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Dungeons & Dragons Publisher Pays you for your Old Rule Book

dungeons and dragons rule book scan

Dungeons & Dragons Publisher Pays you for your Old Rule Book

When tackling the annual spring clean or deciding to de-clutter your home, it is very common to come across piles of photographs, manuals, letters and other documents that seem worthless or unneeded to us anymore, and great satisfaction is achieved by throwing them out to clear up space. How often, after disposing of such documents however, do you wonder if there was any value in those historic items?

Fans of popular fantasy game Dungeons and Dragons from all over the world have been searching their houses high and low, in the hope that they have held on to their old rule books, as an opportunity has risen for them to cash in from the relics of their gaming past. Dungeons and Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast and role playing game store DriveThru RPG are reaching out to the Dungeons and Dragons community and asking them for digital, scanned versions of old rule books in exchange for a $50 cash incentive.

Although the exact reasons for doing so are unknown, it is thought that the groups are launching the campaign in order to preserve the cultural history of the game, so each title is available for fans old and new to browse through online in years to come. To help in their quest for building a rulebook archive, a spreadsheet has been made publically available via Google Docs, listing the titles that are needed to build an entire collection for eager Dungeons and Dragons fans to refer to, all over the world. An FAQ sheet has also been compiled by the gaming companies, asking those possessing the missing rule books to submit a high quality scan of each page in order to receive the money on offer. Needless to say, Pearl Scan have been searching high and low ourselves for a sought after rulebook but - alas - we have access to quality scanning solutions, but have no way of knowing the dexterity points of a Level 4 Cleric.

By using document scanning as a method for gathering and storing the data, it means that Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts with the missing handbooks can hold on to the original manual for sentimental value, whilst still contributing towards a virtual data base for other fans to enjoy.

Wizards of the Coast and DriveThru RPG may not be the only organisations utilising the worldwide reach of the internet and the instant accessibility that document scanning can achieve. Next time you consider throwing out old papers, it may be worth scanning in and reserving the documents prior to disposal – you never know when they may be of use...