Your opinion about very small PDFs

[adwyn]

I just spent an hour extracting the relevant rules from several PDFs. Out of a hundred or so pages I consolidated the actual rules for which I bought them to four and a half pages. The rest was some fluff, but mainly space wasting the likes of which I used when I was writing papers in high school - oversized margins, quarter page artwork on nearly every page, two and three page long explample conversations that read like a bad soap opera.

Every one included charts that took up a whole page by using a font that could be read from the opposite end of the table, a phenomona that rarely comes up in my game.

Each of these PDFs have turned me off from buying anymore from those companies and authors. Rather I will adhere to the short 2-5 page PDFs in the future, and even if they are a dollar a page (not counting cover and OGL) I'll not be unhappy.

 

[Turanil]

This poll misses the "depends on the content" option.

No, sorry. I clearly stated this was for the hypothetical PDF well done. My question was specifically about the quantity, supposing quality is okay. Some of the PDFs I did review were well done, but I felt there was way too little of them. This is a poll about an hypothetical PDF of content to your expectations, but then to tell about its size.

 

[pogre]

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.

I love playtesting things. Two of my three reviews are playtest reviews. I really did not see any potential balance issues in the third product - it just had a lot of great descriptions. The problem with playtest reviews is that they take time and many of the folks sending out product for reviews want it NOW. This is partly thanks to the unbelievably high turn over rate of product at the pdf sellers. Which in turn is a result, at least partially, of folks cranking out these smaller pdfs. pdf publishers want that review while there product is still on the front page of the pdf seller's site.

 

[Vascant]

Pogre: I do agree completely with your statement, it does take time. If it started with the publisher (Not aiming at anyone, just a general label) who had a strong desire for releasing quality work, they put a few (No set number) NPC's reflecting the game mechanics in working condition. I think not only would we get better over all products but also reviews that reflect the product and not so subjective. I do not believe this is the reviewers obligation, this should be the publishers.

A publisher wants something reviewed, have a packet format such as:
PDF/Product and NPC's or an example of the mechanics.

Lets be honest, a 2 dollar PDF is about 16 pages in length but to review it with acuracy takes a few hours. Not just read it, but apply the mechanics of the PDF to see if it fits and is balanced. I don't know about you but my time is worth more then 2 dollars. This lends credibility to the actual review.

Again, just my opinions and how I am as a person.. I always strive to be better, no matter how low the standard is set.

 

[Cergorach]

crap = crap
Whether it's a big or a small pdf, or a book, or a movie, or whatever. Bigger doesn't mean better, smaller doesn't mean better either. If the pdf does what it advertises i'm happy, i generally prefer larger pdfs, but they need to be good (just like the smaller pdfs).

And let's be honest, page count doesn't mean squat:
Green Ronin - Eternal Rome (page without art, normal paragraphs) 950 words/page
Ronin Arts - StarShip 13 (page without art, normal paragraphs) 750 words/page
Ronin Arts - Planar Factions (page without art, normal paragraphs) 600 words/page
The average WotC book has a 1000 words/page (page without art, normal paragraphs)

I've seen 8 page pdfs from Phil that only contain 2500 words plus the OGL and no art ($1.75).
Andemant Entertainment has pdfs that don't come even close to the 600 words per page mark (page without art, normal paragraphs).
And although i'm not a big fan of LPJ, he has 1100+ words/page (page without art, normal paragraphs). He fits 2200 words plus the OGL and a half page of art in four pages ($1.10).

ps. I'm not taking one extreme from a pdf and comparing it to the oposite extreme from another pdfs.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Size matters not. Its the content and quality that do matter.

 

[Cergorach]

Size matters not. Its the content and quality that do matter.

Yeah... And you believe your girlfriend when she tells you that... ;-)

 

[philreed]

I've seen 8 page pdfs from Phil that only contain 2500 words plus the OGL and no art ($1.75).

Can you give me the title? I'd like to check that.

As I was explaining to Datastream subscribers yesterday, the new graphic design for the Future series fits a lot more words on each page -- roughly 30% more -- than the old design.

 

[Cergorach]

Can you give me the title? I'd like to check that.

As I was explaining to Datastream subscribers yesterday, the new graphic design for the Future series fits a lot more words on each page -- roughly 30% more -- than the old design.

I think it was 13 mecha devices or something in that direction.

Planar Factions has 68k words on 128 pages, that comes to an amazing 530 words/page and zero artwork ($12).
Planar Magic 17k words over 36 pages, 475 words/page, half a page of artwork.

Green Ronin - True 20 96 pages 83k words plus charactersheet ($12).
Green Ronin - Corwyl, 96 pages 66k words, plus lots of great art ($10).
Exp - Buest builder, 224 pages 170k words, plus art ($10).

|I honestly don't expect you to put out 170k word documents for $10 a pop, but you are one of the bigger pdf publishers that has the least bang for the buck

And i don't think that GR or Exp is putting out crap, they're putting out very interesting books that for now will be bought first, add to that the fact that i'm on a budget so i can't spend $100 a week on pdfs anymore... Unless Ronin Arts comes with something that i really, really want, i spent my bucks more efficiently.

I am considering Silhouette Core Heavy Gear Miniature Rules, it's a 80-page pdf that costs $20, expensive i know, but it fits 1200-1300 words a page (if it doesn't have a color photo on it). But per word it comes in the smae price range as the Ronin Arts pdfs, but has prettier art. But i'm still considering it (the pdf is as expensive as the printed product)...

 

[philreed]

I think it was 13 mecha devices or something in that direction.

Okay, thanks. I was just wondering.