Out-of-print but why?

[Roter Baron]

I like normal books. PDFs are basically only an add-on for me, an easy way to get copies of tables, equipment lists or adventures included in the book (or  charactersheets).

 

I would never ever read a book of any length on a screen, especialy not if they charged cost is only 10 $ or € below the printed edition's price. I alos see it like this: For real money I want a real product, not just some data. I want to physically flip through it, put it in a shelf, feel the pages. And I like to use old bookmarks and if I underline or highlight I use a pen.

 

I see it like this: If Gutenberg had "printed" his bible in PDF-Format, nobody could read it now. It would have detoriated or the format would not be readable any more. Try to use your old data stored on floppy discs or discettes!

 

Nope, real products please!

[Gary Miles]

This one is "Not Available" anymore.  The " Bundle: HERO System 6th Edition: Character Creation [damaged cover] (Book + downloadable PDF)" is though.  "Sigh"...while I don't mind buying "damaged" goods, I would prefer to know exactly how badly damaged it is (I have thousands of books, and most of my books are still in very good condition, even though I use them a lot...)

 

On another note, I did some checking and the prices for "Character Creation" is out there ($170+ at Amazon).  Jeeeshhhh...a low monthly car payment for one book?  Nah, I'll pass...unless it's of Historical significance that is.

 

 

~ M

On most of the Hero "damaged" books, it takes a long time of close scrutiny to find the "damage". I've seen books in much worse condition sitting brand-new on FLGS shelves.

[lemming]

On most of the Hero "damaged" books, it takes a long time of close scrutiny to find the "damage". I've seen books in much worse condition sitting brand-new on FLGS shelves.

I have a couple damaged versions on my book shelves and at this point wouldn't be able to tell you which ones.

[Roter Baron]

Yep, the "damage" seems to be very minor - if you are unlucky. My looked brand-new with a minor cover dent at one side. A dent that could happen the next time you put it on your shelf without paying 100% attention.

 

Don't worry - you don't get a loose-page-collection with a water-soaked back-cover stapeled onto them

[Kaze9999]

I hope this goes commercially available soon! The perfect PDF game book library! http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/21/sony-13-inch-digital-paper-hands-on/

 And now it's out, commercially! For...a little over $1,000.00 !!!

 

http://www.engadget.com/2013/11/07/sony-digital-paper-device/

 

*Sigh*

[Mostlyjoe]

Nowadays, I'm happy with Champions Complete as my physical core and I'm collecting the supplimens, Fantasy Hero, Star Hero on pdf.

 

However I would LOVE to get a Fantasy Hero Complete book for easy reference. Maybe a POD copy of Grimore.

[Spence]

I need hardcover books to build anything.  It must be the old man in me, but I am much more creative with 3-4 books laying open on the desk so I can skim over things, with half a dozen book marks in them. 

 

An PDF is fine if you are not in a hurry to find anything.  Sure you can do a word search faster, but try flipping between 3 different charts/paragraphs on three different pages. 

 

I understand that the young whippersnappers that grew up with it don't have a problem, but us cantankerous curmudgeons do.....

[Ragitsu]

I'm glad I bought the hardcovers/softcovers when I did. I virtually NEVER purchase digital-only products. Yuck.

[bret]

I prefer the dead tree + digital option when the price is reasonable.

 

I can carry the PDFs on my tablet. This allows me to read through sections on my lunch break or wherever I happen to be. The other advantage is the ability to search through the text.

 

Dead tree is a LOT better if you are sharing information. If you've got a group of people together and are trying to put together characters, it is a lot easier if you can hand them a book marked with the correct page to see if that fits what they are looking for. Even if all you are doing is co-GMing it can be helpful to have a dead tree version of the book.

 

PDFs work pretty well on most platforms. The exception tends to be the Kindle...their conversion to PDF has improved but still needs more work.

[Spence]

@bret - I also find dead tree MUCH better when I am putting together an adventure.  I can just flick back and forth to multiple pages.  PDF's and other e-media are excruciatingly painful to jump between pages if you want to reference more than just 2.  Bookmarking in a e-book is a thought, but by the time you have set them up I can have completed the entire project using dead tree.  

 

E-books are great for some purposes.  Mostly recreational reading.  But for serious work or even non-serious projects that need references, they are not good at all.  Most of the electronics guys I know that do actual hands on work HATE e-manuals.  Ever try to trace multiple signals through a 10 page schematic on a tablet or laptop?  Most of them print copies and tape them together so they can be done sometime this century.

[bigbywolfe]

I'm the exact opposite. Dead tree is my preference for recreational reading but when planning a game session at work nothing beats being able to flip between 3 or 4 PDFs.

[Spence]

I'm the exact opposite. Dead tree is my preference for recreational reading but when planning a game session at work nothing beats being able to flip between 3 or 4 PDFs.

 

Not trying to be antagonistic, but I really do not understand.

 

I have yet to find any PDF reader capable of allowing me to in under 30 seconds mark pages 14, 47, 56, table 5 all in Book A, Mark three pages in Book B and then quickly jump between the choices and add new location on the fly.     At most I can open the 2 books to one page each and flip back and forth.  And in one book you can bounce between two pages. 

