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

[BryonD]

Yes, with one qualification: NO DRM.

Well, yeah, that goes without saying..... right?

 

[Crothian]

I don't think anyone used DRM anymore.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Absolutely.

No luddites here.

Exactly.

I use gaming books as reference books. I dont read them cover to cover as one would a novel. I find whats important, read it and make notes. A PDF is actually easier for me to use as I can only print out the parts I might want to use for a game or read on the subway without lugging around and entire gamebook.

Also for new rules that I want to introduce, it's easier for me to print them out and have them on the gaming table either for my own reference or for the players. I just bought two hardcover gaming books (Hordes of the Abyss and PHII) and havent even gotten a chance to start going through them.

Then there's the space issue...Yeah non-DRM PDF's for me all the way.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

I don't think anyone used DRM anymore.

WOTC PDF's on DriveThru are ALL DRM. Which is sad, because I would probably pay full price for thier books as opposed to a hardcopy. I'm more likely to scan through the book and use material from it if it were on my Mac than I would if it were on my shelf.

 

[Glyfair]

This isn't a clear yes or no question for me. It depends.

Mostly, it depends on how I'll use it. If it's a book that requires reading thorough it, I probably won't. The only way is if it is very small (30 pages or less) and easy to print out and read. The last book I bought for this was The Book of Eldritch Might. After that, PDFs I might read soared to 100+ pages, and that isn't happening.

On the other hand, if it's mostly a reference work, I very likely would. The Revised Tome of Horrors fits this niche for me. In this case I have the print ToH. I can read that to find what I want, and then print out the 3.5 stats for my game. Even if I didn't have the print version, it's still a great resource for finding what I need and looking up a few things to print out (in fact, I just did this for fungus creatures).

 

[GAAAHHH]

No. I can't bring my computer to the gaming table, and it is too expensive and time consuming to print it out (Blast you, Inkjet!!!).

If I can't show the book to the gamemaster, how is it going to get allowed in play? And if I am running the game, I will need to have the book available for reference.

Maybe if someone would buy me a new laptop computer...

 

[SteveC]

WOTC PDF's on DriveThru are ALL DRM. Which is sad, because I would probably pay full price for thier books as opposed to a hardcopy. I'm more likely to scan through the book and use material from it if it were on my Mac than I would if it were on my shelf.

Shin is right on here, and this was exactly the example I was thinking of. I would love to see, say, D20 Spectaculars (the D20 modern superhero supplement by Mike Mearls) as a PDF, but if it were full price and used DRM, I'd pass on it.

--Steve

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Here is an example of how few pdfs I own: What is DRM?

 

[SteveC]

Here is an example of how few pdfs I own: What is DRM?

Largely a non existant problem. Some early PDFs were formatted with built in copy protection, called DRM for Digital Rights Management. In a nutshell, in order to read the PDF you had to connect up your PC to the internet and register them. You only had a licence to use the PCs on a set number of computers, and printing/copying/pasting were restricted.

This proved to be a very unpopular "feature" and was dropped for the most part, except for the larger companies that were largely print based, who wanted to protect their IP and keep it from appearing on P2P networks.

You may be able to tell that I did not enjoy this particular feature of purchased PDFs at all.

--Steve

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Hmmm...I ran into something like that with some academic PDFs I've had to use in the past couple of years.

Didn't bug me at all.