D&D General I hate pdfs, and I'm happy that WOTC primarily publishes Books

[Scott Christian]

1. Do you correctly prefer your RPG materials to be in real, book form, or are you one of those .pdf lovers?

I like books: the smell, the touch, the torn pages. Seeing notes scribbled in a book is the best.

2. Relatedly, if you're a .pdf lover, how do you like Huey Lewis and the News? I mean, their early work was a little too new wave for my tastes, but when Sports came out in '83, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically. The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the songs a big boost. Huey Lewis has been compared to Elvis Costello, but I think Huey has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humor.

Huey is one of the few bands from that era that gets turned off every time he comes on the radio. No bizarre association or girlfriend breakups related. It is just awful, contrived, garbage that belongs in the category of - this should have never existed. Right up there with racism, bigotry, and bullying.
PS - Elvis Costello fits in the same category. True Story: He is the only person I really couldn't stand, but I wanted to give him a try, because, you know, of all the adulations. I went and saw him at the Chicago theater. Alright Mr. Rockstar, let's see what you are bringing to the table. Maybe I'm wrong. Lynn Bramer, the nicest and best radio show host of all time comes out and introduced him. (It's Lynn's birthday and he is a huge fan.) Elvis comes out and bashed the crap out of him. Like a full minute of what a D%@*, A$@H*&^%, and yes, Mother$#@!%^& that guy is. Ok, Mr. Rockstar, I will try and give you a pass. Then he plays a song, and starts to tell the audience that if they are there to hear Veronica (his big hit song) that they can go F*&^ themselves. Ok, Mr. Rockstar, I already didn't like you, but now I'm starting to really dislike you. The next ten songs was him just standing there, singing like a lifeless puppet, and yawning at one point. Mr. Rockstar, you are a tool. I left.
So the point of the story is Elvis Costello is worse than Huey, but not by much.

3. Do you use electronic devices at your table when you are gaming in person (assuming this will ever happen again as it used to in the BEFORE TIMES)?

Some tables I play at do, others don't. I prefer ones that do not. In my experience, the sense of engagement improves when electronics are removed.

PS - As always, I enjoy your writing. Thanks for the fun questions, even if they did dredge up the memory of seeing Elvis Costello.

 

[Horwath]

1. I love the physical books as much as the next guy, but...there is always a butt.
.pdfs are just more practical. If you need to juggle with 10 books for your session, it's faster to have 10 tabs open in your pdf reader than going through 10 books. Also one laptop is lighter than 10 books.
This come in play if you change locations of your sessions.

In online play, I hate when I need to open a book and do not have all on pdfs or in some custom files on my PC.
When I play, I have very little light in the room, mostly from my display. So, every time I need to reference a book, I need to hit the light switch, wait a second for eye adaptation, then get to reading.

Now, I love lore part of the books, settings info, etc. to be a real book, as it's quite nice to lay back and read those. also MM.

But, if any game mechanics pages never see light of day in physical form, I will not shed a single tear.

So,
Lore: physical book + option of digital
Game mechanics: digital

3. You do not play in RL?

 

[Umbran]

1. Do you correctly prefer your RPG materials to be in real, book form, or are you one of those .pdf lovers?

I incorrectly prefer my RPG materials to be in real, book form. Which is to say that I prefer hardcopy, but I realize that is despite how so much of my actual use of materials is probably better supported by pdf or other electronic format.

2. Relatedly, if you're a .pdf lover, how do you like Huey Lewis and the News?

Huey Lewis and the News are awesome, and Lewis' hearing loss is a loss to the music world. New Wave or not, Lewis understands what Rock'n'Roll is (as opposed to Rock, Metal, Pop, and so on). His work holds on to more of the roots of the genre than many realize.

3. Do you use electronic devices at your table when you are gaming in person (assuming this will ever happen again as it used to in the BEFORE TIMES)?

When playing D&D, usually yes these days. When playing other games, generally no. When running D&D or other games, mostly no.

However, most of my game preparation is done with a computer close to hand, which is where the conflict between what I want, and what I need, often arises.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, book only. D&D time is analog time for me.

