PDF Lovers: Where else do you shop?

[The Mad Kaiser]

Most everyone shops at the RPGNOW/DTRPG borg-cube for their RPG pdfs, but has anyone tried some of the other pdf storefronts?

What are some other places you know or have tried, and what were your impressions (good or evil)?

Also, how has PDF technology improved your games?

 

[Voadam]

Paizo, excellent customer service when there was a problem.

I spend about 1/4 to 1/2 of my pdf budget there now with the rest at rpgnow.

E23 is very tempting, but I'm more into the stuff at rpgnow and paizo.

 

[jmucchiello]

I'll plug YourGamesNow.com even if they are currently a competing storefront. It is the only place to find some PDF heavyweights: Phil Reed's Ronin Arts being the big one.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I have bought direct from the publisher at SJ Games' e23 and from Green Ronin's webstore.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Your Games Now *
Paizo
e23

And direct from certain publishers of choice.

* my favourite, overall.


Basically all good experiences, so far. As to what PDFs have done for my games - heaps! There's so much that's only available on PDF, or just more readily so. I wouldn't like being limited to print purchases.

Being able to copy & paste at will is great, as a GM. Or parts can be printed, or even the whole, which can then be bound pretty cheaply, I've found.

My gaming bookshelves contain a few such things, alongside many traditional hardcovers and paperbacks.

 

[The Mad Kaiser]

Has anyone tried The Digital Book Booth?

 

[Edgewood]

Has anyone tried The Digital Book Booth?

When I was a partner with Sword's Edge Publishing we used DBB as a venue for our military PDFs and adventures. I found that they had little exposure, and we didn't move any product on their site. On RPGNow we sell well, but they have a bigger draw. Maybe it's because they're a Canadian-based site but there just wasn't any push for them to draw any customers. Too bad because I like the idea of a Canadian PDF site. :\

 

[Voadam]

Also, how has PDF technology improved your games?

Copy and paste is the big one. Being able to copy over a stat block, spell, magic item description, feat, or flavor text without typing it in manually is a big feature. Grabbing individual pieces of art for player handouts is nice too. I've been dissapointed with some where the scans are poor and statblocks don't come over intact or a bunch of text is uncopyable but most pdfs perform this function great.

Cheap source of RPG material that is easy to store is another big benefit.

Printing out only individual pages needed for use at the table instead of hauling a whole book for one monster has been good.

By the way, I got good use out of your plant book, the flying demon plant fit into a high level game well.

 

[kensanata]

Also, how has PDF technology improved your games?

PDF technology has done very little. I much prefer to work with printed books. The ubiquitous nature and immediate gratification effect of PDF as a medium has totally changed my buying habits and thus the games I play: More variety and more experimental material ends up on my table. I've bought several source books as PDFs that were not or no longer available in print. I think this means that authors and publishers can better gouge whether it is worth to do a print run, and that it gives me hope that material for older editions of the game will stay available for me to buy later.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Lulu and IPR for some stuff. Ronin Arts sells stuff through Lulu as well as a couple of other places.

Your Games Now I've just started to use.

As for how pdfs have helped my game...

Well, being able to get electronic copies of books that are otherwise difficult to get hold of is one nice plus for me. For example, the Artificer's Handbook from Mystic Eye Games. The D&D Rules Cyclopedia is also in pdf form (saves wear and tear on my HB)

Being able to take individual pages and print them for handouts is pretty nice.

Being able to search the pdf for a particular phrase when you're not certain where it is in the book, or just to find all the references to a particular thing.

The ability to print the pdf and not have to worry about the printed copy get trashed, unlike your nice book. Sure the cost of a self print or print-and-bind from someplace like PrintFu might be close to replacing the book that you'd have bought in the store, but it doesn't really hurt in the same way.

I like the fact that I can have a large gaming collection that weighs ounces instead of pounds. Portability is nice.

Also, I tend to use things like Treepad Light to organize my notes. Being able to pop open a pdf and reference something "on the fly" as it were, is pretty nice. Especially since most of my books are kept in the bedroom, and I don't have to worry about waking my wife if I'm doing some late night stuff.

One thing that's kinda spiffy but really underused, is the ability to update the material. Not a lot of people seem to bother with updating their pdfs, and instead people have to poke around on forums gathering together scraps, and so forth.