Gaiman hits on an interesting points. Some small bands/writers put out stuff free or get pirated and got increased sales and new fans bought their shit once they read something. Many of the people in ttrpgs don’t have every single source book and borrow or pirate things first to see if they like them before buying.
E:
Harlan Ellison has some hilariously angry rants about working for free, too, although he seemed to mostly take issue with television or book deals where producers wanted him to write something for free.
I simply won't pay for a book unless I can see what's in it beforehand. If it wasn't for the free SRD I never would've gotten into D&D. I only started buying books for GURPS, my main system, after pirating them and playing a few sessions. Even if something like the trove gets taken down, all that's accomplished is making it slightly harder to acquire copies; they'll never stop pdf share threads and like, for instance. These authors and publishers flipping out over piracy are extremely short sighted and honestly wasting their effort.
I simply won't pay for a book unless I can see what's in it beforehand. If it wasn't for the free SRD I never would've gotten into D&D. I only started buying books for GURPS, my main system, after pirating them and playing a few sessions. Even if something like the trove gets taken down, all that's accomplished is making it slightly harder to acquire copies; they'll never stop pdf share threads and like, for instance. These authors and publishers flipping out over piracy are extremely short sighted and honestly wasting their effort.
On a similar note, does anyone else still buy the physical books even though they have the pirated PDFs?
Personally, nothing beats having a book I can flip through, bookmark and keep open on the table in front/besides me. Even while playing online, having to tab away from the session to flip through pages on a PDF isn't anywhere as satisfying as handling the damn book. Maybe I'm just old.
I started playing during the AD&D era. Of course I'm fucking old.
On a similar note, does anyone else still buy the physical books even though they have the pirated PDFs?
Personally, nothing beats having a book I can flip through, bookmark and keep open on the table in front/besides me. Even while playing online, having to tab away from the session to flip through pages on a PDF isn't anywhere as satisfying as handling the damn book. Maybe I'm just old.
I started playing during the AD&D era. Of course I'm fucking old.
Exactly what I do. The pdfs are great for quickly ctrl-f searching but having a physical book with tabs is so nice. It's not even because I'm "old school" or anything (I started with D&D 5e), it's just really nice.
It was mentioned by some anons but my search-fu is too weak to dig anything up. I did however, find a rundown of the shit Daniel has done:
>Doxxed some guy because he had a disagreement with him on a forum
>Doxxed himself on /tg/ and then blamed a facebook mod for some WFRP group because he said Zweihander didn't belong on the page
>Literally copied and pasted every WFRP 2e sourcebook and removed all the copyrighted material
>Bought hundreds of copies of his own book at $0.01 to artificially inflate the sales numbers on drivethrurpg
>killed a bunch of troves with rare (and some irreplaceable) RPG books for hosting his content
>simultaneously tries to sell his game as a politically correct, socially righteous game while simultaneously trying to shill his game on 4chan by saying WFRP is a game for niggers and that Zwei is based and redpilled
>Had to issue a public apology to Cubicle 7 after spreading rumours that they were going to lose the license immediately after the core book came out because he was so butthurt that they got the WFRP license instead of him
>molested a 6 year old
I buy the books but use PDFs to share with the group.
I'm not too worked up over the loss of in-print stuff. I'm bothered by the loss of out-of-print stuff. Especially old Star Wars RPGs. Sure you can find stuff second-hand but it can be a pain...
I buy the books but use PDFs to share with the group.
I'm not too worked up over the loss of in-print stuff. I'm bothered by the loss of out-of-print stuff. Especially old Star Wars RPGs. Sure you can find stuff second-hand but it can be a pain...
There really should be rules that allow the free distribution of stuff that has gone out of print a long time ago. If the copyright holders do not want those free downloads, then offer that shit legally for a reasonable fee. And "same price as a paper release today" is not reasonable.
some of them, you can buy the pdf but then they want you to buy the same book again at full price. I think dnd does that. The ones that do that should give people a discount of some sort. There are a few hard to find out of print books that you can’t find online for sale anymore, and that sucks.
Not really. Any other Cthulhu related RPG is basically an off-brand knockoff of one of those. Cthulhutech is a thing, but you'd basically have to rewrite all the dice rules if you want to end up with something that is enjoyable to play and it is INCREDIBLY weeby. D20 CoC is compatible with DnD more or less if you wanted to run a Cthulhu based DND campaign. NWOD had some not-Cthulhu cult supplements that you could play like a CoC game, GURPS/other open systems generally have some supplements to support Lovecraftian things, and references to tentacly things with cults can be found in most major games as direct references to them.