 

[payn]

Huey is one of the few bands from that era that gets turned off every time he comes on the radio. No bizarre association or girlfriend breakups related. It is just awful, contrived, garbage that belongs in the category of - this should have never existed. Right up there with racism, bigotry, and bullying.
PS - Elvis Costello fits in the same category. True Story: He is the only person I really couldn't stand, but I wanted to give him a try, because, you know, of all the adulations. I went and saw him at the Chicago theater. Alright Mr. Rockstar, let's see what you are bringing to the table. Maybe I'm wrong. Lynn Bramer, the nicest and best radio show host of all time comes out and introduced him. (It's Lynn's birthday and he is a huge fan.) Elvis comes out and bashed the crap out of him. Like a full minute of what a D%@*, A$@H*&^%, and yes, Mother$#@!%^& that guy is. Ok, Mr. Rockstar, I will try and give you a pass. Then he plays a song, and starts to tell the audience that if they are there to hear Veronica (his big hit song) that they can go F*&^ themselves. Ok, Mr. Rockstar, I already didn't like you, but now I'm starting to really dislike you. The next ten songs was him just standing there, singing like a lifeless puppet, and yawning at one point. Mr. Rockstar, you are a tool. I left.
So the point of the story is Elvis Costello is worse than Huey, but not by much.

Oh, you'd just love Father John Misty.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

it makes me worry about you.

There is an idea of a Snarf Zagyg; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold rhetoric, and you can read my lengthy comments and maybe you can even sense our gaming preferences are probably comparable... I simply am not there.

#1 I am incorrect in many ways. I prefer PDFs for gaming material, love Bards, and think John Wick is just the millennial generation's Steven Segal.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

My remote group (and when my local group needs to play remotely) still uses actual dice. I have total trust in all my players and them in me - or else I probably wouldn't be playing with them. I don't need to see the roll.

A very good point, though having some sort of online roller that everyone can see still provides that fun little moment of craps table drama, where everyone sees the result at once.

After years of using Roll20 and becoming less and less interested in the VTT dice-rolling experience (I'd rather just seen the numbers come up than deal with that platform's super janky 3D dice) I recently tested out Foundry and became obsessed with how dice look and sound on it, how much customization it offers--including stuff like perfectly recreating the look of the special Twilight 2000 dice--and even the silly animations you can set to trigger with certain results, like having a fire effect or sparkles shoot out. I think as the VTT competition heats up that could be a killer feature.

 

[payn]

There is an idea of a Snarf Zagyg; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold rhetoric, and you can read my lengthy comments and maybe you can even sense our gaming preferences are probably comparable... I simply am not there.

 

[Scott Christian]

Oh, you'd just love Father John Misty.

Great, now I have to look him up.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

 

[King Babar]

I like both, more or less.

I like having books that look good on my shelf (so 5e's style disappoints me a little bit) and there's something very satisfying about sitting on the couch and flipping through pages.

For homebrew and 3PP stuff I exclusively use pdfs because it's often the practical only option for me since I live in Germany and shipping is a pain right now.

So I use both, but deep down I hate reading pdfs sometimes, because I can be really bad at it. Something about text on a screen just destroys my concentration.

I also use D&D Beyond during sessions, since my group has been playing exclusively online for almost two years now (thanks COVID!).

 

[lingual]

physical books really slow down the game. Best for just reading. Not that PDFs are much better...

Googling "5e [and whatever you need]" works the fastest for me.

PDF searches are done purely by string matching and not that useful to look something up. The DND beyond search doesn't do fuzzy matches. Nor do they index by popularity, etc.

 

[payn]

Dont you see it yet?

 

[J.Quondam]

1. I very much prefer physical books. However, I use the electronic versions a lot more, because I create my own docs on a computer. Searching, moving, and editing information is just so much easier electronically.

2. * sigh *

3. I prefer dead tree stuff at the table for most things, but usually that means printouts of my own electronics docs.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Dont you see it yet?

 

[Scott Christian]

physical books really slow down the game. Best for just reading. Not that PDFs are much better...

Googling "5e [and whatever you need]" works the fastest for me.

PDF searches are done purely by string matching and not that useful to look something up. The DND beyond search doesn't do fuzzy matches. Nor do they index by popularity, etc.

I do find this to be a table-by-table experience. Most tables I have played at resort to DM adjudication, or they know the rules/spells/maneuvers/etc already (or at least have it on their character sheet), or know exactly where to look in the book. But not all tables are like this. It's just in my experience, technology wasn't any "faster."

 

[Yora]

This thread feels like the equivalent of walking into a party, climbing on the table, and while everyone is looking, pissing into the punch.

 

[payn]

This thread feels like the equivalent of walking into a party, climbing on the table, and while everyone is looking, pissing into the punch.

That already happened hours ago. Welcome to the party.

