How Quickly Do You Bounce Off a System?

[aramis erak]

Yes. Now how close is one? This is just not the same situation as when you could find them in most drug stores.

Also not always exactly down the street. I'd have to look around to even locate one.

That's at least a better argument.

DOwn the street isn't a valid requirement for being useful for making sheets.
It's more important if you're doing a pick up game...

As for FedEx - Corvallis has 3, one of which is not intended for routing public contact. The other two have copycenter facilities.
UPS Store. Two, opposite ends of Town.

On the other hand, probably a big percentage of people have a printer in their house.

In my nearby town, the data the school shared was that for 90% of the students, not counting the school provided chromebooks, the only digital computing devices at home were parents' cellphones and maybe a videogame console. That was 2019.

When I was teaching, one year we had to do home visits before the year started; this was 2013 in Anchorage. Of the 30 families we stopped by, 17 tried to feed us, but only 2 had actual computers visible. (we went in teams of 2, to any high risk families.)

It's not a safe assumption that people have printers, either. It's far more common now than 20 years, but still not ubiquitous.

 

[aramis erak]

re Starships and Spacemen:

Nice to see it's still going with a second edition, although it sure hasn't gotten less obvious about the Trek influence. I'm not quite nostalgic enough about it to have picked the new version up, though. Have you, and if so how's it look?

Yes, I have it. I think it's not worth the bits it takes up on the hard drive.
It moves to the Mutant Future rules system, and totally ignores most of the system mechanics of 1e.
It's a port, not truly a second edition.
Since I think MF is about as appealing as dog vomit...

Yep. Which is why photocopiers are an endangered species these days.

I haven't been in an office supply store in twenty years, does Staples still do copy and print work?

Last two I went to did. But that's been almost a decade.
They do have print services, via upload the PDF and receive the prints in the mail.
Office Max/Office Depot does, too.
The Eagle River (AK) Walgreens and Carrs groceries both had copiers, as well, as recently as 2016.

Ironically, I may have a portable photocopier in the storage unit... Mom got it in the 80's. Triggers on manual sheet feed. Can handle a 4×6" card, but not a 3×5" card.
I may also have a flatbed scanner in there, too. I've a color laser with duplexing at home. Was about $350; I won't ever buy an all-in-one again.
Due to an SCA office, I have a scanner provided, but it's sheet fed only, so worthless for books.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

re Starships and Spacemen:
Yes, I have it. I think it's not worth the bits it takes up on the hard drive.
It moves to the Mutant Future rules system, and totally ignores most of the system mechanics of 1e.
It's a port, not truly a second edition.
Since I think MF is about as appealing as dog vomit...

I'm not quite that put off by MF, but that's still disappointing. The FGU original was no great shakes by modern standards but has a certain charm to it, much like OD&D.

 

[Thomas Shey]

DOwn the street isn't a valid requirement for being useful for making sheets.
It's more important if you're doing a pick up game...

I think if you're going to make an argument that physical copies are more useful than digital, easy access to copying the physical is a valid requirement. Otherwise the digital ones are just about as easy to use. That's a problem with the "go to the library" use case too; if your library has a copier, it also likely has computers you can pull up the digital sheets from and print off of.

It's not a safe assumption that people have printers, either. It's far more common now than 20 years, but still not ubiquitous.

I'd still be willing to put money on it being more common than easily accessible copiers, and in the cases when the latter are present, that in the vast majority of cases, they're both. Separate copiers that were not also functioning as printers were starting to vanish more than 20 years ago.

 

[aramis erak]

I think if you're going to make an argument that physical copies are more useful than digital, easy access to copying the physical is a valid requirement. Otherwise the digital ones are just about as easy to use. That's a problem with the "go to the library" use case too; if your library has a copier, it also likely has computers you can pull up the digital sheets from and print off of.

Physical is still preferred by my player base. More useful? No, but still preferred.
For the last 44 years, I've always kept sheets handy for most games in the ready to play stacks. It's called planning ahead.

And, as for accessibility - the copy shops I've seen in Corvallis and in Anchorage are all on the major throughfares. So, whiile not of need fast, it's not hard to find nor get to them.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Physical is still preferred by my player base. More useful? No, but still preferred.
For the last 44 years, I've always kept sheets handy for most games in the ready to play stacks. It's called planning ahead.

And, as for accessibility - the copy shops I've seen in Corvallis and in Anchorage are all on the major throughfares. So, whiile not of need fast, it's not hard to find nor get to them.

Then we have a difference of experience. I live in a suburb of Los Angeles, and while I know where a FedEx and UPS stores are, they're hardly close.

 

[aramis erak]

Then we have a difference of experience. I live in a suburb of Los Angeles, and while I know where a FedEx and UPS stores are, they're hardly close.

I didn't say close - Philomath's 15 miles away for me. But in Anchorage AK, Phliomath, Corvallis, and Albany OR, the copy shops are in plain view along major traffic ways. We drive 22 miles each way to game. Or to go to medical appointments. But they are readily accessible by bus and major streets. Of course, what LA has for major arterial roads are highways. so of course, almost nothing is readily visible... Portland's not much better. Of course, the last time I was in California was 1976...

When I've needed to make copies for a game session, I can stop off at my choice of locations en route to the game. I seldom have that need; when I have, it's been mostly maps, because I don't own an 11" wide printer. And I like 11×17" travel maps.

I suspect that if you ask at an LA Public Library where the public copier is, there's going to be one. Possibly way overpriced, but there's likely to be one. And they may require you to simply hand them the material to be copied and tell them which pages.

Googling it, if your library card is valid, you can copy or print 10 pages per day to the LA Public Libraries. (See https://lacountylibrary.org/print/ )
Sure, they're not on the highways, but I strongly suspect they're all on bus routes.

Accessible need not be fast, need not be free. But it does need to be reachable by public transit and automotive.

 

[Starfox]

I tend to give more rules systems more trial time than they actually merit.

• I played the entire Rise of the Runelords campaign converted to 4E before I decided 4E was not for me.
• I played the entire PF2 playtest set before deciding that PF2 was 4E in disguise.
• I am playing 5E now for more than a year, and while I like it, it may be my last game using this ruleset.

There are systems I dropped early, usually because the rules didn't have enough depth.

• Furry Pirates was just dumb.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Surprised Staples isn't mentioned -- I guess Office Max is the equivalent in some places. Staples usually has 4-5 copiers available in the print shop area.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I haven't been in an office supply store in twenty years, does Staples still do copy and print work?

Surprised Staples isn't mentioned -- I guess Office Max is the equivalent in some places. Staples usually has 4-5 copiers available in the print shop area.

I did, but that's my question answered definitively, anyway.