Just for fun - a poll on PDFs v. Books

[Doctor Futurity]

laptops and a great printer make the difference...

My one friend who buys PDFs has unlimited access to a very high-quality color laser printer and binding materials at his job. He also has a laptop and an IT job whic involves regular upgrades. No one else in my group(s) have such a set up, and no one else except myself (occasionally, very, very rarely) buy PDFs. Books are just more accessible. Now, a PDF exclusive that gets a lot of attention may draw me over to make a purchase....but I've got to really want to dal with the hassle of printing and binding it, because too much reading on the monitor gives me a headache, anyway.

 

[Steve Jung]

I like books better. They're easier to read. But I do have a few pdfs lying around my harddrive.

 

[Gez]

PDF are cumbersome. Books are just most comfortable to read, and they flip and scroll much faster!

The plus side of PDF is that they're searchable. (That is, if they're not just a bunch of images, like the old TSR ESD PDF ended up being, although they were at first passed through OCR, this necessary step was eventually dropped, from what I've read.)

The downside is that they're slow, ugly, uncomfortable to read, and expensive to print. And I'll say nothing of DRM PDF.

This post was brought to you by the Collective Union of Three-Letter Acronyms. (Even my username is one. Oh, and I voted for DTB, BTW.)

 

[Angel Tarragon]

I like print products a little more than pdfs, but sometimes you only need a snippet of info, so pdfs are good too - just print out the portion that you need.

 

[MonsterMash]

Name names. What PDFs have you been so impressed by? And write some reviews on them, if you really like a book you need to stand on the street corners and yell about them especially PDFs.

Yes, if you like something then tell other people or as the oozy one says write a review.

Personally I prefer books still, but that might be because I'm at a computer screen for work a lot of the time and it doesn't feel like leisure to read off screen.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

I dont buy print any more. If it's not out as a PDF I dont buy it. I have too many books and not enough physical space to sore them. The suggestion of putting books in storage is STUPID because it completely limits my access to them. The only time that I can read a physical RPG book is at home and even the time I get to do that is limited.

WIth PDF's it's easier to prepare for my gaming sessions.

It's easier to compile the rules that I want ot use in my games. It's easier to share the the rules with my players but either pinting out only the parts that I want ot show them or cutting and pasting various options into a word processor and pinting that out for them.

I can read them at work off of my Powerbook or PC. Or Even a palm device.

I didnt mind paying $50 for something like Arcana Unearthed. What I do mind is paying $50 for a book that would just sit on my shelf and I'd never get the chance to read it on my schedule. So I paid $24 instead and now I have more freedom with that electronic document than I would with a hard copy.

Like I said I will never, ever buy another print copy of a RPG book again if I can help it. ALl the companies that I like and respect are doing PDF's: HERO GAMES, Green Ronin, Necromancer Games, malhavoc Press and Ronin Arts to name a few. That's where my cash is going. People who complain about being unable to read PDF's on screen but have time to read through several threads on message boards such as this one are truly speaking out of thier arses.

The printing thing I can understand, it still seems like typical gamer cheapness, but I still understand. I'm fortunate that I have a laser printer w/ duplexing ability at home and access to several such printers at work. BUt still if the tactile sensation of reading a hardcopy does it for you then by all means...

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Like I said: I like hard copies. I dont' have a screen at the gaming table.

Get a PDA, you can read PDFs from them with the appropriate software.

 

[Pinotage]

PDFs get my vote. Who needs books when you only ever game over a computer?

Pinotage

 

[philreed]

I like both books and PDFs -- the media isn't the most important thing, it's the content. Just as there are bad PDFs there are bad books.

Ronin Arts is slowly trying some experiments with printed products (the big one that's coming up is the limited edition hardcover of 2nd edition Whispering Vault -- by Bruce Baugh!) but we're going to remain primarily a PDF publisher.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I'm one of the "I like them both" people. Large PDFs can be cumbersome to use if they are not well organized and don't have a hyperlinked index or TOC. Once you start getting to the 96 page length or more a book is preferable to me.

As for material, I think again that there are many small, inexpensive PDFs out there that have some wonderful material. You can get away with publishing a PDF based upon one very focused idea taking only 5-10 pages and sell it for very little. You really can't do that with a book, you lose money on the publishing costs.