Ethics of rules summaries?

[J B Bell]

I've put this in Publishing since it has to do with intellectual property rights.

So, on a mailing list to do with gaming, the topic has come up recently of the difficulty of playing a game when not everyone has a copy of the rulesbook. One person seemed to feel it was reasonable for every player at a F2F game to have a copy of, e.g., the AD&D Player's Handbook.

I don't think that's unreasonable, but in many of the games I have played over the years, only the GM and one or two players have possessed the rulesbook. Even if every player had the book in the regular group, it wasn't uncommon to have occasional "guest players", who of course would be able to borrow a spare copy at the table.

Now recently I played a game on IRC, and since I posted about it in another thread, I might as well say it was Universalis. The game is quite small, and in person it's fairly easy to show someone the ropes and get to play quickly. But explaining it online would be pretty tedious. I figured since I was going to be typing to explain it anyway, I would come up with a small summary and mail it to my players, which I did. I did think about the possible impact on sales, since I want the game to succeed because it rocks ass. My reasoning was fourfold:

[list=1][*]Neither of the two players is likely to ever purchase the game
[*]However, they might well purchase it after playing with me
[*]I trust them as being upright sorts who wouldn't spread around my summary for kicks
[*]My summary isn't fully complete anyway, nor especially easy to read[/list:o]

(Before you ask, no I won't send it to you. Unless you're Ralph or Mike, of course.)

I did not check with Ralph Mazza nor Mike Holmes before doing this; on balance I figure the chances of a new sale are increased, especially as I have encouraged my friends to share with their friends that they had a lot of fun playing this weird game. However, I hereby publicly apologize if either of those fine gentlemen feel I didn't do the right thing in general or in some particular.

I think the question of what the appropriate limits are here impacts especially on indie games, as they are more likely to have very simple mechanics that can be summarized easily so that only one of the players really needs a copy of the rulesbook.

So, I'm interested to know what people think of this situation and ones like it.

--JB

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

The really ugly reality, I think, is that ultimately a publisher can't tell a person what to do with the game, once they've bought it, and hope to have much success at it. Oh, people might try to guilt-trip their user base ... or various laws might be enacted to restrict copy-shop use ... but ultimately, it's gonna come down to the ugly reality. If someone really wants to photocopy a chapter (or a whole book!) from their rulebook and distribute it among the player-group ... or scan it for a web-upload ... or whatever ... well, they're gonna do it.

I think the big issue is whether such behavior "loses sales" for the publisher. You know what? Within certain limits (I am not talking about commercial pirating!), I don't think it does. It promotes actual play, right? It means the game is being played? Fine - my call, all this time, is that successful actual play eventually translates to actual sales. It might be someone in that group, or it might be someone they talk to six months from now.

The only alternative, and I have heard some publishers rant about this, is to expect every member of the group to buy an individual copy prior to play. It doesn't matter whether this is a "justifiable" expectation or not - it's not a realistic one, and hence should be jettisoned as fantasy.

So let's take a concerned customer, like you, who not only wants to play the game, they want to help promote the game and to help generate some sales eventually.

My call? (The following obviously only applies to Adept Press.) As long as you are not pirating the game, which is to say looting its pages and making them commercially or semi-commercially available, and as long as your handouts or perhaps few-pages photocopy are associated with a real live play-group (and available only to them) ... go for it. A customer who's playing the game has, for my money, gained Executive Decision power regarding the game and its non-commercial use.

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

I believe its Baen books that has started a new experiment.  Its an intentional (as in after several public internet discussions they decided to put their money where their mouth is) attempt to disprove the "bad for business theories" of the IP-nazis who went after Napster.

The theory was that having people have access to free copies HELPS business not hurt it.  Therefor several of Baens authors got together and posted free online versions of several of their best selling books.

So far Baen reports sales for those authors up statistically significantly over authors who aren't offering free online copies.

Point being, I agree with Ron when he says distributing free stuff doesn't really cost sales.


Personally, as someone who despises to the root of my being the recent trend towards licensing everything so that big companies can continue to tell me what to do with a product I purchased but don't actually own, I'm GLAD, JB, that you DIDN'T feel the need to ask my permission to create some game play summaries for your group.

Of course, I want the the game played.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Hastening to add that if someone (1) posts commercially-bought material on-line for all and sundry or (2) turns around an' sells any part or whole of it for personal gain, that I'd land on him with both feet and a pile of lawyers, at the very least.

Best,
Ron