D&D 5E Where are the PDFs?

[mach1.9pants]

^Yup I read RPG books as much on my iPad as I do physical. I like the have both and read the same book no matter where I am. Read page 1 to x in the book, pick up from x to y on the iPad then from y to z on the book again. If I need it having a DS DDI sort of thing is in addition to these. Heck that's 3 ways for WotC to get my money and lots of people do that Paizo for Books, PDF and then getting the Herolab or whatever for in game (Paizo doesn't get the money I think, it being OGL, but WotC would with DS)

 

[Jester David]

From the front page:

You know we haven’t announced anything official yet, but I’d be surprised if we released the PDF to be exactly as the book. Because I think that we’ll sit down and look at a PDF format of the book and say well what’s the best format that could take? It really does make good sense to have it sort of stripped down and in a utilitarian layout.

Because you know what? I’m actually just using this because I just want to get some rules at the table. Maybe I just want to be on a plane or just sitting around and want a quick reference that’s a quick read and just the information I want. So what does that do to the [PDF] design? We strip out a lot of the art and make it utilitarian. Or we break it up and actually the ebook version is actually three books, we’ve broken it up into three parts, and each topic is now a separate book. So maybe I’m playing a Wizard, and I’m just using the Basic D&D, but I want more spells… so I’m just wanting the spell chapters, so maybe I spend 5 bucks or 2 bucks just so I have that indexed or bookmarked and can quickly reference my spells. You know, what is the usefulness of that? Just as a bibliophile wants the whole book as a physical artifact, the digital only user, well, what is the best way for them to get access to the game.

I like what Paizo does personally, where you can download the normal book or a "lite" PDF with a simpler less heavy background that is much faster to load. Options are the way to go so the person on the desktop can choose lots of art while the person using the tablet can go simpler.

First, he said that they didn't want PDFs of competing with DungeonScape right off the bat and wanted to give Dd a chance to get off the ground.

Which is crap as they likely serve two different needs.
Don't tell your audience what they want, give them what they want. If they want DungeonScape, they'll buy freakin' DungonScape.

Second, he said they isn't want people to feel cheated if they purchased a PDF and then realized they need to re-purchase the content to use in the DS tools.

Which could be solved by crediting anyone who buys the PDF with the content for the DS tools. As it should be anyway.
The problem being that because WotC doesn't handle any money it means arranging cordination between DnDClassics.com and WotC and Trapdoor Tech. But that's a limited time problem as it only affects people in the few month window before DS releases but after PDFs would have been released, and after that it should become less problematic.

Third, they want to make sure that PDFs are the right decision for this edition and would rather wait then put them out and then wish they hadn't.

With the ascension of tablets, PDFs are more right for 5e than any previous edition. Yeah, in five years PDFs might not be the best choice, but they're making the game for the needs of people right now, not five years down the line.

And, regardless, there will be PDFs, so why not make money from them?

Really, it sounds like DungeonScape is being positioned as a reference app as much as Character Builder. With searchable rules like the Compendium.
Okay, that could be handy. I make great use out of the Pathfinder app I have (although I need a new one since it stopped updating. PM me if you have a recommendation.) But I still make heavy use of PDFs, especially when browsing or writing.

Apps are also problematic. As I mentioned above, I'm stuck with a dead Pathfinder app because the person behind it walked away. If/when my device goes the app will likely go with it. While I could lose access to new copies of the PDFs if the source site went down, all my gaming PDFs are either backed-up on optical media and/or stored on DropBox. And DropBox syncs with my iPad's PDF reader, so transferring files is effortless.

 

[seregil]

I for one, and I believe one of many am sad at his response.

I want a pdf of the book, the real book, not some stripped down no art book.

I won't feel cheated if the content is in two places, if I want it in both I pay twice simple.

The free Basic rules are useless to me, as I don't run or play in games that are just Basic.

I think this is just corporate spin for no real reason, just sell us pdf's already.

