Re: Old TSR D&D adventure PDFs available from Drivethru RPG.
Posted by Billiam Babble on Jan 23, 2013; 9:02pm
URL: http://the-lost-and-the-damned.71.s1.nabble.com/Old-TSR-D-D-adventure-PDFs-available-from-Drivethru-RPG-tp7579476p7579479.html
Don't get me started on KS - especially ones where the person clearly doesn't own rights to the original material - reboots, restarts etc. (or is Mr Kask talking about Mr Dee? - because Deities & DemiGods stands out as one of the few full volumes from the original range of AD&D - but no wait, he's talking about figures....)
It doesn't feel like an assertion of property. There's a few PDFs on there - older modules which I think Wizards were giving away on their site a few years ago - I could be wrong. It could be anything from seeing that Paizo sell PDFs of older stock, to an acknowledgement of the OSR - but more likely, a much cheaper way of making money out of old documents than by selling them as bound collector's editions. There's no overheads on OBS (only % when sold). The selection is very odd - random, even. I think Wizards really underestimated the desire for the limited edition reprints - although 4e seems to have an established market, much as I like to knock 4e. So many folk are playing online with VTT and chat software - and actually like onscreen rulebooks. Tablets are also at the table now - apparently people like having a rulebook and searchable PDF - not necessarily exclusively one format vs the other (judging from forums and blogs) Wizards' own online stores are fairly baffling (I.e. find your nearest retailer, and D&D Insider deals) - perhaps the whole thing is an experiment - outsourced to the One Book Shelf sites, who normally take 40-35% per document - but this was a sudden launch - maybe a deal has been struck.
I think the 3rd edition fans will welcome access to a few of the books on there. Pathfinder is effectively the D&D3 lifeboat -still going strong. 3e core book reprints were popular too - the Dracononmicon is easier to release as a PDF than gamble with printing.
I've given up trying to understand Wizards in terms of product lines or community. For example, I'm guessing that they don't plan to use OBS's print on demand service - despite the fact that POD fulfils niche hobby orders. Maybe PDFs are less threatening to people in marketing who might be focused on matching hardbacks in shops?
Did you see the voting page for Rules Cyclopedia? RC would be a real winner - because it's "complete". The AD&D 1e and especially 2e would be a nightmare to rerelease in printed form because the ranges are so broken up between so many texts.
I'd be interested to see if Wizards have rights to the original D&D texts (white/Brown box). The bootleg PDFs we've seen for those have been dire. It pains me when I read their description of AD&D implying that it is the same game that was being played in 1974 - I.e. the "first edition".
Mortis, am I right, do you think the UK literally saw a lot less copies of RC than the US? I almost never see them on the UK eBay sites. Did it come out about the same time of GW moving away from RPG imports? I think my attention was still mainly on AD&D - although now, I'm very proud of my boxed sets.
Dark Dungeons just a about works as an RC substitute - but I prefer the original art by TSR (my copy of Dark Dungeons is peppered with strange Victorian woodcuts - an odd choice)
Oops, I'm babbling. ( so much to catch up on in here :) )
URL: http://the-lost-and-the-damned.71.s1.nabble.com/Old-TSR-D-D-adventure-PDFs-available-from-Drivethru-RPG-tp7579476p7579479.html
Don't get me started on KS - especially ones where the person clearly doesn't own rights to the original material - reboots, restarts etc. (or is Mr Kask talking about Mr Dee? - because Deities & DemiGods stands out as one of the few full volumes from the original range of AD&D - but no wait, he's talking about figures....)
It doesn't feel like an assertion of property. There's a few PDFs on there - older modules which I think Wizards were giving away on their site a few years ago - I could be wrong. It could be anything from seeing that Paizo sell PDFs of older stock, to an acknowledgement of the OSR - but more likely, a much cheaper way of making money out of old documents than by selling them as bound collector's editions. There's no overheads on OBS (only % when sold). The selection is very odd - random, even. I think Wizards really underestimated the desire for the limited edition reprints - although 4e seems to have an established market, much as I like to knock 4e. So many folk are playing online with VTT and chat software - and actually like onscreen rulebooks. Tablets are also at the table now - apparently people like having a rulebook and searchable PDF - not necessarily exclusively one format vs the other (judging from forums and blogs) Wizards' own online stores are fairly baffling (I.e. find your nearest retailer, and D&D Insider deals) - perhaps the whole thing is an experiment - outsourced to the One Book Shelf sites, who normally take 40-35% per document - but this was a sudden launch - maybe a deal has been struck.
I think the 3rd edition fans will welcome access to a few of the books on there. Pathfinder is effectively the D&D3 lifeboat -still going strong. 3e core book reprints were popular too - the Dracononmicon is easier to release as a PDF than gamble with printing.
I've given up trying to understand Wizards in terms of product lines or community. For example, I'm guessing that they don't plan to use OBS's print on demand service - despite the fact that POD fulfils niche hobby orders. Maybe PDFs are less threatening to people in marketing who might be focused on matching hardbacks in shops?
Did you see the voting page for Rules Cyclopedia? RC would be a real winner - because it's "complete". The AD&D 1e and especially 2e would be a nightmare to rerelease in printed form because the ranges are so broken up between so many texts.
I'd be interested to see if Wizards have rights to the original D&D texts (white/Brown box). The bootleg PDFs we've seen for those have been dire. It pains me when I read their description of AD&D implying that it is the same game that was being played in 1974 - I.e. the "first edition".
Mortis, am I right, do you think the UK literally saw a lot less copies of RC than the US? I almost never see them on the UK eBay sites. Did it come out about the same time of GW moving away from RPG imports? I think my attention was still mainly on AD&D - although now, I'm very proud of my boxed sets.
Dark Dungeons just a about works as an RC substitute - but I prefer the original art by TSR (my copy of Dark Dungeons is peppered with strange Victorian woodcuts - an odd choice)
Oops, I'm babbling. ( so much to catch up on in here :) )
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