WotC learned something from the 3.0/3.5 release: make it very inconvenient for the player to use anything but the version in print. Kill groups that continue to use obsolete versions die out with attrition.

In 2000, I was a RPG grognard with a 25-year collection of TSR relics. When 3.0 was released, me and my gaming group said "WTF? We've spent thousands on our books, we're gonna keep playing 2.5" and we continued to tell our new recruits to find used copies of the PHB and Skills & Powers books, or download the PDFs. I did eventually buy the core set by 2002 so that I could continue to play pickup games or sit in on other groups. But then got royally pissed when I sat down with a group in 2004 and learned that the $120 I spent on core books was completely wasted because they had released 3.5.

Screw that. They're trying to use the MTG model on RPG publications. It ain't gonna work. Most of us grognards embaraced the CCG genre when it came out, but after seeing what it's done to the RPG market and culture, we're reviled. And pissed.

And now, the PDFs of 2.5 are contraband? Screw you Hasbro. Screw you with a bastard sword. Sideways.

I'm seriously considering switching my group to GURPS. The great aunt post above about SJ Games was correct. Steve Jackson gets gamers.

Re:WotC wants 3e DEAD! At any cost

[2short]

"Scarce? I was mistaken. 3.0 and 3.5 are GONE. Every local gaming store, every local used book store, every online store in Canada, and everywhere else I checked were out of old editions."

Took me 30 seconds to find copies at eBay, which has all the books in both editions widely available.

Don't get that get in the way of deciding to pirate stuff because of the implausible grand conspiracy you've imagined though... For that matter, I'm dubious about sticking it to Wizards by pirating and thus not giving them money instead of buying used books they no longer print and thus not giving them money.

Re:WotC wants 3e DEAD! At any cost

[TheSpoom]

Well, at least I can take the piss off my parade.

Re:WotC wants 3e DEAD! At any cost

[Xveers]

Does anyone know if WotC has done a big buyback? It almost seems like someone has been scouring the bookstores methodically, snatching up everything that would suggest an older edition ever existed.

I can't speak for other places, but I ended up talking with several local game store owners in my neck of the woods. From what I've been able to piece together, a fairly self-reinforcing cycle kicked in about the same time they announced 4e:

1) 4e announced, fanbase is split as some embrace the expansion, others see possible writing on wall and begin buying 3.5e stuff where they can. Some hobby stores begin discounting 3.5e in order to clear out "old inventory".

2) As more people begin to grab 3.5 stuff, sales in local stores of said increase, outpacing 4e sales noticeably. Stores put in restock orders to local distributors. Lower margin per item is compensated by higher volume sales, so local stores wish to keep items in stock as much as possible.

3) WoTC notices that 3.5 demand is higher than 4e. They then conduct a buyback at the distributor level (this is what happened in my neghborhood. WoTC bought back, at almost retail IIRC, all of their own 3.5e product). Distributors inform local stores that they have no more WoTC stock in inventory and will not be receiving more.

4) Locals discover 3.5 isn't getting restocked, many core books are cleaned out and several secondary markets are also cleaned.

End result: 3.5e stuff is virtually gone except for several niche stores that only stocked it as a secondary product (I've found myself hitting Chapters stores, Goth clothing and miscellaneous stores, and other out of the way locations to pick up various 3.5 stuff).

Re:WotC wants 3e DEAD! At any cost

[pluther]

Where in Portland? I and a couple of friends have looked for them. Expansion books and the Monster Manual were all over the place, but even Powell's didn't have a 3.5 Players Handbook.

Not that I think this means there was a buyback or anything. They stopped printing them a while back, so stores probably just sold out of whatever inventory they had. Most game stores don't carry a huge amount of back stock that isn't out on the shelves.

Re:WotC wants 3e DEAD! At any cost

[raodin]

I don't know about WotC, but it is common practice for publishers to buy back out of print and discontinued stock. I worked for a major general merchandise retailer for a while and we shipped back 3-4 40lb boxes of books a month to our distributor, plus a bag of covers from the paperbacks, which they had us destroy.

Sword of Litigation +1

[spookymonster]

WotC attacks the gazebo!

Re:Sword of Litigation +1

[Anonymous Coward]

WotC strikes the gazebo with the Sword of Litigation.

Suddenly 500 gazebos magically appear each holding a Shield of uTorrent. WoTC can feel his purse become lighter.

Re:Sword of Litigation +1

[Zumbs]

... only to discover that it is aided by a green davenport!

Re:Sword of Litigation +1

[Anonymous Coward]

WotC attacks the gazebo!

No one can help you. You must face the Gazebo alone.

EUREKA!

[Thanshin]

They found the universal solution to copyright infringement!

Stop selling the copyright protected content!

How could we miss such an extrardinary solution! ...

Oh. Right. Because it's a complete idiocy. I knew there had to be a reason.

Pirates will just break out the scanners

[Glass Goldfish]

With scanners at $100, who do they think this will stop. People will scan their books or borrow them from a friend and scan them. These scans will end up on the Internet. Wizards of the Coast is going to stop as much piracy as the RIAA. All they've manage to accomplish is cutting off a source of revenue. People who pirate will continue to pirate, people who don't pirate won't be able to buy your books in digital format. Not to mention reducing revenue from people who want to look at a pirated PDF to see if the book is useful before spending $20 to $30 on a non-pirated book. Now they're just not going to buy.

The only way to stop piracy is to lock down every system in the world and then destroy all knowledge of computer technology. And that will only work until some guy in his basement re-discovers the knowledge.

Hubris

[SirGarlon]

Back when Wizards of the Coast took over D&D, one of the striking things then-Vice President Ryan Dancey said was that TSR (the former publisher) has obviously not listened to customers and had lost relevancy for that reason.

Now, Ryan Dancey is no longer at WotC, and WotC is not listening to customers, and what do you know? WotC is losing relevancy. People are going to buy the products they want, in the format they want, from the retailer they want, and you can never make them buy something different. It's as simple as that.

Fortunately the 3.x rules are open source so D&D can never die, in spite of WotC's seemingly intentional efforts to run their business into the ground. It just can't be called D&D for trademark reasons.

Re:Hubris

[dcollins]

Fortunately the 3.x rules are open source [opengamingfoundation.org] so D&D can never die, in spite of WotC's seemingly intentional efforts to run their business into the ground.

In theory, yes. However, I fear (and have predicted for some time) that WOTC would begin legal proceedings against sites likes those under technical grounds. The will or ability to defend against any suits would be minimal.

Re:Hubris

[SirGarlon]

It's only the rules that are open source, not adventures and campaign setting material. So, for example, the Forgotten Realms (most popular RPG setting of all time) is WotC's intellectual property and under their total control.

However, WotC cannot stop other companies making D&D-like games, settings, adventures, and products for 3.x rules -- as long as they're not called "D&D". Several companies are still doing that. Which makes WotC's move to take themselves out of the 3.x market especially stupid. In the hopes of driving more players to 4E, they're ceding the 3.x legacy market to their competitors.

Re:Hubris

[dcollins]

However, WotC cannot stop other companies making D&D-like games, settings, adventures, and products for 3.x rules -- as long as they're not called "D&D". Several companies are still doing that.

I am in the industry and have co-authored several products published under the OGL.

Nontheless, if WOTC decided to file suits against OGL publishers on narrow technical grounds (improper referencing, use of the d20 mark as seen at http://www.d20srd.org/, etc.), the will or ability to defend against such suits would be minimal. Even if they were on the right side of the law.

Re:Hubris

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep using the word's D&D, Dungeons and Dragon and D20 system. If they become diluted there is no trademark claim.

Re:Hubris

[brasscount]

IBM did that once. They gave away the ISA desktop architecture and allowed other people to build on it. Lots of competitors sprang up and took advantage of the free engineering. IBM then released microchannel desktop architecture. It was faster, it had a cool OS, and it was proprietary. Notice, it no longer exists, and IBM doesn't sell desktops anymore? Seems really parallel.

Re:Hubris

[SirGarlon]

Notice, it no longer exists, and IBM doesn't sell desktops anymore? Seems really parallel.

Except the part about the new product being better than the open one. ;-)

It's not about piracy....

[mark-t]

... I'd bet on it. Even though that's what they're claiming, I'm quite sure that they are presenting it from that angle because what I'm quite sure is the actual reason, that they don't want people playing the old editions anymore (possibly because they are noticing by sales figures that a lot of 3.x players aren't migrating to the new edition), would make them sound too selfish and juvenile. I'm compelled to agree with another person I saw who remarked on this story when it broke when he said that it's probably preferable to appear stupid than immature and greedy.

Re:It's not about piracy....

[geekoid]

Bing Bing Bing! we have a wHinner!
There has been a lot of contention between them and people still selling material geared at 3.5
This sire wouldn't budge becasue they have a customer base. WotC tried to get them to drop 3.5 but they said no.
And now this happens. 8 people? really? that's their concern? I think not.

Re:It's not about piracy....

[MadKeithV]

Or that they've realized they could be selling the downloads directly for the same price and pocket the difference of selling through a middle-man.

Illegal

[Jason1729]

Unfortunately, this includes offering download access to previously purchased Wizards of the Coast titles.

Why do these arrogant companies think they can take back what they've sold without compensation? This is ripe for a lawsuit.

Re:Illegal

[calmofthestorm]

Probably buried in the contract somewhere, that 50 page (or whatever) monstrosity you agree to when you buy. Does it make it legal? Possibly. Does it contain a "binding arbitration" clause? Certainly. Is that legal? Possibly.

But is anyone really going to sue? Naah. If I did D & D, I'd just go back to bittorrent, or just stop playing altogether.

Who can afford litigation anyway, in terms of time if not money?

