I've mentioned before that I cut my gaming teeth on AD&D 1e. I stuck with that to the day AD&D 2e released - because newer is better, right? That all being said, I mostly stuck to 1e adventures when I ran something that was prepackaged. Nothing came close to moving me to 2e adventures until I found Haunted Halls of Eveningstar (2e).

Frog God Games has a Bundle of Awesome going on for the Holidays. Its in PDF and comes in at three levels.

For a buck (you can't even buy a cup of coffee for a buck these days) you get:

Swords & Wizardry Complete Rulebook
Bill Webb's Book of Dirty Tricks
The Black Monastery
Quests of Doom
Cults of the Sundered Kingdoms
Grimmsgate

Holy shit! That is super awesome! Its also a steal. I'll pretend I didn't see it. Because stealing is wrong.

Now, for Eight bucks you can add in:

Rappan Athuk
Against Tsathogga
 Cyclopean Deeps 1-2
1975 

Yes, you read that right. Rappan Athuk for $8. I'll wait for a moment as you digest that.

If you hit 15 bucks, you add the following to all of the proceeding:

Mother of All Treasure Tables 
Splinters of Faith 1-10

Shit. At this point you can all fund your own OSR Christmas!  ;)

Seriously, if you can scrape up a buck, go in at the basic level for this bundle. You seriously can't beat the value. You can't beat the other values either, but a single buck? Holy shit!
                                                                                           

Remember yesterday's 99 cent Print sale from Troll Lord Games?

Pretty much same sale, but now in PDF

About 40 titles in all. The pic is just a sample.

So, if you missed out on yesterday's Print sale, here's the PDF sale in all of its glory.

As I sit at my desk, justifying not shoveling snow by the mere fact that there are over 16" already on the ground and up to a foot more to come (thereby, why bother?) I found a reviewer's coupon for the latest edition of Traveller from Mongoose. Not to be confused with the 97 other editions and flavors, both old and new. Then I saw the price of the PDF.

$29.99

For less than 250 pages of rules.

With no mention if you get that credited in whole or in part when the POD releases in April.

Of course, Classic Traveller was offered recently on Bundle of Holding for what? $8.95?

Now, Traveller5 is $34.95 in PDF. It also clocks in at over 750 pages. It's a mess from what I recall after perusing the rules, but often the only yardstick for PDFs is page count.

Then there is the free Traveller SRD.

Oh wait, did I mention that those that paid for the Beta of the new Traveller and were promised discount codes apparently didn't get them? Oh, and it wasn't that folks turned of OBS notifications. It was a screw up.

You know what? You can get a damn complete PDF collection of the Classic Traveller RPG, rules, supplements and adventures for $35 from FFE on CD.

So, 30 bucks for a set of rules or 35 bucks for a lifetime worth of gaming, all in PDF. Damn, tough question.

At what point is a PDF too expensive?

For me, under 5 bucks is often an impulse buy, 10 and under needs some serious thought but if there's good word of mouth I'm in. 15 get's shaky. 30 bucks is on par with ridiculous, especially if the PDF isn't included for free with a print bundle.

Maybe it's me. Maybe 30 bucks for a rulebook in PDF for what should be what the print copy will sell for discounted on Amazon (if it ever steps away from POD) is the new normal. Hell, I feel dirty even considering grabbing the free reviewer's copy at that price.

What do you think? What's the point where your PDF impulse buying turns off? What's the PDF price point where you refuse to cross?

Apparently DriveThruRPG is 10 years old. I remember the days when DTRPG and RPGNow were separate companies.

In any case, they are offering two distinct $10 bundles, each with over $150 worth of RPG PDFs.

Bundle One includes the following:

Traveller 2300 AD (never played this as much as I would have liked to back in the day, although this is the Mongoose Traveller version))

Adventure! (a pulp game from Onyx Path)

Book of Monster Templates (for Pathfinder)

Classic Spycraft: Spycraft Espionage Handbook (tempting)

Don't Lose Your Mind (Evil Hat)

Firefly Echoes of War: Friends in Low Places (it's Firefly)

SHADOWRUN DIGITAL TOOLS BOX (yes, it's in all caps)

The Imperial Age: True20 Edition (holy shit! it's for True20 - this may get me buying the bundle on this alone)

Wild Talents 2nd Edition (i've heard a lot of good about the system)

Xcrawl Core Rulebook (Goodman Games)

Bundle 2 link here

I've asked this question in the past, but as the RPG market is constantly adjusting (and tablets as electronic book readers are really finding their own these days) and my readership is significantly higher than it was a year ago (both on the blog side and the G+ side) I figured this was as good a time as any to ask that perennial question:

PDF, Paper or Both?

