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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4747649" data-attributes="member: 4937">I just want to say that that is exactly the situation that I feel we have now.  So, while I don't want to see gaming companies go under, if that would actually be the result, it would be a change that constituted no real change at all (except for those that lost their jobs).  You average monster manual might have 300 monsters.  I might actually admire the concept, design, and execution of like 12 of them enough to want to use them in a game.  The other 288 pages are basically wasted ink as far as I'm concerned, and yet I'm forced to buy the useless pages at the same rate as the useful ones.  I'm not allowed to spend $1.99 to just buy the portion of the book I want.  So what do I do?  I don't buy the book.  I don't download the pdf.  I carry the idea I saw home in my head and make the monster exactly how I prefer it.  Maybe, years later, when I find the book in a used book store, I might think the price worth the 12 or 20 pages I'd actually use.The same is true of gaming books in general.I don't buy alot of books because 90% of them are 90% crap, and most of the rest are 100% crap.  There are only a handful of books I paid the full price for because I just had to have them immediately, and those are the books whose spine is in danger of cracking because I've used them so well. The sad truth of this hobby is that the professionally produced stuff is often no better or only marginally better than what the average hobbist produces as a labor of love.  Ed Greenwood?  Probably a better than average DM with more time on his hands and more dedication to making his stuff publishable (a maybe a bit more luck) than the rest of us.  Was he the best DM/world builder in the country at the time.  Almost certainly not, but he was certainly the most influential.  But even if he was the best DM in the country, his stuff - like every other game designer's stuff I'm aware of - started out for a amateur audience.Open source/freeware/donateware software is a completely applicable comparison, because open source software doesn't only include boring stuffy technical applications, but entertainment and gaming content as well.  There is nothing less subjective about what makes a good computer game than what makes a good game in general.This is what I believe, as well.  If the hobby dies, its because what's on the shelf right now is crap. Eventually though, when the mass market, high profile crap dies away, inevitably it just clears room for us to see some genous who has been toiling away in complete obscurity.  Eventually the demand for either his stuff or stuff like it will become so great that only a professional market will be able to provide it, so one will be created.Anyway, the great thing about this hobby is it is one of the cheapest imaginable.  All that is required is pencil, paper, dice, and imagination.  It's great that there are people out there willing to spend $1000's of dollars on game books that they'll never use and don't need, but its even better that you can run a good game for years on about $50.</blockquote>

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