Re:Illegal

[furby076]

Why do these arrogant companies think they can take back what they've sold without compensation? This is ripe for a lawsuit.

Your statement makes no sense. If they sold you a PDf you still have it on your computer. WoTC is not demanding you delete it from your computer. They are telling stores they cannot continue to sell the PDFs. Typically places that sell PDFs pay royalties to the company which owns the information (in this case WoTC). So for every PDf they sell they give x% to WoTC. WoTC is now saying "no more". They are not taking what a customer paid for away from them. Is their decision smart? I don't know - time will tell. Is it "ripe for a lawsuit" absolutely not. They can decide not to have their content sold anymore. If you honestly believe this is "ripe for a lawsuit" then you have no idea what you are talking about.

Re:Illegal

[Millennium]

Your statement makes no sense. If they sold you a PDf you still have it on your computer.

Unless, of course, you don't. Things happen, stuff breaks, and when it does, you now lose access to your legitimately-purchased work.

Re:Illegal

[DragonWriter]

Why do these arrogant companies think they can take back what they've sold without compensation?

Maybe they just figure that the amount they are likely to be held liable for is less than the cost of continuing the existing business model.

Or maybe the contract they had with the electronic resellers is written in a way that it is quite clear that the reseller, which is who sold ongoing access to the consumer, is on the hook, since Wizards didn't provide any assurance to the reseller that justified them making that offer to the consumer.

Re:Illegal

[furby076]

Unless, of course, you don't. Things happen, stuff breaks, and when it does, you now lose access to your legitimately-purchased work.

If the place you purchased it from offers free downloads in case your computer busted it up then you need to take it up with them. Most places do not offer such a service. So if they do not offer the service it sucks for you (l2backup). If they did offer you a service then they are bound by your contract with them to replace your material or provide you a refund. That has nothing to do with WoTC.

Re:Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

The comment makes perfect sense. The context that this person speaks of is the fact they're suspending downloads of already purchased products. What if you paid for a product 2 weeks ago, and the download stopped and/or your computer rebooted or something else random happens; and you need to download it still? You can't. You didn't get your content. You gave WotC money and got nothing in return.

Just like Yahoo scrambled to find solutions to their DRM problems when the music service collapsed, wizards of the coast had better figure out how to satisfy these customers or they are definitely open for a lawsuit.

I'm inclined to think Yahoo would not have cared about previously-paid customers potentially losing access to their product if they did not have to.

Re:Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't understand. I purchased a copy of one of the 2e books concerning world building (designing a coherent fantasy world). I was promised the ability to download the pdf file repeatedly in the future. This simply meant that I didn't need to worry about keeping a backup. Now, I do. If someone formatted their drives and assumed they didn't need to make a backup because they were promised unlimited downloads, they have been harmed.

Re:Illegal

[shawn(at)fsu]

At some point you have to take responsibility for keeping your stuff safe. If you buy a hard copy of a book and loose it you can't really go to B&N and expect them to give you a new one. I don't see why digital media should be much different.

Re:Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

Who can afford litigation anyway, in terms of time if not money?

I certainly can't. Got too many goblins to slay.

Re:Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

Most sites that sell pdfs will keep the records of what you have bought so that if you lose one and need to redownload it, you can.
WotC has made it so that this policy can not be used anymore.

Computers crash and files go corrupt a lot more often than your shelf bursts into flames, after all.

Re:Illegal

[julesh]

Why do these arrogant companies think they can take back what they've sold without compensation? This is ripe for a lawsuit.

They don't. WotC didn't sell them to the consumers; they sold a licence to RPGNow that let RPGNow sell them. This license had a termination clause (presumably) but RPGNow assumed it would not be terminated so sold subscriptions to consumers that would allow them to download later.

WotC hasn't taken anything back. It's just stopped selling.
RPGNow has no choice. They can't continue to supply, because that would be illegal. They almost certainly can't refund all of their subscribers without going bust.

Offering the service without a contract with WotC that required them to continue supplying to the customers they had already sold copies to was stupid, but I don't think there's any arrogance on display here.

Re:Illegal

[2short]

If your purchase agreement included a commitment from them to host your purchased files forever, you have cause for complaint. If it did not, grow up and take responsibility for your own backups.

Re:Illegal

[MBGMorden]

Because digital media costs virtually nothing to replace. The publisher gets a lot of legal gimme's to get around this (ie, through copyright the government gives them sole rights to artificially limit a product that by default has an infinite supply), and so it's not much for the consumer to expect a LITTLE benefit from that situation.

Noticed at WotC website. :-D

[drewvr6]

A sign at a stone bridge warns, "Stop, pay troll."

Free Business Hint

[clickclickdrone]

If your demographic is largely weighted towards nerdy type males, a demographic whose mantra is 'free the information!' and who live for finding new and interesting torrents, it's probably not a good idea to put your bread and butter product in the digital domain. Just saying...

Re:Free Business Hint

[ivan256]

Quite the contrary.

They're likely to find from this that they lose 100% of their PDF revenue (after all, they're not selling them anymore) yet will see zero increase in revenue for their printed editions to compensate.

I've bought some WotC PDFs in the past. It's usually because I don't have time to drive to some distant hobby/comic shop to pick out a module, so I bought one online. Now I'll just buy from some other publisher. PDF copies of modules and sourcebooks far pre-dates online purchasing. Scans of modules and handbooks and maps and magazines was going on back in the BBS days over 1200bps modems. Stopping PDF sales isn't going stop piracy. It's a mere speed-bump.

So they cut off their nose. That'll teach their face!

Re:Free Business Hint

[russotto]

They're likely to find from this that they lose 100% of their PDF revenue (after all, they're not selling them anymore) yet will see zero increase in revenue for their printed editions to compensate.

Exactly. Old options were

1) Buy printed copy
2) Buy PDF copy
3) download unauthorized copy

Plenty of people who either
a) Prefer digital to paper or
b) Wanted the instant gratification of a download

probably would have bought the PDF copy, either because they figured it would be dishonest to get an unauthorized copy when a just-as-good legit one was available, or because it was actually easier and safer to get the legit one.

Very few of them, and essentially none of those who were downloading unauthorized versions anyway, will switch to buying printed copies. Instead, they'll switch to unauthorized versions. The people scanning the printed copies will continue doing so, making unauthorized versions easily available. It will be a little bit harder for them... but not enough to matter.

Re:Free Business Hint

[Anonymous Coward]

If your demographic is largely weighted towards nerdy type males, a demographic whose mantra is 'free the information!' [...], it's probably not a good idea to put your bread and butter product in the digital domain. Just saying...

Yes, because we all saw how quickly the makers of games like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake went out of business due to massive downloading of their digital material.

Markets change, times change. Some companies can understand this & make the change a business advantage. Other companies first ignore the change, then fight it, and eventually either fail or get bought up by someone who does understand.

Re:Free Business Hint

[Anonymous Coward]

If your demographic is largely weighted towards nerdy type males, a demographic whose mantra is 'free the information!' and who live for finding new and interesting torrents, it's probably not a good idea to put your bread and butter product in the digital domain. Just saying...

You're simply wrong. If your demographic is weighted towards nerdy type males, you want your product out there, and you want them to have the ability to easily pay for your entire catalog, old products and new, in any format they want. Even if only a minority of people with digital copies bought legitimate ones, at least it was something.

WotC gets nothing now except a few irritated customers and more people seeding the torrents.

Pathfinder (plug for improved 3.5e compat system)

[Psymin]

Paizo has come up with a system that I think rocks.

If you are angry with WotC and their Vista-like 4e, try the Beta .. Real version should be out this year.

Free Beta Download

Wizards rolls a critical failure.

[The Master Magician]

Fails saving throw against stupidity. Lawyer casts Bankruptcy spell.

eBook format anyone?

[foniksonik]

There are a variety of DRMd eBook formats they could choose to use. This would satisfy their contractual obligations if nothing else.

Why they haven't changed to that is a mystery... they should have done so and added something new and put out a release.. would have been relatively bland PR instead of this negative result.

The more you tighten your grip

[Raleel]

The more starsystems will slip through your fingers.

and I was going to buy about $300 of 1e pdfs. oh well, guess I'll torrent because I CAN'T GET THEM ANYWHERE ELSE NOW.

Re:The more you tighten your grip

[Anonymous Coward]

The more starsystems will slip through your fingers.
and I was going to buy about $300 of 1e pdfs. oh well, guess I'll torrent because I CAN'T GET THEM ANYWHERE ELSE NOW.

This is the wrong way to respond. Period. If you are not happy that WOTC is unwilling to provide access to their intellectual property in a manner that you find suitable, then find someone producing comparable products who is willing to provide access to those products in a manner to your liking. Does WOTC have a monopoly on role playing games? No! Other companies and individuals produce high-quality role playing games. Contact them and ask if they will sell you a PDF version of their rule sets. Tell them you are moving away from WOTC products because they are not accessible in a manner to your liking. Some will follow WOTC's lead and refuse. Others will see an opportunity to take market share away from WOTC.

The attitude of "you won't sell it to me the way I want it, therefore I am justified in taking it for free" doesn't change markets. Why didn't independent musicians and smaller labels take over the music industry by providing MP3s when the big recording companies refused to distribute music online? Because people like you decided it was alright to just take the intellectual property of the big recording companies. People like you should have starting purchasing music from the independent musicians and smaller labels who were providing MP3s online. That would have done more to change the face of the music industry and the distribution model for music than simply engaging in mass mob piracy.

Try not to make that mistake again.

Re:The more you tighten your grip

[DrOct]

What about doing both?

That being said, I get what you're saying, engaging in rampant piracy is likely to simply be seen as vindication for the policy, even if the increase only happens after they pull the PDF's from stores.

