This is an interesting development. A new company, DriveThruRPG, has opened up online. They offer PDF ebooks of gaming supplements from various RPG companies, including White Wolf and Malhavoc Press.

And FanPro.

Right now, they only offer two FanPro products in "The Dark Eye" RPG line. But, hopefully FP will consider putting older OOP Shadowrun books on there, too!

For clarity's sake, there's some controversy regarding this new website. For one, all the PDFs have DRM (Digital Rights Management), which prevents you from sharing the file with others. You either have to create a username with Adobe, or use a MS Passport account, to use their files. Also, some companies have priced their ebooks way too high.

On the plus side, they're releasing at least one free ebook a week for the first month. And right now, it's a free copy of the Exalted RPG rulebook. That's pretty sweet.

Woah. This is legit?

~J

DRM? Avoid that shit like the plague.

And, hell, some of these books are just absurdly expensive.

They're releasing a free exalted PDF? That's...just...whoa.

Edit: DRM, huh? One of the reasons I like print books is because I can share it with my friends. If only one person in a group owns M&M, what's the use?

And Exalted wasn't all I expected it to be.

Probably not worth it at any price. Take it from a pirate, RPG PDF's are hardly worth DLing for more than review. You can't access more than one at a time, they are a pain to scroll through and read, and the stuff you really like you wanna print anyway. Which gets more expensive than buying the book.

The DRM scheme that DriveThruRPG allows you to activate your account on unlimited computers - this means that you can simply backup your files to a CD, pop it in a friend's computer, and activate your account [and thus, get access to all those files] on that machine. I'm not going to debate the legality or ethics of that, but it's possible from a technological point of view.

Also, the computer only needs to be activated once - you don't need to be online to read the books, which are [unlike some services] stored on your hard drive, not the server.

I have spent much of this week at my day job dealing with falsehoods and misunderstandings about this service, which is still very new and with a staff that is working hard to improve it - please, let's try to keep rumour-mongering down to a minimum. I've spent a fair amount of time testing the files and in most cases my posts are based on my personal experiences dealing with DTRPG as a user and a manufacturer [I prepared all the GoO and FanPro files for it - this site has stolen 2-3 weeks of my life. ]

I'd vote for that site if prices were a little more reasonable. I mean seriously, do they think people are going to jump at the chance to buy a secured pdf of their book rather than the real thing because they can save $0.95 on a $40 book? Sounds like some of the companies are making a halfhearted contribution to it just for appearances but they arent interested in risking loss of actual book sales.

Bear in mind that each company is free to set prices as they want on the service; DTRPG does not enforce any sort of pricing scheme. In most cases, the economical decision is to buy the print book, unless you don't plan on printing the eBook.

What about laptops? Almost as good as bringing the books with you, everyone can get a look at what they need, just make sure you've got batteries and/or access to a power outlet and you've got access to all the books PLUS solitaire for those times when everyone in the group is just bitching at the GM or arguing some moot point.

Ugh! Those prices are atrocious for an electronic copy of a book. Sure, they make for a handy reference when you just need to look something up real quick when you know where to find it, but they do not compare to the real deal in any way, shape, or form. I don't care how high the quality is or how many internet dweebs hoard them without ever buying an actual book (in which case, I've noticed, they're usually just unable to afford them anyway so this won't change anything there).

It's a noble effort, though. If the prices start dwindling to the $5 or less mark on average, I might consider picking some up.

They're not going to. You're at most going to see the price go down by the cost of physical production and distribution. Maybe a small cut of profit, but probably not. Right now there are clear, present, and insurmountable advantages to having a hard copy, so it's probably impossible to get the number of people buying electronic texts to make it profitable at low prices.

~J

What if your hard copy is held together by spit and shoeshine polish?

Damn you BBB. I wish you a horrible death in your afterlife.

I doubt it would happen to many of the OOP Shadowrun books, since FASA lost several critical files including older sourcebook. Plus, pdf books are still books, that means new contracts to write.

Some companies have spoken up, saying they're charging such high prices because they want folks to buy the print copies. The ebook versions are there for "convenience" and those people who can't buy their currently printed books (such as overseas customers).

However, most companies are offering substantial discounts for OOP stuff. Most of the White Wolf OOP stuff, for instance, is at least 50% off the cover price.

As to the lost files, some of the companies already on DTRPG are apparently in this situation as well. They've scanned and OCRed the books as best they can before putting them up, so they're not as nice as pure electronic prints, but better than nothing.

I believe that DriveThru also require exclusive distribution rights for PDFs. I am not sure whether this is per product or for all the company's products, so it may mean we never see FanPro stuff on RPGNow.com (where the PDFs are not subject to DRM).

BTW in terms of freebies, RPGNow has quite a few including Ars Magica 4th Edition. I also heard that White Wolf tried to buy RPGNow at one point, but I can't be sure on that.

DTRPG does have exclusive rights with each company, so no, there will not be any FanPro stuff on RPGNow or any other service.

Rpgnow has Ars Magica 4th edition as a freebie pdf.

Although I prefer 3rd edition, it's not a bad deal for the game tweakers out there. Even if they did away with one of my favorite spells.

-Siege

Forum glitch, never mind.

I found this on the Internet: http://www.roleplayersden.com/boycott.html

I have no opinion of my own on the subject yet, I don't have sufficient level of information.

Anyone knows more on the topic?

I wonder what they mean by "crippled and limited" - are they talking about just the DRM? If so, whoopeedeedoo, no one's forcing them to buy these oh-so crippled and limited products. A certain image comes to mind...