 

[DND_Reborn]

1. Do you correctly prefer your RPG materials to be in real, book form, or are you one of those .pdf lovers?

Sorry, I am a PDF lover. The only books I have for D&D are my original B/X, BECMI, and AD&D 1E materials. 2E, 5E, d20 SW, Vampire, Shadowrun are all PDFs now.

2. Relatedly, if you're a .pdf lover, how do you like Huey Lewis and the News? I mean, their early work was a little too new wave for my tastes, but when Sports came out in '83, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically. The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the songs a big boost. Huey Lewis has been compared to Elvis Costello, but I think Huey has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humor.

Yep, like Huey well enough.

3. Do you use electronic devices at your table when you are gaming in person (assuming this will ever happen again as it used to in the BEFORE TIMES)?

Yes, I use my laptop to run the game and project maps, etc. to a 55" flat-screen for players. My laptop is used for tracking everything, NPCs, combat, XP, you name it.

You'll probably add me to your list of things you hate, but I actually cut off the bindings on all my 5E books and have them all scanned as PDFs now.

Here's the thing- I hate .pdfs. This isn't the type of pure and lovely hate I have for things that truly deserve it (Bards, Elves, Bards, people that refuse to acknowledge the John Wick trilogy as the greatest cinematic masterpiece of all time, Bards, people that think that superhero movies and anime are the greatest intellectual achievements of our time, and Bards). Instead, it's more of a, "Why isn't this a book? Books are awesome. This ... isn't awesome. It's the opposite of awesome. It sucks."

By the by, I love that you hate Bards so much--right there with you!

 

[Maxperson]

You read the title? You read it, right? Well, sometimes my titles are truthful (for absolute values of "sometimes," and varying values of "truthful").

Here's the thing- I hate .pdfs. This isn't the type of pure and lovely hate I have for things that truly deserve it (Bards, Elves, Bards, people that refuse to acknowledge the John Wick trilogy as the greatest cinematic masterpiece of all time, Bards, people that think that superhero movies and anime are the greatest intellectual achievements of our time, and Bards). Instead, it's more of a, "Why isn't this a book? Books are awesome. This ... isn't awesome. It's the opposite of awesome. It sucks."

So I should give a useful disclaimer- I use electronic documents all the time. ALL. THE. TIME. Seriously, it's almost like it's part of my job, or something. So it's not as simple as an aversion to reading stuff on a screen. And I completely understand that having a document in an electronic format can be useful- searching for a particular piece of text is oh-so-easy with an electronic document. "Look, there are 147 too many occurrences of the word 'bard' in the PHB!" Moreover, I'm constantly on a phone, or tablet, or computer reading websites ... like this one ... so it's not an instinctive Luddite reaction.

Well, not entirely a Luddite reaction. Admittedly, the youths with their TikTokking and Discords and Chatsnapping frighten and confuse me, but I can always soothe myself with the sounds of Jelly Roll Morton on the phonograph.

Instead, it's something particular to books, and by extension, I think, to RPG books. I just don't seem to enjoy long periods of reading a single thing on a screen. It's not the same as curling up with a book. Nor is it the same when you have to bring a tablet (or what have you) to the gaming table. Ugh, to me, that's the worst. To the extent that my table has banned electronic devices during gaming.

So I am throwing these questions out for general discussion-

1. Do you correctly prefer your RPG materials to be in real, book form, or are you one of those .pdf lovers?

2. Relatedly, if you're a .pdf lover, how do you like Huey Lewis and the News? I mean, their early work was a little too new wave for my tastes, but when Sports came out in '83, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically. The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the songs a big boost. Huey Lewis has been compared to Elvis Costello, but I think Huey has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humor.

3. Do you use electronic devices at your table when you are gaming in person (assuming this will ever happen again as it used to in the BEFORE TIMES)?

1. Yes, I agree with you completely. I out and out refuse to buy something that doesn't come with a physical copy. I don't mind if I get a PDF with it, but if it's PDF only it's not getting my money.
2. I like Huey Lewis and the News. I didn't start listening to rock until the mid 80's(wasn't allowed as a child) and he was one of the first I really liked.
3. I do not use electronic devices for 99.99% of my in person games. About the only use, and it's still rare, is to send a group text to the group with an image that I feel fits the monster/NPC really well(and better than I can describe it). For my remote games I do sometimes have a PDF up with something I need for a specific encounter, but it still feels wrong, so I usually avoid doing even that much.