Alternate means of "provide all source material" rule?


Pathfinder Society

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3/5

Paz wrote:
The heaviest books have the cheapest PDFs ($9.99). This is deliberate.

Most of the player companions are only about $8.00. So, uh...

As far as the OP goes, you could always sell your physicals and use the proceeds to buy pdfs.

/pats self on back for having foreseen the problems buying physical books would bring and opting to instead go entirely digital.
/eyes folder of 30ish pdfs
/pats self again

Grand Lodge 4/5

Mark Stratton wrote:
Lamontius wrote:
does this really come into play all that often outside of Cons

I've seen it at game days, and I myself have asked for materials from players. In many cases, when the player base is relatively the same, we get to know, generally, who has what resources, etc. But, we sometimes get new players, or we see someone with stuff they haven't used before.

I think it is true that it comes into play less for local and regular events than it does at conventions, but it does come into play now and again.

For local games, if I am familiar with the feat/ability/spell/etc. already, I usually don't ask to see it, unless we are heading into the special territory part of it. Like Infernal Healing and how it reacts to certain types of damage.

If it is something I haven't run into before, or not very often, and haven't looked into for one of my own PCs, and something seems odd, I will ask to look at it, so I can understand what is happening better, and can smother my defensive reactions to being surprised.

@Ryzoken: Only 30? Wish I could get away with so few...

And, even then, I got caught by someone providing a 1st printing of the CRB, and not having the errata document for it, so we were operating under obsolete rules for his sunder build....

I tend to look at the hardcopy first, and only then, due to wifi issues, go to PDFs. Which is also why I have a 6th printing CRB and 4th printing (IIRC) Bestiary that I now carry with me to Pathfinder games.

5/5 5/55/55/5

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Eh now sonny, some of us started this pathfinder thing while the tablet was still a dream on startrek. Had to walk to the con, up hill both ways, past the wooly magic players and the saber toothed mah johngers... you ever seen saber toothed dentures? They're not pretty....

3/5

BigNorseWolf wrote:
Eh now sonny, some of us started this pathfinder thing while the tablet was still a dream on startrek. Had to walk to the con, up hill both ways, past the wooly magic players and the saber toothed mah johngers... you ever seen saber toothed dentures? They're not pretty....

I suppose I haven't been perfectly forthright: I started with hardcovers for the CRB, APG, Bestiary, and ISWG. It's only when I started playing PFS that I foresaw the difficulties carrying a number of hardcovers would bring, and therefore transferred to digital format. Yes, that does mean I had to repurchase the aforementioned four books.

I have not regretted so doing.

1/5

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Why don't the physical book copies come packaged with a PDF code for download?

-Easy to read off of the stores shelf
-Thats a bonus for subscribers
-A phone can scan a barcode in the store easier than I could from home.

-Shrink wrapped books cut down on sales

3/5

Paz wrote:
The heaviest books have the cheapest PDFs ($9.99). This is deliberate.

Not really. Paizo deliberately prices their "setting neutral" core books cheaper for .pdf in many cases and in one case (Inner Sea World Guide did so for a Golarion-specific hardcover, but in general their "splat book" .pdfs are priced very close to their hardcopy books). One of the Paizo folks (Vic or Erik, I think) actually go into it in a decent amount of detail in one of their posts, but I'm too caffeine-deprived to go looking for it at the moment.

Lab_Rat wrote:
Shrink wrapped books cut down on sales

Sad, but true. [cues Metallica]

-TimD

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne

Mark Stratton wrote:

Again, this places the burden on someone OTHER than the owner of the book. In this case, the LGS would bear the burden of doing the work of registering the book, keep a sheet of labels, etc. For that reason alone I would oppose it - anything that transfers the responsibility from the player to some other entity is unlikely to get my support (and many others, I would imagine.)

The entire point of this thread is that the burden on the owner of the book is too high. There are only 2 ways to fix this:

1) Relax the current rules
2) Place the burden on someone other than the book owner.

So if you are against solutions that put the burden on someone else then you are essentially against solving the problem.

