Appalling conduct regarding DriveThru/DRM

[Krug]

Man they're offering Twilight 2000 free this week. Thumbs up.

 

[johnsemlak]

That's cool.
John > How did you find Draconic Lore? Torn between that and Necromantic Lore.

Disclaimer--I haven't used any material so far.

Well, it's short, only 66 pages, so it is a bit less than I expected (still OK at $5, but realistically, in the PDF market that's an average price-per-page value, if that). Among other DRM restrictions, the document has a cut-and-paste limit of 10 times per 10 days.

Its format is also very simple. The book is basically a compendium of varient dragons and dragonlike creatures--a very focused monster manual of sorts. There are no chapters on dragon culture, physiology, role-playing dragons, prestige classes, etc.

The PDF has no bookmarks, but there is a useful alphabetical listing of the creatures at the beginning.

The monster entries take up about two pages each, and each one has an illustration (all B&W). A few examples:

• Cavern Dragon: a varient dragon that permanently lives underground and is blind
• Cthonion Dragon: A horrible creature created from dragons by Mind Flayers
• Dire Dragon: a primative dragon reduced to basically a large lizard
• Dragonshark
• Dragoth: a race of humanoid dragons
• Entropic Dragon: a dragon whose breath weapon ages the victim
• Molten Dragons: dragons who live in molden lava in volcanoes
• Tome Lizard: a small magical lizard, suitable for a wizard's familiar.
• Vermin Dragon: a hybrid of blue dragons and various arachnids
• Wooly Dragon: a White Dragon varient living in even more extreme cold climes.

There are also several varients of drakes.

The book is 3.0 compatible. It could take a bit of work to convert if you're really precise about that sort of thing.

If what you are looking for is a compendium of varient dragons, this is a useful book. Other Dragon books (there aren't that many really: the Slayer's Guide to Dragons, Draconomicon, and Mongoose's later Dragons; any others?) cover the topic much more broadly.

 

[JoeBlank]

The free offering is on the bottom left of the blue bordered area of DTRPG's front page http://www.drivethrurpg.com/catalog/index.php .

The Auld Grump casts Remove Blindness and I can see!

Thanks, can't believe I kept missing that.

 

[beverson]

problems with the free pdf's

Has anyone else had any problems with the free pdf's DTRPG made available? I have to go back and check which ones again, but 2 of them had a major problem - the graphics on the pages covered up the text! I don't know if this is something that affected only the 'free' offerings, or if the same problem has been found in product that people have paid for, but that is a major flaw, from where I'm sitting.

 

[Storyteller01]

I'm not a publisher, but I'm always a potential customer, so please enlighten me... is Drive Thru RPG actually running an illegal practice, or are the skirting the legal edge while cutting into another's market??

 

[Strutinan]

It is legal, there is nothing in the law to prevent competition, but their POLICIES are actionable. People go to them to purchase usable pdfs of some of their favorite books, or to preview a book via a pdf before they buy the hard-copy version. By (essentially) gving out garbage-scans in exchange for people's money they open themselves up to lawsuits from their customers for not delivering what was promised, and from their supliers for ruining their "good names" in the market.

All-in-all, a poorly conceived business plan with an even poorer execution. I'll stick to RPGNow.com, thankyouverymuch.

 

[JoeBlank]

Just to follow up on the earlier discussion re: Necromancer.

I have now purchased Morrick Mansion in PDF from DTRPG. It does still have the DRM enabled, complete with the 10-cut-and-paste-per-10-days restriction. It is a high quality PDF with no problems I have noticed otherwise.

And the free download of Rappan Athuk has been pushed back to the the week of July 26, per the Necromancer messageboards.