Let's face it -- in the publishing world, RPG products are a bit of an anomaly -- they're both text and graphic rich. The better ones have the same sort of attention to graphic detail as a coffee table photo book, and yet have to have the same sort of text density and tools (like a table of contents and an index) as a reference tome.
That dual nature -- along with the small size of the RPG audience -- is, I believe, at the heart of our current dedication to PDF products. For a lot of things, it just doesn't make sense (business sense) to continue to print batches of high-art books that are not going to sell in large enough numbers to make prices reasonable and remain profitable.
At the same time, the expectation of those high-concept print books has us expecting graphically intense, artfully laid-out PDF products. Which is the strength of PDF -- it's a format that has a 1-to-1 connection to what was (or would be) printed, and the end user can print it out himself.
But I don't think PDF makes sense, long-term, as a way to deliver and use game content.
What's in your pocket?
I've got an iPad 2. (I know, old school, right? It's like I'm Amish or something). I've got a kindle fire HD. I've got my iPhone. And my computers -- Desktop, MacBook Air, etc. Each one of them has a different size screen. Each gets used at a different time in my day, under different circumstances.
There are tons of others -- all kinds of Android or Windows 8 based tablets and phones, and the iPad mini -- all of them with slightly different screen sizes and resolutions. And lets face it, a lot of our gang are getting older and starting to have eyesight problems.
When you combine the complexity of screen size with the complexity of user needs, you wind up with an incredibly varied set of ways we need to display content on a screen for a reader.
If the reader's using the Kindle reader, or any other ebook reader, to read something in an ebook format, they have a primarily text-presentation where they can control the way the text is displayed on the page. This is a huge usability benefit for readers -- it lets each reader customize the reading experience to his or her own needs and device.
But if you're trying to read a PDF in the same device, you wind up with a much less friendly reader experience. Yes, you get to see the attractive backgrounds and art created for the book -- but you also see the text in a static, fixed way, and have to pinch and zoom your way around the page, trying to move the window of the tablet around the PDF page so that I can read it.
What Does He Have Against Art & Design?
Hey hey hey! Don't misunderstand. I like art. I like it a lot. I even appreciate excellent page design when it's used to convey the ambiance of a game.
But art design in a print book is good so long as it doesn't interfere with the way the user gets the information he needs -- which means reading. So, art design that makes it harder to turn pages or read would be a problem.
So, in this case, a PDF's rigid page size and layout makes it harder to turn pages and read, depending upon the device you're using to read -- at least, it's harder than it is with an ebook reader. And the eBook reader won't have the same design feel.
Web site designers have struggled with similar problems for years -- those that are used to a print environment expect pixel-perfect control over where the content will appear on the page, and they design with that in mind. But web designers that don't have a print background often have a much more fluid, zen-like understanding of the way content can flow on a web page, and build pages that respond well to different resolutions. That sort of flexible design becomes even more important in our new mobile age -- the variability of screen sizes has increase by a few orders of magnitude.
Most websites these days use content management systems to keep their content and presentation layers separate -- the words on the page and the look and feel of the page are created separately and thrown together at the last millisecond to display on the user's page. That model may be a solution to the PDF challenge.
The Design is in the App
The same sort of presentation layer -- delivered and managed separately -- might be a taste of a post-pdf future. Imagine a dedicated D&D reader app, with an interface that feels like a D&D book, but that has e-reader levels of user interface.
You'd want to have some additional functionality, too -- after all, we all do more than read our books, we create with them. We will need tools that make it easy to work with the content, rather than just read it.
Really, my ideal app would be a combination of the kindle reader and evernote, but dressed up like a wizard's spell book or something (could I select from a variety of themes?) I'd want to be able to read the content in the eReader (customized for my failing eyes, and with the option to reverse the text and background color when I'm reading in bed), pull out selections and references -- both text and images -- and pull them out into an Evernote-style notebook as I read. As I design an encounter, I can pull out a image of the monster I like, a stat block, and even some rules references on climbing and falling that will be good to have on hand for the encounter.
At that point, because I'm still a little old school, I'd probably want to print out those Evernote-style notes to have in hand when we play at the table - I still find it faster and easier to track things like hit points and make notes longhand. But, then, I'm a crusty old guy. Practically Amish.
What does your post-PDF tool look like? What would you need to have?
