Your opinion about very small PDFs

[Turanil]

Well, I have been reviewing a few PDFs lately, and I have a tendancy for being irritated by products that have very little content, even if they only cost 1 or 2 dollars.

For example, I think that a PDF that provides just a single class, could at least also provide a variant or two of that class, plus fluff about organizations, fitting the class in different settings, etc., plus a couple or more NPCs ready to use. But many single class PDFs provide only that: a single class, nothing else. Personally I tend to see that as laziness.

However, I maybe am in the minority to think this. Hence this poll.

Note that this poll is kept very simple, as I cannot put together all factors together and still have it coherent. The idea is that a PDF is supposed to be of the quality you want, and the price would increase with the number of pages, so it's NOT about "more for the same price". However, I would be glad to read additional comments about prices, type of content, and what not.

Thanks

 

[DaveMage]

I don't like them.

I'll wait for the compilation.

I'd guess the smallest one I would buy would be about 16 pages, but it would have to be a *great* 16 pages.

 

[philreed]

From a review:

The one thing that jumped to my mind in reading this, is that if he did put more content in his PDFs he could probably gain more customers.

The PDF I was discussing in that introduction is 72-pages. A solid month of work that generated less than $500. In my experience the shorter PDFs are more cost effective for me to do. And as always, longer doesn't equal better.

If you have such a passionate dislike for the shorter PDFs why do you accept them for review? I feel that if you have any bias before reviewing a product it is best to either state the bias at the beginning of your review or to decline the offer to review a particular product.

Thank you for taking the time to read and review my products, though. Reviews do help others to get a feel for a product.

 

[Bront]

I generaly don't buy many PDFs, as I like to browse through the material first, and prefer a hard copy to a PDF most of the time.

 

[Turanil]

If you have such a passionate dislike for the shorter PDFs why do you accept them for review? I feel that if you have any bias before reviewing a product it is best to either state the bias at the beginning of your review or to decline the offer to review a particular product.

Well, my recent reviews are part of some Crothian's project about providing more reviews. I told my preference, but did not choose what I would eventually get. I reviewed what was sent to me because that was "the deal" so to speak. But now I have asked to do reviews of bigger documents.

When I tell in a review that a PDF should be longer, I tend to see it as if it was an evidence that to little content is bad. I tend to believe that if only 6 examples are to be provided, there should be much more about them than but a simple paragraph description. But then, I decided to make this poll to know other people's opinion on that matter, and modify my next reviews and comments accordingly.

Well, next short PDF I accept to review, I will state my bias against tiny supplements.

 

[philreed]

Well, my recent reviews are part of some Crothian's project about providing more reviews. I told my preference, but did not choose what I would eventually get. I reviewed what was sent to me because that was "the deal" so to speak. But now I have asked to do reviews of bigger documents.

I completely understand and appreciate you taking the time to write the reviews. I also feel that others appreciate the reviews since it helps them with a glimpse beyond the product's marketing text.

 

[BWP]

If I'm going to buy a PDF in the first place, I expect that I will be printing it out. In which case I want it short, because printing is expensive.

If the content of the PDF is too big to comfortably print, then I would want it in hard copy and would prefer to purchase it that way.

 

[Psychic Warrior]

I have bought a lot of short pdfs. I own probably 20-25 3-6 page pdfs right now. I really like them because of a few reasons

1) They are easy and cheap to print out on my less than state of the art printer
2) They are cheap to buy
and most importantly
3) They tend to be very focused and detailed in their topics. Granted their topics are generally very narrow but it is nice to have 6 pages of good ideas/rules/description than 60 pages of meandering text that rarely touches upon the topic of the pdf.

In short I buy pdfs for focused, small topics because I know (in general) I will be getting exactly what I pay for.

 

[Starglim]

Firstly, I prefer cheap PDFs. Secondly, it seems to me that the sort of topical and specific subjects that are being published as PDFs don't need 80 to 100 pages to cover. A single class with no background, supporting material or campaign linkage seems a little too short, though.

 

[Vascant]

This is why I generally do not listen to reviews much, seems instead of a product's quality being the focus they tend to be more opinionated based on certain likes or dislikes. This not aimed at the thread, just my opinion of reviews in general.

Now I will agree on something, any writer who thinks they can design mechanics (Classes, Prestige Classes, Races and such) without playtesting it and creating NPC's is probably making some mistakes and at the very least has a few balance issues. When I see these one shot PDF's of this style, they do tend to be not very well done and went used with NPC's and PC's, they seem to even miss the mark.

However..

Do I need someone telling me how to run a class or prestige class, probably not.. Nor do I need someone telling me how to place it. I used to buy them quite a bit but now seems most are off on some wild tangent in wierd directions. That doesn't make them bad, just not for me.

Now the same goes for the reviewer as well, how can you give a review of mechanics if you don't apply them? I think of the reviewer actually started listing what he did and showed the results this would help quantify his over all review of a product. Now before anyone states we would get less reviews because they are taking more time, my answer is simple. No one said doing things right means less time, maybe we need less reviews however the trade of they are better in quality.

*chuckles* Keep in mind, this is just an opinion