But still... What if I want to play the original Castle Ravenloft Adventure? I can't get that anywhere else, except playing huge amounts for a printed copy on ebay. And now I CAN'T pay WoTC for it either way.

Re:The more you tighten your grip

[geekoid]

Just becasue you want something doesn't mean you have the right to get it.

Re:The more you tighten your grip

[DrOct]

But doesn't it seem like a poor business decision on the part of those that could make them available to not do so, when there is clearly a demand?

Why not play Donjon instead?

[ProteusQ]

http://open.crngames.com/src/donjon.html

All of the rules are online. Buying the PDFs are optional. And all of your D&D books can work with it.

Value added for printed material?

[DeweyQ]

If viral marketing can rely on cheap distribution of PDFs, and the printed version offers stuff that is simply unavailable in the PDF... maybe they would have a business model. But to make the PDF exactly the same as the printed book, then charge the same amount... it doesn't seem to make sense. In any case, D&D fans tend to be technically savvy so there will always be digital distribution, authorized or unauthorized. Better to come up with a business model that leverages this tendency instead of fighting uphill against it. M:TG cards put Wizards on the map: scarcity and added value were the cornerstones of that whole business model. Without turning D&D into a collectibles game, surely they can take a page out of their own history and add value to materials that people are willing to purchase -- while still offering the viral "word-of-mouth" benefits of a freely distributed digital medium.

Re:Value added for printed material?

[east coast]

M:TG cards put Wizards on the map: scarcity and added value were the cornerstones of that whole business model. Without turning D&D into a collectibles game, surely they can take a page out of their own history and add value to materials that people are willing to purchase...

Sorry, can't be done without reinventing D&D into just another CCG. WotC real business model was creating a game that caught on with players and turning it into something of collectors value by introducing an artificial system of importance. You can't do that in D&D as it's currently played. When Wizards pulled crap like declaring certain cards "blacklisted" from competition or certain styles of play and making these cards scarce they made an artificial world of exclusivity. In D&D if you want your character to own a +20 sword of gnat smiting than you just put it on the character's sheet. It's much like those who claim that a digital work can't be stolen but only copied. As long as it's just so much graphite on a on paper you can reproduce it as often as you like, the card on the other hand is much harder to duplicate.

And as much as collectible trinkets are nice to get with a physical product when it comes down to it it wouldn't take long for people to understand that they're paying 29.99 for a book that they could have as a free PDF and a plastic miniature that might fetch 5 dollars on eBay in a few years.

I'm afraid that unless you can create an artificial demand for a product by putting funky regulations in place and creating unique items in small numbers that you're not going to get far and that kind of thing isn't going to wash with the people who still put out cash for D&D.

In other words: To use the open source vs closed source debate: Gary Gygax and friends put out the open source goods around 1973, Wizards later found a way to dumb it down and add commercial value to it later by creating a product that people couldn't hope to reproduce on the same professional level. TSR did well because the alternatives to buying a book were few and far between and often too expensive to implement anyway. Today TSRs business model wouldn't last 5 minutes, at least not in a way that would sustain profit.

Again, sorry to say, but the profitable aspects of pen and paper RPGs are pretty much dust in the wind at this point. The only way to make it profitable again to publishers is to reinvent it completely and what will be left will be more likely to alienate older players who don't need the publisher any longer because they already have everything they need.

I know that TSR once published openly (in Dragon magazine) that their future was in the hands of older players who could afford to buy books. They knew younger players weren't bolstering their bank accounts and the way the game changed over the years proved that. They needed people with expendable incomes to buy big so they tailored themselves to an older player base. Basically TSR knew, in a round about method, that if you destroy the book you destroy the profit. But this was at a time that reproducing the book was more expensive than buying it off the shelf in either money or time. Wizards should have seen this too but instead tried to re-gear D&D to their CCG business model and with that they also tried to pull in the younger player and now we see that this has fallen flat on it's face. They did fine for a while by producing crap like "The Complete Potato Farmer version 3.5.323" but now that the genie is out of the bottle it's pretty much going to doom commercial role playing.

To go back to the open source vs closed source relationship; Wizards is going to likely experience what Linux users have been hoping for for years before Linux ever reaches 10% market share.

Wizards may have been able to save itself by doing some kind of subscription online community effort but we've all seen how bad Wizards has failed in this aspect. Even if they came out with something today one has to wonder if it's all too late...

Re:Value added for printed material?

[Anonymous Coward]

That was a great response. I wonder what wiggle room it leaves for ANY kind of sustainable business model. I for one know that in the early 1990s I quickly tired of the comic book company creating multiple streams of plotlines in different comics so that in order to follow a single story I needed to purchase up to six different comics a month.

You mentioned "artificial demand" and it suggested "artificial scarcity". I was thinking more about true value-add features that would appeal to the (older) people with more disposable income. Viral marketing to "hook" younger players? No matter what, given your analysis, I think we can agree that Wizards will have to scale back and settle for smaller profits in the future or fail completely.

Re:Value added for printed material?

[DeweyQ]

No idea why my comment came out anonymously... must have drifted my mouse over the checkbox by accident. (I'm old.)

Re:Value added for printed material?

[MadKeithV]

The value-added feature should be a company with a flourishing open community that can contribute back. In a sense, they need to create a business model that spawns "fan boys" that are willing to contribute for free, much like open source.
Their revenue stream would be based on donations, selling hard-copy, and play gadgets like miniatures (characters, monsters, terrain, buildings), maps, and collectibles based on their intellectual property.

Timr the ole'

[geekoid]

"To use with ..." tag.
This is what I put on no the modules I made in 79-84.
Yeah, TSR tried to get me to stop. I got a lawyer, pointed out that every module and add on I made had "To use with DnD. This product is in no way affiliate with TSR, inc."

They went away.

As we sued to say:
"What to TSR stand for? To Sue Regularly"
Also known as T$R

Re:Timr the ole'

[TheRaven64]

It's been a while since I played DnD now (back when I last did, AD&D 2nd Edition was still new and shiny), but how important are the rules now? One of the first things I did was write a program for my Psion Series 3 (yes, that long ago) which tracked the stats of a party so I could select events and have it automatically handle the game mechanics and leave me and the players free to get on with the role playing (this also had the advantage that they couldn't hear me rolling the dice to see if any of them triggered a trap, and so wouldn't avoid it on the way back). I'd have though, given that the target market for these games is basically geeks, that they'd be doing this sort of thing officially now.

Re:Timr the ole'

[geekoid]

At my age, I perfer less rules like Savage Worlds.
I ahve played 4e and enjoyed it, but much of it is rules that shouldn't be needed.

Create Lawsuit

[dstech]

Necromancy [Fear, Evil, Mind-Affecting]
Level: Lawyer 5
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 day
Range: 12,800 kilometers
Targets: up to eight D&D players
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

You ensnare the targets in a vast machine of red tape, legalese and procedures. The target feels compelled to pay you 1d10 x 1000 gp per caster level. If the target succeeds at his will save, he navigates the red tape and is not affected. The target is then free to return to his mother's basement.

Material Components: a large amount of money and a Legal team

Re:Create Lawsuit

[S77IM]

Create Lawsuit / Wizard of the Coast Attack 9
With a twirl of your mustache and a flourish of your cape, you reveal to all the world the villain that you are.
Daily * Arcane, Implement, Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt
Standard Action / Close burst 12
Targets: Up to 8 file sharers in the burst
Attack: Constitution vs. Will
Hit: 2d6 + Constitution modifier pocketbook damage, and the target is marked on his permanent record.
Miss: Half damage, and you lose half your fan base.
Effect: Your customers are mildly inconvenienced (save ends).
Aftereffect: Your customers learn that copyright infringement is cheaper, faster, and easier than actually buying your products.

Re:Create Lawsuit

[shentino]

-Components: V, S, M
+Components: V, S, M, F

-Material Components: a large amount of money and a Legal team
+Material Components: a large amount of money
+Focus: Legal team

Legal teams aren't consumed when you use them, money is.

Re:Create Lawsuit

[dstech]

"Legal teams aren't consumed when you use them"

Clearly, we do things differently.

Re:Noticed at WotC website. :-D

[Bota]

You win. and you have also been eaten by a grue.

The Pirate Bay

[Anonymous Coward]

https://thepiratebay.org/search/%5C%22Dungeons%20%20Dragons%5C%22/0/99/0

Hey Publishers! PDFs cost too much!

[whistlingtony]

Hey Publishers! (all of them!)

You have a problem with piracy? Perhaps it's because all of you sell the PDF at pretty much full cost of a real book. Why do you do that?

PDFs don't have printing costs. We know you can sell them for less.
It's handy to reference a book while playing. It's still kind of cumbersome to reference a PDF while playing... the PDF is less valuable to us.

If you greedy BEEP would sell good quality PDF files for say.... $3, I'd drop $100 right now. If you would make old books available, I'd drop another $100 right now.

No Way am I paying $25 for a FILE.

You brought it on yourselves.

-Tony

Re:Hey Publishers! PDFs cost too much!

[kbielefe]

I don't know why I'm bothering to correct this fallacy yet again. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. Prices are set by supply and demand, not by direct cost per unit. Allow me to illustrate in terms of something you sell: your labor. This is your employer or contracted customer speaking, whatever the case may be.

Hey Workers! (all of them!)

You have a problem with overseas outsourcing? Perhaps it's because all of you want to work for an allegedly "fair" wage. Why do you do that?

It doesn't cost you much to come to work. A few bucks for the bus and a lunch. We know you can work for less.
Other workers are much more qualified than you. It's still kind of cumbersome to train someone less skilled... your labor is less valuable to us.

