Which do you prefer? Actual books or ESDs?

[Psion]

Splat book is the slang for the class books put out by WOTC - Sword and Fist, Defenders of the Faith, Tome and Blood, etc.

And, no, I don't have a clue why the term 'splat' is used.

It originated in WW WoD stuff. In white wolf, the various games had character groups called things like "clans", "tribes" and "traditions". They put out books targeted at characters of these groups, like "clanbook tremere" or "tribebook garou" or some such.

Now in computer parlance, a "wild card" is a character that acts as universal moniker representing any term you want to put in. On the PC (and most other platforms), the wildcard is an asterisk; if I am looking for any file of type pdf, I could type in *.pdf as a search term.

The asterisk is known as a "splat", so for those computer saavy folks who wanted to comment about all clanbooks, tribe books, or tradition books, they referred to them as "*books", or (spoken) "splatbooks."

Through mingling, this term got used to refer to any of a series of books targeted at different character types in RPGs.

 

[BlackMoria]

Well, I consider myself 'enlightened' now. Thanks. I had no idea as to the origin.

And I didn't want to be the first to ask why 'splat'.....don't want to appear unhip to the young'uns.

 

[Voadam]

I thought splat was a reference to the books in a marketing sense as in create multiple types of the same thing (class, race, clan, tribe, tradition, etc.) and then produce a book for each type and throw a bunch of them out in the market. I thought it was originally a bit derogatory as they were considered not that good and could lead to power creep (bladesinger from book of elves, etc.) So for a complete balanced set you would need not just the core book but each of the power upgrade splat books as well (while a player would only theoretically need the one splat book that applied to his character). So in a marketing sense a DM goes from 3 books to up to 20.

 

[NewbyDM]

books always anytime...
i just don't like to stare at a monitor when i don't have to.
im quicker searching through a book then a pdf file.
and i don't like to zoom in and out all the time...

maybe im just lazy

 

[Voadam]

I prefer PDFs to hardcover, for space and copying reasons. I like to have a composite file of say feats or spells and it is easier to copy into one file then to flip through ten books. I prefer to read from hardcopy, but I prefer to have PDF. The stack of books in front of my bookcase is just too big.

 

[Broken Fang]

Books Books BOOKS!

 

[Krug]

I prefer books, but you can't beat the price of a PDF/ESD. I'm very selective on what I print out, and also print it 2 pages to 1 to save ink.

You can get WotC ESDs at www.svgames.com

 

[Buttercup]

Hey Buttercup,

You say that you've wasted money on Fast Forward Entertainment d20 stuff, care to explain that? What about them don't you think you got your monys worth?

Sure. I have three titles by them. In general, they are poorly edited, being filled with typos and inconsistencies. CRs are not correct in many places, and I also noticed instances where rules were just not right. These problems could be a result of poor editing, but the reasons don't really matter, it's results that count. I'll make a few comments about the individual titles, but the comments in this paragraph apply to all of them.

1. Rings of Power. What was I thinking? There is very little useable crunch in this book.

2. Treasure Quests. This is a great concept, and I like the lay-flat binding. But the whole thing is extremely Monty Haul, and not generally balanced, IMO.

3. Ency. of Demons & Devils. This is the best of the three, but the mechanics problems (see above) make it not worth the money, IMO.

If you go to the reviews section of this website, you will see that I am not alone in my opinions of their products. Look here. I think several of the reviewers are more knowledgeable than me, by miles. And finally, if you or anyone else likes their products, that's cool. I just know that they'll never get another dime of my money.

 

[Henry]

I'm surprised - no one has mentioned my favorite option - I love 'em BOTH!

Books to me come before ESD's, because a book is never lost in a power failure or hard drive crash. My book is damaged into ureadability far less often than data is lost from my computer. However, there is NOTHING like the feel of having a fully searchable, instant reference right on my computer when I am looking for something specific.

Outside of D&D, this problem is exacerbated by the difference between printed tech support manuals, and manuals on PDF only. Excuse me, but you want me to print out a 350 page book, and BIND it????? Sorry, but I don't feel like going to kinkio's EVERY single time I want a non-coimputerized version of something I own.