D&D 5E so... any word on PDFs yet?

[evilbob]

Edit: Just necroing this thread to see if anyone has heard anything along these lines. (I thought it'd be better to necro it than start a new one with all the same arguments. If you want to skip to the current discussion, jump to post #56.) The consensus last time seemed to be that WotC had done the math and decided it was better to not risk cannibalizing even a tiny fraction of FLGS book sales with pdfs (possibly with the retail stores having heavy input into this opinion) and force all players who want an online version of their books to just pirate them rather than to provide something that pretty much every other gaming company provides and many gamers have come to expect from modern TRPGs. Obviously that statement betrays my bias in the matter, but just wondering if the rumor mills have produced anything else given that we're less than a month away from the first anniversary of the PHB. Thanks!


Original post:

Just checking back in after a few months to see if there's any news. Last I heard Dungeonscape died and there was still no word from WotC. Well, it's been another 4 months - over 7 months since the PHB dropped - and just wondering if there's any news on the horizon. Would still love to get some PDFs, like every other modern role-playing game.

(Sorry for the thread if this is a common topic, but I didn't see another PDF thread in the first 10 pages and you can't search for "pdf".)

 

[Umbran]

Beyond the free Basic PDFs, you mean? There has been no word of which I am aware.

 

[Jester David]

PDFs are unlikely. The WotC higher-ups are likely too worried of piracy to risk PDFs. They're probably trying for an app style experience where the rules are in a digital form that can't be copied.

 

[evilbob]

Beyond the free Basic PDFs, you mean? There has been no word of which I am aware.

Yes; specifically I meant the core three books. Thank you for the information, even if it is continually surprising.

PDFs are unlikely. The WotC higher-ups are likely too worried of piracy to risk PDFs. They're probably trying for an app style experience where the rules are in a digital form that can't be copied.

Not saying you're wrong, but in my opinion having that opinion makes no sense; the lack of PDFs directly leads to piracy. But whatever; it's not my call. (Happy to get an "app" of the PDF as well if that's what it takes - so long as it can do what a PDF reader can do, that's fine by me.)

 

[bmfrosty]

I suspect that the Adventure Paths will go PDF at a certain age, but the core books are likely to stay hardback. Maybe we see HotDQ and TRoT later this year once PoTA is out.

 

[Gnarl45]

Not saying you're wrong, but in my opinion having that opinion makes no sense; the lack of PDFs directly leads to piracy. But whatever; it's not my call. (Happy to get an "app" of the PDF as well if that's what it takes - so long as it can do what a PDF reader can do, that's fine by me.)

They just need to goolge D&D 5e torrent to understand how absolutely stupid their point of view is...

 

[Umbran]

Yes; specifically I meant the core three books. Thank you for the information, even if it is continually surprising.

I don't see how continuing to do roughly the same thing they always do can be surprising.

And also, it isn't surprising, in that they are unlike pretty much any other game publisher out there, in terms of their business position. You should not be surprised that WotC fails to act like a small company, when it isn't one.

Not saying you're wrong, but in my opinion having that opinion makes no sense; the lack of PDFs directly leads to piracy.

Not really - I expect the piracy will happen whether or not the PDFs are there. If you don't put out the pdfs, people will scan the books. If you do put out pdfs, people will pirate them.Lacking direct information, we could actually argue over whether the existence of PDFs has any notable impact on piracy.

So, take the piracy off the table. It is effectively a non-issue for the discussion.

The real question becomes a matter of what WotC wants to sell, and how. How much effort does it take to provide electronic content (and, with Basic, they've shown they actually understand that a scan of the book is not really a suitable pdf format - they'd want to reformat akin to Basic, which takes effort) in which forms (pdfs, apps, or what else?), as compared to how much they think they can make off other expenditures of the same resources.

 

[darjr]

There is a PDF that is useful in gaming. Mike Mearls talked about using it during gencon. It's done. Just put it on drivethru already. I will buy it. I've purchased the hardbacks already, and will probably get another phb. The PDF is already in the wild. Not having it for sale is an annoyance for paying customers.

 

[Jester David]

Not saying you're wrong, but in my opinion having that opinion makes no sense; the lack of PDFs directly leads to piracy. But whatever; it's not my call. (Happy to get an "app" of the PDF as well if that's what it takes - so long as it can do what a PDF reader can do, that's fine by me.)

The catch is, WotC is a CCG company, either MtG in North America and DuelMasters/ KaiJudo in Japan. So all the upper management and likely most of the middle and lower management thinks CCG business.

CCGs are based around buying multiple packs of cheaply produced cards in the hopes of getting elusive rares and desired cards. The idea of producing an official PDF that has all the content and is official and considered the same for play is... antithetical to the business model. As is allowing (or encouraging) people to produce their own content.
There's no benefit to the company to have people buy a single $10 or even $20 PDF with all the cards when they might buy a $50 box (or two or three). Especially when PDFs can be pirated and, in terms of play, a print out of a card in a sleeve works just as well as a story bought copy.

Convincing them about the realities of RPGs and publishing takes time and effort, plus interest on their part to be convinced. Convincing someone that people will buy second copies of a book they already own is hard, because it sounds so... weird.

 

[Morrus]

PDFs are unlikely. The WotC higher-ups are likely too worried of piracy to risk PDFs.

Nah. Part of management a bunch of years ago may have been back when they first pulled the PDFs, but nobody these days. They've been selling and distributing stuff electronically for years now - DDI with 4E and the online magazines, the whole of dndclassics.com with hundreds of PDFs, the free basic rules.

WotC isn't afraid of piracy. It's very, very comfortable with and competent at large scale digital content in PDF format, has had great success with it, and has been for a long time now.

The only aberration in this otherwise consistent pattern for the last half decade is 5E.

And that's about a belief that such things would undercut current physical sales. I believe they're wrong about that, but that's the reason; piracy doesn't come into it. Pressure from retailers and distributors is likely a much larger factor, neither of whom have traditionally embraced the idea of non brick & mortar sales. Hell, they're not keen when you simply sell your physical wares online, let alone digital versions of it!

That's also why DungeonScape was pulled, according to Trapdoor staff who posted as such here before editing out the post!