The Changing Face of Reading

[GregChristopher]

It seems to me like we are moving into a media environment in which people are voracious consumers of the written word, but just not in the forms that we traditionally use; books, magazines, newspapers, etc. That is the not the written word they want to read. Instead, people are choosing structurally different ways of presenting information. We are seeing increasing resistance to reading lots of information presented in page-after-page of text.

I think this may be a large part of why a lot of people are turning away from RPGs. They don't feel like taking the time to read a 200 page book. So what can we do for people who want to read differently?

I think we have to move beyond books to a non-linear format of information presentation. We need to learn from the web. People are reading the web and not reading books. What can we learn from that? How can we present information in a way that people want to read? Wikis are a start, but I think we have to go beyond that.

It seems like we have to break information down into smaller chunks and present them in a more navigable way.

I have been working on my own tentative method for this, I even put up a demo on RPGnow/DriveThruRPG called Aqualii Temple, but I am very interested in other possible ways to break up information and present it in a new innovative way.

Does anyone have a great idea on how to do this? How to move beyond books?

 

[Viking Bastard]

I have been thinking about this a lot in connection with the future of D&D (and RPGs in general).

So far I don't know.

 

[GregChristopher]

Thinking more this afternoon, I think there might be something to be gained in the way video games present info.

 

[tenkar]

Without pushing the current envelope we will never find out how far the envelope can be pushed.

The Daily for the iPad is an attempt to make news interactive. For my tastes it's more expensive then I think it's worth, but I love the potential I see.

National Geographic via Zinio for the iPad brings the magazine to a whole new level. I love it more then I ever enjoyed the paper version.

What's the point to PDFs and other electronic media if all they do is mirror or replicate printed media? If they can do more then print, shouldn't we push to find out what works and what doesn't?

 

[Aberzanzorax]

I'll be the curmudgeon.

I hate pdfs.

I mean...I only really ever buy print materials...and if I want something so badly I'll buy a pdf....I ACTUALLY print it!



My eyes get tired/my mind has difficutly with pdfs, read on the screen. I recently got a Nook and find it acceptable, but inferior, to my print books...i.e. I'll read it on a plane in order to have a library of books, but if I'm at home, you'll NEVER find me reading a pdf over a print book (even if the actual material in the pdf is superior to my best current print book).



But, while a grognard, I'd very much welcome an electronic option that met my book related preferences.


I like being able to flip to a page based upon estimation of thickness.

I like being able to see a whole page at once (well, two pages) rather than trying to read a page while scrolling/moving it around to get to new words.

I like "bookmarks" where I can dogear/bookmark important pages and hop back to them quickly.

I like portability, as well as the safety of losing only one book if I drop it/it gets rained on etc.



I think that readers are beginning to get to the point where all (or most) of these concerns are addressed. However, I don't think all of them together have been addressed sufficiently to be superior to a deadtree book. I don't think enough of them have been adressed to equal a deadtree book.

If/when they are all addressed, I'll very likely welcome the conversion to total electronica...but until then, I think I have a good 10-20 years of gaming ahead of me with some dead trees on the table.

 

[tenkar]

Aberzanzorax - for the most part, your preferences are being met, although rarely all in one product / delivery system.

My point is... why just try to replicate a paper product on the computer screen / tablet? If you can do more why not do such?

Ideally for me, an electronic product would do both. It would reproduce the paper product perfectly AND give me added features that I can't get in a paper product - click / touch hyperlinks, virtual pop-up art, sounds, add my own notes that don't destroy the original product, etc.

 

[GregChristopher]

@ Aberzanorax

The second problem you cite is only a result of industry folks taking their print layouts and turning them into PDFs. When you have a PDF designed to be a PDF (i.e. not just a copy of what they printed), then you can shift to a landscape layout that fits your screen.

Just go to my blog and download any of my 5 free games. Every one of them is in landscape layout with fonts sized to be easily read on your screen.

People say they hate reading on a screen. But then they spend half their day reading on a screen. Obviously they don't truly hate it. What they hate is reading print layouts on a screen. That's the whole point of my OP.

What if we can move beyond that? What if we can design products to be native to the digital realm, rather than just copies of what was printed?

 

[falcarrion]

Pushing the digial thread to fast will fail. It needs to be gradual. If it has too many bells an whisles it over welms the reader. One of the reason the e-reader are so popular is that it is very close to a book. People need to get use to using devices first then start changing the way we read on them. Pdfs are popular because of the ease of moving from one device to another. Now Amazon was very smart in seeing this and making it possable to read there books on many different devices. I have tried 2 different way magazines are done on the Ipad.
Maxium and Iphone life (zino app). I don't like the way Maxium is done so I didn't subscribe. Now reading magazines with the Zino app is easier to use.
but I would like to be able to move an issue to different devices like I do with pdfs. then to have to down load it again on different devices. and since I can tap on an ad and it goes to there website is great. Now with adventures having a hypelinked pdf is best. tap on an entry in the table contents, boom your there.
Reading a room description and being able to tap a map link and it pops up. Tap it again and it goes away. And we realy need is two maps One for the Dm and one for the Players. Anyone using a projector setup would understand how wonderful that is. Do a screen shot, load into maptools and your all set.

 

[falcarrion]

I hate pdfs.

I mean...I only really ever buy print materials...and if I want something so badly I'll buy a pdf....I ACTUALLY print it!



My eyes get tired/my mind has difficutly with pdfs, read on the screen. I recently got a Nook and find it acceptable, but inferior, to my print books...i.e. I'll read it on a plane in order to have a library of books, but if I'm at home, you'll NEVER find me reading a pdf over a print book (even if the actual material in the pdf is superior to my best current print book).



But, while a grognard, I'd very much welcome an electronic option that met my book related preferences.


I like being able to flip to a page based upon estimation of thickness.

.

I don't understand what you mean by estimation of thickness?

but your other points can be done right now.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

I don't understand what you mean by estimation of thickness?

I think he means that his fingers know where in this stack of pages the needed info sticks. Add in the traces of wear in the binding and you're able to quickly find the wanted page even in a 300-pages book.

As for the original post, I'm completely with you, Greg.

How many of the 4e PHB's pages are just Powers? Probably more than 100 pages, so somewhere between a third and half of the book. All this isn't needed to understand the game or the creation of a character, it's just data you need to know on a case by case basis.

So start by removing the data part from plain sight. If I'm creating a new character and have tentatively selected a class, show me the first level Powers of this class. If I want to level up my character, show me the appropriate stuff.

Or, better yet, use a graphical, tree-like representation of the development process, symbols for each level which I can expand to see the items residing there. Let me allow to tag items lest I forget them in the meantime. Show interdependent items (Some Feat, Improved Some Feat, Advance Some Feat).

Information has to be presented in a linear fashion in a printed book - page references notwithstanding. If you go electronic, you're not bound by this, anymore. So play to the strengths of electronic presentation, don't try to emulate the dead tree way.

I wish that people would start experimenting with new ways to present RPG information. There'll be a lot of failed experiments, for sure, but with a little luck we'll see the emergence of a great new format.