Me, I'm firmly in the "both" category. If I had it my way, every paper product produced for RPGs would come with a "no cost" "vanilla" PDF. Why? I do one hell of a lot of my RPG reading on a tablet and it irks me to no end to have to buy the same thing in two different formats twice.

Why do I want my PDFs to be "vanilla" or plain? It's easier on the eyes when I read it on the screen. It's also way more economical if I want to print out a few pages for use at the table if they aren't saturated with color ink. Besides, saturated pages bleed and wrinkle and often don't read as well as a "vanilla" page.

Yes, I want my dead tree book AND I want my convenient electronic copy. You got a problem with that?  Heh.

So, where do you fall?

PDF?

Paper?

Both?

Other?

Yep, I'm waiting on the delivery of my Kindle Fire today. Well, technically I'm at work and my son is waiting for the delivery, as he is off today, but lets not split hairs.

I'm hoping this is a viable and affordable alternative to the iPad. I love my iPad, but carrying a $800 piece of electronics on the NYC Transit System is probably the choice of fools. Carrying a $200 piece of electronics on the NYC Transit System is probably also foolish, but $600 less foolish ;)

I want to see how well the Kindle Fire handles my PDF collection. More tonight.

I just started reading the latest RPGNow.com newsletter. Sean Fannon (he who writes it) often has some nice thoughts he puts down on paper but this one has some priceless thoughts on e-book publishing. One piece really sticks out to me:

Forget pirates. Seriously. Forget about them entirely. There is NO percentage in wasting any time on the matter. Any stringent efforts you make to combat pirates will only serve to annoy and drive away your legitimate customers. The music industry first proved all of this for us, and our own experiences have born the truth out utterly. Measures that do not impact your customer experience in any way are reasonable; anything else hurts more than helps. The most important truth here is that legitimate customers WANT to be legitimate customers; pirates are NOT lost sales. :: end quote

I wonder if WotC will ever see things in this light?

Well, the future Mrs. Tenkar is grounded for at least the next two weeks.  Which means I need to find an RPG that is entertaining to read, easy to comprehend and works well in a small group (or even one on one).

Sure, I put her thru a Tunnels & Trolls solo last year (I ran it like a one on one type adventure) and she had fun, but didn't have a grasp of the rules.  I figure now is a perfect time to find an RPG that she can check out in her abundant free time.  PDF format is a bonus, as she enjoys using her iPad to read.

Open for suggestions.

Heck, I might even own some of the ones you might suggest.

I'm a huge advocate of PDFs and electronic books in general (as long time readers of this blog should remember). I love me some PDFs. Read great, less filling (of my storage space).

PDFs have been a slowly evolving method of publishing, as it's strength (the ability to replicate a printed book) has also been it's weakness (in general, it does little to do more then replicate a printed book).

Greg from Dark Horse Publishing has been pushing the envelope with his latest - The Aqualii Temple. It's not remarkable because of it's content, it remarkable because of the way that content is presented. The illusion of the "click and pop up" feature is the first I've seen of it, and its a novel approach at adventure presentation. As I've said in the past, this method seems ideally suited for solo adventures.

I'm waiting on the print copy of Zak's Vornheim to arrive, as I find the PDF difficult to read. My interest in punk rock was limited to the Ramones, this seems more like the Sex Pistols. I'm hoping the print version brings it all together. There does seem to be some really good ideas about running city adventures buried in all the noise. Damn you Fins! Move my mail!

I ask this, because WotC is apparently planning to release less 4e products. At the same time, if you look at the Underdark Gazette blog, OSR products are being released more often then ever before. Heck, even Tunnels & Trolls has been hitting a release or so a month recently (I'll be doing a mini-review on the latest tonight).

Is there a sweet point? Is more always better? Is a line that is suffering cuts (4e) being trimmed to a healthy state, or is this the beginning of the end?

The hobby suffered from the D20 Implosion in the recent past. Can it prevent the same from happening again?

