[Audyssey] a question about rpg games

[Christopher Bartlett]

.org
to get access to the System Reference Document.  This covers all the 
publicly licensed content from Dungeons and Dragons, which includes 
the basic rules and character classes.  This is plenty to play a 
fully functional game of Dungeons and Dragons.  There is a lot of 
content on the web that expands upon this, though Wizards of the 
Coast keeps a lot of material off the web and not in accessible formats.

(On a side note, scanning and converting game books is a big pita, 
because they are formatted in a quite complex fashion, with variable 
columns, tables and side bars.  As a last resort, it is possible to 
extract the text this way, but generally if the publisher releases 
the book electronically, it will be easier to use.)

There is a wonderful on-line retailer called the Indie Press 
Revolution.  IPR sells games that are independently produced, which 
include a lot of the best new games coming out.  Aside from the fact 
that a lot of these are fantastic games, many of them are available 
for PDF download.  I've dealt with them and they are good.

They have a podcast that you can find from the IPR main page.  There 
is a second really good gaming podcast done by Paul Tevis at
http://www.havegameswilltravel.net

Http://www.rpg.net
is a supersite featuring tons of reviews and, which is cool for us a 
page devoted to freely downloadable games that are usually in PDF or 
DOC format.

There are other resources, but I'm blanking on them right now.

It might be worth noting that I am interested in putting together 
some on-line based role-playing games that I would run through Skype 
or maybe in a chat room at FTP or Audio Tips as Phil Vlasak does with 
his long-standing D&D campaign.  I haven't decided when I will begin 
this, or what I'd be interested in running, but I find myself short 
of face-to-face gaming experiences, so I'm going to branch out into 
the virtual world.

HTH

	Christopher Bartlett