I do not understand why some people simply do not understand how incredibly galling it is to pay good money for a product only to be told that product is worthless unless they pay via either additional money or additional effort or both, to prove that they bought the product. THE BURDEN SHOULD NOT BE ON THE CUSTOMER! As loyal customers we are willing to accept some burden, but Paizo is the one insisting on us supplying the proof so it is Paizo's responsibility to come up with a reasonable solution that does not overly burden the customer.

Now before someone decides to point out that there are 2 problems here, i.e. providing rules for the GM and providing proof of ownership, let me dispel that illusion. Rules can be supplied via photocopies. This was allowed previously and was a reasonable burden to put on the customer. And while they can be altered, so can .pdfs. So there is a reasonable solution to the Rules issue. So the real problem is the proof of ownership issue.

Horizon Hunters 4/5 5/5 *** Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Indianapolis

trollbill wrote:
So if you are against solutions that put the burden on someone else then you are essentially against solving the problem.

Fortunately for me, I don't have to accept this premise of your argument. If there is a way to keep the burden where it belongs (on the player), but makes it easier for them to do so, and in a way that still proves ownership then I might be for that.

I don't think photocopies establish proof of ownership (they would certainly satisfy the need to the document on hand for rules references, yes.) Watermarked .pdfs do (and altering secure .pdfs isn't as easy as some people think, nor will everyone have the ability/capacity to do so.)

Please, though, don't tell me what I am against. It's patently untrue that I am "...against solving the problem." The fact that I don't support transferring the burden to the stores or to the GMs isn't an indicator that I don't want to solve this "problem" (I don't know that I consider it a problem, really, but if we can help relieve the players a bit while being able to get proof of ownership and the like, I'd certainly look at that, under the criteria which are important for me.)

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne

Mark Stratton wrote:
trollbill wrote:
So if you are against solutions that put the burden on someone else then you are essentially against solving the problem.
Fortunately for me, I don't have to accept this premise of your argument. If there is a way to keep the burden where it belongs (on the player), but makes it easier for them to do so, and in a way that still proves ownership then I might be for that.

And why, exactly, do you think the burden of proof of ownership falls on the person who already paid good money for the product and would thus have a receipt (i.e. by U.S. law, legal proof of ownership)? The proof of ownership Paizo is requiring is above and beyond that required by law, thus the burden of responsibility falls on Paizo, not the customer. As I stated earlier, as loyal customers, we are willing to shoulder some of this burden as long as it is reasonable. But we should not be required to as it is not our responsibility. It is Paizo's.

Quote:
I don't think photocopies establish proof of ownership (they would certainly satisfy the need to the document on hand for rules references, yes.) Watermarked .pdfs do (and altering secure .pdfs isn't as easy as some people think, nor will everyone have the ability/capacity to do so.)

I agree. In fact, that was my point. The problem isn't being able to supply rules for the GM. The problem is proof of ownership.

Quote:
Please, though, don't tell me what I am against. It's patently untrue that I am "...against solving the problem." The fact that I don't support transferring the burden to the stores or to the GMs isn't an indicator that I don't want to solve this "problem" (I don't know that I consider it a problem, really, but if we can help relieve the players a bit while being able to get proof of ownership and the like, I'd certainly look at that, under the criteria which are important for me.)

Your original statement said that you were against transferring the burden to anyone other than the customer. That is not the same thing as transferring it to stores or GMs as there are other possible entities to transfer it to (such as Paizo, the people that are placing that additional burden in the first place).

I understand your umbrage at my statement but please explain to me how the burden to the consumer could possibly be eased without either reducing the restrictions or shifting the burden to someone else? Such a concept is a logical impossibility.

3/5

Mark Stratton wrote:
I don't think photocopies establish proof of ownership (they would certainly satisfy the need to the document on hand for rules references, yes.) Watermarked .pdfs do (and altering secure .pdfs isn't as easy as some people think, nor will everyone have the ability/capacity to do so.)

I disagree with the portion of your statement I bolded.

Unfortunately, it's very difficult to refute this in any detail as Paizo board policy is understandably very unforgiving about discussing such details as they don't want to encourage piracy of their product.