One plus that rarely gets mentioned about PDFs, and even Print on Demand (PoD) publishing, is that neither will fuel another D20 Implosion - there won't be a glut on gamestore shelves. Then again, with a switch to PDF and PoD publishing, there won't be many games at all on gamestore shelves.

Is the future of the RPG industry linked to the internet for good or ill?

RPGs are an area where PDF publishing thrives. It lowers the barriers to publishing and can (in theory) result in lower consumer prices. Still, many folks prefer paper. Lets see how they stack up to each other.

Cost - PDF versions are generally the cheaper alternative, which is always a selling point.

Portability - Depends on what you read your PDFs on. An iPad, tablet or ebook reader can store hundreds of PDFs and are extremely portable. So can your desktop, but that isn't very portable.

Marking Up - While there are programs and applications that allow one to mark up PDFs, it's easier and quicker to mark up / make notes on a paper copy.

Bathroom Reading - Paper. It just doesn't seem right having my iPad in there. Besides, reading in the tub is definitely a paper situation. Less to risk with accidental immersion.

Ease of Flipping Thru - Unless the PDF is well bookmarked, it's way easier to flip thru a paper copy then a PDF copy.

Less Tangibles - You can throw a book across the room in disgust with generally less damage then you can an iPad or laptop. PDFs are much easier to make backup copies of. Some people just prefer the feeling of a book. PDFs take up much less storage space. PDFs can be corrected by the publisher, paper books may get an errata sheet.

I'm sure there's more to add to the list...

James over at Grognardia has a Petty Gods Project that he is seeking submissions for.  It's a pretty cool project, and I'm thinking about a Petty Junior Deity or two myself.

How do you make a cool project even cooler? When Dan of Labyrinth Lord fame offers free (art enhanced) PDFs of the same to contributors to the Petty Gods Project.  Damn sweet offer.  Get off your butts and be petty folks!

Shadow, Sword & Spell: Basic is an RPG set of rules for Humanistic Fantasy roleplaying.  In simplest terms, it means a game without elves, dwarves, hobbits and gnomes (actually, gnomes are missing from more then this set of rules, but that's an old issue).

I've just started digging thru the rules (as you can see, I'm digging thru a whole slew of rules at the moment... I need to focus).  The 12 degree system seems workable (after reading a handful of pages for opposed rolls, but I'm not sure how useful degrees of succes will be outside of combat, as an "impressionistic" approach is suggested (DM fiat or just wing it).

It looks like it should be a quick and enjoyable read.  Hopefully I can get it done before the end of the month and post a short review on it.  I am curios as to why this is "Basic", as it infers an Expert or Advanced edition.  Eh, just me picking nits again it seems.

In the meantime, here's the blurb from RPGNow.

In Shadow, Sword & Spell: Basic, you create a character embarking on an adventuring career. Some event or desire, drives you to thumb your nose at your lot in life and seek out a destiny of your choosing. Society holds no bounds for you and you choose the life you want to live. Why should the only wealthy be wealthy? Why should only the baron own his own land? You want that — and more — and by Azathoth’s Radiance, you will!

In Basic, your character adventures and grows, becoming not only stronger, but more influential. Over time, a character can acquire not only wealth but power. Your influence and fame enables you to command armies, rule a kingdom, influence society — but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Basic gets you to this point, if you survive it…

Seems like Supers have been all the rage this summer (wait, is summer over yet?). 

Spectrum Games has released Capes, Cowls and Villains Foul - Quickstart Preview at RPGNow.  Lets see, we had the Villains & Vigillantes new edition released (and the original edition re-released), Icons, DC Heroes... I'm missing another, aren't I?  In any case, there's a new Supers game on the block. 

If I only played the genre, my options would be endless ;)  It's free, so why not give it a peek?



From the Blurb:

Imagine, if you will, a superhero role-playing game that emulates how comicbooks actually work. When comic writers sit down to pen a story, they don't have a character sheet in front of them that defines precisely what the characters can do... how strong or agile they are, what skills they demonstrate, what the exact parameters of their powers are.

Instead, they give the characters what the story demands of them. If the story requires the power-armored hero to have stealth armor, he'll most likely have it on hand. Should it be critical that the hero with the magic amulet needs to generate a mystic shield, you can almost bank on her getting it. Does the hero with normal human strength desperately need to lift a gargantuan chunk of concrete off of his ally? Chances are, he'll be able to muster up the power to do so. It all comes down to what makes for a more entertaining story.