If you greedy BEEP would agree to work for say.... $3 an hour, I'd hire 30 of you right now. If you would work twice as long, I'd hire another 30 right now.

No Way am I paying $25 an hour for a worker.

You brought it on yourselves.

Sound ridiculous? That's the point. If they could generate more total revenue (pdfs and books) by lowering the price, they would do it. They are "greedy BEEP" after all.

Re:Hey Publishers! PDFs cost too much!

[DaveV1.0]

In other words:

I don't want to pay what you are asking. You are all assholes. If you don't want me to violate your copyrights, lower your prices. If you go after those that are violating your copyrights, you will be even bigger assholes. Now, GIMME GIMME GIMME!!!!

You brought this on yourselves by actually asking me to pay for the information contained in the books.

Signed,
A fucking disrespectful, immature asshole who thinks he is entitled to whatever he wants at whatever price he wants to pay for it.

Re:Hey Publishers! PDFs cost too much!

[whistlingtony]

Hmm... an example...I love Shadowrun... and I think the 4th ed rules of Shadowrun are beautiful. They made the game better. I want to buy the PDF files. but I won't buy a file for $25. I'll just go without.

And you're talking to the wrong guy. I don't pirate at all. No books, no games, no music. I am a firm believer in paying a creator. I know many music creators, and none of them can afford health insurance.... I'm also a firm believer in DIY. People need to stop whining and CREATE.

So, uhm... no? I'm just saying that PDF files cost next to nothing to produce, next to nothing to "ship", and it's kind of hard to pass around a laptop at a gaming session. To me, a PDF file has less value, so why it's kind of hard for me to justify paying full price for one.

I think it's a legitimate concern.

respectfully,

-T

Re:Hey Publishers! PDFs cost too much!

[DaveV1.0]

So, uhm... no? I'm just saying that PDF files cost next to nothing to produce,

But the information in the book didn't "cost next to nothing to produce"

next to nothing to "ship",

Yeah, because servers and bandwidth are free, right?

and it's kind of hard to pass around a laptop at a gaming session.

Ever hear of a printer?
Passing around a laptop is no harder than passing around a book, especially if you put the laptop in the center of the table on a "lazy susan".
And, pretty much every gamer I know has their own set of books, so why wouldn't they have their own set of PDFs on their own laptop or ebook reader?

Once again, what makes the books valuable is the information inside the books. I don't care how much it costs to produce a book or a PDF, the cost of producing the information contained in either is still the same and what you are paying for is the information.

Re:Hey Publishers! PDFs cost too much!

[DrOct]

They did have the old books available, at places like Paizo's store, for like $5 a pop.

I was actually planning on buying a bunch of them, until they did this. Now I can't go and buy the original Keep on the Borderlands, Temple of Elemental Evil, Tomb of Horrors, or Castle Ravenloft, like I was planning to do.

These are books that are OUT OF PRINT. I now literally CAN'T give Wizards money for them. If I want them I HAVE to look for pirated copies. It's insane!

Re:Hey Publishers! PDFs cost too much!

[Anonymous Coward]

supply and demand? they have infinite supply (it's copies of bits ffs), the demand will never even equal the supply let alone exceed it. everyone on the planet could have 100 copies of the pdf each and they'd still have infinity left over to sell. I think what you mean is "they set prices based on how much money they think they can extract from you". supply and demand doesnt even come into it

Re:Hey Publishers! PDFs cost too much!

[MaerD]

Prices are set by supply and demand, not by direct cost per unit.

Yes, Supply and demand. When you have a book in a digital format which can be copied for the huge cost of $0, the supply (ie: number of available copies) is infinite.

Now what happens when the supply approaches infinity? The traditional model breaks down and no longer applies.

The best you can do at that point is set a price that you think people will pay. It's entirely using the demand curve, since the supply curve no longer matters.

So if you price yourself too high, people will either not buy (or pirate, since we are assuming digital products) your product. If you price yourself too low, you don't make as much off your product. The hard part is finding the highest price you can charge to make the money you need/wish to, and keep piracy at an acceptable level. While this isn't direct cost per unit (which now can't be determined until you sell some, and will approach 0 as you sell more) it isn't traditional supply vs demand..

Re:Hey Publishers! PDFs cost too much!

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps it's because all of you sell the PDF at pretty much full cost of a real book. Why do you do that? PDFs don't have printing costs. We know you can sell them for less.

Do you really think the price of a dead tree book has anything to do with the printing costs?

Re:Hey Publishers! PDFs cost too much!

[Elwood P Dowd]

Iduno... I think the PDF is worth way the hell more to me:

1. I can print out the MM pages for the monsters I'm using tonight & write all over them.
2. I can print out the PH/PH2 powers & an empty character sheet stat block & paste them onto notecards for my players.
3. I can print out just the pages I'm using for the delve we're doing tonight.
4. While planning my campaign, I can use text search across all published 4e material.

PDFs + cheap inkjet refills = way more handy than the books.

My biggest disappointment with this whole story is that I had no idea there was a legal way to buy these PDFs in the past. If I did, I'd have immediately purchased the official PH PDF, because the one I stole has a shitty table of contents.

I purchased hardcover 3 PHs, 1 DMG, 1 MM, 1 PH2, and my players have purchased 2 further PH2s on their own. Money is not the problem here. I will buy any book/PDF that strikes my fancy. I expect to be playing dungeon delves pretty frequently, but the dungeon delve book would do nothing but take up space on my shelf. The PDF is better.

Re:Hey Publishers! PDFs cost too much!

[Catiline]

But the information in the book didn't "cost next to nothing to produce"

This is a fallacy when talking about pricing. Yes, the information in the book cost something to produce an initial "creative cost" — however, once you have created your original "proof" or "manuscript" copy, you don't pay that creative cost again when producing the next copy (or the next 10,000 identical copies) to that work. This is true whether the product is a book or digital file; however, physical books have additional costs (in paper and ink, as well as transportation) associated with their production. There you have to continue paying to create additional copies: so is it any wonder that piracy of the digital product is rampant when the barriers to reproduce the work illegally are so low (~$0)?

the cost of producing the information contained in either is still the same and what you are paying for is the information.

Agreed, but I (and IMO the grandparent poster) both just ask that the businesses selling these games recognize that selling a digital file is cheaper than selling a physical product, and as a result buying the digital file should be cheaper too. The other two big RPG players (Steve Jackson Games and White Wolf) both do exactly that, so why can't TSR/WoTC?

Re:Hey Publishers! PDFs cost too much!

[geekoid]

"Prices are set by supply and demand, not by direct cost per unit."
No, that is a factor in prices, but there are other issues in the real world.

Supply and demand are a factor when the free market is not being influenced. Say, someone thinking there PDF is worth 25 bucks, and then pulling it and blaming piracy for not having buyers.
Supply and demand is econ 101..and that's it.

"by lowering the price, they would do it. "

But a lot of people selling things, especially on the internet, where people refuse to adjust for realities.

Now the books are being distributes, and they get NO MONEY.

Re:Hey Publishers! PDFs cost too much!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because booksellers complain about you undercutting them.

Re:Hey Publishers! PDFs cost too much!

[calmofthestorm]

Perhaps there should be a finite supply of digital copies the company is allowed to sell. For every illegal download or sale, that number is deincremented. When it reaches zero, one is no longer allowed to buy or download illegally a copy. That's when market forces start to apply.

Laws of supply and demand don't apply when supply is infinite, except that the price converges to zero.

BOYCOTT!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a pissed off gamer and I calling for a complete boycott of all D&D 4th Edition / Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro products. When 4E came out I quietly protested by neither purchasing nor playing it. Now, I am loudly telling everyone I know to boycott! I've been playing D&D for many years and all my friends know I avoid 4E like the plague. If they game with me it will not be 4E. This may not have hurt WotC much, but I'm sure it has cost them a few sales. If enough people reject and refuse to play 4E maybe WotC will get the message. Show your support by modding this up or replying.

Re:BOYCOTT!!!

[fartrader]

Son, you need to get out more.

Re:BOYCOTT!!!

[Locke2005]

Plus, loudly announcing at parties that you are boycotting D&D is a great way to score points with hot chicks!

I've never bought anything from WotC, and I never intend to, despite the fact their rule sets inspired many old computer strategy games. I'm pretty sure anybody out there that actually has a life is already effective boycotting D&D too...

Re:BOYCOTT!!!

[peaceful_bill]

no. I am NOT a pissed of gamer - I love d&d 4e, play it with my half-brothers, who love it. The game still holds tremendous amounts of fun for us. I played d&d since (literally) the first edition.

A boycott is a myopic, stupid choice. It's about gaming and rpg's which are hella-fun. A boycott just shoots us all in the foot, man.

You seem to be forgetting that people play games for different reasons! Just because you don't like doesn't mean that other don't.

Re:BOYCOTT!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

There are other game companies besides Wizards and better games than D&D 4E. No one is suggesting you quit playing.

4e

[Jaysyn]

They are talking about 4th Edition, so none of this really concerns me.

Re:4e

[MykeBNY]

They're talking about all versions, not just 4e. All the nifty 3.5, 3.0, 2e, and earlier material that's now out-of-print is gone and no longer accessible. If you had a group still playing 2e, and a new guy joined who didn't know the rules, up until this boneheaded move by WotC he could still go to rpgnow.com and instantly buy the core rules, legally, and be able to read up on them. And WotC would get a large chunk of that sale as essentially free money, because it's the distributor that bears all the costs associated with hosting the file.

Now, the only legal recourse is to buy a used copy somewhere. And that doesn't profit WotC anyway.

Re:4e

[Culture20]

They are talking about 4th Edition, so none of this really concerns me.

