What makes a TTRPG purchase "worth it" to you?

[grankless]

If I like it, then it's worth it even if I don't use it.

 

[Corinnguard]

- The Trove was a pirate site that stole a ton of material from small publishers. Maybe someone used it to preview books before buying them but most just used it to steal books. The owners of the site had no moral qualms stealing and distributing millions of illegal PDFs without a publishers consent.

Was any of your work pirated? curious

 

[aiouh]

Stuff I like

AND

Large percentage of the sale directly going to a creator that actually cares and enables them to continue making content I like. I try to purchase outside of DTRPG whenever possible because the cut they take is insane. I also try to avoid Patreon for this reason.

Corporate stuff (HasbroWotC) I buy from the Local Game Store as the pie is cut with margins going to the store that actually enable the community.

I am a bit torn on Kickstarter, as they make fees, but successful kickstarters get the creator more visibility so its a wash.

BUT

I do tend to buy less stuff where I feel like they don't need it. (Alien RPG, Discworld RPG)

 

[SlyFlourish]

Was any of your work pirated? curious

Yep. All of it. A lot of it still is on other places.

 

[Reynard]

Yep. All of it. A lot of it still is on other places.

There is a widely held belief that entertainment should be free and downloading books, music, movies and tv, etc... isn't stealing. An argument some folks make is "I wasn't going to pay for it anyway, so my pirating it did not lose you a sale." There are even people that make the argument that pirating is a net positive because it increases consumption and awareness of a work.

Unfortunately there isn't a whole lot creators and small publishers can do. Some combat piracy by making some portion of their work legally free (Kevin Crawford comes to mind) and/or more easily acquired than by way of piracy. I think maybe Patreons and other revenue sources probably blunt the impact of sales lost due to piracy, but don't actually help combat piracy (and may actually exacerbate it).

 

[Bae'zel]

There's always a risk that any RPG that I acquire will not actually get played. So I scrutinize each purchase for the following criteria:

- Is it nice enough just to read and browse? (eg. nice art, cool prose etc.?)

- Can I borrow elements from it for other RPGs that I DO play? (eg, transplant rules, convert dungeons, draw inspiration for monsters)

Some books that I know that I'll never, ever likely play that meet the criteria: Blackbirds, Against the Darkmaster, Vaesen, Carbon Grey. All amazing looking games that will tragically never get any use. But I've definitely spent many hours just reading and browsing them.

 

[SlyFlourish]

There is a widely held belief that entertainment should be free and downloading books, music, movies and tv, etc... isn't stealing. An argument some folks make is "I wasn't going to pay for it anyway, so my pirating it did not lose you a sale." There are even people that make the argument that pirating is a net positive because it increases consumption and awareness of a work.

Unfortunately there isn't a whole lot creators and small publishers can do. Some combat piracy by making some portion of their work legally free (Kevin Crawford comes to mind) and/or more easily acquired than by way of piracy. I think maybe Patreons and other revenue sources probably blunt the impact of sales lost due to piracy, but don't actually help combat piracy (and may actually exacerbate it).

What really chaps my ass is that I give a ton away for free. I give away good usable chunks of all of my books for free. They're all linked on my store's pages. Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master is super cheap. $8 for the PDF. All my books are priced down to get them into as many hands as possible. I also release tons of material into the creative commons from many of my books. I released all my old books into the CC:

• Lazy GM's Resource Document
• Lazy GM's Monster Builder Reference Document
• The Original Lazy Dungeon Master
• Dungeon Master Tips
• Running Epic-Tier Games

and still people feel like they have to post the full books to various websites.

I don't DRM any of my books. I don't watermark them. I put them out in open formats like PDF, EPUB, and now Markdown. I want to make it as easy as possible for people to get value from my books.

So yeah, it chaps my ass to see people talking about previewing books at pirate sites. You can just come to me and preview a lot.

But I'll never try to bury my books behind a paywall instead of giving customers downloadable versions they can keep (and back up -- don't forget to back up your stuff!) forever.

 

[Reynard]

What really chaps my ass is that I give a ton away for free. I give away good usable chunks of all of my books for free. They're all linked on my store's pages. Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master is super cheap. $8 for the PDF. All my books are priced down to get them into as many hands as possible. I also release tons of material into the creative commons from many of my books. I released all my old books into the CC:

• Lazy GM's Resource Document
• Lazy GM's Monster Builder Reference Document
• The Original Lazy Dungeon Master
• Dungeon Master Tips
• Running Epic-Tier Games

and still people feel like they have to post the full books to various websites.

I don't DRM any of my books. I don't watermark them. I put them out in open formats like PDF, EPUB, and now Markdown. I want to make it as easy as possible for people to get value from my books.

So yeah, it chaps my ass to see people talking about previewing books at pirate sites. You can just come to me and preview a lot.

But I'll never try to bury my books behind a paywall instead of giving customers downloadable versions they can keep (and back up -- don't forget to back up your stuff!) forever.

I think a certain large corporation incentivizes piracy by building a system where you can't buy a copy of their books digitally to own, rather than just rent via a service. That's not an excuse of course, but I think it is at least a piece of an explanation. But as you say, you make tons of your stuff cheap and often free, and accessible, and people still pirate it. It is a sense of entitlement that I don't think there is a solution for, unfortunately.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I think a certain large corporation incentivizes piracy by building a system where you can't buy a copy of their books digitally to own, rather than just rent via a service. That's not an excuse of course, but I think it is at least a piece of an explanation. But as you say, you make tons of your stuff cheap and often free, and accessible, and people still pirate it. It is a sense of entitlement that I don't think there is a solution for, unfortunately.

No, not really. My wife recently became an official business partner in our little enterprise and a couple of weeks ago she spent a good chunk of a day sending DMCA takedowns to scribd which had a bunch of our stuff. It's definitely whack a mole but we try to hit the biggest vendors.

And yeah, I've heard the argument that D&D Beyond is needed and WOTC is so big they can't possibly sell their materials in PDF because somehow their four billion dollar company has more to lose than my wife and I. (Hint, it's not about stopping piracy, it's about locking everyone else in).

 

[Corinnguard]

So yeah, it chaps my ass to see people talking about previewing books at pirate sites.

It was not my intent to chap anyone's ass about what I saw on The Trove. Let alone, yours. I wasn't aware that it was a pirate site at the time. What I saw back then was a means to look at some PF1 material before I went out and actually bought it from Paizo.com.