Paper Money #49: Mail Bag and Our Favorite Games

3 Comments

1. LAZtheinfamous on 26.04.2011 at 21:21

   Hey guys thanks for answering my question. The reason I was asking is because I’ve recently been going through and re-reading my old RPGs, D&D 2nd Ed, and WEG Star Wars. I’m not sure but it seems that there is a growing population of people playing these older games. Like the so called old school revolution of D&D or the fan compilations/source books for the prequels for WEG Star Wars.

   The thing is with these are that it seems like less people are playing the newer versions of the game. I was wondering if the bit torrents, old second hand editions, and fan compilations were eating away at the game pie. With most of these resources it becomes ridiculously easy to play a game without sending dime one to the original publisher. Both legally, illegally, and of quasi-legality (like fan books).

   I find it an interesting topic dealing with my two favorite things, RPGs and the evolution of business. Thanks again for addressing my question!

2. darjr on 28.04.2011 at 14:15

   A couple of things vis-a-vis LAZtheinfamous’ question. There is OpenD6 wich is the game system underlying WEG starwars. The current, or latest, owner of WEG opened up the rule system and people have started using it for new games and making cool hacks.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_End_Games
   http://opend6.wikidot.com/

   Google Open D6 for details. Sadly I don’t think there are any ‘Official’ star wars downloads or PDFs, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a ‘clone’ without the offending IP.

   Also, way back when, TSR allowed someone to distribute the PDF’s of Star Frontiers. It looks like WotC has left then alone as well, and even made a small statement about it that kinda sorta says it’s OK.

   http://starfrontiers.org/
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Frontiers

   There is even an electronic magazine, starfrontiersman, still in ‘publication’.

3. darjr on 28.04.2011 at 14:16

   Ack, please don’t repeat my misspellings if you read this on the ‘air’.

   Love the show!

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