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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pbartender" data-source="post: 1817884" data-attributes="member: 7533">Yeah, but WotC is a bad example...  They've got brand name recognition, and they're a part of a large corporation.  That gives them a certain amount of security profit-wise.  For the small publishers, it makes a much bigger difference, and those are the guys I worry about.To make an analogy...  There is an oft repeated arguement on this board and others about large on-line retailers selling large quatities of RPG books at huge discounts in order to undercut the competition.  This tends draws customers and profits away from the small, local game store owners who can ill afford to lose the income.Essentially, for a small RPG publisher, this is exactly what you are doing if you create a public free SRD of their material.  You are providing for free what they are trying to sell.It's completely legal, if you want to do it.  I wouldn't even say that it's really unethical to do it.  But you certainly won't make any friends amongst RPG publishers and designers, if you do.I care if you do it... go right ahead.  I my very personal and long considered opinion, it's just Bad Form, and I won't do it myself unless the publisher specifically gives me permission.Actually, it does make a return for WotC, because they were clever enough to be very careful about what was not included in the SRD, and they were very clever about what you could not include in your 3rd party publication, if you wanted to put that little "D20" logo on your cover.Namely, ability score generation, experience charts and level advancement.  Those three key things can only be found in WotC products.  If, for example, you want to play a Spycraft game, technically, you still have to buy a Player's Handbook.Realistically, you can figure ability generation and experience out yourself, but originally that was the business plan behind the idea.</blockquote>

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