“Try Before You Buy” is an occasional segment of Astral Projections. It spotlights free (or nearly free) supplements, quick-start rules, and modules for various RPGs.
This is a little different from my usual “Try Before You Buy,” as it doesn’t focus on a product. I pick up a lot of my gaming PDFs from Drive Thru RPG, as you, good reader, can tell from the number of times it gets mentioned in this space. So our illustrious Managing Editor suggested I tell him and the rest of the Gamer Nation about this web store.
What does it offer? PDF versions of RPG books, modules, and supplements primarily, from publishers of all sizes. There are “indie” publishers as well as the Big Names like Fantasy Flight Games , Wizards of the Coast, and Paizo. They also have a large selection labeled “Community Content,” but I haven’t been able to find out any more about this. Pretty much any genre you can think of–some I never thought of, in fact. Like demons–I mean fallen angels. Or World War II SpecOps. (I only think of traditional miniature wargames when I think about WWII gaming, that’s why.) For some titles–mostly from smaller publishers from what I have seen–you can also order physical books, black & white or even color.
Prices are competitive with publishers’ own online stores, for those that have them. I have never seen more than 5 cents’ difference between Drive Thru and the publisher site for any PDFs I’ve ordered. And they have great sales. Earlier this year, I picked up the Mutants & Masterminds Gamemaster’s Guide 3e PDF (regular price $17.95) as a birthday present to myself for $6.95! These aren’t “flash sales” either. They often last a couple weeks.
There are a lot of freebies, as well as pay-what-you-want titles. Freebies are sometimes quick start rules, but there are other goodies as well–modules, play tokens, maps, etc. Publishers using the pay-what-you-want model range from Community contributors to well-known names like Evil Hat Productions. You also don’t have to look too hard to find the free and inexpensive goodies. On the left side of the page, beneath the Browse menu are logo links for various publishers, including one for Free Stuff. Free and pay-what-you-want products also show up when you search.
There’s a lot I like about Drive Thru. While each page has a large search window, you don’t have to look for a tiny “Advanced Search” link before you can tailor your search–just use the lefthand Browse menu I mentioned above. There are dropdowns for genre, product type (e.g. bundles, core books), language, rule systems, and format, plus list your price range. The “My Library” for your account is easy to use as well. For each title, you can opt to download to either your current device or Dropbox. My Library not only has the most recent version of your titles, you get an email when one is updated. As far as I can tell, there are no limits on how many times you can download a title or the number of devices it can be saved to.
Speaking of email, the weekly emailed newsletter is great. This is where I first learn about a lot of products I write about. Almost every issue has a Freebie of the Week. Even if I don’t happen to be interested in the featured products, free or not, it is good to know what is out there. I never know when I might run into another gamer who might be–or I might get interested later on. The newsletter will also announce bundles and other items that have charity tie-ins.
There are few drawbacks I have found to the site. It often seems slow to load pages, compared to other sites–but I am talking a couple seconds, so not a deal-breaker for me. I also can’t preorder products. For me, this usually just means that I get the newest Mutants and Masterminds titles directly from Green Ronin, since I can get the PDF early.
Drive Thru RPG has some sister sites as well. RPG Now and Drive Thru merged in 2006, although they still have separate websites. The difference seems to be that Drive Thru has become regarded as the site for big name publishers and RPG Now is still focused on independents–although both sites have the same offerings. There are also three other sites under the Drive Thru banner–Drive Thru Cards, Drive Thru Comics, and Drive Thru Fiction. All seem to use the same business model as Drive Thru RPG. Cards offers card games, either printed and shipped when ordered or a Print & Play, which I think is print them on your own cardstock. I couldn’t find that information on the site. Fiction offers novels, mostly based on gaming properties, such as FFG’s Arkham Horror and Android lines. I also saw RPG rulebooks listed on this site. Comics publishes–you guessed it!–graphic novels. These are mostly small/indie lines. The only names I (not a comics maven) recognized were Valiant and Phil and Kaja Foglio’s Girl Genius webcomic compilations. Comics is the only one of the sister sites I have used and I liked the service.
So surf over to Drive Thru RPG in your never-ending quest to Get. More. Games!
Linda Whitson
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