FatPob said:

Everyone in my DH game save one player owns a DH Core and an Inq Handbook.... My group never left those days behind. Heck I buy multiple copies for extras at the table. I own 3 DH 3 Inq books just for that same game. In case someone leaves their copy, or has theirs damaged.

But I do agree that less and less often do I find new gamers for my group who have the same willingness to buy into a system just to play in our group.

However, I must chime in on the comment about gamers past.... Wow, really? You have played with GMs who did not want you to own the books? Yeouch!

Alexis

*smiles*

ItsUncertainWho said:

It's easy to be a tad judgemental here. We considered it poilte—that is all and nothing more than that. There could have been materials in the book that the GM didn't want us to read (imagine reading the Referee's Guide in the Traveller universe and spoiling an intricate plot based around Grandfather), a part of the character generation that they had home brewed but was meant to be a surprise ("Hang on! That thing that I've been doing means that I'm a demi-god. Cool!"), or any of a number of other things. (This doesn't mean that the group was inclined towards metagaming. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was just a case of anything to keep the suspension as high as possible and for as long as possible.) Generally speaking, however, since the GM would always like a break, especially in a setting that they were fond of themselves, this was just a way of saying, "Hey, I love what you're doing with the game. So much, in fact, that I'm wanting to buy and run it myself. You're doing a great job, though, and they're your books, so I wouldn't want to stand on your toes."

Of course, there was nothing to stop you from buying the book and not telling anyone about it if you were so inclined. We just had... a bit more respect and appreciation for the chap or lady on the other side of the GM screen to run rough-shod. Not saying that buying a game is disrepectful or that it cannot serve its purpose (good for crunchy games where you've got to look up rules all the time, as we did with multiple copies of AD&D ). Just that it served as a polite notifier to the other players, the GM, and ensured that everyone knew what was going on... and if the GM wanted a bit more time to resolve a plot issue, they could equally politely request that you hold off for a while. Everyone had a bit of time to think about what they wanted, whether something else was to be done in the interim, blah blah blah.

Different groups, different deals. I couldn't imagine being told "120 point buy, level 4, max. fate, max. money, go create your character," would be a particularly engaging experience, but that seems to be the norm over on Dark Reign (as I have observed anyway). I find that a particularly bland and uninspiring way to create a character, yet other people seem to find it a fun way to go. (On the other hand, just creating a character in a specific setting for the fun of it? That's something that I used to love to do until I ran into the problem of having far too much to put into a single day.)

Oh, and MILLANDSON, that eventuality would be the "other possibilities." Seriously, there are many reasons that people all might not be able to own a copy of the book, and being "really into RPGs" isn't just the only one. Just as there were "other possibilities."

Kage

Cailieg said:

Probably so that there could not be any "rules lawyers" at the table to question the DM.

Regardless, the group that I game with does all have their own copies... except for one person that lives a "double life".

He basically parties during the weekends and would never let his "other" group of friends know that he was really into RPG's because "that's not cool, man!". I consider the people that I game with more than just associates/fellow gamers, but friends... especially if we have been gaming together for more than 1 year (current group is 3 years). To think that someone in my group would only say "hi" to me when they passed me on the street ONLY if they weren't with other said group of friends, I found to be very fake indeed. But I must digress...

SpawnoChaos said:

If you have rules lawyer come up every second or so telling you, you do this and that wrong then fire the rules lawyer.

Iif rule lawyer says to you in private your dming sucks cause you never follow rules and just makes the game boring, then follow the rule lawyer he may be trying to help.

If a Dm says I own the rule book and you should fall in line, tell the guy he is a bad GM and find another one. Seriously.

If that guy passes by you and does not say hi, yell at him that he is a duche to have sacrificied is girly elf like that last game and that you may not reinvite him for being such a bigot. I mean come on he either respects you guys and himself or he is geek in the closet?

