Hello folks! I wanted to get some responses from the community on something that I found a little odd. I hope that this stays a nice, open, friendly discussion as it is intended to be.

I personally don't see the appeal of PDF "books". Perhaps I'm old-fashoined, but to me there is nothing better than cracking open & pouring through a new tome. That being said, I have no problem with those who prefer PDF, nor do I feel that it's "wrong".

The odd thing that I'm referring to is the post on the home page announcing that the Black Crusade GM Kit is now available for download. Normally I pay no attention to PDF announcements, but I thought about this for a minute. I "get" that people like to buy the PDFs, but a GM Kit? Yes it has a book, but to me, the main reason to buy a GM Kit is the GM Screen! Obviously a heavy cardstock screen doesn't emerge from the computer when purchased, so I'm left wondering why anyone would bother to purchase this download when half of the product is a physical object that is arguably an almost essential addition to the game table. I tend to be overly analytical when I find something that appears (to me) to be illogical, so I look forward to the replies of the PDF crowd. Thanks guys!

Some people don't have the luxary of having enough players in there area to play in person so playing over the internet has become very common and being able to crack open a PDF of the screen on your computer may be handy for the GM if he's on the road especially.

I do agree though I like hard books better than PDF but use both depends on the occasion

For people with easy access to bulk printing, or the many various tablets out on the market, PDF's work great. They're a lot cheaper and, especially for products that don't need constant references, such as Into the Storm which is primarily just equipment and new stuff, it's little loss in ease of use but a large gain in savings.

As for the GM kit, I can agree it seems a odd thing. However, as someone who rarely uses gm screens, I imagine just printing out the reference pages and putting them in front of you gets much the same access to quick rule references, albeit without the obfuscating nature of a screen.

If you're using electronic books, you don't need a GM screen - the screen of your laptop can fulfill the same role. As the for GM Kit, it contains some optional rules re: Corruption and Infamy that are almost essential if you want to run a long-term game of Black Crusade. These are still useful for those running from a laptop.

PDF's have all sorts of uses, the most obvious of which is the text search. At our games we often have 1-2 PDF versions open (laptop/iPad), plus one or two copies of the main rulebook, plus any other books. PDF's are good for quick reference - opening it up, searching for something, or if you have various page numbers memorised quickly entering it in. I still like having the books - I have pretty much all the books in hard-copy - but I also have all the PDFs as they're just quicker and more convenient.

As far as the GM kit PDF goes, ok, yes, the screen as a PDF isn't all that useful. But still, having that little booklet as a PDF is nice.

BYE

I use PDF's almost exclusively. They are cheaper, I like the search function and I'm usually at my computer anyways when I'm making a character/adventure.

I don't like that I'm always stuck in front of a screen. I don't really have the freedom to plunk myself down anywhere I want to...like my big comfy living room chair. (I don't really have a good laptop). It's also nicer to have a book when you're actually at a game table. Those are the biggest draw-backs for me.

Really, cost is the number one factor for me. My group changes systems so often that if I bought a set of 60.00 books every 3 months, I'd go broke.

As far as the GM screen goes, I'd just print it out and glue it to card board, and laminate it (so you can make notes on it with erasable marker) and make my own GM screen.

HappyDaze said:

I hadn't considered that. It still wouldn't be any good for concealing dice, but I can see less of a "need" when you put it that way. I'm a longbeard; the idea of even having a computer at the table is weird to me! Thank you all!

Alpha Chaos 13 said:

I don't hide my dice. I'm one of those guys that rolls it all in the open and plays it straight. Yep, it's bit the players in the ass before, and yes it's sometimes forced me to alter the 'intended' storyline, but adapting to unforeseen outcomes is part of why I love roleplaying.

However, if you feel you must conceal dice, stick with a dice-roller program that you can pull up on the same laptop screen (good ones can be pinned to a margin so as to not obstruct much of your screen even when running).

HappyDaze said:

I find that preventing number-crunching enhances the narrative experience. If the players can see your rolls, the geekier ones will try to "reverse-engineer" the opponent/situation using the numbers they're getting. I'm also a firm believer in the importance of the story over the dice. As far a a dice roller program, that doesn't sound like much fun at all! The ominous click-clack-clatter of that critical roll hitting the table simply can't be replicated by a mouse click! Not to mention that lucky die that you only use for the important rolls. Some things just can't be replaced by a computer equivelant. Miniature wargaming would have died out twenty years ago, if that were the case!

Alpha Chaos 13 said:

Well there is a huge community for playing 40k online using vassal, but you kind of can't ever simulate the sheer amount of stuff you can do with miniatures in terms of painting, converting and the like. You can simulate dice rolls though, and it can actually be a lot more practical in some games which use complex rolling systems, if you have purpose built dicebots.

Well, to each their own. I just find it a sad state of affairs when roleplayers don't even roll dice anymore.

Yeah. All those larpers, freeformers and unconventional rule system users and their unwillingness to roll dice... Ruining the hobby!

Personally, I let people play how they like. I find dice no more intrinsic to this hobby than I do the Dex stat or Deadlands use of cards. All things evolve, and as someone who'd be rather uninterested in first edition DnD's pure focus on dungeon crawls and monster looting over any actual ROLE playing, I'm more than content with that development.

Reverend mort said:

Hm. Well spoken.

The main thing I use PDFs for is grabbing only the sheets I want to bring with me, even if I print them out. Lugging a boxful of books isn't fun when they're all hardcover and manually transcribing is a waste of time. It also lets me copy and paste into a concise set of GM notes (mileage on that varies by PDF though). It also makes it a bit easier to keep track of what was faced then. Then again, I can accomplish the same thing with my all-in-one printer/scanner/copier as it's only ever a few pages I'll need.

It also doesn't force me to show my hand as to what supplements I'm using at the moment. When you have a group where players might have the books, this can be important if you're trying to maintain some level of suspense of the characters not knowing what they are facing.

That said, the FFG 40k books are indeed ones to I love to just read. They're a "bit" hard to read on the smaller screen of most dedicated e-book readers so I usually buy the hard copy.

I like how people say that the PDF is better for quick reference. If you do not know how to read an index, or glossary, then yes, it would be a lot faster, if you do have these elementary skills however, than you may be saving approximately 20 seconds. And the purpose of a GM screen is quick reference in addition to hiding dice rolls. I believe that the purpose of putting all that information in a searchable PDF is redundant.

GlockwarrioR said:

That would be true for most games, but FFG is notoriously bad when it comes to indexes or glossaries. It's better to not use the indexes in the 40k rpfgs imo.

Jackal_Strain said:

FFG is hardly unique in that respect. Getting a good index together is rather hard though.