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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Sigil" data-source="post: 734447" data-attributes="member: 2013">*chuckles* Market share. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Seriously, look at the category it will likely be in... "Best d20 Supplement."  That means it will compete with things like the "Path of..." series or the "Quintessential X" or "The Book of Eldritch Might III."  Based on what it does, it would be better suited competing with something like "E-Tools" or "Campaign Suite" or "Jamis Buck's Generators."The thing is, a truly advanced PDF blurs the line between "book" and "software."  Suppose you had a PDF that could randomly generate treasures for you.  Does that compete with the DM's Guide and its treasure generation tables?  Or a PDF that includes embedded objects... perhaps with the description of "Fireball" you can click on it and it brings up a printable page with a "fireball tile" in living color at the 1 inch = 5 ft scale?  Or vice versa - you have a "fireball tile" that you can click on to get the spell effect?  How do you compare that to a printed product?We have just begun to scratch the surface with PDFs.  I predict that you will see PDFs become more advanced over the next couple of years - until they resemble books with software "embedded" to do nifty tricks and calculation work for you in strategic locations (e.g., a "DMG" that includes an instant NPC stat block generator in the NPC chapter, extensive cross-references/bookmarks to let you immediately jump to the "exhausted" entry when it is mentioned that a character who is already fatigued and would become fatigued again becomes exhausted, and so forth).Then, how do you compare the two?  It's a lot more difficult because the media will be so wildly different.  Perhaps it is not time to make a change yet because PDFs still look like books (mostly) - but it soon will be.  I think once we get a publisher who is both java-savvy and a good RPG writer (or a team that accomplishes this), the standards for "what goes into a PDF" will be raised again.You might even think of the future of PDFs as something resembling "a self-contained website complete with downloads and features, but one which you pay for instead of browsing for free."I don't know if I'm articulating myself properly here, but hopefully the general idea is getting across.--The Sigil</blockquote>

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