Additional conversation could also be had discussing hardcopy forgeries, but again, I'm not sure what the limits are on this topic as far as Paizo moderation is concerned and I'd rather not poke that hornets nest of potential strife. Better to err on the side of caution that have to post again in the "apologize to Chris L. for your misdeeds" thread ;)

-TimD

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne

Jessex wrote:

I understand that some people bought hard copies of some products but once it became clear that digital format was going to be cheaper and far more portable why did anyone continue to buy hard copies?

For people who have substantial collections of hard copy, why? Do you simply have a fetish for dead trees?

1) Digital formats require something to read them on. If the device is not portable, you need to print out copies. So unless you already own a portable device, it is actually MORE expensive to purchase digital formats.

2) Some people just like books.
3) Some people purchased books before they became invested in PFS.
4) Some people like to support their FLGS.
5) Some people win books at raffles at Cons.

The Exchange 5/5

I have personally seen people get kicked off tables for not having sources, so yes that certainly does happen. That being said, I think I've seen it 3 times in 400+ tables of PFS.

4/5

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Ok, here is something completely from left field. I have used it personally with my local store. I would like to purchase a source, store does not have it in stock, it is out of print etc. I pay the store the PDFs price plus a nominal fee, normally a few dollars. They purchase book on my behalf and gift it to me. I load it up on my iPad using good reader until I can get home. Store gets money, Paizo gets money, I have rules available. Sure, only pdf version, but as someone who use to carry a suitcase of books to local games days on public transport, it is a lot cheaper and easier.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

Goroth wrote:
Why don't the physical book copies come packaged with a PDF code for download? College textbooks do this, and it's very secure. Usually it's for an online companion to the book (sometimes including an e-text only available on the site). Package examples here and here wrapped up with the book in wrap plastic. This would require anyone who wanted to use/download the PDF to register on Paizo's site to input/register the PDF code to their account. This method has potential to encourage new players who simply buy the book, and know nothing of PFS, to be brought to Paizo's site and discover PFS. That in turn could lead to further text/pdf purchases that might not otherwise have occurred.

College text books also have a price point of $100 - $150 dollars. (Yay captive market) At that price point, they can afford the overhead of having a staff deal with problems. They also have a really, really high piracy rate. (I was in one class where the piratable version of the text was one edition behind the current edition. You could tell who had pirated, because their homework was consistently wrong...)

Goroth wrote:


These PDF code packages could also be sold individually (meaning without a hardcover book) by local game stores which the stores could buy from Paizo in various bulk options. Most likely higher than the online purchase price of $10, of course. (Hopefully not...

This would be cool, but given the fragility of their site, I'm not sure if they have the technical ability to do this.

Community Manager

Removed an unhelpful post. Be civil please.


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Mark Stratton wrote:
altering secure .pdfs isn't as easy as some people think, nor will everyone have the ability/capacity to do so.

This is comically wrong.


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trollbill wrote:
Mark Stratton wrote:

Again, this places the burden on someone OTHER than the owner of the book. In this case, the LGS would bear the burden of doing the work of registering the book, keep a sheet of labels, etc. For that reason alone I would oppose it - anything that transfers the responsibility from the player to some other entity is unlikely to get my support (and many others, I would imagine.)

The entire point of this thread is that the burden on the owner of the book is too high. There are only 2 ways to fix this:

1) Relax the current rules
2) Place the burden on someone other than the book owner.

So if you are against solutions that put the burden on someone else then you are essentially against solving the problem.

I do not understand why some people simply do not understand how incredibly galling it is to pay good money for a product only to be told that product is worthless unless they pay via either additional money or additional effort or both, to prove that they bought the product. THE BURDEN SHOULD NOT BE ON THE CUSTOMER! As loyal customers we are willing to accept some burden, but Paizo is the one insisting on us supplying the proof so it is Paizo's responsibility to come up with a reasonable solution that does not overly burden the customer.

Now before someone decides to point out that there are 2 problems here, i.e. providing rules for the GM and providing proof of ownership, let me dispel that illusion. Rules can be supplied via photocopies. This was allowed previously and was a reasonable burden to put on the customer. And while they can be altered, so can .pdfs. So there is a reasonable solution to the Rules issue. So the real problem is the proof of ownership issue.

