What Makes Gaming Books as PDFs Desirable?

[Mark CMG]

For me? Nothing.

I see. "Nothing." And yet . . .

I buy them when I absolutely have to have something and there is no other option- alot of the old TSR PDFs, Judges Guild (i.e. OOP items).

Availability (even if it means printing them) is somewhat of a concern, eh?

 

[JeffB]

I see. "Nothing." And yet . . .





Availability (even if it means printing them) is somewhat of a concern, eh?

You asked when are they desireable (PDFs)- the answer for me is never. I don't want any of them, I'd rather have a book. I have bought them out of necessity because I desire the material, not the format. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

 

[Mark CMG]

You asked when are they desireable (PDFs)- the answer for me is never. I don't want any of them, I'd rather have a book. I have bought them out of necessity because I desire the material, not the format. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Still not quite clear. Do you print the undesired PDFs that you buy or just use them on screen?

 

[tenkar]

The iPad. And Goodreader. ,,/

Yep, damn close to perfect combination. IAnotate (or something similarly named) even allows you to mark up and add notes to your PDF files.

The Kindle DX made PDF portability a reality, although far from perfect. (laptop/ netbook portability excluded of course)

The iPad is damn close to perfect (the price is a barrier for many).

DropBox for the iPad means always having the book you want available within minutes - my DropBox folder is my default folder for my PDFs these days.

 

[IronWolf]

The iPad is damn close to perfect (the price is a barrier for many).

Yeah, the iPad will hopefully open the door for similar devices. Once the prices come down and possibly a slightly more open system comes about I think we'll see many more such devices out there.

DropBox for the iPad means always having the book you want available within minutes - my DropBox folder is my default folder for my PDFs these days.

Dropbox is awesome. Great for keeping things readily accessible from different machines and locations.

 

[jdrakeh]

Portability and storage, mainly. Oh, also, being able to copy and paste text makes prepping for games and throwing together homebrew documents soooooo much easier.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Also, online pdf's often smell better than my old "kept-in-the-basement-for-years" books.

Of course, I would never get rid of those old books, but it's easier to read the pdf's on my computer than dig through my storage.

 

[El Mahdi]

Also, online pdf's often smell better than my old "kept-in-the-basement-for-years" books...

That depends on what sites you visit with your computer...

 

[Pelenor]

For me the biggest issue is portability. I like the Physical books and buy them. But usually the are kept at the house and consist of reading material. I usually never game at my house but because of the way my group works usually need a lot of the books at gaming. I have way to many to easily carry. Pdfs are so much easier on the back.

 

[Vartan]

I like them because they're less expensive and they don't take up space on a shelf. My gaming dollar is stretched pretty thin these days and I've got ten file boxes full of vintage AD&D/WoD books in my closet waiting for more shelf space to open up.

I'll also say that I like the market that has grown around RPG PDFs a lot: that market is more desirable to me than any one practical feature. A lot of good games and gaming ideas in general are now available to me because the barrier to entry for indie e-publishers is pretty low. It's also easier for me to find, preview and purchase those products than it would be if they had to find their way to my FLGS's shelves.