The Sigil said:
Not sure I agree with this. How do you determine what is "pirated" and what is not? If I show up with a few pages copied from my rulebook which I left at home because I don't want to drag the whole rulebook along, is that piracy? I consider it "fair use" myself. Will you require me to drag along my receipt for the book? This is too much trouble, and gamers, being the lazy lot that we are, will simply go elsewhere.
If a club or convention allows the use of pirated materials, then it leaves itself open for legal action should such materials be found by the authorities. It's in the club/convention's best interests to ensure that members don't endanger it by using illegal materials. In the main, this policy would remove the use of illegal PDFs and bootleg photocopies from spaces under club/convention control; this is an entirely reasonable expectation. If you want a cheat sheet for rules reference, then make your own; ten minutes with a word processor and a printer (or a pencil and a pad of paper) is cheaper than two minutes at the copy machine. Couple this with the reporting of violators to the police--piracy is a crime--and the problem will go away swiftly.
The second one is even more silly. Why does EVERY player in a group need the Core Rulebook? And how is this going to help all the d20 companies? In the case of d20, it only helps WotC. And why can't I just bring a (free) copy of the System Reference Document on my laptop? It's the *rule*book, right? Why can't I let my friend borrow my rulebook to make his character? That's "Fair Use." Again, this will not help at all; gamers will merely find somewhere else to play.
This policy is to get rid of spongers, freeloaders and others leeches that can't be bothered to make the appropriate commitment to the hobby that they say that they like but--by their actions--treat with contempt. $30-$50 for one book is not too much to ask; these same people pay that much for a videogame for their PC or console system, which they use far less for a shorter period of time. Tabletop RPGs are not a casual hobby; they require that everyone make a commitment of time, money and energy to get much of anything out of it. If a would-be player can't commit the money, then chances are that he's not that likely to commit the time or the energy to make his presence worthwhile. Get rid of him; you'll be better off if you do.
I understand where you're coming from - you're attributing lost sales to "piracy" but I think you overestimate the problem of piracy as it relates to Lost Sales (repeat after me: "Fair Use" - such as sharing a single copy of a rulebook - is NOT Piracy and more importantly "An Illegal Copy is NOT NECESSARILY a Lost Sale" - and keep in mind I'm saying the latter as a PUBLISHER, not as someone who is a "materials pirate" - in my mind, many people who have "pirated copies" of stuff would not have bought it if the price were greater than free, so there's no real Lost Sale there - they are unethically benefitting from my work, but their ethics or lack thereof is a totally separate and distinct issue from my Lost Sales).
I'm attributing a great deal to the concept that too many players can't be bothered to spend the minimum amount necessary to get the minimum gear to play the game: a set of dice and a rulebook. The investment of money often equals the investment of time and energy required to make participation worth the effort.
Further, you're killing an ant with a sledgehammer. This introduces an extra level of work to gaming, which most gamers don't want. If I want to play 5 games at a Convention, do I need to haul around a backpack with 5 different rulebooks? If I want my group to try a new game, why should all of us go buy the book when one book would suffice at least for a tryout period of a month or two? Most of all, why are you so desirous to trample my "Fair Use" rights in letting me lend my copy of my book to a friend? In one of the longest-lived gaming groups I worked with, we had a "library" set up at the house of the guy we normally played at... we all bought a book here or there and kept all the books at this guy's house - then when we wanted to take a book, we just took it with us. Since everyone had tossed 10-15 books into the "community pile" we didn't worry about who the "original owner" was - we just took what we needed and returned it when we were finished. And having a library of around 100 books to choose from since we decided to share was much better than having a library of 10-15 had we all purchased our own books. Is THAT against your sense of fair play?
Save for demostration events--where it's counter-productive--yes, you'd need to have your own rulebook. That would demonstrate to the GM that you know enough about the game to avoid asking questions better suited for a demo; this saves time that is in short supply at conventions. If you want to try a new game, then go to the demo; that what demostration events are for.
And if you gather with your friends into an informal partnership to jointly own a library, then you are a part-owner of the library and thus own all of the contents of that library. Go figure.
Players that don't own the rulebook often don't know enough about the game to participate in a meaningful manner. Buying their own copy is often enough to fix the problem; buying a copy of the rules usually precedes the actual learning of the rules, because spending the money creates a feeling of obligation in most players that results in them reading the rules and thus learning the game. This makes the player into someone that doesn't drag the game down by asking the questions best answered by "Read The Manual", and instead becomes someone that is able to participate meaningfully to the game for the benefit of all at the table. It's not obvious, but I've seen the effect happen so often for so long that I must conclude that this is true.
Your heart is in the right place, but the execution is sorely lacking.
It's a first attempt. Fine-tuning in the field is inevitable. That said, this sort of reformation of the gamer subculture is long overdue. The expectations placed upon people in mainstream daily life don't extend here; they should, and those that don't measure up must be made to pay the consequences.
