Pocket Players Handbook

[Knightfall]

Is it just I, or wouldn't it be really nice with a small hardcover players handbook around 3.5x7 inches large, with a discrete two colored cover (say, black background and white text) with just text, rules and tables (everything in the players handbook except the pictures)?

What do you think?

Psionicist, you're a genius! What a great idea! Now if we could only get Any and the team to make them. (God, I don't even have the revised version yet and now I want pocket versions. I am such a tool!)

Cheers!

KF72

 

[Red Baron]

Edit: Ehh, is it discreet or discrete?

Discrete means, roughly, "a separate thing" or "of separate parts"; discreet means (again in my own words) "subtle; modest; circumspect." It's a very common error.

Anyway, little PHBs -- cool idea!

Edit: Too much typing in Word -- I've gotten used to having my computer capitalize the first word of every sentence for me...

 

[Sixchan]

Uh-oh. I just had a scary thought. Would the contents of the MM now all be Pocket Monsters?

 

[haiiro]

Two things spring to mind for me: the little 1e books that were released a couple years ago (around 2.5x3, if memory serves), and the current US editions of Lone Wolf and Cub from Dark Horse. The LWaC trades are small, around 4x6, and fat -- 300 pages; paperback, of course. I think that would be the ideal size, and I definitely wouldn't want hardcovers. The mini-1e books are cute, but unusably tiny, IMO (although technically readable).

Great idea, Psionicist.

 

[Arc]

Wow... 300 pages is about as thick as the 3.5 core books. That's going to heavy. I think that with no images, it should come out at around 200 or so (double sided). If we keep it at less than 5.5x8, we can fit 2 pages per standard 8x11 sheet of paper. Double sided, that's maybe 100 standard sheets of paper. Shouldn't be too expensive to print out, really.

 

[astralpwka]

I've been trying to make this exact idea work, using windows xp. Microsoft Word allows me to print stuff off in booklet form, Adobe Acrobat is giving me the option, but doesn't listen to it. I would love to print off the SRD that I got through RPGNOW in mini booklet form... well... in three or four booklet sections, really... If WotC gets out its Word version of the 3.5 SRD, I would print it off in Booklet form anyway, especially since my books haven't arrived.

The only way I can figure is to reformat the book myself through Indesign, and I don't feel that gungho to get started...

 

[Bloodstone Mage]

I tried to make my own pocket SRD a couple of months ago. I stopped when I realized how many pages it and printer ink it would take. That's why I'm getting a PDA.

But if someone ever did release a pocket-sized PHB or SRD, I'd buy it. Sounds like gold to me.

Cheers!

 

[Arc]

Hmmm... if it was in pdf format, preformatted to be double printed, with instructions for binding, then 5 or 10 bucks and a trip to Kinko's would be enough. As soon as the 3.5 SRD comes out, I hope to see a couple attempts at this (I say couple, because there will be plenty of failed attempts). I'll be trying one too,

 

[astralpwka]

Hmmm... make it three pocket guide files, since binding that one huge one would bite...

Maybe Khan's Press will give it a go...

 

[Sixchan]

Hmmm... if it was in pdf format, preformatted to be double printed, with instructions for binding, then 5 or 10 bucks and a trip to Kinko's would be enough. As soon as the 3.5 SRD comes out, I hope to see a couple attempts at this (I say couple, because there will be plenty of failed attempts). I'll be trying one too,

Well, as to size, two 5x7.5 sized pages work out at approx. 75% of an A4 sheet. so we lose 25% for every two pages, I only have the MSRD pdf to work with, but for that, at 141 pages, plus the 25%, minus a few to account for entire blank pages in the document leaves us at about 170 pages. This is about 1.5cm in thickness.

In short: I think it's possible. You can even have a shiny, glossy full colour cover without inflating the price greatly. If my FLCS can afford to import Manga from the US of this length and sell them for under a tenner, WotC can do the same. In fact, WotC can probably do it for a fiver.

Best of all, with any luck it would cath on, and I'd *finally* be able to afford all those books.

EDIT: The thickness is closer to 1.5 than 2 centimetres. For the sake of keeping measurements in the same system, it's about 0.625", which is very portable, and puts us under 2" for three books.