I agree with some of what you are saying with the exception of the product being worthless. You do not have to purchase the pdfs; you have to carry the books that you require for your characters. That's the "price" we pay for playing in PFS, the say way that you have to have and paint your armies for those games.

The "burden" here is the desire to not carry as much. For some people I can certainly understand -- there are those with significant health problems that make it unsuitable. I'd like to see a solution found primarily for those people.

But not wanting to carry the books is far from a burden that is somehow Paizo's fault.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne

Brother Fen wrote:

When I GM a session at the local game store, I carry in three boxes of books, two boxes of props and maps and a laptop computer.

Stop whining and bring your books to PFS.

And what do you do when you have to hop on a plane to GenCon?

Grand Lodge 4/5

trollbill wrote:
Brother Fen wrote:

When I GM a session at the local game store, I carry in three boxes of books, two boxes of props and maps and a laptop computer.

Stop whining and bring your books to PFS.

And what do you do when you have to hop on a plane to GenCon?

One option, of course, is to ship those boxes to the hotel you are staying at, for pickup on check-in...


If one has difficulty with the weight and bulk of the printed books, it would seem that buying the PDFs, while a small additional expense and perhaps not as nice as a physical book, is a reasonable compromise.

Nobody is expecting the whole book to be printed out, but keeping printouts of the specific relevant pages with each character shouldn't add any significant weight.

Never assume that you can rely on other people to bring resources that you need. That goes for books AND e-readers like tablets. Doing so is just setting yourself up for eventual disappointment.

-j

The Exchange 5/5 RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

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trollbill wrote:

And why, exactly, do you think the burden of proof of ownership falls on the person who already paid good money for the product and would thus have a receipt (i.e. by U.S. law, legal proof of ownership)?

Because that's the person who would like the privilege of using non-Core materials at the table.

I suspect you really don't want to go down the "legal receipt" road. Right now, if you want to use a spell out of Ultimate Magic at a convention, and you don't own the book, you can borrow my copy for the convention. You can use a book you received as a gift. You can borrow a copy from the local library, for that matter. Players don't have to have "paid good money" and don't have to have a receipt. Think twice before you suggest that the campaign switch to requiring that.

Quote:
The proof of ownership Paizo is requiring is above and beyond that required by law, thus the burden of responsibility falls on Paizo, not the customer. As I stated earlier, as loyal customers, we are willing to shoulder some of this burden as long as it is reasonable. But we should not be required to as it is not our responsibility. It is Paizo's.

Which law are you referring to? I mean, really: which law? Intellectual property law? (Irrelevant; nobody's disputing Paizo's copyright.) Local municipality and state laws regarding theft? Do you seriously think that thee's a law somewhere on the books governing what a game company has to allow in its organized play campaign?

To every one of your arguments, I keep coming back to the simple answer: play Core. Period. No books. No worries about pdfs. Just come with a character sheet, Chronicles, ITS, dice, and a miniature. People have a good time; sit down and join them. Play in a Core Mode scenario, or just play a Core PC in a Standard Mode scenario.

And quit waving "U.S. law" around. You look ridiculous.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne

Chris Mortika wrote:
trollbill wrote:

And why, exactly, do you think the burden of proof of ownership falls on the person who already paid good money for the product and would thus have a receipt (i.e. by U.S. law, legal proof of ownership)?

Because that's the person who would like the privilege of using non-Core materials at the table.

They paid for that privilege when they bought the books in the first place. The issue we are discussing is the additional burden of proving that purchase.

Quote:
I suspect you really don't want to go down the "legal receipt" road. Right now, if you want to use a spell out of Ultimate Magic at a convention, and you don't own the book, you can borrow my copy for the convention. You can use a book you received as a gift. You can borrow a copy from the local library, for that matter. Players don't have to have "paid good money" and don't have to have a receipt. Think twice before you suggest that the campaign switch to requiring that.

I am not trying to get "technically" legal on this issue. Nor am I attempting to hint at any possible legal action. I am merely bringing up law as a basis for demonstrating burden of responsibility. Law generally reflects the societal view concerning the burden of responsibility. The entire issue here is what is and what is not reasonable to ask of the customer. So burden of responsibility is an important component.