That dual nature -- along with the small size of the RPG audience -- is, I believe, at the heart of our current dedication to PDF products. For a lot of things, it just doesn't make sense (business sense) to continue to print batches of high-art books that are not going to sell in large enough numbers to make prices reasonable and remain profitable.
At the same time, the expectation of those high-concept print books has us expecting graphically intense, artfully laid-out PDF products. Which is the strength of PDF -- it's a format that has a 1-to-1 connection to what was (or would be) printed, and the end user can print it out himself.
But I don't think PDF makes sense, long-term, as a way to deliver and use game content.
What's in your pocket?
I've got an iPad 2. (I know, old school, right? It's like I'm Amish or something). I've got a kindle fire HD. I've got my iPhone. And my computers -- Desktop, MacBook Air, etc. Each one of them has a different size screen. Each gets used at a different time in my day, under different circumstances.
There are tons of others -- all kinds of Android or Windows 8 based tablets and phones, and the iPad mini -- all of them with slightly different screen sizes and resolutions. And lets face it, a lot of our gang are getting older and starting to have eyesight problems.
When you combine the complexity of screen size with the complexity of user needs, you wind up with an incredibly varied set of ways we need to display content on a screen for a reader.
If the reader's using the Kindle reader, or any other ebook reader, to read something in an ebook format, they have a primarily text-presentation where they can control the way the text is displayed on the page. This is a huge usability benefit for readers -- it lets each reader customize the reading experience to his or her own needs and device.
But if you're trying to read a PDF in the same device, you wind up with a much less friendly reader experience. Yes, you get to see the attractive backgrounds and art created for the book -- but you also see the text in a static, fixed way, and have to pinch and zoom your way around the page, trying to move the window of the tablet around the PDF page so that I can read it.
What Does He Have Against Art & Design?
Hey hey hey! Don't misunderstand. I like art. I like it a lot. I even appreciate excellent page design when it's used to convey the ambiance of a game.
But art design in a print book is good so long as it doesn't interfere with the way the user gets the information he needs -- which means reading. So, art design that makes it harder to turn pages or read would be a problem.
So, in this case, a PDF's rigid page size and layout makes it harder to turn pages and read, depending upon the device you're using to read -- at least, it's harder than it is with an ebook reader. And the eBook reader won't have the same design feel.
Web site designers have struggled with similar problems for years -- those that are used to a print environment expect pixel-perfect control over where the content will appear on the page, and they design with that in mind. But web designers that don't have a print background often have a much more fluid, zen-like understanding of the way content can flow on a web page, and build pages that respond well to different resolutions. That sort of flexible design becomes even more important in our new mobile age -- the variability of screen sizes has increase by a few orders of magnitude.
Most websites these days use content management systems to keep their content and presentation layers separate -- the words on the page and the look and feel of the page are created separately and thrown together at the last millisecond to display on the user's page. That model may be a solution to the PDF challenge.
The Design is in the App
The same sort of presentation layer -- delivered and managed separately -- might be a taste of a post-pdf future. Imagine a dedicated D&D reader app, with an interface that feels like a D&D book, but that has e-reader levels of user interface.
You'd want to have some additional functionality, too -- after all, we all do more than read our books, we create with them. We will need tools that make it easy to work with the content, rather than just read it.
Really, my ideal app would be a combination of the kindle reader and evernote, but dressed up like a wizard's spell book or something (could I select from a variety of themes?) I'd want to be able to read the content in the eReader (customized for my failing eyes, and with the option to reverse the text and background color when I'm reading in bed), pull out selections and references -- both text and images -- and pull them out into an Evernote-style notebook as I read. As I design an encounter, I can pull out a image of the monster I like, a stat block, and even some rules references on climbing and falling that will be good to have on hand for the encounter.
At that point, because I'm still a little old school, I'd probably want to print out those Evernote-style notes to have in hand when we play at the table - I still find it faster and easier to track things like hit points and make notes longhand. But, then, I'm a crusty old guy. Practically Amish.
What does your post-PDF tool look like? What would you need to have?
Reread that and tell me that complaint doesn't sound pretty silly! You just described what every gamer has done for the last 40 years! It hasn't been a grindstone 'round the neck. Cry me a river... After you've walked 10 miles one way to school in the snow... 
