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

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

1. I like to feel the heft. PDFs have their uses I suppose... transportability is one. But PDFs are emergency use only to me.
2. Huey Lewis. Nope. I was way more into The Doors, Led Zeppelin, The Smiths, Violent Femmes. Huey Lewis was lumped for me into the same category as David Wilcox. Sort of an inoffensive pop rock... to each his own though. Never saw the appeal of Doing the Bearcat or Going Back in Time.
3. I haven't sat at a gaming table in many years. Some electronic devices could speed things up/generally improve play I'm sure, but I'd be guessing.

 

[Reynard]

How does other people having access to PDFs interfere with your preference for physical books?

 

[payn]

How does other people having access to PDFs interfere with your preference for physical books?

Folks be thinking books going the way of 8-tracks.

 

[Reynard]

Folks be thinking books going the way of 8-tracks.

If people think the only reason that books still sell is that WotC is hanging on to a medium past its expiration date, I think that says a lot about what they think about the business model in the first place, and none of it good.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

How does other people having access to PDFs interfere with your preference for physical books?

The thought of other people being happier than me, or even just happy in general, fills me with an unquenchable and seething anger.

Oh, wait, I shouldn't have said that. How does a person say that they have no internal monologue. Oh no, did that come out too?


Um .... does it occur to you that I can express my preferences just fine, and you can too, and it's okay if we don't agree? That's part of life! I like books. I hate bards. Maybe you hate books and like bards ('cuz your momma didn't raise you right)? Some people like books, some people like vinyl, some people still like manual transmission and IC engines. Life is full of preferences.

Trying to gussy up your preference with dark foreboding about WoTC's business model seems kind of odd, especially given that they seem to have spectacularly succeeded with it.

 

[Voadam]

I like sitting on my couch and reading physical books. I like sitting on my couch and reading on my kindle a little less because of the small screen, but I still enjoy it. I really enjoy having access to a ton of PDFs on my computer with search and copy and paste functions as I am doing game prep. I really like having a deep gaming reference library for anything that comes up in my games. I have a big physical game book library, but my PDF collection is many times bigger.

My in person games I mostly go screen free with abbreviated monster stats either printed out or written down if they are not in the physical core Bestiary or MM that will be at the game. I use modules though and in my last game I only had one of the three modules I was running in a physical copy so I kept a PDF on my kindle open at the table as I gamed for reference for the two I did not.

I've been in a group where I was the only one with physical dice and a paper character sheet, and I've been in a group where I was the only one with a laptop (d20 wizards can get a lot of spells from multiple sources that are more convenient to have copied into a word spellbook document, same for summon monster stat blocks that are modified from core by templates and feats).

 

[payn]

The thought of other people being happier than me, or even just happy in general, fills me with an unquenchable and seething anger.

Oh, wait, I shouldn't have said that. How does a person say that they have no internal monologue. Oh no, did that come out too?


Um .... does it occur to you that I can express my preferences just fine, and you can too, and it's okay if we don't agree? That's part of life! I like books. I hate bards. Maybe you hate books and like bards ('cuz your momma didn't raise you right)? Some people like books, some people like vinyl, some people still like manual transmission and IC engines. Life is full of preferences.

Trying to gussy up your preference with dark foreboding about WoTC's business model seems kind of odd, especially given that they seem to have spectacularly succeeded with it.

You forgot a healthy dose of winks in your posting. Folks cant tell if its tongue in cheek or a tossed gauntlet. I mean, folks are still arguing about the words training wheels instead of the actual concept its supposed to describe next door. See how we are? Gonna post about it once every 20 min.

 

[Reynard]

The thought of other people being happier than me, or even just happy in general, fills me with an unquenchable and seething anger.

Oh, wait, I shouldn't have said that. How does a person say that they have no internal monologue. Oh no, did that come out too?


Um .... does it occur to you that I can express my preferences just fine, and you can too, and it's okay if we don't agree? That's part of life! I like books. I hate bards. Maybe you hate books and like bards ('cuz your momma didn't raise you right)? Some people like books, some people like vinyl, some people still like manual transmission and IC engines. Life is full of preferences.

Trying to gussy up your preference with dark foreboding about WoTC's business model seems kind of odd, especially given that they seem to have spectacularly succeeded with it.

Well, it's not the "I like PDFs" part of your statement I take umbrage with, it's the "and I'm glad they are a Book publisher" (as if PDF books weren't books). You are expressing not just a preference, but an approval of a publishing policy that limits access for other people unnecesarily.

As to WotC's business practices: it does seem that licensing access through DND Beyond is successful for them. I won't rent books I can't read off line, but I'm glad the people who will have an option. But the last decade or so has proven that whatever reason WotC has for not selling PDFs anti-consumer.

 

[J.Quondam]

I especially appreciated having physical books last winter when the power went out for several days. To distract from the cold, I could still do my gaming stuff - albeit at the much slower speed I learned to do it as a kid... which was actually kind of nice in its own way.
And when I was done, I could toss the book in the fire barrel to keep warm.

 

[Composer99]

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

I like my D&D books in book form. Everything else I've tended to prefer PDF. If I get into a group playing something other than D&D and I really enjoy myself, I might get books.

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.

I'm more or less indifferent with respect to Huey Lewis and the News, but without them we wouldn't have been treated to the glory that is Weird Al's I Want a New Duck. So there's that.

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)?

I have had D&D content on my phone for years that I would use for reference as a DM. Last time I played as a player was a Christmas one-shot in... 2019 I want to say? Probably used my phone to look up spells.