D&D geeks were right – their old rule books ARE worth something now The owner of venerable role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is offering US$50 for high-quality scans of game documents that have so far rolled saving throws against Spells of Digitisation. D&D re-launched in 2014 as version 5.0, but there's still lots of demand for older modules and books. Hence the scanning program …
You are asking me to mutilate my treasured AD&D collection so that you don't have to go through the trouble ?
Or am I supposed to believe that WoTC doesn't have some copies lying around to do the job ? Or original prints ? Or any sort of archive ?
My books are mine. I'll agree to digitizing them with a hand scanner if it helps, but no way I'm destroying them because you couldn't be arsed to preserve your own publications.
I don't see why they necessarily would, if the originals to which they bought the rights pre-dated their purchase of them - I don't recall that WoC are the originators of all D&D - wasn't that TSR?
(not that that's a good reason to go round mutilating your originals to help them out, mind).
They want the old TSR stuff, yes..
And indeed.. there is no way I am going to mutilate the originals of pre- , first, and second ed v1 that I have for their profit. Not that any real fan of the Old Stuff would even remotely consider giving WoTC anything other than a firm, spiky boot deep up the arse.
The spreadsheet lists a few 3rd and 3.5 ed books, so it's their own stuff they're asking for as well...
I've got a few bits on the list from various editions, even got some doubles of some 3rd ed stuff they want. No chance I'll be slicing them up for approx £30 a time. They'd have to offer me a percentage before I'd even consider it.
Why don't they do what everyone else does when they want digital copies of old D&D books and torrent them?
Given the attitude to staying consistent, I'd be amazed if even TSR kept copies of everything.
The main reason D&D became a success is that their original rule books were such a mess - the printer promised to edit it properly and didn't, when I asked Gygax. The result was that players had to invent half of it themselves, rather than look up rule 3.24.3772.1(a).
And you expect them to have good archives?
They'll get my treasured 1st and 2nd edition books along with my d20 when they pry them from my cold dead hands
Someone could have mine, frankly, if I had any idea where they were. I used to have all the original AD&D books except Oriental Adventures, plus the D&D Basic box set, lots of modules, many issues of Dragon, a small collection of lead figures, who knows how many dice... but I haven't looked at any of that stuff in years.
But I wouldn't bother spending time scanning any of it for $50 a volume.
And, yes, the rules were a glorious mess. I never ran or played a campaign that used more than a small fraction of them (material components for spells? encumbrance? "Age, Aging, Disease, and Death"? nah). Mostly, I must admit, my siblings and friends and I ran ad hoc games with ridiculously overpowered "Monty Hall" characters for the sheer absurdity of it. That and just reading the books and chatting about them, which often proved to be as diverting as actually playing.
I tried to Save Vs Churlishness and rolled a 1.
The amount of effort required to put together a high-quality scan to their specifications is not small, and having to destroy the physical object as well?
And for $50, when they're selling digital copies of some titles for $5 and up? My labour is worth more than that, so no thanks.
If this was for a library, maybe, but for now I'll keep mine on my Shelf of Preserving so I can play them with my son one day.
Interestingly, one of the major figures in the D&D community during the late 70s and early 80s has weighed in on the vexed issue of whether it's worth cutting up your prized rule books for that sort of money.
Sort of like Audubon was a massive hunter as well? He hunted and killed all his own birds at first in order to paint them, but then had to hire hunters to go out and get him a whole new brace every time he started up.
"I call birds few when I shoot less than one hundred per day."
If only there was a large company filled with nerds that had a really good way to scan books. I'm sure they're not cutting up the library books for the project.
Good point. Also, will the digital versions be simple image files or will they transcribe the text to create searchable documents? If so, then the only real need for high-quality scans would be for the illustrations as the use of digital text will work better than scans will. If not, they are less useful and therefor should have less uptake.
That's what I was thinking, that either the Oompa-Loompas could do it as part of their online digitizing/ archiving work, or else somewhere there's likely some D&D devotees who've already scanned their books and parked them in an online Cloudy Stash of Lore for their local comrades' use.
They have got to be kidding! I sold a load of my old 2nd Ed and Forgotten Realms stuff on eBay a couple of years ago and most of it went for a tidy sum, without destroying any books. If memory serves my Castles boxed set (the one you could build a cardboard castle from) went for over £50 let along $50!
