THe RPG book you've waited for is going to be a PDF only release, do you buy?

[JoeGKushner]

No.

Green Ronin currently falls into this camp with the various Advanced Race Codex books. I'm not buying until it sees print. If it doesn't see print... oh well. I'm sure I can make due with the near dozen other race books I currently have.

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

As many others have stated, it depends on the price.

As an example, I'll use the hypothetical Sunnydale book. I would expect it to be around 32.95, 200 pages or so, full color and hardback if it was being sold in a gamestore.

The maximum I would pay for a .pdf would depend on my printing and binding cost. If it cost me $16 to print a black and white copy and $3 for a cheap comb binding, I wouldn't pay more than $10... and that's only if it was something I really wanted.

At $10 I'm paying a total of $29 for a junky-looking black & white book.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

With a good price... heck yes, I would buy it. Or more accurately - I have done so. Quintessential Aristocrat is darned useful for me, and was PDF only.

I also buy PDFs of works I already have in hard cover, and harcovers that I already own in PDF... (Spycraft 2.0 for the former, a bunch of Fantasy Flight's Legends & Lairs stuff that was on sale a whiles back for the latter.)

Other stuff I prefer in one or the other - if it is for the DM only then I like having just the PDF, if for the players more than the DM then just the book, if it is for both then I like having both.

The Auld Grump

 

[Fieari]

If priced like a hardcover book, by which I mean $20 and up, no, I won't buy it. Otherwise, it depends on the quality of the material, and how much I'm looking forewards to it.

I voted yes on the poll as such.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I purchased RPGObject's Metropolis Rho eBoxed Set for $22.95. I'm a Darwin's World fanatic. Most of Darwin's World's adventures and accessories are .pdf only. I'm one of those RPG players who is also struck by the collector illness. When there is something cool out for a line I truely love I'll go out of my way to get all of it... as soon as I can afford it. the massive Metropolis Rho eBox Set won't exist in any other format.

Yeah, I'd have preferred a hardcopy bought at my FLGS... It wasn't among my choices however.

 

[Zimbel16]

None of the above

If it's a book I'd only use as a GM, while designing a module, and at no other time, yes; I'd be willing to consider buying a non-DRMed .pdf. This is because that is the only gaming time I spend consistantly near a computer.

Otherwise, no. A book that I can't access while gaming is questionable at best. I'm not going to bind a book, and a buch of printed pages would get lost very fast.

As a note to the publisher, there are stores which will happily print & bind on-demand for an additional fee, given a .pdf. In other words, this dosen't need to be an either/or choice.

 

[Scribble]

I've been recently converted to the PDF darkside!

I do a lot of prep work for my games at work, (Naughty me...) and realized one day that PDFs just made more sense... I've been converting over some of my most used books, and picking up some more PDFs... I really like them for their utility...


I still love a print book... Something about em.

Plus it's harder to read PDFs on the can.

 

[ZombieButch]

I buy PDF's all the time, and see no reason to stop now. If I decide I want a hardcopy, that's what PrintFu is for.

 

[Crothian]

As a note to the publisher, there are stores which will happily print & bind on-demand for an additional fee, given a .pdf. In other words, this dosen't need to be an either/or choice.

Yes, but that price falls on the customer. The publisher in my scenerio is just selling it as a PDF. People that buy have the option of getting it print and bound on their own dime but what happens with the PDF after it is bought is not the focus here; just if one would buy the PDF. Thanks.

 

[philreed]

It bugged me quite a bit after my first hard disk crash. It bugged me a lot more after the second. After the fifth, it will get ugly, because then it means buying the whole stuff again.

Where are you buying PDFs that you can't get replacement copies? I thought every site had a system in place to allow you to download files if you've previously purchased them.