This!

Here is the reality: PDFs will exist, legal or no. WOTC can either make money by selling them or not make money by not selling them.

I don't want their weird app. I don't want the book formatted in a different way.

PDFs are easy, cheap and STANDARD. I can read PDFs on EVERY major platform out there with no special effort.

To be blunt, their refusal to provide PDFs is, imo, wrong. They are going to lose a lot of potential revenue and good will. They have, obviously, not learned a thing from the 4E disaster except, maybe, consulting the fans for developing rules. The rest? not so much.

Is it world ending? obviously not. Is it still a major strategic mistake? Yup, and one that should have been both obvious and easy to fix.

Oh well. At least the game itself is a massive improvement over the last version.

 

[wedgeski]

If these aren't your concerns--maybe you buy only what you're going to use in game and don't obsessively catalog your library (my tool of choice is LibraryThing)--then perhaps it shouldn't be a big concern for you. It is for us.

I honestly think that looking at *anything* you buy as a permanent fixture "today, tomorrow, forever" is a fool's errand. At some point PDF's will be obsolete, replaced with richer formats that gain equally massive traction for some reason or other, and when you're in your 60's you'll be struggling to find hobbyist programmers who bother to release and support readers for all those ancient collections of bits and bytes that you've so diligently ported from one medium to another as the years have gone by.

I have boxes of VHS in my attic that were once my pride and joy. I mean, they're still there, gradually demagnetizing, but I doubt I'll ever watch any of them again.

Having said that, LibraryThing is a cool little cataloguing site I'd never heard of before now, so thanks for that!

 

[Bugleyman]

This!

Here is the reality: PDFs will exist, legal or no. WOTC can either make money by selling them or not make money by not selling them.

...

Is it world ending? obviously not. Is it still a major strategic mistake? Yup, and one that should have been both obvious and easy to fix.

Exactly how I see it.

 

[prosfilaes]

I honestly think that looking at *anything* you buy as a permanent fixture "today, tomorrow, forever" is a fool's errand.

I think that if you don't plan for something to be permanent, it won't be. Maybe your Picasso won't last forever, but that's not reason not to handle it with care.

At some point PDF's will be obsolete, replaced with richer formats that gain equally massive traction for some reason or other, and when you're in your 60's you'll be struggling to find hobbyist programmers who bother to release and support readers for all those ancient collections of bits and bytes that you've so diligently ported from one medium to another as the years have gone by.

If you want to run OS/360, first released in 1965, download the Hercules emulator and then download the operating system image (completely legally). And the audience for OS/360 is much smaller then the audience for emulating the early PC games and other nostalgic/historical toying with the first nigh-universal computer. Short of an apocalypse, 50 years from now, PC emulators will be around, as will images of Linux OSes that will display PDF. Moreover, much of the history of the early 21st century is locked in PDFs (just like much of the history of the 20th century is locked in microfilm); it would be stunning if nobody took Poppler or PDF.js, both open source PDF libraries, and ported it to the computers of the future.

I have boxes of VHS in my attic that were once my pride and joy. I mean, they're still there, gradually demagnetizing, but I doubt I'll ever watch any of them again.

That's your choice, though. New VHS players are still widely available, as are ways of transferring those to digital media including DVDs. I've transferred what's important from my family's collection of VHS to DVD.

 

[Jester David]

Here is the reality: PDFs will exist, legal or no. WOTC can either make money by selling them or not make money by not selling them.

I don't want their weird app. I don't want the book formatted in a different way.

PDFs are easy, cheap and STANDARD. I can read PDFs on EVERY major platform out there with no special effort.

To be blunt, their refusal to provide PDFs is, imo, wrong. They are going to lose a lot of potential revenue and good will. They have, obviously, not learned a thing from the 4E disaster except, maybe, consulting the fans for developing rules. The rest? not so much.

Is it world ending? obviously not. Is it still a major strategic mistake? Yup, and one that should have been both obvious and easy to fix.