No, they are talking about OD&D, 1e, 2e, 3.xe, MSH, Gamma World, Star Frontiers, etc. Any and all WotC/TSR PDF products. If you were interested in any of these, you can't buy them now.

Wizards of the Coast?

[sesshomaru]

Or is it Hasbro? I'm serious, I'm thinking they are getting interferance from the top brass at Hasbro... at least it's the only way I can explain 4e.

How are they taking it back?

[wiredog]

Are they forcing you to return the PDFs?

Re:How are they taking it back?

[david_thornley]

They aren't forcing me to return anything.

On the other hand, when I bought the original D&D stuff from RPGNow.net, I bought the right to make a certain number of downloads. That meant, among other things, that I didn't need to have it backed up, or transfer the files myself to a new computer. Minor stuff, but of some value.

That's what I'm losing, and that is a violation of my deal with RPGNow.net.

Funny thing is

[logjon]

This comes just days after the MAFIAA turned down a WoTC proposal to merge, forming a new entity that would have been dubbed the 'MAFAG,' short for 'Music and Film and Games.' Former RIAA president Cary Sherman was quoted as saying 'fuck you, we damn near committed corporate suicide with shit like that.'

In other news

[ILongForDarkness]

sales of twenty sided dice have hit an all time low.

Re:Noticed at WotC website. :-D

[Opportunist]

I feel a compelling urge to start website hacking again...

No more!

[0311]

That's it! I quit! I will never play D & D again! Oh wait, I haven't played since I was 1986. yawns and moves on

Re:No more!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just how old are you?

Re:No more!

[julesh]

That's it! I quit! I will never play D & D again! Oh wait, I haven't played since I was 1986. yawns and moves on

Back to sleep for another 300 years? Or are you going to set the alarm for 2100 and see if anything interesting's going on?

Re:No more!

[0311]

I know! When you are as old as I am, you really want to find new stuff to fight the boredom. These days, hardly anything works, plus I seem to be making more typos than I used to. The price of getting really old, I guess...

Mods on crack today.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, that was the most incoherent thing I've ever seen get modded "insightful".

I especially liked the ending.

Boycott WotC

[Anonymous Coward]

Boycott WoTC. I'm a lifelong D&D player, I've bought almost every 4E product (except the adventures), and I'm not buying anything else from Wizards ever again. Join me.

Re:physical DRM for printed copies?

[macraig]

Yep: they've been watching those Harry Potter movies, and they've figured out a way to cast DRM spells on their books so that if you're not the guy who bought the book, the book bites back and injects you with a neurotoxin venom that makes you obedient and gullible. Oh, and you grow white curly hair all over and start baaaaaa-bbling all the time.

Who cares?

[geminidomino]

D&D has been long outclassed by any number of better PnP games that haven't completely buggered their rulesets to fit better with CRPG programming logc. With 4e, it's just a greasy, vaguely equine-shaped smear on the pavement.

The old-school fans have moved on, since there's no need to stay loyal to a company that's not around any more.

D&D these days is just another hyped-out brand name.

Release first...ask questions later?

[HellYeahAutomaton]

This was a clear sign that WoTC was asleep at the switch and decided to go on autopilot.

Shouldn't they have figured out their market *before* releasing PDFs as a product to the public?

This looks like a clear case of publisher's remorse.

Happening in MtG?

[KingAlanI]

With their recent work on MtG, Hasbro/WotC seems hell-bent on acquiring new players lately (a concept that in and of itself DOES make sense)
Nothing huge has occurred yet IMHO, but it is looking like THAT game may be being dumbed-down somewhat in the pursuit of new players as well.

Re:Happening in MtG?

[twoallbeefpatties]

M:tG was "dumbed down" near a decade ago when they depowered the counterspell and put a de-emphasis on control decks in favor of more active, less-solitaire-ish decks. You might want to argue that the game has changed over time, but it's been running about the same since... what, since just about Masques block, really. With a weird detour into artifact zaniness in one block.

(Though, personally, I like the newer sets they've been putting out, as they've generally been fun for limited. This next set that's coming out at the end of April that's 100% gold cards should be amusing.)

You raise a good point that other people are missing, though, in that Wizards is more than just DnD. Who are these people saying "Wizards always fails!" when M:tG still has a solid following? And last I heard, the Avalon Hill line was doing pretty decently, including the re-release of Robo Rally a few years back. The real criticism of Wizards might be that they've lost most of their appetite for branching out with their RPGs, that they've stuck tight to the formula and aren't going much beyond it - though stuff like d20 Modern, d20 Star Wars, and support for the "old" version of L5R along with the d20 version negate that a bit, and it's also somewhat understandable since most of the RPGs that WotC picked up before the Hasbro buyout just flat out didn't sell. WotC as a whole, though, is still pretty much doing all right. They're probably just having the same knee-jerk reaction to piracy that everyone else is.

Re:Happening in MtG?

[KingAlanI]

Yeah, I don't follow RPG's, so I don't know what's going on over there.
Only played MTG since 2004, so I don't have the oldtimer nostalgia and/or I-don't-want-change attitude.

Why do you say it's dumbed down because there's less of an emphasis on counterspell control?
What do you think of the fact that there ARE powerful control decks in Standard right now?

Alara block limited has been fun, yes...if only I knew what the heck I was doing. :)

Really? Seems like I do

[Rix]

And there's really nothing you can do about that.

Re:Really? Seems like I do

[KGIII]

It brings new meaning to the idea of a constitution check...

Ho-hum

[Runaway1956]

I can't make an argument against this attitude that is anywhere near as eloquent as Eric Flint posted on Jim Baen's free library site.

http://www.baen.com/library/

Jim put his money where his mouth was, and GAVE AWAY book, after book, after book. More, if you happen to be disabled, you can contact Baen Books, and they will give to you NOT ONLY the books from their free library, but their mainstream books that are in print.

Baen books had a lot of money at stake on this gamble. But, they PROVED CONCLUSIVELY that giving stuff away free MAKES MONEY for them. Every time they released a title that had been out of print, sales of that book skyrocketed.

Over at Baen, the author has to approve his title for the free library, and some authors don't seem to use it. Those authors who have jumped aboard the free library enjoy an increase in income.

Baen books puts the lie to all the DRM crap, and proves the corporate lackeys to be totally wrong.

In the case of D&D stuff - if they had any brights at all, they would allow the stuff on P2P to continue, but add some cool stuff that is NOT readily downloadable via P2P. Any intelligent individual can come up with schemes for that. In fact, it would be a small step to release P2P ready material that at the very least promotes the non-P2P, and possibly even DEPENDS ON other non-P2P material.

It constantly amazes me that lackwit idiots run the corporate world.

Traveling salesmen and tinkers learned this lesson before electricity was discovered, for God's sake!!!

Re:Ho-hum

[Anonymous Coward]

snip But, they PROVED CONCLUSIVELY that giving stuff away free MAKES MONEY for them. snip

yes they proved it FOR THEM. a small publisher of novels. perhaps not everyone falls into that same group?

Re:Ho-hum

[Anonymous Coward]

> In the case of D&D stuff - if they had any brights at all, they would allow the stuff on P2P to continue, but add some cool stuff that is NOT readily downloadable via P2P. Any intelligent individual can come up with schemes for that. In fact, it would be a small step to release P2P ready material that at the very least promotes the non-P2P, and possibly even DEPENDS ON other non-P2P material.

They really don't need to. Using a pdf book during play is a disaster. Maybe it will be better with the whole ebook thing, but DnD + having to use computers a lot = very very distracting. Of course you can print stuff, but if you use more than 20 pages of the book you might as well buy it because that is so much more convenient.

Pirating the pdfs is great if you want to try before you buy though. Just reading a chapter or two from the 4th edition player handbook made me realise 4e is not for me. I did however buy Complete Warrior and PHBII after pirating the pdfs.

Re:Ho-hum

[grumbel]

Baen books had a lot of money at stake on this gamble. But, they PROVED CONCLUSIVELY that giving stuff away free MAKES MONEY for them. Every time they released a title that had been out of print, sales of that book skyrocketed.

While I congratulate them for their success, I have some doubt about that business model for the future, since it works under the assumption that the digital version is a degraded one and printed one is the 'real deal'. That assumption won't work forever when ebook readers become cheaper, better and more common place, people won't continue to carry books around when they already have a ebook reader with them. And the ebook reader also either already is better or at least has the potential to become more comfortable then a real book in the future. So will there be enough people left buying things, when they could get them for free and lose nothing in the process?

Re:Ho-hum

[Runaway1956]

Ahhh - but - it seems that you miss the underlying premise. Baen reacted to, and adapted to, the existing market. Such actions reap profits. (accurately anticipating, and adapting to the FUTURE market would be even more lucrative, of course) Those who are so strongly opposed to P2P and other technologies are resisting market change, and refusing to adapt. Such opposition fails to reap rewards. Worse, if they resist long enough and hard enough, they will find themselves bankrupted, and cast off from the mainstream.

It is the customer who ultimately decides how successful a company is, after all.

If and/or when the day comes that Baen can't make money off of the printed page, they WILL adapt. They have already proven that they are adaptable.

A shame that Jim Baen himself won't be there to guide the company along, but he obviously set the example for his replacements.

Re:Ho-hum

[Acer500]

I can't make an argument against this attitude that is anywhere near as eloquent as Eric Flint posted on Jim Baen's free library site.

http://www.baen.com/library/

Jim put his money where his mouth was, and GAVE AWAY book, after book, after book. More, if you happen to be disabled, you can contact Baen Books, and they will give to you NOT ONLY the books from their free library, but their mainstream books that are in print.