Cailieg said:

Well, back when I was playing D&D 3.0, and oWoD, there were certain books that the GM preferred that the players not have. Things like the Dungeon Master's Guide or the Monster Manual for D&D, and mainly Story Teller supplements for WoD. These books would possibly give the players information that would lead to a lot of bad mettagaming, which I'm sure we can all agree is rather annoying sometimes. Only certain people could be trusted to have that information, like someone who would occasionally run another game, and who the GM could count on not to use that metagaming knowledge. While you didn't -have- to ask to get the book, it was considered good manners. I've noticed with time the notion of not knowing stuff like that, has decreased in popularity. With all of the power gaming, and use of out of character information in character. Things like knowing the intimate details of creatures that they have never met, and that hasn't been written about due to the creature being rare and too dangerous. Or knowing suddenly what someone is going to do, when that information probably should have gotten them killed.

Personally, I'll pick some kind of module that I know no one in my group knows about, or just create everything from scratch if I have players like that. However, it makes my job so much harder when I have to figure out what everyone knows, and then try to create something with those same base rules that they don't know about. I'll change specifications of a monster they think they know inside and out, and watch them fume at having everything wrong. They will argue with me that the creatures don't do that, and I just say "well, they do in my world". I'll change large parts of the story of a module, just to screw with people that think they know what's going on. When they try to use that metagaming knowledge they quickly find out, that they're getting killed when they shouldn't be.

In my groups, sometimes everyone would have the base players guide, some of the players didn't due to very low funds. Then, most likely our player with the most money would have a lot of the supplements that we wanted to use. Other players would get their favorite supplements, while the GM would get the setting specific books that would help them run the games. Unlike the main players guide that everyone needed, we mostly only had one copy of the supplements, and not even every supplement, only the ones that the whole group agreed upon. The GM also had the right to ban some supplements from play, maybe they just didn't like one for their specific game, or it gave some kind of overpowered option, or just one they disliked. If you then bought said book, it would be rather useless and a bit of a waste of money to have when it isn't used.

So, while I liked having the books back in the day, being able to thumb through them whenever I needed. When I started gaming, PDF RPG books was a thing of the future however. Now however, the ease of the PDFs makes having the book forms kind of obsolete. I know there are some out there that would prefer to have the book, and I can understand that sentiment, but things are changing quite considerably with the introduction of technology. I'd rather lug my laptop to a game, with all of the books I will need; rather than picking eight books with most likely 100-200 pages plus each, and lugging those to the game. The sheer weight of the books, not to mention the amount of space they take up is just annoying. More upon the amount of space they take up, what happens when a new version comes out, or your group moves onto a new game? You now have multiple books that will just sit upon your shelf for years, until you come back to that game, which may or may not actually happen.

Would I rather save money on something that I will not use for a long time? Yes, yes I would. I might be a bit of a tight wad, but if I can't see myself using something a lot and for a long time, I don't feel like spending quite as bit of money upon it. With how many different games I've played over the years, skipping about with whatever the game group wanted to play, or what games I'd find online, I just don't see myself playing the same game years down the line. While I have played a few games that lasted more than a year, the books still become obsolete at some point.

In conclusion, I believe that people who are not going to run the game, should not own Game Master material, unless I have specifically said that I can trust them with such. I also believe that the cheaper PDF saves me money on something that I don't see using five or so years down the line. I could buy two PDF books for the price of one hardback book in most cases, or at least close to. Now, these are just my preferences, but it has become rather apparent that others share these views. So, I felt that I should share my reasoning behind such, that others who don't share such ideals might understand them better.

SpawnoChaos said >>>

Probably so that there could not be any "rules lawyers" at the table to question the DM.

That could have been a part of it, but since we didn't have any rules lawyers and people didn't really care if they knew the rules or not... No, it was more the politeness angle. Oh, and at the time we were all much, much younger and didn't have the money to spend on a book when there was one already and, if we needed a section we could just photocopy it. Not that it happened. As long as we had a character sheet you could generally make a sense of it to be informed as to the rough shape of the system (it's not rocket science) but... We never felt that was more important than characterisation, get into the roles, etc.

Again, different experiences and all that. It worked for us and had absolutely nothing to do whether we were into RPGs or not. It merely wasn't necessary. Now with PDF and connectivity? It still wouldn't be necessary. (And, no, I'm not advocating piracy.)