Oh well. At least the game itself is a massive improvement over the last version.

It's very likely Mearl's response is spin.

It's possible he cannot get approval for PDFs from his boss or his boss' boss and rather than say "hey gang, the man upstairs thinks PDFs will help pirates more than fans" he comes out with the excuses. "I don't want to hurt DungeonScape. We're uncertain if it's the route we want to take. We're not sure if unedited PDFs are the way to go. Etc." So it looks like it's on purpose rather than just wheel spinning while waiting for approval or while trying to get minds changed.

They have to know people want PDFs. They were asked about it enough, and know the reasons people want PDFs. And he has to know all the books were scanned within days and the PHB was available as a PDF before it started arriving from Amazon. So the problem might be out of his hands.

 

[Bugleyman]

It's very likely Mearl's response is spin.

It's possible he cannot get approval for PDFs from his boss or his boss' boss and rather than say "hey gang, the man upstairs thinks PDFs will help pirates more than fans" he comes out with the excuses. "I don't want to hurt DungeonScape. We're uncertain if it's the route we want to take. We're not sure if unedited PDFs are the way to go. Etc." So it looks like it's on purpose rather than just wheel spinning while waiting for approval or while trying to get minds changed.

They have to know people want PDFs. They were asked about it enough, and know the reasons people want PDFs. And he has to know all the books were scanned within days and the PHB was available as a PDF before it started arriving from Amazon. So the problem might be out of his hands.

Personally, I don't doubt that for a moment...it certainly feels to me like the sort of out-of-touch decision that gets handed down from a putting green.

 

[thalmin]

This!

Here is the reality: PDFs will exist, legal or no. WOTC can either make money by selling them or not make money by not selling them.

I don't want their weird app. I don't want the book formatted in a different way.

PDFs are easy, cheap and STANDARD. I can read PDFs on EVERY major platform out there with no special effort.

To be blunt, their refusal to provide PDFs is, imo, wrong. They are going to lose a lot of potential revenue and good will. They have, obviously, not learned a thing from the 4E disaster except, maybe, consulting the fans for developing rules. The rest? not so much.

Is it world ending? obviously not. Is it still a major strategic mistake? Yup, and one that should have been both obvious and easy to fix.

Oh well. At least the game itself is a massive improvement over the last version.

The bold seems a bit harsh. Have they actually refused to provide PDFs, or just not provided them yet. They have not refused to publish the DMG, they are still working on it.

 

[seregil]

The bold seems a bit harsh. Have they actually refused to provide PDFs, or just not provided them yet. They have not refused to publish the DMG, they are still working on it.

if, by now, we do not have PDFs or clearly stated plans to put them out, we will not , in all probability, ever have PDFs until the products are out of print and, even then, we probably will not have the PHB/DM/MM as the other editions are not available in PDF either.

As noted above, the current reasons are spin. Mearls is the front man for a large corporation and he doesn't get to say what he wants, he gets to read the talking points he is given. The real reasons for not providing PDFs are (very) probably completely different from he is saying to us.

I am willing to bet a nice freshly minted Zoidberg dollar that, in about a year or so, we will be told that the success of DS is such that the clients are better served by the proprietary, closed technology that is DS than PDFs and , as such, no PDF will be forthcoming. In fact, even if DS is a disaster (can't even really speculate at the moment), WOTC will NEVER admit it just as they admitted any issues with 4E software UNTIL they could use them to justify/sell 5E.

So, in short, they got the PDF issue wrong (again), they are (probably) trying to spin it to minimize damage (again) and their "solution" is to promise a piece of software that will fill this niche(again). That supposed solution is a classic example of re-inventing the wheel for no good reason assuming they even pull it off. Their track record for software sucks but let's wait and see.

That being said, the technology to distribute electronic version of books already exists and it's called PDFs. Use it.

However, to quote Bugleyman, this decision was probably made from a putting green, what can you expect?