You know, I originally thought I’d never be able to appreciate digital formats for books. I clung to my physical books and reveled in my tactile appreciation of them. Then I had kids, and my reading time got chopped up into bite sized sessions, lots of picking up and putting down. And the only large chunks are when it’s dark and everyone is in bed. I began to appreciate digital for its convenience (and backlight). So much that I thought, “wow, maybe I’m done with physical books!”
And I read DW on my kindle. And I studied the PDF some. It was functional. Then I got my hands on my buddy’s hardback DW. Well, physical form still rules for RPGs. At least for me. It’s just much easier to STUDY a book (and appreciate its layout) when it’s physical. It’s nice having that at hand now.
+1 for appreciate its layout.
I thought I’d always appreciate physical books, then I had to ship 2,500 of them from my basement.
Seriously, though, glad you like it! We put a lot of work into making the physical book wonderful, glad to know it was worth it.
Chris McNeilly I’m in the exact same boat regarding kids. I’ve read whole books on my phone because everyone else is sleeping or I’m trying to get the kids to sleep. I still love my books too.
As an aside…frequent quick-posting to G+ from my phone, with its tiny keyboard and auto corrections, have turned my spelling, grammar, and general coherency to shit.
I’ve gone full digital* since I got back to gaming, 1-2 years ago.
Environmental concerns aside (save trees!), I just don’t have the physical space to hold all those books I’m buying. I read from my Kobo or Android tablet without a problem, although both have different uses. No more transporting 12 metric tons of stuff for each game session. Hard to Ctrl-F a paper book, too. Oh and it’s easy (for me anyway) to lose a paper book ; digital ones are easily redownloaded.
I still buy physical books every once in a while, but the few times I did it was because 1) I felt these particular games were really special and 2) I intended on lending them to people, which is much easier to do with physical books. Some games are paper only (I’m looking at you, Burning Wheel!) and I’ve vowed to never buy one of those games anymore.
*Not true, I keep a paper notepad around. I’m such a hypocrite!
David Lacerte – I feel you.
That being said, I buy pretty much every core product I play in a physical copy. Now, I don’t rotate through systems much – in the last four or five years, I’ve picked up a few Sixth Edition HERO books, three FATE Core Books, two copies of Savage Worlds, Burning Wheel, and Dungeon Worlds. I tend to buy adventures and GM-only stuff in digital only.
I like having the core in physical copy because I can pass it around the table to my players so they can look up rules while I keep Evernote on my tablet safe and secret.
I also really go out of my way to support my FLGS.
I love that DW is available as an epub. Most people have smart phones and that means you can carry rule books in your pocket.
Note all we need is playbooks as an app or html 5 page….
jim miller I’d love to do that, and there is a great HTML version of the character sheets on github, but my HTML-foo is weak. I’m more of a data guy, and somehow I learned indesign, but I have a hell of a time making HTML not look like crap.
Sage LaTorra Im sure it’s only a matter of time before someone comes up with this. I see a time when I can tell my friends about the game, have them download or open a web page with charicter playbooks and I can show them an example of play in minutes. Which then will encourage them to buy the pdf/epub.
I love books by i also see a need to evolve the hobby. Hauling around tons of books and dive is no longer necessary when this all can be donjon mobile devices . Making things accessible and having a streamlined rules set is the way to keep this hobby going for another 40 years.
I work in tech, I love to push the boundaries. Hopefully after this work crunch is done (I’m at work right now) I’ll have time to mess with some of this stuff more.
Sage LaTorra: My InDesign-fu is week, but from what Google tells me, the versions on github are InDesign 5.5 versions and need to be exported in some fashion or another (I can look up more info if necessary) before they’ll be openable in InDesign 5.0. Any chance you could please do that in your copious amounts of spare time?