In the end there isn't a lot of reason for someone to make a serious Cthulhu game when anyone who wants that just picks up CoC/Delta Green anyway.
Not really. Any other Cthulhu related RPG is basically an off-brand knockoff of one of those. Cthulhutech is a thing, but you'd basically have to rewrite all the dice rules if you want to end up with something that is enjoyable to play and it is INCREDIBLY weeby. D20 CoC is compatible with DnD more or less if you wanted to run a Cthulhu based DND campaign. NWOD had some not-Cthulhu cult supplements that you could play like a CoC game, GURPS/other open systems generally have some supplements to support Lovecraftian things, and references to tentacly things with cults can be found in most major games as direct references to them.
In the end there isn't a lot of reason for someone to make a serious Cthulhu game when anyone who wants that just picks up CoC/Delta Green anyway.
There really should be rules that allow the free distribution of stuff that has gone out of print a long time ago. If the copyright holders do not want those free downloads, then offer that shit legally for a reasonable fee. And "same price as a paper release today" is not reasonable.
I hold a similar opinion in out-of-circulation game emulation, but reality has never been kind about that. Doesn’t matter if the Gameboy has been obsolete for 2 decades, you still have to jump through hoops to find roms.
Most of them should be, though I can't personally vouch for most of them. Naturally the d20 stuff will have a different dice system than the base game and would be out-of-the-box incompatible. Just pull up something that looks interesting and skim through it to see if it uses the same system that you want to use.
How is Cthulhutech (besides weeby, I guess)? CoC is pretty much the standard eldritch horror go to, so I never got to play Delta Green. My group wants to do a DG campaign in a couple of weeks, so its basically CoC but modern day? I like CoC Pulp, it leads to the most outrageous shit. Is DG that kind of pulpy pace?
How is Cthulhutech (besides weeby, I guess)? CoC is pretty much the standard eldritch horror go to, so I never got to play Delta Green. My group wants to do a DG campaign in a couple of weeks, so its basically CoC but modern day? I like CoC Pulp, it leads to the most outrageous shit. Is DG that kind of pulpy pace?
Chulthutech? I can sum it up in 5 points:
1. Here's something you see really early in the game
If You Downloaded This Book
So if you’re one of the people who has downloaded this book illegally off the internet, let’s talk. We want to stay in business. We don’t get to stay in business if you don’t buy our products but you u3se them anyway. In more personal terms, if you like CthulhuTech, please go out and buy the books, because if you don’t we go out of business or we kill the line because sales suck and boom – no more CthulhuTech. You lose, we lose, everybody loses. Everybody loves something for nothing, but this sort of thing comes with a price whether it’s money or not.
2. It's grimderp in tone, no matter what you do humanity is losing the war against the Cthulhu aliens and cultists (i have no idea how the metaplot progressed after the initial book but I bet it's still like that)
3, Crunch wise it's a mess that try to combine 3 different gameplays styles if you make a party composed not of the same kind of classes
4. Which leds to what what the writer ripped off that leads to the crunsh problems: Cthulhu, Guyver, MD Geist, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Robotech: Macross, Robotech: Southern Cross, Robotech: The Invid Invasion, Robotech: The Sentinels, Robotech: The Robotech and Rahxephon (so you CAN get a party composed of CoC Investigators, Guyvers and Mecha and each has different mechanics like some gets the Integral scale and other do not) officially and porn not so officially
5. If I remember well in the first book every sample adventure feature a railroad plot but the second one?
Not only does the railroading gets so damn bad but suddenly this shit happens and not making shit up
quote:
What’s in the Crates? Warning: This section is particularly disturbing. This is not the most pleasant part of this story, but it might be important for you to know. Inside each of the crates are small cells containing young girls between fourteen and twenty-two. In preparation for a powerful upcoming ritual, these girls have been violently and repeatedly raped and are all in some early stage of pregnancy (four months is the longest). They are from all over the country and missing persons reports can confirm their identities. However, this will more than likely only come out if the characters impetuously attack the warehouse, at which point the Gaunts and Bakhi will systematically go through the crates and gut each one of the girls. Hassan doesn’t want anyone to get a head’s up on what he’s doing, and it’s not difficult for him to start this part of his plan over. It should be noted that Hassan himself has not raped any of the girls – he finds the act repulsive, but necessary for the greater forces at work.
...IT GETS EVEN WORSE because if you do call the police so they can show up and take in the girls to get them help and break up this operation? "Nlada moves the warehouse once they're gone and "it will be gone before anyone can stop them" which means since this is a sample adventure that the victims are never seen again and will continue to suffer
AND THAT IS NOT THE ONLY MENTION OF THIS KIND OF SICK FILTH IN THE BOOKS as far as i am aware so here's why I am not interested at all in CthulhuTech
View attachment 1625423
Yes. DownThemAll.