Inquisitor Soldevan said >>>

If a Dm says I own the rule book and you should fall in line, tell the guy he is a bad GM and find another one. Seriously.

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying here. Are you saying that if there is a polite agreement that if a GM is running a game that the players don't start buying the source material without "permission." If you cannot see how this might be relevant, then... Well, fair enough. This isn't a passive-aggressive insult, but we had the "misfortune" to be playing with some annoyingly smart individuals—people who should have been strangled at birth to give less mortals like myself a chance at getting some good grades. Any ideas that were derived from the setting hints that were in sections of the book could ruin the game in a depressingly short period of time. Thus, as stated above, it was merely a way of elongating the period of enhanced suspension.

If another player wanted to GM for the setting, though? As above, we considered it polite to let the GM know about it. After all, a player does need the book for most, if not all, game systems. I find it more surprising that people are more surprised. I guess it's a function of the "immediacy" thing once again, so it's sort of related to the thread.

Kagra said >>>

While you didn't -have- to ask to get the book, it was considered good manners.

Ah, someone understands. As I mentioned previously, it was considered good form to ask, but you didn't have to. That act would have been considered somewhat gauche , though.

Kagra said >>>

When they try to use that metagaming knowledge they quickly find out, that they're getting killed when they shouldn't be.

I personally rather enjoyed how we used the metagame. Not for player-character metagame, but normally GM-story/character metagame. We were all familiar with each other, having gamed together for years, so you could often slip in a bit of metagame that you knew applied to the player into the game. Similarly, you could comfortably metagame perceptual information (what the characters would have known by the players merely assumed ) without them whining because it enhanced their experience of the game.

Kagra said >>>

Now however, the ease of the PDFs makes having the book forms kind of obsolete.

Nooooo!!! Books are never going to be obsolete, I hope, if for no other reason that we should learn from the lesson the UK "high tech" digitisation of the Magna Carta (or was it the Domesday Book?) and the subsequent storage on laser disc. Eventually they couldn't access the laser disc, but thankfully they had this big paper thing.

With that said, I'm a fan of the use of technology to enhance the game experience. As someone that can only get involved in online gaming, it just helps to have everything to hand. On the other hand, there's a group that I want to find the time to game with in real life...? I'm still going to take my netbook or tablet with me loaded with all my purchased game materials. I would imagine that I'm not going to need them, and I'm not going to try and foist my desire to use one supplement over another on the GM (that would be gauche , again) but... Well, I would be going to a gaming group that uses my system of choice (and where I'm seemingly a clone of the GM, if you're to believe what he says), so that's not surprising. On the other hand? I would have my doubts if my measure of how "into RPG" I was is based on my going out to buy the books.

Kagra said >>>

Now, these are just my preferences, but it has become rather apparent that others share these views. So, I felt that I should share my reasoning behind such, that others who don't share such ideals might understand them better.

Thanks. The more information the merrier, I say.

Kage

I am really surprised by all the people who say their entire group has copies of the game, and people say they have multiple copies of the game.

I have been gaming with the same group for over 25 years. Sure people have come and others have left, but the core of us still play together. We usually have a new player join for a few years, and then someone will leave, move out of the area. We also have 1 guy who flies over once a year to play a 10+ hour mammoth session.

Sure I have run games for strangers at Expos etc, and yes some people would have a copy of the game, but out of 8 players this would be 2-3 tops.

In our group, as someone mentioned above we all tend to buy different systems and GM the system we have bought. Also I can testify to back in our gaming past it was courtesy to ask the GM if it was ok to buy a copy of the system/game book.

We also used to have a subs for books scheme, but used the money to buy beer and kebabs instead - which is a much better short-term investment.

The upshot is, maybe some players may get a pdf copy, but unless the game really ticks every box for the player, they are extremely unlikely to buy another copy.

FatPob said:

Money is one big factor; another is if a clique of gamers plays a few number of systems/setting a lot or whether different gamers buy many different products to run as GM with the effect that more different systems are tried.

