RE: Oop Publications from Meints, Richard (R.J.) on 2003-05-28 (Glorantha Digest Vol 09)

From: Meints, Richard (R.J.) <"Meints,>
Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 09:47:35 -0400

Herbert asks:
Is there an easy/acceptable way to get OOP other than the Chaosium/AH...stuff like the various fanzines, conv books, and such.

In general, there is no easy way to get a wide variety of the material, especially at one time. Some of the articles are available on websites. Others are available on the used games market. There are a few, like Read Pheasant Throughout, or Rune Riter, that are still available from the original producers as legal photocopies. If you are persistent you can eventually pick up almost all of the non-chaosium/AH material on the used games market (I did it), but that does require a fair bit of your time and a good deal of money.

The easiest way is to ask people for photocopies. Unfortunately, this is illegal. I know that between friends this is often ignored, and if no money changes hands then few people usually get bothered enough to even say anything. What is frowned upon is publicly and actively advertising that you are looking for free illegal photocopies. It doesn't matter if it is out of print, not available for sale, etc. Photocopies without the author and/or publisher's express permission are illegal.

Without sounding too mercenary, send we a want list and I'll see what I can scrounge up on the used games market. I sell a lot of the used magazines and follow Ebay, etc. very closely. I have Tradetalk 2-12, Tales 17-20, most issues of White Dwarf, most Different Worlds, and even some of the con books like RQCon1, Questlines, Enclosure, Enclosure 2, Ye Book of Tentacles 1-3, etc. for sale in back stock. Some of it is not cheap, but such is life.

People have talked about scanning in all manner of out of print stuff and making it available as PDF's on a CD, but barring author/publisher permission that would be VERY illegal.

Good luck,
Rick "MiG" Meints

--__--__--