Available for Chrome, Firefox and Opera!
There's a right click context menu that will allow you to download all of a certain file type (or multiple define file types) from a page. After setting that there is an option for one click downloading (It just uses the same settings as the last time you downloaded something) should work well on the trove. Give it a whirl!
That's pretty sweet. Only complaint is that it keeps opening every file in Acrobat and I don't know how to stop it. Other than that nuisance, I love it.
How is Cthulhutech (besides weeby, I guess)? CoC is pretty much the standard eldritch horror go to, so I never got to play Delta Green. My group wants to do a DG campaign in a couple of weeks, so its basically CoC but modern day? I like CoC Pulp, it leads to the most outrageous shit. Is DG that kind of pulpy pace?
Its...eh. Its not like FATAL levels, but the GM would have to put in some elbow grease to the base game if you want something that is truly fun to play. Starting with a total mechanical rewrite, then a pick-and-choose for what setting pieces you like and which ones you want to drop. Like the rape camps. Drop those. When I said it was super weeby I meant it basically lifts Anime stuff outright. The giant mechas are blatantly Evas and they arn't shy about it. The psycic powers are AKIRA and want you to know it. There is powered armors, transforming powers, guys who run around with a gun in each hand, etc. There are some interesting parts to the setting, which is why the game kept getting published by for realz studios. Punching lovecraftian horrors with a giant robot has a certain appeal.
Chulthutech? I can sum it up in 5 points:
1. Here's something you see really early in the game
2. It's grimderp in tone, no matter what you do humanity is losing the war against the Cthulhu aliens and cultists (i have no idea how the metaplot progressed after the initial book but I bet it's still like that)
3, Crunch wise it's a mess that try to combine 3 different gameplays styles if you make a party composed not of the same kind of classes
4. Which leds to what what the writer ripped off that leads to the crunsh problems: Cthulhu, Guyver, MD Geist, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Robotech: Macross, Robotech: Southern Cross, Robotech: The Invid Invasion, Robotech: The Sentinels, Robotech: The Robotech and Rahxephon (so you CAN get a party composed of CoC Investigators, Guyvers and Mecha and each has different mechanics like some gets the Integral scale and other do not) officially and porn not so officially
5. If I remember well in the first book every sample adventure feature a railroad plot but the second one?
Not only does the railroading gets so damn bad but suddenly this shit happens and not making shit up
quote:
...IT GETS EVEN WORSE because if you do call the police so they can show up and take in the girls to get them help and break up this operation? "Nlada moves the warehouse once they're gone and "it will be gone before anyone can stop them" which means since this is a sample adventure that the victims are never seen again and will continue to suffer
AND THAT IS NOT THE ONLY MENTION OF THIS KIND OF SICK FILTH IN THE BOOKS as far as i am aware so here's why I am not interested at all in CthulhuTech
Just to agree and expand:
2. Grimderp 100% true. It tries to be edgy but ends up reading like the Linkara book that got frontpaged. Lots of blood and gratuitous rape, along with nonsense like furries that mind control you into wanting to have sex with them. They do the nonsense where they used that sex magic stuff that you'd find in sketchy flash porn games, and a Nazi rape machine to extract it. Its a lolcow of a series at its lowest points.
3/4. For those of you familiar with Robotech/Rifts it has the same problems that Rifts has. In Robotech, the mega/nonmega damage is meant to differentiate power scales so you don't have to do silly things like roll 1000 dice to do damage. Its basically a less effective way at saying "If you shoot a giant mecha with infantry weapons it doesn't do anything" than the Rogue Trader sidebar that says "If you shoot starships with infantry weapons it doesn't do anything, we just use the same dice scale for convenience". This only really works when they don't overlap, which is fine in Robotech when you're mostly just fighting other mega damage things. Then it comes down to Rifts where mega damage things and non-mega damage things co-exist on the same plane. It throws it around like candy, random infantry scale things will be capable of either dealing or taking mega damage for no real reason. In this game the power armor are infantry-scale with mega damage and mega armor. So they can wade through machine gun fire while splattering anyone they fight against in one hit. Mecha are above power armor, and the mecha don't scale particularly well so that an Engel pilot is stronger than a Normal pilot who is leagues stronger than the power-armored soldier who is in another world from the guy who transforms into a non-mega monster. Who is a step above non-powered armored normies.
I'm ranting when I could just point you towards Ettin's Fatal and Friends reviews. They're much more entertaining than I could hope to be, I highly recommend it to anyone reading this.
