Electronic only releases simply means it won't be bought in this household.

While having the computers do the math is awesome, having a pencil and paper game with real books that doesn't use retarded amounts of repetitious math is even better.

First time the power goes out nationally for three or four days, you'll see a bunch of crying electronic gamers...

Here, I'll just crack open the books, throw down with the dice, and continue on as usual.

There are RPGs being developed in this fashion such as the Barbarians of the Aftermath Playbook for the iPad.

Quote from: Claudius;468887Yes, maybe that's the reason why I don't play Magic nor video games.

I'm a fan of RPGs, if houseruling will be discouraged, they can go on without my money.

That's not true when it comes to Magic around here. Maybe it is a dayton ohio thing, but we have tons of custom game types:

Multiplayer

King

Two-headed monster

Non-standard decks

W/ or w/o proxies

They took mana burn out but everyone still plays with it.

And I know there is more. I just don't play it often but rest assured, I'm just scraping the top with that. I think people house rule magic more seriously than D&D because in D&D, entitled children that play have invested interest in abusing the rules as written - helping them to win at one of the only games you almost can't lose. Magic players are just playing for fun unless they up front tell you they are preparing for a tournament. It really is just a game.

Quote from: GameDaddy;468890First time the power goes out nationally for three or four days, you'll see a bunch of crying electronic gamers...

Here, I'll just crack open the books, throw down with the dice, and continue on as usual.

Except for the majority of electronic gamers who also own books. The two mediums aren't mutually exclusive.

It seems to me that the more you bring in gadgets and screens... the more you replace the quirky hand-drawn maps and character portraits... the more virtual the dice become... the easier it gets to let the machine run the game for you... the less it becomes 'my game' and the more it becomes an external product of some other entity... an entity that insists you subscribe to their ideas of what the game should be like (and intentionally truncates your ability to go your own way with 'their' tools).
Sure, the elf portrait I download for my character avatar is technically better... but it's someone else's vision that I'm settling for... not my own.
I can make much more professional maps using their program... but all programs to some degree force a paradigm of creation on you that is often much narrower than using pen and paper.
The more elaborate these programs/machines get the more people it will require to make them... the more corporate the approach... and corporations like to be in control. Even when they let you customize stuff they're usually limiting you to customizing along prescribed lines.
Sure, the determined folks will find ways to hack their own vision into it... but it will take more work and expertise than most people want to put in... more than it takes now to tweak a pen and paper game.
Eventually you're playing some 'official' quasi-video game that might as well be a video game. Gaining speed and visual flair in exchange for a sacrifice of variety and creative personal input.

Not everything is better with a computer attached to it...

Quote from: Premier;468883That ebook you download today, do you think you'll even be able to read the file format with some device in 45 years? Don't keep your hopes up. Hell, even if you keep the reader device, it might not work that far down the road. Electronics have nowhere near the longevity of paper & ink.

Exactly.

My copy of OD&D, purchased in 1975, is still readable today. I haven't had to purchase any batteries to keep reading it nor new reading devices because the old ones failed. In fact, I did not even have to buy a separate reading device -- it was included in the price and that initial payment was it. No futures costs to keep using it. These books have been dropped a large number of times -- something my overpriced nook would not survived. I doubt my nook will still be functioning in ten years, let alone 35+ years from now.  And No need to keep rebuying the books every time some industry type changes the format. (As a lot of people have blown money on with movies -- beta videotapes, VHS videotapes, laserdiscs, DVDs, and now Blu-ray.)

When ebook readers are so cheap that each ebook you buy comes with a free one and a universal ebook format that will still be readable hundreds of years from now (and with no more DRM rubbish than a printed book) has been decided upon (and cannot be undecided upon because someone sees doing so as the key to more profit or some such nonsense), then maybe. Until then I will take printed books for anything that I am going to do more than read and enjoy once every few years. Ebooks today are fine for a quick novel or the like, but are awful for actual use at the game table, at the DIY workbench, etc.

Fuck pdfs

....and Fuck 'laptops' at the game table too.

The GM is the conduit of information and final authority for the players in any real RPG.


- Ed C.

Quote from: Claudius;468887Yes, maybe that's the reason why I don't play Magic nor video games.

I'm a fan of RPGs, if houseruling will be discouraged, they can go on without my money.

If that were the sole reason to play RPGs, I might see your point in adding the bit I bolded.

Quote from: Koltar;468902Fuck pdfs

....and Fuck 'laptops' at the game table too.

The GM is the conduit of information and final authority for the players in any real RPG.

I own a lot of PDFs and use a tablet PC at the game table both as GM and player. I have never seen any of them usurp the role of the GM in terms of authority or information. They are just tools like having books, dice and paper.

Also, while I can sort of understand the worry over changing file formats, I think it gets overstated on RPG boards. I played Elite yesterday, and Rogue, and both came out before I was born. If those can be emulated and/or kept playable, I don't see why someone, somewhere, most likely for free, wouldn't come up with an application to convert your PDF or kindle files to something else (especially given that you can rip text and table data out of a PDF).  There's a lot less to worry about when you're just trying to preserve raw data rather than an entire game application.

Quote from: Peregrin;468905Also, while I can sort of understand the worry over changing file formats, I think it gets overstated on RPG boards.

I think the point that is often missed is that physical copies often increase in number with electronic sales. The two are mutually exclusive and if done right can be complimentary.

Print+PDF bundles have become very popular and are attractive to me as it allows me to print out sections and handouts from the book and have greater transportability. The PDF increases the physical book's utility.

IMO we need more focus on how best to have the two mediums combined serve the hobby as a whole and less puritanical scaremongering from either side of the debate.

I think cost-effective print-on-demand will help.

Also, I think we can stress the usefulness of electronic archiving in conjunction with those printing alternatives.  There are a lot of OOP things that I have printed out, and otherwise wouldn't have been able to get my hands on, without electronic formats existing.  Having a convenient electronic format that you can purchase takes the power out of the collector's hands and puts it back in the players.

Quote from: GameDaddy;468890First time the power goes out nationally for three or four days, you'll see a bunch of crying electronic gamers...

I think we'd have much bigger fish to fry if the power went out nationally for three or four days. Pretty sure gaming would be low on my list of concerns!

A TRPG in electronic format is a crippleware product.  It ought to handle all of the system interactions--stat rolls, skill checks, positioning, status effects--to be worth the effort and once you cross the Rubicon you don't have a TRPG anymore- you have a CRPG, something that will do better business and better exploit the strengths of both the technology and the media involved.

A proper TRPG is published in print, played entirely around a table, uses no electronic technology and exploits the strengths of that medium and those circumstances to achieve a result that cannot be had otherwise.

"Requires no" would probably be better than "uses no."

There's no iron curtain, here.