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Personal take:

If the TO says bring the book, I bring the book, I will likely have various reference sheets with page numbers but the book will also be there, or books if I need more than one.

printed FAQ or anything else I want to refer to

if the TO doesn't say bring the book I may just have a summary, depending how heavy the books are

If my opponent has grubby photocopies etc as long as the game is enjoyable and any rules bending isn't too blatant then yeah whatever

Toofast wrote:

 Rob Lee wrote:

As I understand the law in the US (and the same is likely true here in the UK) your "copied from a friend" copy is unlawful and breaks copyright laws.

I keep seeing people parrot this all over the internet but it's objectively wrong. The law in the US is that an idea for a game, its name, title, and the methods of playing it cannot be copyrighted. You can copyright fluff and flavor text, but the actual rules are not able to be copyrighted. Look up the case DaVinci Editrice S.r.l vs Ziko Games LLC. Ziko made a carbon copy of a DaVinci game and the judge ruled they were not guilty of violating copyright laws because of the way our copyright laws about games are written. That's why Battlescribe or Waha would be under no risk even if operated out of the US. As long as you don't copy the art, fluff, or flavor text, you can copy the rules and post them wherever you want.

My understanding of that case is that Ziko didn't do a "carbon copy", the mechanics were the same but the wordings of the rules were different.

If you copy / paste the exact wording of the rule, you're on much shakier ground than if you rewrite the rule but it is functionally identical, because the expression of the rules may be copyrightable even if the mechanics / methods / concepts contained in the rule are not. So if it goes to court and you can say you have a completely different game that just happens to have the same functionality, that would be like Ziko vs DaVinci, but if you rock up to court with a rulebook that is word for word identical to GW's, that may very well be a different matter.