Thanks, you reminded me to make a purchase at Baen's. If only for the principle of the thing (and I've enjoyed some of their novels, even Eric Flints' though it was an unremarkable potboiler IIRC)

Re:Ho-hum

[pluther]

So will there be enough people left buying things, when they could get them for free and lose nothing in the process?

I think ITunes has proved there will.

Especially now that their sales are up since getting rid of DRM.

There's also the ubiquitous sales of bottle water. Billions of dollars a year paid for something that everyone gets delivered to their house for free.

Re:Ho-hum

[Richy_T]

Not all the Baen books are free. I personally have bought several from that site that I probably wouldn't have if I hadn't previously been introduced to the authors (or risked trying new authors after being reassured of the likely quality of other authors in the stable) by downloading the free books.

In the free category, I can recommend 1632, 1633 and the one with the short story "A logic called Joe" (an amazingly prescient vision of what we have in the internet).

Re:Ho-hum

[Anonymous Coward]

They have a back-up - free old books might make you want to read other - pay-for - books by the same author.

A good example is the "Honor of the Queen" series. Book one is available for free, the subsequent books in the series are pay-for. The idea is Book One is a 'teaser' - except it is far more substatial than a mere teaser - and you might just want to read the further adventures.

Also, a lot of their stuff is dual - available on websubscriptions, which is a pay-for online publishing system. They're already trying to deal with 'off paper' approach.

(You can either subscribe for $15 USD per month, buying access to that month's novels, or buy idividual books for around $5.)

Poor troll

[Rix]

It certainly does matter to the owner of the Mercedes in question. It doesn't matter to the manufacturer.

I'll decide what I am or am not entitled to in the privacy of my own home, thank you very much.

Out of date hardcovers

[Gunslinger47]

My hardcovers were significantly out of date within a month of 4e's release due to Errata and possess surprisingly poor TOCs, glossaries.

The pirated OEFs I downloaded have been edited to transparently account for the most recent Errata and allow full text searching. I'll miss them.

(Or at least I would if my group hadn't since switched to Pathfinder.)

Two points to make on top of yours

[xant]

#1: Their new license basically rapes you if you want to publish OGL content. It's explicitly designed so that publishers supporting 4e must throw away their 3.xE content, including anything based on OGL, and start over. I read it as "ha ha, fuck you publishers, upgrade bitches." So you're absolutely right that this is not about "piracy", this is consistent with a strategy of wizards desperately trying to scramble for more control of the game. It's about kicking out everyone who might make money off their product who isn't them. It's completely retrogressive and I expect Wizards to get killed in the marketplace; it just takes one strong competitor who Does It Right.

#2: Check out Paizo publishing. They're doing it right, making a game that continues to be freely licensed and does allow other publishers to add on. With the upcoming Pathfinder RPG, they've basically forked the D&D 3.5E rules, opened them up, and given the finger to Wizards. (Incidentally they were one of the PDF resellers who got kicked in the groin by the recent delisting of PDFs.)

My money's on Paizo. Literally. I'll be spending money on their products as soon as the release edition is available for sale. The beta edition is already a free PDF download. I've got my copy.

What happens when...

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens when they realize people have scanners?

Will they stop selling the print versions, too?

Re:physical DRM for printed copies?

[AK Marc]

they've figured out a way to cast DRM spells on their books

I've seen the equivelent. Black print on dark red paper so that a black and white coppier will output all black pages. So yes, "DRM" has already been tried with books (well, this was with the copy-protection answer sheet for a computer game whose name I don't remember anymore, but same effect).

Proving once more that WoTC are jerks.

[Anonymous Coward]

TSR would've never done this.

Re:Proving once more that WoTC are jerks.

[MightyMartian]

Are you kidding? TSR were a litigious bunch themselves, probably the very worst of the gaming companies in their time. I remember people having to distribute their own modules on BBSs having to do strategic name changes out of fear of being sued into the ground.

So now torrents mean WoTC doesn't lose money.

[ricks03]

So when I wanted old DND material, I could go online, and purchase the PDF and WoTC made money. I can't buy them directly from WoTC because old modules / campaign materials aren't published anymore.

Buying them used (say ebay) makes no money for WoTC. Downloading them from a torrent makes no money for WoTC.

Brilliant. WoTC has removed any way I can purchase them and have WoTC make money (and encourage me to look for other sources). Since I can't obtain them in a way that WoTC makes money, WoTC doesn't lose money if I get them another way. So they shouldn't be able to claim losses, since I can't buy them otherwise.

Re:So now torrents mean WoTC doesn't lose money.

[cdrguru]

Yup. Except since 1976 real losses have nothing whatsoever to do with copyright infringement.

Yes, you might be able to strengthen your case with stories of real losses but the law does not require this, not even for punitive damages.

Since 1976 copyright has very little to do with money and a lot to do with rights and control. You violate the rights and take away the control and you are now subject to statutory and punitive damages.

Has-Bro? What is this, racist?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the deal with this Has-Bro company? Are they that smug that they trumpet how they can keep the boot on the Black man's neck? This is just another racist plot perpetrated by The Man, to keep a brother down. REMEMBER ATTICA! REMEMBER ATTICA!!!

Copyright failure

[Geof]

Prices are set by supply and demand, not by direct cost per unit.

Actually, market competition pushes price toward the marginal cost of production. At least that's the theory, and it's part of the justification for copyright. In practice it seldom works out that way. In any case, they have have a copyright monopoly, so they have complete control over supply and they don't have a whole lot of worries about competition.

What we have here is copyright failure. Copyright was created solely for the benefit of society the public. (At least that's the case in the U.S.: other countries have moral rights. But in this case we have work-for-hire for a company legally required to place profit above all else, so the moral rights issue is moot.) Here we have copyright working to do the opposite of what it is intended to do. Copyright failure.

Mind, with illegal filesharing their control over supply is illusory. They're acting as though they had a monopoly, but they don't. Which, as so many have pointed out, is why this is so stupid.

Re:Copyright failure

[Anonymous Coward]

In any case, they have have a copyright monopoly, so they have complete control over supply and they don't have a whole lot of worries about competition

They only have control over the supply of the works that they own or have exclusively licensed. They do not have control over the broader role playing game market. Others can put together rules, stories, and arts to create competing products. If gamers don't like what WOTC is doing or what WOTC is charging, they can, and should, seek out alternative sources of entertainment.

Re:Copyright failure

[Geof]

They do not have control over the broader role playing game market. Others can put together rules, stories, and arts to create competing products.

As for any product there is some substitutability: cell phones compete with chocolate bars for youth spending, for example. But by that's not a very useful definition of monopoly. Furthermore, intellectual works are a special case because they benefit from network effects. The more people play D&D, the greater the value of D&D to those who already play. That's actually the main source of value. So it is very, very hard to compete with an established product. You could come up with an OS with all Windows' features, but without a user base it wouldn't be worth much at all. The value is in the network, not in the product itself. Similarly for D&D. It's nice in theory to say a bit of competition is possible, but in practice intellectual monopolies are extremely strong.

WTF is D&D PFD??

[Anonymous Coward]

/. editors, more TLAs PLZ!

oh well

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't played ADnD (book and pen) for almost 10 years and even so it was second ed. So this means to me urm well....oh yeah nothing but business wise Blizzard would like to thank WOTC for your continued help in increasing their player database due to making the old p/p less accessible.
Thanks again WOTC

Re:oh well

[julesh]

I haven't played ADnD (book and pen) for almost 10 years

And it shows. We don't call it AD&D any more. Back to just plain old D&D.

Re:physical DRM for printed copies?

[damien_kane]

Yep: they've been watching those Harry Potter movies, and they've figured out a way to cast DRM spells on their books...

Why would they get their spells from Harry Potter? D&D has had magic since long before Harry Potter has.

Any blank forms?

[orgelspieler]

If any of these books include blank forms, I highly recommend making and distributing copies of those forms. I assume they must use some sort of form for things like character generation, but I'm not a gamer, so I really don't know. US copyright law specifically excludes blank forms from protection. It also delineates penalties against people who illegally claim a copyright.

1. Copy forms
2. Get sued
3. Countersue for illegal claim of copyright
4. ???
5. Profit!!!

Saw this coming 14 years ago!

[CeasedCaring]

Back in 1995, WotC sponsored the program booklet for that year's Worldcon, held in Glasgow, Scotland. Due to a typo, over 5000 such booklets were printed claiming to have been sponsored by "Wizards of the Cost".

Re:physical DRM for printed copies?

[macraig]

I didn't say they'd *get* the spells from Harry Potter, only that they'd get the *idea* from watching the movies....

supply and demand?

[whistlingtony]

supply and demand? ahahahahah....

In a perfect world they did some research and drew a graph with cost/unit to consumer on the X axis and number of units sold on the Y axis, then picked the point that maximized profit to them. I don't think they did that. I don't think any of the game publishers did that. I think they just said "well, we sell the books for $A, lets sell the PDFs for that too!", then they went and played golf.

All I'm saying is that if they did do this research, I think they were wrong. I see much value in plunking down $25 for all the core books(of whatever system) on PDF. I see no value in plunking down $25 for each book on PDF. Therefore, I won't plunk down any money at all and they don't get a sale. All my friends feel the same way.

respectfully,

-T

Piracy?

[Anonymous Coward]

I spent the $100+on 4th edition books.
I played it with friends for a half year.
I stopped because I didn't care for the system

How much of their issues are from pirated copies? ... how much is from a shoddy 4th edition system? ... how much is from their botching up the software component?

4th edition failed before it even had a chance.

OSRIC!

[SteveFoerster]

If it's 1st edition rules you want, OSRIC is an OGL'ed clone of them, and you can either use old 1e adventures or there's also now a small ecology of new supplements out that go with it. I wish it'd get more attention.

