Paper or Digital?

wyrmul
wyrmul
edited January 2008 in General Discussion

Comments

  • wyrmul
    wyrmul
    Posts: 36
    So I recently joined a new game and have been having fun. We slayed a pyroclastic dragon and to describe the beast's horde the DM pulled out "The Mother of all Treasure Tables" by tabletop adventures and necromancer games. And the loot was fascinating. Next session while we were waiting for game to start I flipped through it and was immediately impressed. So I asked to borrow it and used it to generate a horde for a dragon in a game I'll be running soon. After using it for 2 days I decided that I had to own a copy for myself.

    Here was my quandary: purchase the paper version, or the PDF version at DriveThroughRpg. While the Paper version is more portable and harder to loose, it is a very wordy book, with lots of descriptions that I would be copying out on a regular basis. I hate duplicating data by hand which this book would require to get full use of. But the PDF is pretty spendy. And until now I had never been comfortable buying gaming PDFs, but this product made it so enticing.

    I eventually went with the PDF. But it made me start thinking about PDF gaming books. Where they fit in the DM's toolbox, and what works better as a PDF or a paper book. What is the rest of your experiences? How do you think WotC's publishing the d20 SRD's influenced you in adopting this medium (if you have)? What sort of reservations do you have over the palce of gamingin PDFs in the industry?
  • FemmeLegion
    FemmeLegion
    Posts: 521
    I can share my experiences as an RPGA judge for Living Greyhawk (D&D 3.5 system):

    Most of the time when I'm judging modules, somebody prints them out. (Me if it's a home game; the convention organizer if I'm working at a con.) There have been some times where a game came together spontaneously and the responsible party didn't have time to print out the module, so instead I have run it off somebody's laptop (RPGA modules are delivered as PDF files).

    *I HATE IT!!! HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE!* If there is a way to "bookmark" certain sections of a PDF so you can jump back and forth between them easily, I have yet to find it, and it is SUCH A PAIN to have to navigate from one stat block to another during combat as certain monsters' turns come up, and then to try and find my way back to the point in the module where the combat occurred so we can move on. Combats easily move twice as fast when I am working with a printed module, and when you're trying to get a story resolved in 4.5 hours, that's important.

    I think at the very least, what I would require out of an electronic publication is that it have an interface which allowed for tabbed browsing, and a table of contents that made it very easy to find exactly what you needed and load it up in a tab. In fact, for something like an adventure module, I think I'd want a feature similar to Firefox's "Open All Tabs In Folder" that loaded up each encounter into its own tab and each creature's stat block into its own tab.

    Am I asking a lot? Maybe. But if we could get publications that could do that, I would then gladly pay as much for that electronic copy as I would now for a dead-tree copy, because the electronic copy would then be superior to the dead-tree copy. It's hard for me to decide from a tree-hugging hippie standpoint if the potential for less paper consumption would be completely "negated" by the increased electricity consumption. But maybe by the time the technology I want is easily available, the "green energy" sources will be a little more prevalent. (It'd be nice if the hullabaloo about Digital Rights Management would also be resolved by then, but I'd like for all this to happen before I die of old age. =)
  • photoneater
    photoneater
    Posts: 182
    Paper, because a tree totaled my car once after I accidentally drove into it. Since then, I find myself doing all I can to punish trees as a community.

    No, but in all seriousness, I vastly prefer paper, and I have no idea why. Paper is just more rewarding. If I spend money on something, I like to be able to hold it and see it and not have to worry about losing it to a system crash.
  • AidanDark
    AidanDark
    Posts: 56
    Paper!

    As FemmeLegion has said .pdfs are very bad for active use (though I admit having almost every book on pdf.... just in case). I like to download a pdf to decide if I want to buy an actual book (which I usually do) and for those times I just don't have enough space to cart all the books I want to bring when I am doing something else (traveling to someplace besides work or the DnD table for instance) and just want to browse.

    Also, as Photon has said, I like being able to flip through a book... and I like the way books smell. But I grew up literally in a book store so I guess that isn't too weird.
  • FemmeLegion
    FemmeLegion
    Posts: 521
    AidanDark, I know folks in RPGA who have torrented PDFs of various "splat books" for that same first reason. They'll get campaign access to a feat or item or spell, and so they'll search the PDF to see if it's something their character would want, and if it is, then they'll buy the book (RPGA requires you to have the book to use the feat/item/spell, though in practice you're just required to have one copy of the book at the table no matter how many folks are using stuff out of it - it's so the GM can actually look at the rules as written rather than rely on your interpretation of it).
  • RobJustice
    RobJustice
    Posts: 178
    Ok, Devil's Advocate time. First off, I'll say that I am a fan of paper books but I'm also an avid user of PDFs.

    PDFs weightless and don't throw out my back when I'm trying to lug my entire collection to the gaming store on the weekend. They also take up less space in my home. A cramped little one-bedroom looks a lot smaller with two massive bookshelves.
    PDFs are easy to look at when I'm at work and I want to do some reading. Having eight books laying across my desk might raise suspicion.
    PDFs are far easier to search. If I want to know what page "House Falon" is talked about, I just hit CTRL+F and type it in. Now, this only applies to actually PDFs and not scanned images made into PDFs.
    PDFs are incapable of typical gaming accidents. Never once has a slice of pizza rendered a page unreadable or a spilled can of soda ruined an entire book.
    PDFs are cheaper. I'm a bit OCD and I must have all the books in a series. This can be hundreds of dollars in print or tens of dollars in PDF.
    PDFs are easier to share with my group. We have no wait times when only one person has a copy of a book we all need to use.
    PDFs make writing easier for me. I can just copy-paste chunks of text out of the PDF that I want to read to my players. Or print them out to hand out. Again this only applies to actually PDFs and not scanned images made into PDFs.
    PDFs help me keep secrets from my players. Say I want to run Expedition to Castle Ravenloft but I don't what them to know thats where this adventure is heading? If I pull out the book, its game on but if its on my laptop... they'll never know until I want them to.
    PDFs are also, as was stated, a great way to check out books for cheap. Not sure if you're going to like sometime, for a couple bucks you can download it and decide if you like it or not.