Capes, Cowls and Villains Foul, takes this fully into consideration by offering a game system that is open-ended and flexible, treating the players and Game Master like comicbook writers rather than just some people playing a game. The sky really is the limit... so why not soar through it like the hero you've always longed to be?

I think I am currently suffering an RPG PDF overload.  It's not lack of quality, its that there is too much quanitity for me to keep up with. 

Cubicle 7 recently released the Clockwork & Chivalry Core Worldbook for Runequest 2 (I'm tryng to figure out how much work would be needed to make it work with BRP or Openquest).  A nice twist to the historical time of the Musketeers.  Cubicle 7 has been putting out some interesting releases recently.

Troll Lord has released an updated and expanded A1:  Assault on Blacktooth Ridge, for Castles & Crusades.  From what I can tell it now includes some of the web enhancements to the original release.  I've already caught a typo, which may be a hold over from a print release, but I'm not sure (when you rfer to pages 50-51in a PDF that is 43 pages, you might be Troll Lord Games).  Despite the typo(s) I'm a big fan of Assault on Blacktooth Ridge... it has some Keep on the Borderlands-ness to it, and it presents a nice low level sanbox.

The Sanctuary Ruin from Ludibrium Games is a module for the OSR rules of your choice.  It clocks in at 10 pages, so maybe I should hit this first.

That's just what I'm trying to dig thru at the moment... I've got a larger pile waiting to be even looked at. Well, actually, at the moment I've got the Jets game calling my name.  Hey, this is a tavern, you need to watch the game :)

Yep, you guess it, this post is about reading PDFs, in our case RPG PDFs, on the iPad.

Now, I've been reading PDFs on electronic reading devices since BEFORE the release of the Kindle DX.  The solutions were far from perfect, as PDF reflow wrecked havok with the formating of most  RPG PDF tables, and those that chose to show their pages in real format were impossible to read on a 5" screen.

Then came the Kindle DX, a 9" electronic book reader from Amazon with a screen large enough to show PDFs in their true format and still be readable.  Still, at times the print was a bit on the small size, and some PDFs choked on the Kindle DX (not many, but enough to be annoying).

Along came the iPad this past spring.  Billed as a "do everything" device, it does an awful lot... some things great, some not so great... but for our purposes, as a PDF reader of RPG materials, I have found it to be second to none.  If it wasn't for the glare in direct sunlight, it would be nearly perfect. 

An iPad is nothing without the proper set of tools and apps.  Below you will find some of the ones I find most helpful.

DropBox - free "cloud computing" storage, you can save a file in your Dropbox folder on your PC, open it on your iPad, then grab it later on your Macbook.  It is the definition of awesomeness.  There is a limit to the amount of online storage you get for free (which can be added to for free when adding free referrals).  I can't see paying for the service at my usage level, but I'm sure some folks obviously do.  Yes, if you sign up via my link, I'll be able to add more RPG materials to my DropBox account.  I'll just thank you in advance ;)

BTW, you can delete files from your DropBox folder without deleting it from your iPad.  I'm just addicted to syncing the damn stuff accross all my devices.

GoodReader - my "go to" PDF reader in the iPad.  It has handled evey PDF I have thrown at it without a problem:  trust me, that's alot of PDFs.  It is 2 bucks in the Apple App store.  DropBox in my method of choice for getting the PDFs into Goodreader.  You just open your DropBox folder within the app and it syncs up to the files you want to the iPad.  No muss, no fuss.

iAnnotate PDF - this is either a gimick or an awesome tool, depending on whether or not you can get use out of it's main features:  the ability to highlight, annotate, add pinned remarks / notes, tabbed PDF reading.  It will not work with well with scanned pages (so some old school scans might be limited in mark-ability).  Update PDFs are save seperate from the original, can be uploaded to your PC and can be read by your PDF reader, higlights, remarks and all.  10 bucks, so make sure you will have a use for it before your spring for it. 

You can DropBox your file into the app, and send the marked up file to DropBox for distribution on your other devices.  You can also use the DropBox app to open the file into iAnnotate PDF (which is confusing, I know.  The first method opens up your DropBox folder in the iAnnotate App to grab the file, and the second opens the folder in your DropBox app and allows you to choose the application to read it with.)