Alex

Generally I will encourage my players to buy their own core books, I make the initial purchase, but if we keep playing it it seems only fair that they do a little chipping in from time to time since I'm spending time setting up games, buy the books and so on. Most GM's who collect a setting (I know for one I can get a little OCD about that) will spend 2,3 or even 500 bucks on a setting just to get the feeling of being able to do what ever it is that they want to do and then still sporadically buy new updates. In a case like that also having wear and tear of my core book (and yes I sometimes buy 2) seems a little meh as it an added expense. In my WFRPGv3 group we even had a few of the players pitch in with all the expansions and so on, buy dice that got added to the communial pool ect.

Which all goes to show that groups are going to vary in terms of purchasing power, desires to purchase, and so on. I could certainly see how PDF sales might negatively impact on a group that buys more than one book since, while not kosher, I can imagine most GMs just sharing the PDF with the players.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

Thus my suggestion to offer a bundle of one hardcopy and several pdfs.

Alex

SpawnoChaos said:

If arguing over the rules is an issue, use the Paranoia method. Knowledge of the rules is above your security clearance, you have committed treason against our Friend the Computer. IntSec forces are coming to have a "chat" with you. Have a nice day!

But seriously, I can see the merits of only one copy, and the issues of it. In a game like DH/RT/DW, I would say each player really does need a copy on hand, as flipping around to figure out what you can spend xp on per rank, etc.

Besides, a decent rule of thumb is not to pull enemies straight out of the book, but to modify them slightly, to keep the players on their toes.

As far as the PDF desires go, I personally see it as being too much a piracy risk to do a simultaneous release. Also, I do not defend piracy, nor do I simply accept the notion that "its going to happen anyway." Its still stealing, and it is still wrong. If the group is unable to acquire a legal copy of the book, then the group really shouldn't be playing the game.

ak-73 said:

Money plays one part in it, but I believe the latter parts of this sentence really nail down the crux of why my gaming group in particular buys the books. We play primarily one setting/system at any given time, and we will usually ride that game over and again. And in my group I am the lone wolf of a GM, no one else really enjoys running for groups. My wife runs some solo games for me, but group wise, I am it. Thus I believe this to play a part in why my group has the books for each player and then extras.

I am also a consummate rpg bibliophile. I buy **** near every RPG book that even remotely interests me in the least. If I like the system or it stirs my imagination I buy it all. Rifts for example can provide me endless hours of imagination percolation though I am highly unlikely to ever run or play it I have bought every Rifts book there is.

I have found myself in groups primarily composed of gamers similar to me since I was young; as I believe most of us have. This also I imagine plays a large part, what type of gamer do you associate yourself with. Not that any one type is superior, but I have known in my time gamers who buy everything and gamers who buy nothing. So gamer type does to some small extent play a part I think.

I began gaming back before Dungeons and Dragons was Dungeons and Dragons. I started with Chainmail and The Dark Tower with my parents as a child. And I understand the sentiment about not wanting source material to be read by the players. Asking your players not to buy GM supplements goes generally without saying, but I have never been put in a situation where I had to ask someone not to do so, nor would I. What they spend their money on is not mine to choose, and if their interest has grown to that point; then all the more power to them, perhaps they are nearly ready to try running a game.

Perhaps the other side of the coin is why I have trouble understanding the sentiment. I have been running since I was old enough to by my parents estimation and ran my first game at 9 years old for a group of adults. Thus have I always been encouraged by my friends and or family to have as many game books as possible as I have always been in the "gming" loop or in most cases been the only GM.

Anyway, great conversation with wonderful people is a nice way to start the day, have a great one chaps, I am off to read my Deathwatch copy that I actually managed to land by miracle.

Alexis

*smiles*

ak-73 said:

So, one hardcopy of GW with, say, several PDF copies of it and the idea that the GM can "loan" at those fully licensed copies? That would make sense if there was dedicated software to restrict that (sort of like SonicStage's limitation for their MP3s that you could put three copies of a song onto separate devices, but you couldn't put any more until you had "checked them back in"). One imagines that it is do-able, but expensive? Might need a bit more technology before that becomes feasible...?