    There are 10 reasons that I use PDFs. Once again, this was Devils Advocate. I also enjoy, irrationally at times, paper books.
  • FemmeLegion
    FemmeLegion
    Posts: 521
    Oh, I'll submit that an unfortunately located beverage can ruin a PDF as well, though yes in most cases you are quite correct. I also agree that the "Find" command is immensely useful - some friends of mine gained an appreciation for just how haphazardly laid-out the DMG is in places when they took the open-book quiz to become RPGA certified judges.

    I really do like the idea of electronic files...PDF just doesn't do what I want it to do from a mechanical standpoint.
  • RobJustice
    RobJustice
    Posts: 178
    Well, if a beverage ruins your PDF... I think you have bigger problems. Haha.

    Oh, it might be worth saying that I have Adobe Professional and that likely allows me to do alot more with my PDFs then the average user.
  • geekevolved
    geekevolved
    Posts: 75
    I think the latest version of Acrobat adds in bookmarking functionality fyi ;)
  • PolletteIrieska
    PolletteIrieska
    Posts: 26
    I personally prefer a mix. I like pdfs for the books that I just don't use as much, sourcebooks like Libris Mortis or Weapons of Legacy (gooooood book, love that one) but for the core books and modules, I have to hold it in my hot little hands. It's just easier, bookmarks or no.
    And, there really is something very satisfying about the tactile experience. The weight of the books, the solidity of them lends a substance to the game that's lacking otherwise.
  • geekevolved
    geekevolved
    Posts: 75
    I agree with that. I like having something I can HOLD and flip through lovingly. PDFs to me seem so cold and machine like(and of the impending day when skynet goes online), but I sometimes use them for their convenience.
  • photoneater
    photoneater
    Posts: 182
    You can't smack an annoying player with a digital DMG, either. I'm betting that's a huge pro for paper that no one is willing to admit. ;)
  • IceBob
    IceBob
    Posts: 98
    Like PolletteIrieska, I use both - depending on what I'm using it for.

    I haul around all the documents and information associated with my campaign on my laptop, and I've got about 120 books in .pdf on 2 dvds. I like .pdf's because it takes up a lot less space when you have a half dozen of them open at once, but when I want to really focus on one book I tend to prefer a paper copy because in addition to being a little easier for me to navigate, it also provides a handy writing surface (mostly useful when making characters/encounters).
  • DarthKrzysztof
    DarthKrzysztof
    Posts: 132
    bq. You cant smack an annoying player with a digital DMG, either. I’m betting that’s a huge pro for paper that no one is willing to admit. ;)

    Yet another factor to take in consideration with chat-based games.

    :P
  • PolletteIrieska
    PolletteIrieska
    Posts: 26
    I didn't even think of that, but I'm totally willing to admit it. There's nothing like smacking someone upside the head with the player's handbook after they just caused a TPK.
  • Micah
    Micah
    Posts: 894
    I GM my game in a public place (ie. not my house), and so cannot have access to all my books close at hand. For that reason, I prefer having things accessible digitally. I'm a huge, huge fan of the "Hypertext d20 SRD":http://www.d20srd.org/, and for better (or most likely, worse) I use the d20 SRD monsters pretty much exclusively.

    I'm going to get some PDFs of other material soon, but as others have said, the PDFs are just not nearly as "user friendly" as the books. If only I had a Bag of Holding to lug them all around with me...
  • geekevolved
    geekevolved
    Posts: 75
    http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/bags/88b9/ :D

    I forgot about the SRD, that is amazing when I'm slacking at work ;p
  • FemmeLegion
    FemmeLegion
    Posts: 521
    See...I guess I want something that's a cross between PDF and HTML. HTML for things like indices and tables of contents, and then each topic in its own PDF (or whatever new format arises in response to my wish).

    I suppose the mix of HTML and PDF is possible right now, but bundling everything together might be a consideration.

    EDIT: And I would gladly trade away the increased capacity of a Bag of Holding for the "find it immediately" superpower of a Heward's Handy Haversack.
  • AidanDark
    AidanDark
    Posts: 56
    Actually speaking of d20srd.org has anyone else been noticing that some of their pages never load now? I've only noticed it recently.

    To reach it from google I usually have to go to one of their subheadings and then go to the "home page" to see the full list and I've noticed some monsters on the site never load when I click on them.
  • PolletteIrieska
    PolletteIrieska
    Posts: 26
    I have noticed that. I thought that it was just Firefox being iffy on me. I know that some sites don't really like it.
  • RobJustice
    RobJustice
    Posts: 178
    Well, after this weekend I have a major gripe against PDFs. I play at a local gaming shop and this week they had a big Warhammer tourny going on. We were relocated to a region of the store without power outlets readily available. Since I run a good chunk of my game off my laptop and rely heavily on PDF's I had to power up, make a ton of hand notes, and then power down. Whenever I HAD to look something up, I'd turn my laptop back on and go for it.

    With an actual book, you don't have to worry about having electricity.

    On the topic of Bags of Holding and Haversacks, I'd like to put my vote in for a real life "GM Who Doesn't Bother With Carry Capacity" Eighty sets of full plate! WOOOOOO!
  • geekevolved
    geekevolved
    Posts: 75
    Our DM just makes us carry his books in ;)
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