To put this in perspective, I've been a D&D player (and customer) for over twenty-five years. And in that time, I've racked up a massive collection of books, miniatures, and assorted paraphernalia. But last year, with the changeover to Fourth Edition, I made the tough decision to switch over to 100% PDF purchases.

And that's not just me trying to be hip. It was simply no longer practical for me to keep buying the hardcovers that Wizards put out every few months. I have nowhere to store them, and I can't travel with them. I live in New York City, where square footage is at a premium. I can't waste my money on big lumps of space that I can't use effectively.

By contrast, the PDFs have worked out great. I can port them all onto my laptop and take them anywhere. I can copy and paste material with ease and print out just the material I need. Put simply, there is no way that I would go back to using the hardcovers.

So unless Wizards reverses it's decision on PDFs, I'm out. I'll hobble along with what I've got, or go back to 3rd edition.

And I should add, as someone who's written content that's been illegally bit torrented before, I understand the urge to constrain piracy. But this is simply a stupid way to go about it. Those in the know will remember that back before the Fourth Edition core books came out, someone leaked work prints of all three books onto the torrent sites. And even before that, it's my understanding that the entire line of Third Edition books was available for illegal download. In short, illegal PDFs have always been available and always will be available.

Selling PDFs doesn't increase the amount of piracy that goes on by a single download. People who wanted the books for free could get them back then, and they still can now. All this decision does is prevent those of us who actually want to give Wizards of the Coast our money from being able to give it to them.

People like me will stop picking up the new books all together. Others will throw up their arms in frustration and turn to the torrent sites.

And that's the punchline. Congratulations, Wizards of the Coast! You've settled on the one course of action that is 100% guaranteed to INCREASE piracy.

And so I'm frustrated. Frustrated by Wizards' stupid decision, and frustrated by the decision I have to make in response.

Because I love Dungeons & Dragons, I love playing Dungeons & Dragons, and I love buying and reading the new Dungeons & Dragons books as they come out. But you have to draw the line somewhere.

Maybe they'll come to their senses... someday. Maybe I'll finally be able to pick up a copy of PHBII... someday. But until then?

Seacrest (the 16th level Eladrin Warlord) out!