Quote:
Quote:
The proof of ownership Paizo is requiring is above and beyond that required by law, thus the burden of responsibility falls on Paizo, not the customer. As I stated earlier, as loyal customers, we are willing to shoulder some of this burden as long as it is reasonable. But we should not be required to as it is not our responsibility. It is Paizo's.
Which law are you referring to? I mean, really: which law? Intellectual property law? (Irrelevant; nobody's disputing Paizo's copyright.) Local municipality and state laws regarding theft? Do you seriously think that thee's a law somewhere on the books governing what a game company has to allow in its organized play campaign?

I am referring to laws which define "proof of ownership." Individual businesses do not have a right to circumvent the definition of "proof of ownership." Again, I am only mentioning these as support for the issue of burden of responsibility.

Quote:
To every one of your arguments, I keep coming back to the simple answer: play Core. Period. No books. No worries about pdfs. Just come with a character sheet, Chronicles, ITS, dice, and a miniature. People have a good time; sit down and join them. Play in a Core Mode scenario, or just play a Core PC in a Standard Mode scenario.

And to every one of your arguments, I keep coming back to the simple answer: allow photocopies again. They were legal once. Make them legal again. PFS’s IP rules are the most restrictive of any of the three organized play campaigns I have been involved in.

Let me make my position clear on this. I am not b#**!ing here for my personal benefit. I am actually trying to help Paizo. I have already swallowed the red pill and forked out money for .pdfs and have an iPhone and iPad mini to use them on. In some cases I have even paid for them a third time by getting the Hero Lab license. One of the reasons I have been willing to do so is because I want to support Paizo. I want them to be successful. And I want to follow their rules. But I also believe that additional support should be my choice, not Paizo's. I also know there are plenty of gamers with less disposable income than me that this burden can adversely affect.

Now your argument is "play Core." How exactly does that benefit Paizo? If everyone where to play Core then there would be no reason to buy any of Paizo's new product. Core should be a stepping stone for higher level entry, not a solution to the IP burden Paizo is placing on its customers. PFS rules should be as minimally burdensome as possible in order to encourage play that promotes sale of its product. While an argument can certainly be made as to the fact that Paizo may lose money to IP theft if it relaxes its rules, it is very difficult to judge how much more would be lost by relaxing rules that are not rigidly enforced in the first place verses how much is gained in increased sales by relaxing those rules. Loosely enforced burdensome rules do more to harm those people who want to be legal than they hurt those people who don’t want to be. So if the difference is not clear than it would benefit Paizo to err on the side of the customer simply for PR reasons.
I will also note that, because the current easiest/cheapest solution to buying lots of books is to buy .pdfs from Paizo, then the current IP requirements do not promote supporting your local FLGS which in turn decreases the local FLGS’s desire to support PFS.

Quote:
And quit waving "U.S. law" around. You look ridiculous.

As I stated above, I am referencing U.S. Law merely as precedent as a basis for the issue of burden of responsibility. So I am using a precedent for the basis of my argument and you are using your personal opinion supported by an ad hominid accusation of ridiculousness. Tell me again who is being ridiculous?

Shadow Lodge 4/5 Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West

trollbill wrote:
Chris Mortika wrote:
trollbill wrote:

And why, exactly, do you think the burden of proof of ownership falls on the person who already paid good money for the product and would thus have a receipt (i.e. by U.S. law, legal proof of ownership)?

Because that's the person who would like the privilege of using non-Core materials at the table.
They paid for that privilege when they bought the books in the first place. The issue we are discussing is the additional burden of proving that purchase.

No you're not. You're discussing being able to use the books at the table without actually having the books at the table; they never bought that privilege.

The rules are set by Paizo, as is their right. If you want to play in their campaign, you have to abide by their rules, no matter how much you dislike them.

P.S. Proof of purchase is not proof of ownership.

Community & Digital Content Director

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Removed a few more posts and locking. This is really veering into heated territory over topics that have been just as hotly debated before and I'm unsure that it will result in anything productive.

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