-=Steve=-

Re:OSRIC!

[anjilslaire]

Agreed. OSRIC is great. I've taken a peek at the later editions, & I much prefer AD&D v1, which is now playable. i lost my original books years ago during a move, and was overjoyed when I found OSRIC. Really brings the old-school feeling back. It was never the same after Gygax was ousted.

Annoying and stupid

[pluther]

And who the hell at WotC came up with this idea? Combat piracy by making it impossible to get the products people want through legal means? Yeah, that sounds brilliant. The only thing that could top that would be to cut off access to the content they've already purchased with very short notice. Oh. Oh, yeah.

I did like Paizo's response to this, though. They announced a 35% sale on all of their pdf's for the rest of the month, and that all purchases of their printed products would include a pdf version at no extra charge.

Learn, please.

[__aannpi2461]

The first time this happened, it was mostly driven by fear of the new medium. The execs and counsel at TSR looked at what was floating around the pre-web net and freaked out, concerned about the potential loss of sales and damage to rights of ownership.

This one seems to be the money concern all over again. Obviously, someone peeked under the sheets at WotC and decided the numbers weren't working for them.

I know pen-and-paper games are uniquely piratable, but it's funny to me that after all this time and so many new, "open" business models, the gaming companies still fail to capitalize on the goodwill of their consumers.

There's money out there, if you engage your audience correctly. Why is that so hard to get right in this industry?

Out of Print stuff cut off too!

[DrOct]

The REALLY insane thing here is that they've pulled even old edition stuff. I think pulling 4E stuff was also an insane move, but it at least has the illusion of making some small kind of sense.

But to pull older out of print stuff is just removing a revenue stream. I was actually going to buy several classic adventures sometime soon (and at $5 a pop I could afford to get a bunch), and use them as inspiration for my first run at DMing a game. Now? Well I can't get them legally anywhere, so I guess I might as well hunt down torrent copies. It'll be a bit more work, but if that's the only way to get them it's what I'll probably do.

I'd also point out that I have pirated copies of some of the first few core books. I got them initially to see if I thought I'd like the new system. I determine I would and immediately went out and bought the PHB, DMG, and MM. I've kept the PDF's because the search-able PDF's are a quick way to look up rules etc, but I still want the physical book for other things, like longer reading sessions to make sure I fully understand the rules etc. I have since bought, in hardcover a couple more books, and have considered buying PDF's of some of the other books (mostly splat-books) I'd likely use less but still might want.

Maybe they do want people to move on to 4th edition, but this isn't going to make people do it. This is just cutting off a revenue stream for them.

Re:Out of Print stuff cut off too!

[MightyMartian]

This is part of the reason I abandoned, for the most part, commercial games. I still use chunks of them for environment and for things like comprehensive spell lists and the like, but as to actually using the rule systems, I just use a home-brewed version of Fudge, save for my PBEM, which I still use a modified version of Palladium Rifts. I basically put my foot down about five years ago and said "I ain't buying any more books". I'm 37 now, and have other financial obligations. As well, I don't particularly like the idea of pirating, and even if I did, I don't particularly like WotC's products. AD&D long ago ceased to interest me, and now reminds me more of one monstrous series of kludges, with a lot of crap extra products.

Re:Out of Print stuff cut off too!

[DragonWriter]

But to pull older out of print stuff is just removing a revenue stream.

Its removing a product from the market which competes with what Wizards is trying to sell now; since their current books are not just books, but part of a coordinated marketing effort designed to sell linked lines of miniatures and other accessories, they really don't like alternative RPGs that compete with the current D&D line. They can't do much, legally, about the alternatives on the market from other companies (though they do use their licensing program to encourage what would otherwise competitors to instead publish products that will promote sales of Wizards' core books and accessories), but they can do something about their own products that are competing with their flagship product.

Its a lot like Microsoft trying pull the plug on XP, really.

Re:Out of Print stuff cut off too!

[DrOct]

You may be right that this is the reasoning, but I think it's flawed reasoning.

The people who are still playing 2nd and 1st edition are not going to stop and switch to a new edition. It's as simple as that, all you're doing by cutting off access to the old content is losing those peoples dollars.

I'd also like to add that RPG fans are pack rats, and many of us are always interested in checking out or trying new and old systems. My group is still playing 3.5, but most of us have bought the 4E books, and are even running extra 4E games. The new and old editions are not in any way mutually exclusive, people can and will play multiple editions, and multiple games. Cutting off sales to older product isn't likely to actually do anything to increase the sales of your newer edition, it just means you won't get any money from the sales of older editions.

Finally I'd point out that I was planning on buying some old classic adventures specifically so I could convert/adapt them to 4E.

I'm not saying there is no logic behind the reasoning of removing some competition with your flagship product, I just don't think it'll actually have that effect. (Let's also keep in mind that they pulled their current flagship product from the pdf stores too). More likely it'll just anger potential customers (as it already has) and drive those people who do want the old products to simply pirate them, rather than give you any money for them.

Re:physical DRM for printed copies?

[pluther]

Which would be kinda ironic considering that the Harry Potter books have recently all been released as ebooks with no DRM at all.

Pirates ruin the day again

[rjolley]

WOTC gives customers something that they want, in a relatively open format and it is still shared around by stupid dumbass pirates. Not only do they threaten to ruin the software industry, but now they are coming after my tabletop games as well. What a great digital world we live in!

Re:Pirates ruin the day again

[DrOct]

I'd point out that the most widely distributed 4E pirate copies had printers watermarks on them, not watermarks associated with customers who legally bought them. This won't do anything to stop piracy.

They were able to sue these 8 people because they were stupid enough to share legally purchased PDF's, and they should be sued. But don't take away the option to buy legal PDF's from me because of a few idiots. The vast majority of PDF customers don't share their PDF's on P2P networks.

TSR all over again

[RatPh!nk]

It is good to see they are keeping the memory of TSR alive, or at least the They Sue Readily, part.

Re:TSR all over again

[OMGcAPSLOCK]

You have been attacked by a Level 4 Lawyer. Destroy the PDf artifact or pay 1000d20 in damages.

Re:Fuckups

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you bitching about?

Are you telling the rest of the fine gentlemen here on /. that if WotC had only released three books, the PHB, DMG, and MM, you would have been perfectly happy with their actions?

I can't imagine how them writing extra books is really spoiling this for you. It's not like they're going back into the PHB, and writing in the Table of Contents, "Avenger: Coming soon! Druid: Coming soon! Chapters 11-23: Too bad, you don't own them!" It's not like they've pulled some Han-shot-second bullshit and altered permanently something you used to love. The sanctity of the first three books has not been spoiled: They are, as every other base set in the history of mankind, a complete set that needs nothing else besides dice and dudes to turn it into a game.

I have many problems with WotC and there are many of their features that I choose not to support them in. Their online subscription (which provides a digital magazine plus backcopies), their shitty dice (fully functional) or their badly painted minis (that match all the fluff) don't appeal to me. There are many of their practices that I think are either counterproductive for the fostering of the community, or just vindictive, like the elimination of the SRD and the lack of PDF backcopies that this thread concerns.

But I'm not going batshit because they published a game that, in its most basic form, is completely self-contained. The expectancies for book-ownage these days are even less than they were in 3.5. Nobody has any class features that requires them to browse the Monster Manual, as a completely normal Druid, Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, Ranger, or Paladin was expected to in 3.5. Nobody that takes an item-crafting feat or prestige class has to look in the DMG any more to find out what, exactly, they can actually do with them. To get the full picture on your campaign setting, there are two books (not eleven!) available for your perusal.

Let's be clear: You own the full set. You purchased it. They have your money, and you have your complete game. Everyone should be happy about that transaction, and I'm going to hold you to it because you just told me you would have been.

Why does the fact that they released books that you don't need and apparently don't want make you so angry? By your own admission, you got what you came for.

Just started playing 1st edition again

[craenor]

I am running a 1st edition game for my group again. I own the hardcovers, but I bought the PDFs so I'd have a handy reference to kill some time at work with, without pulling out the DMG in my office, which could be...awkward.

I bought my PDFs legitimately through Paizo. But you can guarantee this, any future PDFs I need, I'll gladly download elsewhere, without paying money for them. And I'm not going to feel even slightly guilty about it.

Re:physical DRM for printed copies?

[bFusion]

I know the first Sim City had one of those.

Re:Ho-hum Dungeon Tiles

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know what the profit margin is on these compared to the books but the Dungeon tile sets are great, I guess you could print them out on card stock or glue them to cardboard but at $10-11 a set for a cool quality reuseable product why bother. Now if they could bother to keep them in print Grrr.

Re:physical DRM for printed copies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which would be kinda ironic considering that the Harry Potter books have recently all been released as ebooks with no DRM at all.

Released by "pirates" (the friendly but possibly copyright infringing kind, not the Somali ones), that is:
http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/news_view.cfm?id=84

Stupidity

[etherlad]

Sheer stupidity.

You know TSR's old Planescape books? I bought about a half-dozen of them at $5 a pop. By removing the ability to get legal PDFs, they're pretty much removing any legal way to get access to these books at all. Many of them are so far out of print and in demand that they go for at least $80 on eBay.

Many people agree that this is just a first step before WotC opens up their own PDF store, using "piracy" as a good catchall excuse.

What's the response been with other companies?

Steve Jackson says: "BTW, to prevent people from sharing their books, SJG will no longer print books. All rules will be whispered to authorized customers."

