The recent hammer-handed copyright take down threats by Games Workshop are a fascinating counterpoint to this very open business model.  Of course, people can and will take advantage of the “free” part of the license and never pay a cent to Catalyst.  Catalyst believes their game is so good that they can give the books away for free and people will spend  on printed releases, miniatures and other supplemental material.  A game company competing in the market place on the merits of its product line, rather than going after homebrew rules, FAQs and rules summaries with copyright lawyers is a refreshing change.

More importantly, it takes balls. Catalyst took a huge risk with this open model and failure is a real possibility. Taking a financial risk like this requires courage lacking in many large game companies, hide-bound in 20th century business models and archaic ideas of intellectual property.  I hope Catalyst blows Games Workshop and their ilk back the stone-age with “Leviathans.”

I will now go pay my $2.99 to avoid hypocrisy and support a great idea. I hope other downloaders will  do the same. Oh, I do not get a dime from any sales, in case you wondered.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Current Free RPG Day 2009 participants with links to their websites:

Chessex Manufacturing
(Store Sample, Commemorative Dice w/ store name)

Claymore Entertainment
(Store Sample, Hero’s Bane RPG Quickstart & Adventure)

Exile Game Studios
( Hollow Earth Expedition Adventure)

Fantasy Flight Games
(Rogue Trader RPG Adventure)

Flying Buffalo
(Tunnels & Trolls Quickstart and Adventure)

Goodman Games
( 4th Edition Flipbook, “Hero’s Handbook: Immortals” and “Amethyst: Hearts of Chaos”)

Lone Wolf Development
( Hero Lab demo w/ unique data files)

Mongoose Publishing
THREE GIVEAWAYS!
(“The Troubleshooter Reference Manual”)
(“Introduction to Dragon Warriors”)
( “Grab the Cache”)

Q-Workshop
(unique dice)

Paizo Publishing
(Pathfinder Bonus Bestiary)

Polymancer Studios
( Fantasy Adventure)

Troll Lord Games
(Castles & Crusades Quickstart and Adventure)

White Wolf Publishing
(Geist RPG Quickstart)

Wizards of the Coast
(“Khyber’s Harvest”, Eberron 4E Adventure and Tile bundle)

I always felt this event was to get new people involved in the hobby, so if you plan on attending, drag a curious non-gamer with you and recruit a new cultist…er…introduce someone to the hobby.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Why bother, you ask?

Simple. Searching Google for information about role-playing games and their publishers is often frustrating. General keyword queries pull up fan sites, blogs, Wikipedia, Amazon, PDF sellers like rpgnow.com or some other irrelevant information.  Worse still, you search for a game company and the site has not been updated in 4 years or is completely dead.

Additionally, many publishers I looked at languished so far down the results that only the most dedicated searcher would ever find them. These publishers had no keyword optimization, poor quality incoming links  or other issues that drove them down the Google search results when competing against the entire Google index for ranking. They are, in search terms, small fish in an infinite pond.

To solve the problem, I moved the fish to a very small, finite glass tank.

Now, each and every search result through RPGSeek returns a link to an RPG publisher site. Clean, targeted searching without the irrelevant data for the questing gamer.  I hope you find it useful.

I know there are questions, so here is quick FAQ

0. Wizards of the Coast/wizards.com is not in the index!

A: This was intentional. The WOTC site contains so much high-ranked keyword content that it distorted the RPGSeek results and overwhelmed the smaller companies. Be patient. Did I mention the DNDSeek project I am working on…

1. Who is in the index of sites?

A: I am working on a list to post at a later date, but I would call it “comprehensive.”  For now, if you are curious if a site is in the index, just do a search for the exact website name, ie. www.crafty-games.com and see if it returns a homepage. If it does, then that site is in the index.

2. My beloved RPG publisher is not in the index! How do I get them in?

A: Go to the Livingdice.com contact form and let me know the site address. If it is a  RPG publisher then it will probably go in in a couple of working days. Non-publishers are reviewed on a case-by-case basis, but at this point I am leaning towards publishers of RPG games only.

3. How much does it cost to  submit a site.

A: Inclusion in the index is free.  Though I do sell advertising space on the site, so if you are in a spending mood…

4. Do you index the entire site or just the front page.

A: We utilize all content on the site from the base “www.domain.com” address that the Google content spider can see.

5. Will inclusion in RPGSeek’s index help my search ranking?

A: No. We are not linking to the sites, only searching them.

6. The search page is ugly.

A: I know. I am not the greatest web developer and will be improving it over the next few weeks.

Please use the contact form if you have any further questions.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

All too often a DM is short on time and long on players in need of a challenge. Rather than throw something together, I have a great resource that will provide modules, complete with maps and monsters for a variety of challenge ratings…for free.

Paradigm Concepts runs a “Living” d20 campaign called “Living Arcanis,” based on their “Arcanis” campaign books. For those unfamiliar with the concept a “Living” game has a common set of rules and character tracking, so a player in New York can play in California without worrying about “house” rules. Essentially, it is an MMORPG for tabletop gamers. The campaign has run for the past five years and has a strong player base. Over 100+ modules have been published.

The result of this is that Paradigm solicits and regularly publishes player written modules for the campaign. Each module is designed to run in a four hour convention slot, so it is perfect for a “quickie” home game. Although designed for the “Arcanis” universe, many of the modules use only base monsters and equipment and are readily adaptable to the home game.

In the interests of full disclosure, I write modules for the campaign and run one of its regions. It is, in my opinion, one of the best campaigns for d20 out there.

You are more than welcome to check out both the campaign and its modules at:

http://www.livingarcanis.com

If you are interested in the Arcanis world, check out the “Player’s Guide to Arcanis.” One of my favorite source books!

Players Guide to Arcanis

Player’s Guide to Arcanis PDF Version for Download

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