What Makes Gaming Books as PDFs Desirable?

[Katana_Geldar]

If we have a laptop in our group, it's always away from the table. Not just away from the chips, drinks and pizza, but it stops it being used all the time. That way, when you want to look something up on there it's because you need it and have the time to search. Usually, a laptop look triggers a break.

I prefer laptops for two reasons, distribution and my own notes.

Firstly, I hate lending books because there is a fair chance that they will come back in a worse condition than I last had them. I have spent $50-$80 each on my gaming books and the more expensive they are, less liekly they will be lent. (My Star Wars Core book, will never ever leave my hands) So I have the choice of either telling my players to buy their own, letting them use my books while I am there or sending them a pdf of the book for their own pleasure.

Guess which one wins?

Speaking as a gamer who exists in a town without a dedicated gaming store it can take weeks, sometimes months, for books to get into our hands. And ordering usually requires purchasing the book. And if the book isn't any good...

I do realise all the legal issues with pdfs, but I would be willing to purchase a legal pdf (perhaps on a multiple license system similar to software) so I can send it to my players.

For my own notes, I find pdfs invaluable. I run Star Wars Saga games and a lot of the statblocks are spread through several books. I find I use five books at a bare minimum for NPCs (Core, Threats, Starships, Relevant Era Book and Relevant campaign-style Book). Rather than crowd the table it's much, much easier to have the statblocks there alongside my campaign notes. This also means if I give the players a ship or droid, it's easier to distribute the stats rather than running off a set of number in-game as I need to have the book with me.

 

[Festivus]

Lower price point would be my big seller. I would be more apt to purchase a PDF book for something I was borderline interested in than a physical copy. I bought some great games from RPGNow that I would never have bought as a physical copy at the game store... I am looking at you "Sixgun"

 

[nedjer]

PDFs'll be around for a while. Not for their text properties but because of their place in graphic design workflows.

They're an unwieldy, dated and hard to interact with electronic format. HTML is the only viable future electronic format on offer; especially since the start of the move to HTML5.

Try it out with the Treasure RPG. All html, easy to style, editable by most monkeys and free. Doesn't matter if the game isn't of interest, it's worth a quick (free) download to see the future. The game is only starting to exploit html, css and svg technologies but there's enough there to check out the inevitable future format of RPG choice.

 

[Mark CMG]

I've printed a few of the small page count ones (modules)-printer ink is way too expensive. The rest I generally just reference as needed- being that most of them are PDFs of actual books I used to own (the LBBs for example, or AD&D modules), I'm pretty familiar with where I need to look for something.

It's unfortunate, cos for me sitting in a chair in a quiet room reading through a physical copy of something like Eldritch Wizardry or Cults of Prax is usually how I get my inspiration.

Thanks.

 

[Alan Shutko]

Try it out with the Treasure RPG. All html, easy to style, editable by most monkeys and free. Doesn't matter if the game isn't of interest, it's worth a quick (free) download to see the future. The game is only starting to exploit html, css and svg technologies but there's enough there to check out the inevitable future format of RPG choice.

PDF is still nice in that it's a single, self-contained file for a large work. There's currently no standard equivalent for HTML, so we have things like zipped directories, Safari Web Archives, MS's MHT files, etc. Treasure actually ships a Win32 binary installer to deploy a document. (And I can't run it on my Mac, put it on my iPad, etc.) EDIT: I want to correct myself: Treasure does offer a ZIP download, I just didn't see it at first.

HTML really works best in an always-connected mode where you don't need to ship files around, and can just point to the document. It doesn't work well yet when you want to keep your own archives around.

 

[Herschel]

And I'd add that as long as you back them up properly, they'll last forever (no wear and tear, no spilled soda stains and dorrito's fingerprints,...).

So you're saying PDFs have no character. We used to say it wasn't a real character sheet until it had a stain of some sort on it. If you have an iPad, the last thing you want is a stain.

For teh question at hand, I like having the physical book to page through, it gives me inspiration. If I just stick to the Character Builder, I miss out on all the fluffy bits and artwork. In a PDF I skip them because I find it less comfortable to read on the screen.

The source book also makes a nice companion when I'm in a waiting room for a dentist or whatever and I don't want to read last January's "Sports Illustrated" or "Field & Stream".

 

[Jeff Wilder]

HTML really works best in an always-connected mode where you don't need to ship files around, and can just point to the document. It doesn't work well yet when you want to keep your own archives around.

I have an excellent 3.5 SRD installed on my Palm Pre (and my Palm Centro) before that. It's not perfect, but it beats the absolute crap out of PDFs on either device.

 

[nedjer]

PDF is still nice in that it's a single, self-contained file for a large work. There's currently no standard equivalent for HTML, so we have things like zipped directories, Safari Web Archives, MS's MHT files, etc. Treasure actually ships a Win32 binary installer to deploy a document. (And I can't run it on my Mac, put it on my iPad, etc.) EDIT: I want to correct myself: Treasure does offer a ZIP download, I just didn't see it at first.

HTML really works best in an always-connected mode where you don't need to ship files around, and can just point to the document. It doesn't work well yet when you want to keep your own archives around.

It works equally well online or off. The files are all wrapped up in a single, completely local folder with all images, icons and interactive charts available without a connection. I keep my custom copy of Treasure on a USB stick.

The Windows executable was a much requested convenience for those who don't get on with unzipping and it looks peachy in Safari I'll be able to make better/ more comment about html advantages when we complete the shift from v1.4 to v1.5, which includes a revised start/ Introduction with some accessibility features and easy ways to apply your own images and css styling to custom copies.

It's only a start but compared to PDF, which can be annotated, supports forms and can be customised - if you've access to expensive software, don't mind a proprietary format, want no instant styling options or rules customisation . . .

And, yes, I like books to but I can't change them at all and I don't see a problem with printing the 50 or so pages that might actually be used at the table. Especially for new players who need low TRPG entry costs.

p.s. it doesn't get more standard equivalent or transferrable, all the xhtml and svg in Treasure is pure xml. Haven't tried but it could go out on an RSS feed.

 

[coyote6]

It's only a start but compared to PDF, which can be annotated, supports forms and can be customised - if you've access to expensive software,

Foxit is free, and I think it does most of that stuff. Definitely does forms.

I hope some excellent cross-platform format catches on, but it's going to have to have both a high penetration amongst consumers, and ease of implementation for publishers, to do so.

Some way to auto-convert other formats (for example, PDFs), would be awesome, too.

 

[Katana_Geldar]

Having PDFs on game day means you have to carry less books there. Usually I am toting 4-6 books in my rather large handbag along with my folder, dice bag and bags of minis. And that's not when I actually run the game.