Fast PDF - advertised as the fastest PDF reader for the iPad, I'm not going to dispute that.  I still prefer GoodReader for my PDF reading.  That being said, this app has a really cool feaure that is worth the 3 buck price of admission on its own:  a virtual bookshelf.  Have you seen the bookshelf that Apple displays your books purchased from the app store?  Same concept, except for your PDFs.  What fun is telling someone you have 157 RPG PDFs on your iPad, then showing the LIST on Goodreader.  Instead, show them the BOOK COVERS on your virtual bookshelf.  'Nuff saif, its a damn cool gimmick and it works.

There are many more PDF reader apps, some I own, some I've never touched, but these are the ones I use constantly.  As you can guess from the amount of mini-reviews I do, I have access to alot of PDF content.  I need apps that make them a pleasure to read on my iPad, and these are them.

Thanks to Andugus from White Haired Man for asking the questions that got me thinking that led to me writing stuff that ended up on this page.

Why do I call most of my reviews Mini Reviews?  Because I don't break the product down to its components and pieces like some others.  I'd rather give you my impressions and feelings then inadvertently drop spoilers.  Besides, I don't don't have the time or energy to write a magazine length review.  Wish I did 'tho, and god bless those that can and do.

Anyhow, on to the Mini Review of Stonesky Delve, an Advanced Adventure for 6-10 characters of levels 4-7.  The module assumes the group will have access to the AD&D core rulebooks and / or OSRIC, but I see little reason why it couldn't work with Labyrinth Lord, especially with the Advanced Edition Companion. with what little conversion is needed done on the fly.

 

The module itself was run as a 2 part tournament module at the 2010 GenCon Convention and as such it comes with pregen characters, or, as I like to call them - new NPCs for my collection.

This is one of those adventures that the DM should know very well before running.  The caves in the module are more then the standard D&D 2 dimensional fare (yes, it is advised to let the players know to prepare for spelunking).

If run for the standard gaming group as part of a campaign, it would probably last one long session or two shorter sessions in my estimation.  If run for a gameday or convention, it should take two 3 1/2 to 4 hr slots to finish.  Included is a tournament  scoring system.

Its a nice change from the standard dungeon crawl as it forces the players to think in three dimensions.  It should be fun to run and play in, but the DM must have a good handle on the adventure before running it.  Yes, I am repeating this piece of advice.  It bears repeating ;)

Grognardia has a nice review of All the Treasures of the World: Gems here.  Depending on the campaign you run, it might be a handy reference piece, but that is often hard to know without taking a peek for oneself.  It is not the usual RPG supplement.

 

Faster Monkey Games has a free sample from the product available here.  Check it out and see if it works for you.

(back to the Paladin grindstone)

I'm sure all of you have been following the noise about Insidious, the adventure released using the AD&D trademark, under the OGL, and basically making a mess of thing but garnering lots of publicity.  If not, check out The Greyhawk Grognard's posting on it - its the best I've seen so far.  My main problem with this product?  It appears to be a crippled PDF, with a watermark on every page (apparently across the page).  I like my watermarks not to interrupt my reading, thank you very much.  I'll pass.


Blood Moon Rising is not the adventure you've been reading about all day.  Nope, this one is for Labyrinth Lord.  It appears to make proper use of the OGL.  Figure that one out.
Here's the blurb:

Garanton is a village like any other, except for five days out of the year when it hosts the Feast of St. Garan. During this time, fighters from abroad come to join in the revelry, mingle with other adventurers, and win fame and fortune fighting in the daily games. But all is not well in Garanton this year. Cruel orcs prowl the forest, dark wizards cast webs of treachery and deceit, and bat-winged demons fill the moonlit sky. Does your party have what it takes to ward off this evil before it consumes the entire town?

Blood Moon Rising is a Labyrinth LordTM adventure that is easily converted to other editions of the world's most popular fantasy roleplaying game. Designed for 3-6 characters of 1st through 3rd level, the adventure is set in and around the village of Garanton and involves a mixture of wilderness, dungeon, and urban encounters. Use your archetypical frontier village for more than just a rest stop between forays into the wild. Come enjoy the Feast of St. Garan today!

Hopefully Small Niche Games isn't penalized for actually following the rules as spelled out in the legal document they are apparently abiding by.
Still, I wish it was bookmarked.  I never used to care much, but LotFP has spoiled me for life i seems ;)