The Caffeinated Penguin

musings of a crackpot hacker

Got the eclipse phase pdf….

Posted By matt on August 26, 2009

Eclipse Phase is a roleplaying game about.. well.. whatever you want, set in the transhuman future.

Aside from looking interesting in general, it also licensed under a CC BY NC SA license. More info is here.

Not only does this mean that I can grab bits of the book to legally make and repost a GM screen, or make a character sheet, without fear of being sued (so long as I don’t sell it, which I won’t), it ALSO means that I can SHARE the PDF for noncommercial use. Don’t believe me? Look at the first item of the license [0].

Realistically, what does this mean?

Well, it means that I bought the $60 book and PDF bundle. Catalyst has been putting out freaking gorgeous books which I want for pure fanboy squee, even though I tend to read the PDF.

It also means that I can legally share the PDF with my (imaginary) gaming group and legally copy/print the pages out of the book/PDF as reference material.

“What’s the big deal”, you say, “I always used to do that”.

Yes, except now it’s legal.

I think the main thing here is that they get it. Roleplaying games are not a closed box where you sell lots of product by making it scarce – it’s about building a community of fans and evangelists who go out and get more people to play your game. Ultimately, you’ll move more product than if you kept it in a vault.

Good on ya, Catalyst Games and Posthuman Studios. Let’s hope more folks follow your lead.


Comments

One Response to “Got the eclipse phase pdf….”

  1. matt says:

    We can do that. I plan to run a series of Savage Worlds games until folks get tired, then we can switch to Eclipse Phase if folks like.

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