You would have better luck asking volunteers to transcribe them for you. Something like Project AON - pay them in freebies from the digistore or something.
...Castle Ravenloft, in 3D please!
I was fascinated with the beautifully executed multi-layer isometric maps which came with the original module that we played in high school - I can see big possibilities(*) for a digital version.
(* Can also forsee how a lame implementation would screw it up too)
True. Somewhere along the line I legally acquired a licensed digital copy of them which I archived to my hard drive. At least I think it was them. Not sure WHY they need the originals to cut apart and digitize. WoC acuired all the original TSR rights, although there was that troublesome middleman (Mattel?) who might have lost stuff.
WoC still haven't fully understood the pdf model. Their 5th ed books are beginning to be aviailable as pdfs - locked pdfs that cannot be annotated which makes them all-but useless in play.
Paizo, on the other hand, not only sells unlocked pdfs, they sell 'em for a reasonable price. Ditto PEG. Even Chaosium doesn't lock their overpriced, unindexed pdfs.
IBM locked down all the pdfs on a recent training course and provided no paper copies. So when we had to make inevitable changes to the text, we couldn't.
I have a policy now, after amessing a very large library of both tech and gaming e-books: If the pdf is locked, I won't buy it.
I'd try to scan them but I am NOT cutting them up!!!! not for a few quid. They have loads of notes and memories written all over them anyway. I can even remember the day I went to the shop and my dad bought me the D&D basic box set and a few years later the main books for AD&D. I still have my 5th edition TnT stuff too - my introduction to role playing in 1981 when I was only 10!!!
Destroying a book is sacrilege to me. In this case it would be the ultimate sacrilege as I have packed away in a the Vault of Security every edition from TSR I could lay my hands on, including game modules.
Ok...maybe this: they can pry them out of my cold dead hands but pay my heirs a Chest of Treasure.
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The book would fetch more than the price you're offering if I sell it on Amazon, Ebay, or to my local game store. That's Strike One.
You want me to destroy it's inherent value by taking it apart, and then offering nothing to rebind it back to original condition? My Librarian Overlords would burn you at the stake for even THINKING such an atrocity. Strike Two.
You then want to profit handsomely off my labor by reselling the digital scans, while cutting me out of the fruits of my hard work? Strike Three, you're outta here.
I *might* be willing to take my stuff to my local Library & have them unbind, scan, & rebind the books, so THEY can offer digital copies for customers of the Library, because that would not only treat the books with the respect they deserve, it would ALSO result in the information being Made Available for the low low price of a Library Card.
As others have mentioned, you can probably find most if not all of what you're seeking via a simple torrent search, or you could search Amazon/Craig'sList/Ebay/etc for sellers of said material, or you could pay a fair rate for the professional scanning of private collections. But to offer a pittance so we can destroy our own property & be left with now worthless scrap?
You're not just out of your mind, you've gone off the deep end with an anchor shoved up your arse.
"I *might* be willing to take my stuff to my local Library & have them unbind, scan, & rebind the books, so THEY can offer digital copies for customers of the Library, because that would not only treat the books with the respect they deserve, it would ALSO result in the information being Made Available for the low low price of a Library Card."
This would cause a Great Rising of the Lawyers from WotC. And they're near-impossible to strike down, unless you roll a natural 20 and have mr. Slant as a Retainer/Follower.
WotC are ..nice... like that..
Thanks to a flatmate who recently departed our shores, and left me with boxes of his stuff to deal with, I now have 2 copies of many of these items, but I will only be keen to sacrifice one of them. Only 2 slight problems;
His copies: Stained with ciggy tar, drink and pizza spillages
Mine: Due to having some very, very boring economics classes to sit through, I ended up colouring in a lot of the pics. Some very badly, others look like they were meant to be coloured in the first place.
Has to be said - I find war damage to RPG Books part of the charm, unless they do what my SLA book did and simply fall apart for no particularly good reason.
Dog eared, well warn spines, notes, scribbles and, bits of ancient paper from a campaign long forgotten.
On the other hand I have games like Anima - which is gorgeous but I've never figured out how to play it so it's pristine.
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