Rpg

Bootleg role-playing games

Welcome to our website. It is generaly simplier version of wikipedia. You will find there selected articles. Enjoy!

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2008)

Part of a series on:
Role-playing games
Types Role-playing game (pen and paper) Live action role-playing game Role-playing video game
Topics Campaign setting Character creation Gamemaster History of role-playing games Role-playing game system Role-playing game terms Player character Non-player character Role-playing game theory GNS Theory The Big Model Threefold Model Statistics
Lists List of campaign settings List of Japanese RPGs by genre List of LARP groups List of RPG artists List of RPG designers List of RPG publishers List of RPGs by name List of RPGs by genre Timeline of RPGs
More info Portal:Role-playing games WikiProject Role-playing games
v • d • e

Bootleg role-playing games are unauthorised copies of game instructions and gameplay rules of role-playing games. As with the music and video industries, the business of RPGs changed markedly in response to high-tech methods of illegal copying.

Unlike many other types of games, RPGs are nearly entirely text-based, requiring few non-standard components other than books. Because both the price and complexity of RPG books rose in the 1990s, a cottage industry grew around copying and distributing many copies from a single purchased copy.

Hard copying

Since the first Dungeons & Dragons pamphlets were published, players made copies, sometimes as simply as jotting down the rules in a binder. It becomes bootlegging when the user copies large parts of the whole work via photocopying or other such methods. This method is losing popularity quickly, but it still occurs, particularly in areas where public libraries stock RPG sourcebooks.

The game industry came to live with this method of bootlegging, as it was largely untraceable and had little impact on sales. One copy could make another copy, but only through the same tedious process of copying the first one.

Electronic copying

The game industry could not ignore the rise of another method of bootlegging, namely scanning the entire book into an electronic format, typically as an Adobe Acrobat PDF. From there, it can be easily distributed over the internet.

The problem of RPG bootlegging from a developer's standpoint is very hard to stop, particularly with most bookstores' loose attitude towards people reading in their establishments. Some claim it be a problem best left unchecked, since those that bootleg are likely to buy some of the publisher's products eventually, and might leave their chosen system for one of the many free RPG systems available online if the publishers were to crack down on bootleggers.

Responses to bootlegging

In response to bootlegging and other economic issues of RPGs, Wizards of the Coast released an Open Gaming License adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons, known as the d20 System. This system allows players to acquire a copy of the core rules of any d20 system game (such as D&D) for free. The result allows anyone to participate in such games without having to pay the high cost of acquiring a printed copy of the rules, or risk the legal and ethical ramifications of acquiring them through illegal means.

Steve Jackson Games has also released a 32-page PDF containing the core rules of their GURPS system, titled GURPS Lite.

Supplements to these games are not free.