Ok, so my players accidentally summoned Cthulhu and next week they have to fight him. Luckily I have the 1st printing of Deities and Demigods, with Cthulhu in it...
So I'm all ready to play on Friday.
Then a podcaster calls me up...
Podcaster: "Hey man, can I borrow your Deities and Demigods?"
Me: "Why would I do that? Your podcast is terrible."
Podcaster: "I'll give you a dollar!"
Me: "Ok, fine, as long as you get it back before my game on Friday. Because: on Friday, I am running a game."
Podcaster: "Perfect!"
So, The Podcaster gets my copy of Deities and Demigods. In fact, The Podcaster has quietly been doing this all over town, and now has thousands of copies of Deities and Demigods. They then sell them for 10$ each.
The Podcaster has 10$ (per customer). However, they still need to get my book back to me before game time and they don't have it.
However however, The Podcaster knows that their friends have been saying that Old School D&D eats babies. So they have them on the podcast.
Podcast Guest: "First of all, Old School D&D eats babies, also I hear that The Podcast is selling hundreds of copies of Deities and Demigods so it's pretty easy to get them, they're a dime a dozen."
After hearing this, many people no longer want their copies of Deities and Demigods.
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So, now, what would happen if, once all those copies were bought, instead of accepting that the OSR eats babies, people just kept buying those copies of Deities and Demigods, kept wanting them?
Well, the price would go up instead of down, because they're in demand. Suddenly:
And the Podcast still needs to get my book back to me by Friday. We have a contract. That's the law. So not only is the price high, but they are obligated to pay it.
I get my book back, my players meet Cthulhu, they establish a psychic link using Psionic Ability I and decide to be friends instead of fight him. They're all happy.
So: everyone who bought a copy of Demigods off the podcast will get rich, I get my book back, and the only loser is the Podcaster who was trying to trade on the book declining in popularity.
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