Tiny PDFs - not a fan.

[Sigurd]

I saw some PDFs for sale today that were 3 pages. The game material was one page in three! I don't want to buy one of these to give it a bad review but I want to see how many other people share my thoughts.

This PDF had five variations on one core magic item. Just the variation titles in the description would have been enough for most games to use the ideas. Why do people buy these?





I have a bad memory and I don't want twelve million pdfs to search through to find what I remember.

Even if they're only a dollar, that rate per page is expensive for a publication.

I want PDFs with cohesive structure, good value, and something to enjoy reading.

I suspect that some of these magic item pdfs are really ways for player to buy the magic items they want and then guilt the DM into including them.

I blame the publishers or taking the micro pdf too far.

 

[Morrus]

I think the person who first made that popular was Phil Reed with his Ronin Arts lines of PDFs some years back (I think he works for SJG now). It enabled him to release new PDFs almost daily, and presumably made a tidy monthly revenue on it. I think most publishers have tried it on and off since then; some stuck with it and some didn't.

Also - this isn't a review, so I'll move it out of the reviews forum.

 

[Sigurd]

Also - this isn't a review, so I'll move it out of the reviews forum.

I'm sorry you feel that way.

This is completely a reaction to published materials. I have bought over 800 pdfs. I am not going to single out a particular product. This is a review of a category of products - a voice in favour of more satisfying pdfs.

To my mind it is a review.

 

[Piratecat]

Nah, it's a legitimate gripe, but not a review as we define them.

There's a few micro PDFs that I love. Green Ronin's MnM PDFs that focus on a particular superhero power set, for instance. So worth the money.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Isn't part of the problem with many tiny PDFs that they have to include the OGL, which is, let's be honest, not a small chunk of text?

 

[Crothian]

Most small PDFs like this I think are over priced for what we get. They can be hard to organize and once you have a couple hundred it is a pain to remember where something you want to use came from. I do like it though when they get compiled together into something with substance.

 

[trancejeremy]

It's essentially the shovelware philosophy. Put out as much content as you can, hoping that it sells enough to be profitable. And apparently it must be, since people keep doing it.

Makes browsing a nightmare as well, since you have to wade through tons of products with minimal appeal.

And realistically speaking, you should be able to get the OGL into 1 page. If you are just using the SRD. The only real problem that causes it to bloat is the original Tome of Horrors, where for some reason, you have to cite every monster used individually, not just the book. (Why, I don't know, but that's the rules they insist on in the book, which presumably were dictated by WOTC"s lawyers). Many of the retro clones uses a lot of those monsters, so you can end up with a huge section 15, even if you didn't actually use those monsters, but just the retro clone.

 

[Water Bob]

I don't like pdf's, period. I'm still a dead-tree kinda GM.

 

[Morrus]

I don't really see what difference it makes if a short PDF has a 1-page or 5-page or 100-page OGL appended to the end of it. It's a PDF; it's not like it started with a page limit and everything had to fit in there.

The only thing I can think of that would make the matter is printing costs if people were feeling obligated to print out the legal text as well as the cool bit.

Only OGL products need an OGL anyway; there are plenty of short PDFs for games which have nothing whatsoever to do with the OGL.

 

[Greg K]

I have no problem with the size of very small pdfs per se and, as for tracking, I use spreadsheets to help me keep track.

Now, as for some pdfs being overpriced for their size and/or content, that is sometimes an issue for me, but it is not limited to any particular pdf size.