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

[LordEntrails]

IME, if it's treated as a fun thing, instead of as a punishment, it works pretty well.

Everyone is so saturated with screens anymore that having a required "no screen" downtime while you are playing can be viewed as more of a bonus than anything else. Most people don't realize how distracted they are until they do it for a while.

I'm sorry, what? looks up from phone

 

[Malmuria]

Ah yes, the most incredibly horny song ever ... but you know, for kids!

I love the 80s.

Omg. omg. I never noticed this

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Omg. omg. I never noticed this

And you can't un-notice it now.

....you're welcome!

 

[J-H]

I only play in person, so I like having physical books. Sometimes I (the DM) am the only one at the table not using a tablet/laptop.

It's usually faster to have 3-4 books/pages spread out versus being confined to only a single small screen at a time. PDFs are even worse because if everything's in a single PDF, you can't even alt-tab quickly between windows to refer to multiple items.

 

[TheSword]

IME, if it's treated as a fun thing, instead of as a punishment, it works pretty well.

Everyone is so saturated with screens anymore that having a required "no screen" downtime while you are playing can be viewed as more of a bonus than anything else. Most people don't realize how distracted they are until they do it for a while.

Hmmm, not sure there’s any meaningful difference [in distraction] between looking at a pdf copy of the players handbook or looking at the actual phb.

 

[Fenris-77]

Hmmm, not sure there’s any meaningful difference between looking at a pdf copy of the players handbook or looking at the actual phb.

Despite my financial preference for PDFs, I do vastly prefer looking at an actual book. Not just for the tactile intangibles, but I also find it easier to navigate in many cases. Just my two cents of course.

 

[Count_Zero]

Ah yes, the most incredibly horny song ever ... but you know, for kids!

I love the 80s.

Nah, "Gimmie All Your Lovin'" by ZZ Top is more so, and that got used in a children's film! (Specifically, The Santa Clause).

 

[TheSword]

Depends on your use case.

Ever notice that a Kindle or your local library's online books don't use PDFs? (You do know your local library has digital versions of most books don't you? For free...) Their are formats like ePub and Mobi that are designed for reading on variable sized screens. Ever notice how much it sucks to try to read a two column layout of most PDFs on a small screen or even any landscape oriented screen? ePub and Mobi don't have two columns, they have the text (and inline images) just inline images and let the reader format them for column width, text size, text color, background color, etc.

(edit: and the reason they come as PDFs is because with a couple of mouse clicks you can convert a print ready book to PDF and because (wrongly so) most people think PDFs are 'secure' and can't be altered or text scraped once created. PDFs (for reasons) are ubiquitous, therefore people think its what they should expect or want.)

That's just for reading. If you actually want to use the content during game play, then the VTT of your choice might have a better format that can do all the things I mentioned before.

- Oh so variable sized screen size.

I kinda prefer reading game products in the format the publisher intended. I just use the zoom function to a degree I’m happy with and then scroll through it.

Kindle is good. Though I usually just read a pdf with the kindle app.

 

[theCourier]

When it comes down to it, if there's only one option available I can always print out what I need from a PDF without worry.

But I do love my physical DCC collection.

 

[payn]

When it comes down to it, if there's only one option available I can always print out what I need from a PDF without worry.

But I do love my physical DCC collection.

Gotta have one of those sacred tomes on the table when Bobugbibliz minons are summoned. Gotta drop a needle for tribute to Klazath.