White Wolf says: Get rid of PDFs? "'Quite the opposite,' says Eddy Webb, the Alternative Publishing Developer for White Wolf. 'I believe this is a growing market with potential we haven't yet had a chance to fully explore, both as publishers and as fans of role-playing games.' Eddy remarked that he has dozens of upcoming PDF-exclusive products on his schedule in addition to continuing to provide PDF versions of upcoming products, and that White Wolf is still actively looking into returning to the print-on-demand arena.

"To celebrate White Wolfâ(TM)s continuing devotion to PDF products and reward their growing, loyal fan base, the company is offering a free download of the Exalted Second Edition rulebook as well as a one-time 10% discount on the purchase of any White Wolf PDF titles through DriveThruRPG.com and RPGNow.com from 1 Am Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Simply enter the coupon code 'wwlovesyou' to receive the discount."

See? That's a smart way to do business.

You missed one

[Shandalar]

You omitted that DRM also stops technologically inept users from making copies for their friends. Everyone is not pure of heart.

D&D is Dead, its Time to Move On

[CodeBuster]

Although D&D has a long and venerable history with much background material, settings, and characters enjoyed by generations of gamers it has basically been in decline ever since WotC was bought by Hasbro and probably even before that. The D&D system was already outdated by about 1994 when newer and more innovative games, notably GURPS but also the HERO system and others, were equaling and surpassing the first generation games, most notably D&D, which arguably founded the genre. By the time Hasbro bought WotC the best things D&D had going for it were the immense body of extant work in the settings, characters, and modules published in Dragon and Dungeon magazines and a declining store of good will among older gamers with fond memories of D&D gaming during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Even if Hasbro hadn't bought WotC I think that D&D would have been difficult to salvage as a system. Indeed, many of the ideas and concepts pioneered by D&D were not and could not be copyrighted and therefore have been well translated into games like GURPS as source books, further weakening the D&D franchise. The D20 system was too little too late to salvage D&D in light of the superior systems being published by Steve Jackson Games, White Wolf, and others. The original D&D systems (pre WotC and Hasbro) will probably continue to be fondly remembered by and even occasionally played by older gamers, but really there are much better systems and source materials out there now and it is time for PPRPG gaming to move on.

People still play D&D...WOW

[Archfeld]

It is amongst the WORST pen&paper RP systems still around...If you are going to the trouble of playing a REAL RPG, try a REAL RP system like say...GURPS...

it is about time the D20 system died the horrible death it deserves.
God bless Gary Gygax......

Re:People still play D&D...WOW

[geekoid]

GURPS is NOT an RP system. Unless RP means masturbating over stupid rules that impede the game.

Re:People still play D&D...WOW

[Anonymous Coward]

RP with GURPS?

You must be kidding.

All the GURPS I've done has been filled with people crunching numbers.

Re:People still play D&D...WOW

[ClayDowling]

Man, there's no need to go running down somebody's game. I haven't played D&D in years, and I love GURPS and some other systems a lot more. But folks are playing D&D, having fun and not hurting anybody. Be cool about it. They might not have fun with GURPS either. At least they're playing.

Re:People still play D&D...WOW

[ClayDowling]

Ripping on a system just because you don't play it isn't very nice man. Chill out. Lots of people are having fun with GURPS, just like they're having fun with D&D. Don't let your ego get hurt just because not everybody likes the same games you do. It's like a Harley rider getting upset because there are people out there riding Hondas. Kind of pointless, because you've got a lot more in common than folks who don't do table top gaming at all.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

From ENWorld.org

We've been "Slashdotted", so traffic is through the roof at the moment. The effect should die down in a day or so, but we've had to temporarily cap the number of users online to 3000 or so in order to keep the site running at all. Once traffic drops down to below 3000 or so users, we'll remove the cap. Apologies for the inconvenience!

Those looking for more info and can find this comment may wish to try http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1172698 for a server with more info on this matter and more bandwidth also. Not to say the WotC officials are saying anything there other than what is on Ars Technica, or here, but so you don't have to wait for info form ENWorld you can still get some info about what people are saying about this "event".

WAT

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=

______
???
Profit!

Re:OSRIC and other old-school goodness

[itsownreward]

Mod parent up; just because WotC are pulling these PDFs, people need to know that there are the OGL clones. The Old-School Renaissance really has an opportunity here.

In addition to OSRIC for AD&D 1e, if you want some old-school goodness from the old Moldvay boxed sets you can get Labyrinth Lord , and if the original boxed set (OD&D) is your thing then you can get a couple of different flavors of Swords & Wizardry depending on if you like just the original three books ("white box") or items from the Greyhawk supplement thrown in. In addition, there are other games that are old school like Basic Fantasy which is very similar to Moldvay B/X with some bits of AD&D, and stirred with D20 for ascending armor classes.

Note that all these are available in PDF absolutely free, and also available for sale in softbound or hardbound (well, OSRIC is getting there, it's not quite there yet).

Even better: missing Dragon and Dungeon magazines? No problem: there are magazines like Fight On! and Knockspell to take their place.

4th Ed. not living up to the hype.

[arthurh3535]

I will gladly admit that I will not purchase D&D 4th Edition. Not because I could pirate it, but because it's a POS that was not even properly Beta'ed.

Their entire difficulty scale was wrong in the original printing (as a matter of fact, last I checked some of the spells still required 30+ DCs for rather weak effects). The tag/marking system in combat was asinine and it catered too much to the figure and strategic war-gamers and seriously lacked role-playing support.

If D&D is still around in five years and comes out with a 4.5 that actually fixes the 4e flaws, I might actually drop real money on real books.

But it looks like WotC has totally forgotten everything they learned and earned from 3.0 and 3.5.

Idiots.

Re:4th Ed. not living up to the hype.

[DragonWriter]

The tag/marking system in combat was asinine and it catered too much to the figure and strategic war-gamers and seriously lacked role-playing support.

The tag/marking system has nothing to do with "figure and strategic wargames", and everything to do with emulating MMORPG combat and roles; its equally (or more) distant from traditional miniatures and strategic wargames as it is from traditional RPGs.

White Wolf

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't see this posted elsewhere, so I thought I'd let people know...

White Wolf is reacting to the WotC announcement by offering discounted PDFs at www.drivethrurpg.com and even a free download of the Exalted 2nd Edition core rulebook (which I've always preferred to D&D anyway). Great setting that's definitely worth a look for those that haven't had a chance prior. Plus, it's a free $35 book. Can't beat that!

White Wolf gets it.

[Anonymous Coward]

White Wolf, another publishing company has offered free copies of its Exalted core book on pdf as a response to WotC's move.

http://www.teleread.org/2009/04/08/white-wolf-offers-free-download-of-exalted-pdf/

This is a brilliant way to encourage growth of the player base of the game, who will hopefully buy more supplements and products.

Re:physical DRM for printed copies?

[mattack2]

I think it's much older than that. Some of the early 80s games had that, from what I remember.. and it was probably around earlier than that.

But I found an interesting link when googling for a citation of a different method to prevent copying, from the 70s..
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,911192,00.html

Please mod them "Insightful".

[ShadowSystems]

I've got a rather nice collection of material starting back from the very beginning, and they are *wonderful* to hold, leaf through, look at the artwork, etc.
But I do *NOT* enjoy having to lug a ton of books with me to a Session.
I've already got my dice box, mini's box, paper/pencil/clipboard, and laptop, so adding a few boxes of books is a real PITA...

With PDF's, I can access any set of rules, stats, or other associated data rather quickly.
With a stack of books, I've got to waste LOTS of time finding anything (unless I already know where it's at).
"What were the stats on an Ancient Green Dragon? Ok, that's in Monster Manual I? II? III? 3.5? Savage Species? Dragonomicron? Crap, hold on while I try to find it..."
-Versus-
"Green Dragons? [ALT]+F 'Green Dragon' [ENTER] ... Young? (Scroll) Adult (scroll), Ancient."

I love my books, I'm a book worm by nature, but you can't beat a properly created, *official* PDF of the material for getting answers fast.
Just raw text, tables, and searchable - I can store everything on a USB stick that fits in my pocket, instead of lugging around an entire library of physical books that requires the entire back seat of the car to transport...

WotC didn't just shoot themselves in the foot, they emptied the clip.
Players love having the physical Book for their collection, and the Official PDF for ease-of-use.
Telling us we can't have the PDF just means we'll find it from UN-Official channels, and that *guarantees* WotC won't make a damned penny from that potential revenue channel.

Trying to save/force 4th edition

[jaaron]

So where the heck is the lost sale? Where is the damage?

The conspiracy theory is that WotC wants to pull all the old editions so that 4th edition is the only version available.

Castle & Crusades

[jaaron]

Don't forget D20 variants that bring back the spirit of earlier editions such as Castles & Crusades

Re:physical DRM for printed copies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quarantine.

Happier with GURPS & SJGames

[ClayDowling]

I've bought a lot of PDF only products from Steve Jackson Games. Partially because I was picking up things that were out of print, and partially because for GM-only reference material, PDF documents are easier for me to handle when I'm prepping for a game.

Their e23 store has become a major part of their business, and they have pledged to keep downloads available as long as the company still has its doors open. That's saved my bacon a couple of times, like when the USB stick I kept my books on got fried by a faulty device on the USB Bus.

If you don't mind learning a new system, and you really want to get back to that old-school dungeon crawling feeling that a good D&D game can give you, you might check out their Dungeon Fantasy line of products. It's not for everybody, but there's a pretty big community of people who are getting their rocks off smashing monsters and taking their loot.

Re:physical DRM for printed copies

[evilkasper]

Explosive Runes would be more appropriate.

FYI - D & D co-creator Dave Arneson dies at 61

[the saltydog]

http://www.twincities.com/ci_12112297

(Tried submitting this, but I don't know if it will be seen, so why not put it in a D & D thread?)