SRD 5.1

 WotC announced yesterday the company placed all of the core D&D mechanics under the Creative Commons license, meaning anyone can use them to create material, either for or not for profit. Ergo companies can create materials under the OGL or D&D specific materials under the Creative Commons license.

Yu Gi Oh Day

 Apparently we are hosting a Yu Gi Oh Day this Sunday. $5 entry fee  gets players two tournament packs. Top 8 get a limited edition field center card. Winner and one random player receive the Yu Gi Oh playmat

Game Rental Library

 We are updating the store game rental library by posting the rental prices next to each game as well as whether it is currently in the library or had been rented.

OGL 1.2

 Here is a link to a draft of WotC's proposed OGL 1.2  This version moved the core D&D mechanics into a Creative Commons licence, allows creators using the D&D mechanics to retain ownership of products produced, as well as revenue streams  generated from them., which were major criticisms of the first draft.

There are still some potential problems with the new draft. If, for example, you use Licensed Content or material from the SRD 5.1  which was published back in 2016, you automatically agree to the terms of the OGL1.2

How Ryan Dancy Saved D&D

 Well not quite. Here is the blog post on how he and his team created the original OGL for D&D 3.0. For those not familiar with the concept, the Open Gaming License was created by WotC/ Hasbro and released along with the third edition of D&D. It allowed, as long as the rules in the license were followed, publishers to create materials and expansions for D&D without paying a licensing fee to WotC as long as they put the OGL statement in the book someplace and stated that the materials were created under the OGL Castles and Crusades and Pathfinder were both created under the OGL, hence their use of many D&D rules.

What the OGL allowed WotC to do was create many supplements without having to invest anything in them while continuing to sell the core products needed to use these new materials. Many companies such as Goodman Games, Mongoose Publishing, Necromancer Games and Paizo got their start publising mateiral under the OGL before developing their own games and systems. Of course, dozens of companies also produced a lot of bad material (take a look through our used D&D  section for examples) and went bankrupt within a few years. 

Collections

 Just a reminder that we do not look at collections after 8 p.m. Single items are considered at the staff member's discretion. After 8 p.m., we are getting ready to close and do not have sufficient time to evaluate quantities of items and make you a fair offer.

Dominaria Remastered

 We have been allocated to 12 draft boosters of Dominaria Remastered and 4 Collector booster boxes, though we may be able to get more of the Collector booster boxes. Our pre-order prices are $249.99 for the draft boosters and $374.99 for the collector booster boxes. Suprisingly, given they way WotC has pushed them over the past year, there are no Set Boosters available with this set.

Tyranny of Dragons

 The updated edition of Tyranny of Dragons releases January 17th . From what we can tell, this edition will be updated with the changes introduces in Monsters of  the Multiverse. WotC does not appear to offer an alternate art cover of this book so you should only buy it if you are a completist or do not have the original Tyranny of Dragons.

A Fond Look at the Shadowrun RPG

 Though the big two, Dungeons & Dragons and the Pathfinder RPs get all the attention, there are a number of second tier RPGs that quietly sell, day in and day out.  At our store, that’s Shadowrun.  Released back in 1989, we’ve carried it since before the store opened, when we used to do conventions and mail order only.  One of the few times I remember seeing a crowd of gamers running  was at GENCON in 1992, when the release of the 2nd edition of the Shadowrun rules was released. FASA announced only a limited number of copies available at the show. For some reason, I was in the exhibit hall when the doors opened and watched as a couple of hundred excited games ran through the aisles towards the FASA booth, hoping to score a copy of the 2nd edition rules.  The only other time I have seen that much excitement over a game release was when TSR finally released the Temple Of Elemental Evil  back in 1985.

Since then , Shadowrun has sold steadily for us, to the point we try to keep 2 to 4 copies of the core rulebook on the shelf at any one time. The only other RPGS in the store that get stocked to that depth  are Dungeons & Dragons and the Pathfinder RPG.  In fact, because of sales, Shadowrun and Pathfinder are the only two RPGs that we stock all of their hardback sourcebooks 2 to 3 deep at all times.  Even Dungeons & Dragons (4th edition anyhow) doesn’t get stocked that deeply (mainly because there are a lot more hardbacks for D&D than for either Pathfinder or Shadowrun).  Looking at the shelf at the moment, we have nine Shadowrun hardbacks in stock  and another 9 or 10 paperbound books.  They sell.  Week in and week out, they sell for us and justify the shelf space and inventory.  We average sales of 3 to 5 of each new sourcebook when they hit the shelves (campaign settings and adventures not nearly so well) and have to restock two to three assorted hardbacks weekly, so this is a line that really gets hurt in our store when a book goes out of print, as happens way too often with the line.  Looking at our records, we have sold 6 copies of the rulebook since the beginning of the year and this is of an edition that cam out almost three years ago.

Shadowrun gets little to no promotion (I don’t recall Catalyst mentioning any upcoming releases for it during their presentation at this year’s GAMA Trade Show) and certainly flies under the radar in most stores but its players have quite a bit of devotion to the product, enough to make it our third best selling RPG.