ShinHakkaider
Hero
Here in NY, I've made a decision to stop frequenting my FLGS, The Complete Strat.
I made this decision for several reasons, one of the prime reasons is the fact that most of the companys that I purchase product from are releasing thier product as PDF's.
I know that there is a popular opinion that "hardcopy books are better" but for me that's not true. I'm a DM, so I wind up putting together most of the adventure and campaign material for both my HERO supers game and my D&D3.5 game. At home I have all of my books on a shelf packed to the brim, over the past 2 years I've donated a crapload of RPG's and suppliments to my local library because there was simply no room in the apt and I wasnt using them anyway. I might want to use them in the future, but not now so they had to go.
The other thing is that when I want ot copy something from a book or several things from a book for my adventure, it's a pain in the royal ass to copy this crap by hand. I like having everything close by and easily acessable. Multiple books with post it notes or a postit with page reference for stuff that I might have to look up during a game are also a pain-in-the-ass. PDF's for me are a way to make my life that much easier. I have PDF's of several game SRD's easily at my disposal. If I need to copy somethig for an adventure, it's cut & paste and when I'm all done print. I can make notations without worying about destroying the master hardcopy because, well THERE IS NO REAL MASTER HARDCOPY .
D00d, I love PDF's. Looooooooooove them. Now this doesnt mean that I dont buy hardcopy anymore, but now I wont absolutley HAVE TO in order to get the material. I plan on picking up ARCANA EVOLVED as both PDF and Hardcopy because I want to support Malhavoc and it actually looks like something that I'm gonna want to pull off of my shelf and read. For game stuff, I'll use the PDF. I have both hardcopy nad PDF copies of several Malhavoc books as well as copies of Tomb of ABYSTHOR and MORRIC MANSION. Now I'm actually running TOMB now and had been form my hardcopy. When DTRPG went the watermark route it was my opportunity to try the new scheme and I havent regretted it at all. Now I have acopy of the adventure that I can mark up to my hearts content, I can also cut and paste changes into a word document to alter encounters and upgrade monsters.
I just really dont get the aversion to PDF's, some of these same cats who complain that they're so hard to read are the same d00d's that spend hours upon hours reading posts on message boards like this one. And me, personally I print mine out piece by peice since I dotn do marathon sit and reads. With a 3 year old running around that's kind ofhard to do. But it's pretty handy when I'm on the train on my way in to work, or I'm in my cube on a lunch break and I need something to read. Let's not even talk about the fact that I have pretty much all the stuff that I need to run a game on my Powerbook. Which, quite frankly is a lot easier to lug around than a bunch of game books. I know I used to lug around what felt like a ton of books to gaming sessions, not anymore I tell you...
I made this decision for several reasons, one of the prime reasons is the fact that most of the companys that I purchase product from are releasing thier product as PDF's.
I know that there is a popular opinion that "hardcopy books are better" but for me that's not true. I'm a DM, so I wind up putting together most of the adventure and campaign material for both my HERO supers game and my D&D3.5 game. At home I have all of my books on a shelf packed to the brim, over the past 2 years I've donated a crapload of RPG's and suppliments to my local library because there was simply no room in the apt and I wasnt using them anyway. I might want to use them in the future, but not now so they had to go.
The other thing is that when I want ot copy something from a book or several things from a book for my adventure, it's a pain in the royal ass to copy this crap by hand. I like having everything close by and easily acessable. Multiple books with post it notes or a postit with page reference for stuff that I might have to look up during a game are also a pain-in-the-ass. PDF's for me are a way to make my life that much easier. I have PDF's of several game SRD's easily at my disposal. If I need to copy somethig for an adventure, it's cut & paste and when I'm all done print. I can make notations without worying about destroying the master hardcopy because, well THERE IS NO REAL MASTER HARDCOPY .
D00d, I love PDF's. Looooooooooove them. Now this doesnt mean that I dont buy hardcopy anymore, but now I wont absolutley HAVE TO in order to get the material. I plan on picking up ARCANA EVOLVED as both PDF and Hardcopy because I want to support Malhavoc and it actually looks like something that I'm gonna want to pull off of my shelf and read. For game stuff, I'll use the PDF. I have both hardcopy nad PDF copies of several Malhavoc books as well as copies of Tomb of ABYSTHOR and MORRIC MANSION. Now I'm actually running TOMB now and had been form my hardcopy. When DTRPG went the watermark route it was my opportunity to try the new scheme and I havent regretted it at all. Now I have acopy of the adventure that I can mark up to my hearts content, I can also cut and paste changes into a word document to alter encounters and upgrade monsters.
I just really dont get the aversion to PDF's, some of these same cats who complain that they're so hard to read are the same d00d's that spend hours upon hours reading posts on message boards like this one. And me, personally I print mine out piece by peice since I dotn do marathon sit and reads. With a 3 year old running around that's kind ofhard to do. But it's pretty handy when I'm on the train on my way in to work, or I'm in my cube on a lunch break and I need something to read. Let's not even talk about the fact that I have pretty much all the stuff that I need to run a game on my Powerbook. Which, quite frankly is a lot easier to lug around than a bunch of game books. I know I used to lug around what felt like a ton of books to gaming sessions, not anymore I tell you...