As to the "piracy" issue on simultaneous release, I'm not really sure that is an issue. Sure, it means that a pirate is going to have to do a little bit of work, but that's the same with a hard copy (scanning or whatever) or PDF (stripping out watermark) or, if you're getting old school, just photocopying the darned thing. Pirates aren't going to pay for it and honest people are. It really is that simple. Some honest people want the hardcopy, others want the PDF, and others still want both, and all want to pay for it. They are, after all, honest. Pirates don't want to pay for it, just as a burglar doesn't want to pay for the copy that they half-inch from your house along with your other expensive items. They are, after all, dishonest.

Acknowledging the fact that piracy is going to happen is just that: an acknowledgement. It is not a support of it, but it does acknowledge the process . What I mean by this is the methods that are employed. It is my understanding from people that I know have dubious copies of the BI version of DH that this was available within 2 weeks of the public release of the game. The individuals in question led me to believe that this is not unusual for pirated game materials when there is an interest in the "pirate community" to see that product. Thus, the argument that simultaneous release is an act to prevent piracy is, at least according to the information that I have to hand, not particularly strong. It acts to delay it by a matter of weeks (again, if the claims of these individuals are correct).

One imagines that it goes something along the lines of:

1. Hard copy is released.
2. Honest people that want the hard copy buy it; honest people that want a PDF are SoL.
3. Pirate acquires hard copy and scans it. Unless they're willing to disassemble the book, one imagines that this would make it hard to read with a substantial file size. (This observation is based upon photocopying of chapters from books when at college/university [darkened edges, curved text, blurriness at the edges], and when an archaeological report that had been prepared in the 90s was scanned into PDF [file size was humongous, oh and we owned the copyright BTW!].)
4. Pirated copy is made available.
5. Pirates (dishonest) download book, complain about the quality but since they're fundamentally being dishonest, they continue to use the book despite the poor quality.
6. Honest people may be tempted to download "just to check it out." Result: They're not not as honest as they claimed and the keep it (FFG doesn't get paid); they're honest, like the game and decide to buy the hard copy (FFG gets paid); or they're somewhere in between this two opposites insofar as they keep the PDF and order the hard copy so that they can have both without double-paying (FFG gets paid for 1 item), or they keep the PDF until the official one becomes available (FFG get paid for 1 item).
7. Time passes.
8. PDF is released on DTRPG (etc.).
9. Honest people that wanted the PDF (including those that have the hard copy) buy it. Result: FFG gets paid.
10. Dishonest people that want the game and don't want to pay for it, don't. Result: FFG doesn't get paid (but they weren't going to get paid from these people since they are dishonest).

Again, please don't misunderstand or misrepresent what I'm saying, so let me repeat an important point: piracy is wrong . I am not supporting or otherwise advocating it. What I am talking about is the choice to honestly buy the materials in a media that works for you if that option is available, i.e. the company supports the production of PDF (note that support of PDF is not the same as making your entire product range available in PDF).

What the above illustrates it that honest people are going to pay the product. People who want the hard copy will pay for it, just as people that want the PDF will also pay for it (and some will double pay). People that want the PDF will have to wait, of course, and in the interim may be tempted to have a look at a pirated copy. It doesn't make it any less wrong, but in the long run it would be akin to a library having a copy of the book. They have a gander at it and, if they like it, will buy it. If they don't like it, they'll return it to the library and that is that.

Non-simultaneous release therefore implies marketing strategy (get people that might swing both ways to buy the hard copy and maybe increase the chance later on that they'll double-buy) or marketing limitations (read: GW). That it acts as a measure to prevent piracy seems to be little more than smoke and mirrors. After all, it can be argued (and I'm not saying this makes it right!) that piracy in this case actually serves as another form of advertisement ( ).

Kage

Cailieg said:

If it helps, I'm exactly the same. Admittedly, it takes a bit more to capture my interest in recent years, but that may be more a product of the idea that I have moved away from my gaming groups (into another country, to boot).