 

Book mark menus are always clunky and take longer that just repeating searches.  I usually have a some index cards along and if I need additional information I only have to look for it once, drop in a mark and I have instant access for the rest for the session without a big delay.

 

If I could find a PDF reader that displayed a full page large enough to actually read and allowed me to jump between 7-8 pages as easily as I can with paper I'd be right on it.   

 

Do you know of a reader that does it?   I've been waiting for a decent reader for years.

[lou_tennant]

Not trying to be antagonistic, but I really do not understand.

 

I have yet to find any PDF reader capable of allowing me to in under 30 seconds mark pages 14, 47, 56, table 5 all in Book A, Mark three pages in Book B and then quickly jump between the choices and add new location on the fly.     At most I can open the 2 books to one page each and flip back and forth.  And in one book you can bounce between two pages. 

 

Book mark menus are always clunky and take longer that just repeating searches.  I usually have a some index cards along and if I need additional information I only have to look for it once, drop in a mark and I have instant access for the rest for the session without a big delay.

 

If I could find a PDF reader that displayed a full page large enough to actually read and allowed me to jump between 7-8 pages as easily as I can with paper I'd be right on it.   

 

Do you know of a reader that does it?   I've been waiting for a decent reader for years.

I agree Spence, I haven't yet found using PDFs during a game to be quick. I agree they are handy and you can carry all your books with you for very little weight. The other thing I find is that I want to be referencing one book, whilst my players would like to look up the spells in the Grimoire, or the Equipment in Gadgets & Gear - or whatever.

 

We don't all have readers either, but we can all pass books to one another.

 

I quite often use PDFs when prep'ing or character creation on my laptop (with a second screen attached), but whilst GM-ing or playing you can't beat a book - at least not that I am aware off.

 

Perhaps if everyone had a tablet and you had a local wireless network set-up you could share the PDFs whilst playing - but generally only a couple of us have laptops, let alone tablets, and laptops take up a lot of real estate on a dining table.

[bigbywolfe]

I can have my entire library open at once. That isn't possible with the number of physical books I have. As to bookmarks, I have never really needed them in a PDF.

[Spence]

I can have my entire library open at once. That isn't possible with the number of physical books I have. As to bookmarks, I have never really needed them in a PDF.

 

I'm still not following.  I can have multiple book open side by side and glance at multiple pages without putting down my pad or stopping to write. 

 

But regardless of how many file open on my device I can only look at one at a time unless I shrink the windows down, and then I spend mot of my time trying to maneuver the correct section of text into the window large enough to read.  I have never had more than one file at a time large enough to read on my tablet.  I mean I can have 20 books in a stack on the shelf, but that doesn't mean I can actually read anything till I open them.  Having 20 files open on a tablet or laptop doesn't mean I can actually read content in 2-3 of them. 

 

My question stems from simultaneous access to multiple pages and the ability to fast jump among 10 pages or more. 

 

Now if you are just saying that it is a matter of preference, than I understand and apologize if I seemed intent.  But I have been looking for years for a device that could actually emulate the ease of paper.  I have most of the books in PDF, I just generally only use them at my main PC where I have dual monitors and can have multiple books open and large enough to read at once. 

[Michael Hopcroft]

You will never get an electronic device that is just like paper. At the same time, e-books do some things paper books will never do -- especially if your space is limited. I can keep entire collections on my Nook (or whatever tablet eventually replaces it, as its getting up there) and I have enough PDFs on my external hard drive to stock a library.

 

But there might be another way. A few weeks ago it turned out that the Print-On-Demand book of OpenQuest (a variant on the BRP/RuneQuest d100 system) turned out to be in color. So Drive-Thru does do color hardcopies.

[PhantomGM2602]

Thankfully I've got CHAMPIONS COMPLETE on the day after Christmas at a discounted price. Dispite My sister saying that the rules are the same and I shouldn't waste my money on it. That's the simple minded thinking of some people who don't see the whole picture.

[bigbywolfe]

Of course it is a matter of preference.  I never implied otherwise.  As for the "device" I use, it's a computer.  If you find it easier to flip through 20 books on your shelf than to flip through 20 PDFs that baffles me, but I never argued it wasn't easier for you.  Heck, my original post said 

 

I'm the exact opposite. Dead tree is my preference for recreational reading but when planning a game session at work nothing beats being able to flip between 3 or 4 PDFs.

Note, I'm the opposite.  I wasn't trying to start an argument.  I prefer dead-tree for casual reading.  My initial cover-to-cover read through of any RPG will usually be the actual physical book.  But I almost always use 3 to 4 books when planning a game/making characters and the ability to have all 4 open and navigated with a click, to me is easier than finding room for 4 large hardcover books with a bunch of impromptu bookmarks shoved in each one. 

[Michael Hopcroft]

It would be nice to have a big enough monitor that I could safely open three PDFs, each in their own window, and HD or a similar chargen program in a fourth, for when I really need to get an NPC exactly right.

 

As it is, in a recent live online RPG I ran the game with Hangouts running on my main PC and the Nook handy for referring to the PDF. But the Nook only handles one PDF at a time and you can't hot-swap back and forth the way you can on a PC.