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Something just hit me yesterday while prepping for the game that shall not be named.
While I dislike the system, the mods are quite a bit easier on the printer since they're extremely clean with few illustrations to process, all at the end with the handouts.
Don't get me wrong, I love the layouts (minus the handout issue), but it does add to the time needed to print these mods out. Which means less time (and INK!) to put towards print and prep of other mods.
I'd happily export it to open office or the like and reprint, but the formatting takes a dump which means editing it to pieces in order to print it cleanly.
I would be greatly pleased if you would offer these mods in a printer friendly version as well, as a new option for the convenience of your fans.
The PDF we release *is* a printer friendly version. As we don't release anything as just text, we don't plan to release the scenarios as text-only either. We have quality standards and releasing a non-laid out product that we're charging for would be below those standards.
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I'm not suggesting stripping all the formatting out of mods (it looks very good), simply a download *option* without so many graphics (like the footer).
I do appreciate the formatting and layouts, but again it's killing the old printer.
But I hope to render the point moot by getting a netbook, but I thought it worth mentioning.
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But I hope to render the point moot by getting a netbook, but I thought it worth mentioning.
I've recently purchased a netbook, and found it really useful to connect to the web via my mobile phone at a recent convention, so I was able to sign up new players on the spot, and report faction results online immediately after each session.
One of my players GMed a couple of sessions for us using his laptop. He thought it would be easier to run a session via PDF with keyword search. Instead, he found that constant page scrolling between pages, losing his place each time, to run an encounter frustrating and slowed the game down, particularly where map was on one page, description on another page, and NPCs re-use statblocks from previous pages.
Given this feedback, I haven't tried running a scenario from my netbook yet, I think it's quicker to flip through printed pages. I suspect it would be even worse on a netbook than a laptop due to shorter screen area, thus more scrolling. But I'd be interested to hear of your experience.
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From previous experiences I can tell running a scenario from a laptop is not as easy as it might sound. As DarkWhite elaborated, information is so well distributed across the pages it gets harder to navigate with a laptop.
But would appendixes be a better choice? Eventually, as the tiers get tougher, scenarios will demand more room for their BBEG. Separating them into their own appendixes (e.g. Tier 1-2, Tier 4-5) would help a lot. Then all the monsters necessary for the tier are on the same page(s).
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From previous experiences I can tell running a scenario from a laptop is not as easy as it might sound. As DarkWhite elaborated, information is so well distributed across the pages it gets harder to navigate with a laptop.
I ran into that problem while running The Third Riddle, mostly because the scenario is all over the place. Some of the relevant information for the encounters is in the introduction while some of it is in the actual descriptions for the different acts and it can be a hassle to run a scenario like that from a laptop. Now, with a more railroady adventure like The Prince of Augustana (which I also ran) it will be much easier.
The reason why I find running scenarios from my laptop better is because I can have so much information available at the touch of a button. When I was running I had the scenario open in one space while in another I had all the stats for the monsters lifted from the SRD open as separate tabs in my browser. It really reduced the paper clutter and also made me feel better for reducing my carbon footprint through not having printed anything beyond what was necessary.
Maybe the Society should start giving "Neutral Good Hippie Druid" awards to DMs who reduce their carbon footprint through not printing out entire scenarios? ;)
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Maybe the Society should start giving "Neutral Good Hippie Druid" awards to DMs who reduce their carbon footprint through not printing out entire scenarios? ;)
While you may have saved a tree, the more times you run this mod the less carbon you're saving. Besides, the most effective thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint is to become a vegetarian (or vegan) like Steve Jobs, and you know how well that's worked for him.
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Maybe the Society should start giving "Neutral Good Hippie Druid" awards to DMs who reduce their carbon footprint through not printing out entire scenarios? ;)While you may have saved a tree, the more times you run this mod the less carbon you're saving. Besides, the most effective thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint is to become a vegetarian (or vegan) like Steve Jobs, and you know how well that's worked for him.
I'm already in the same boat with Steve in that sense.
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I was referring to the vegetarianism. :DThen I suppose only the first sentence applies.
Yes, I'm really sorry for myself having almost a zero chance of ever getting salmonella, food and mouth disease, E. coli or mad cow's disease. That and a reduced risk of heart disease, diabetes and colon cancer.
Poor me! ;D
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Yes, I'm really sorry for myself having almost a zero chance of ever getting salmonella, food and mouth disease, E. coli or mad cow's disease. That and a reduced risk of heart disease, diabetes and colon cancer.I was referring to the vegetarianism. :DThen I suppose only the first sentence applies.
Despite all this, you will never become a MAN! [/sarcasm]
You could always crack them and remove it yourself.
Don't listen to him, he's a thief... errr... rogue.
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Yes, I'm really sorry for myself having almost a zero chance of ever getting salmonella...Care for a peanut?
I would like you to note that I did say ALMOST. Second of all, do note that there are about 40,000 cases of salmonella in the US each year and that during the past 15 years only two cases have been linked to peanuts, peanut butter to be exact. The number of people struck in these two cases was in the region of 2,000. So, yeah, I'll take my chance with your peanut as long as it's not produced in those American facilities where it has a chance of being contaminated by birds due to lackluster conditions. ;)
By the way, I feel bad about derailing this thread with this discussion. In case you'd still like to pursue this line of discussion I think we'd best do it on another subforum. :D
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I'd like to have an extra page or two at the end of the PDF that's a reprint of all the stat blocks in the adventure. There's a lot of 'use stats from page x' in the modules and it gets a tad annoying to flip back and forth. Just one page that I could keep separate would rock. It's especially annoying when I run off the laptop, that way I could just print the ONE page and run the rest off the laptop.
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I would love to persuade Paizo to print their "read out loud" text in bold so it is easy to read even in the dim gloomy lighting we usually get at games conventions.
Instead it is often printed in a brown colour which has far less contrast than black on white. It's particularly bad if you print out the scenarios in black and white for economy. The brown prints as grey not black.
The type is already pretty small so it seems bad typography to make something so important paler as well.
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I'd like to have an extra page or two at the end of the PDF that's a reprint of all the stat blocks in the adventure. There's a lot of 'use stats from page x' in the modules and it gets a tad annoying to flip back and forth. Just one page that I could keep separate would rock. It's especially annoying when I run off the laptop, that way I could just print the ONE page and run the rest off the laptop.
I really prefer the stats in-line with the text. Even at the cost of an additional page or two (and increasing my carbon footprint), I'd rather have the whole stat block copied each time it's referenced in the text, to avoid page-flipping.