With that said, perhaps "permission" was the wrong term to use, or one that has been overtly jumped on. I think, however, subsequent posts illustrated how and why it worked (for us, if no one else).

Kage

Kage2020 said:

Yeah that's what I meant. I am a bibliophile too!

But on the other hand having 2+ copie of core book sis usually a big time server, I am just thinking about a priest and the wizard swapping to book around for hours with the GM, while the warriors slept off half the game.

Well the whole consumer power thing is something that when you look at it seems to have changed over the last few years. Not too long ago this seemed to be a uni past time with most players in their early twenties, a few kids and a few grognards. It seems to have changed now, more kids, but also a lot more adults, basically the guys that where in uni have now grown up and are employed (hopefully) and have more money to spare and the kids whos parents are ready to spend money on something that keeps their kids interested in reading and not sitting infront of the computer. So in my little part of the world it seems that we the hobby skipped a generation that was absorbed by mmos.

crisaron said:

Well, this of course assumes that everyone is working on a character at the same time. I can certainly see why in certain systems they would be advantageous, but as argued herein a book is a luxury anyway so it is not necessary.

(On the other hand, chalk one up to the usefulness of a PDF.)

Kage

Alpha Omega (MindStorm Lab games) uses a systems of .pdf.

It's okay, but most of my friends find the laptop annoying during game sessions lol!

On the other end they also offer the best alternative, Bundle packs, e.i. By 3 core books, the Creature book and get free pdf copie, and a free quest for a discount over that. Add more core book, the discount gets bigger.

FFG could probably do something like that to stimulate group buys.

Kage2020 said:

Well, I have never bought an ebook so I don't know the usual procedure. I would guess one might be able to buy a set number of passwords or whatever to be able to download the different copies. 10 euros per additional pdf copy perhaps? With the added benefit of players being tired of having to lead through a pdf file to find what they want or having to turn on the PC, etc. and finally decide to buy that **** core rulebook as a hard copy.

10 euros isn't much at all though and one will have to do the math if that would hurt more than help or if one could get away with a much higher price than that.

It was just a basic idea and I don't feel the desire to work out the details whether that bundling strategy could be made to work business-wise or not. Same with the other musings in here about pdf vs hardcopy and release dates. It's not my company and since I wouldn't let anyone tell me how to run mine if I had one, I won't tell anyone how to run theirs.

I might state how I see things, what I like and don't like but in the end it's not my company. :-) Therefore not my problem either. ;-)

Alex

My bad. Just continuing the discussion. Err, I guess... *twiddles thumbs* Hmmn. Right. Back to another forum.

Kage

Just to dredge this one up from the forum's depths...

I've spoken about the subject of the thread today with a friend who recently finished her job training as a printer. She noted that for books of FFG's quality (she used quite a lot of interesting words here, half of which I forgot and the other half I have no idea how to translate to English), there's a pretty huge fixed cost up-front that has to be distributed between the books. More PDFs sold means less books, resulting in either more expensive books or FFG losing money - which they are less than enthusiastic about.

Most likely, the PDF will appear once they break even with the fixed costs.

Catalyst Game Labs - the makers of BattleTech - usually release all their products in PDF form months before the 'dead tree' version hits shelves. They've even started doing PDF-exclusive products that are only available in PDF, and these two particular PDF series have just taken off, selling more than they thought they would.

Now, FFG PDF's, as we've seen from the non-web quality versions, are f***ing massive, but a web-quality version for 1/2 to 2/3rds the price of the print version, going on sale the day the print version is released (or a little bit before) would not be beyond their capabilities. I think it would be a good idea. I know I'd buy both (searchable PDF's are very useful).

BYE

H.B.M.C. said:

However, since about $800k of Catalyst's money has been disappearing over the last 5 years (around half or so of the money they've been making) has disappeared, allegedly into the pockets of Catalyst's boss, I would generally suggest that they don't have the best accountants in the world (given they didn't notice the missing money until this year), so whether that's a good PDF policy for making money or not is unclear.

Kage2020 said:

The key thing is to choose to not accept this as a simple fact, and find a way to screw the dishonest people, without screwing the honest people.