I have more and more gone the route of purchasing RPGs in PDF format. Does anyone know if there has been any WotC announcements (official, inofficial or hints) if the new books will be available as PDFs? I've a made a quick search but couldn't find anything and thought that maybe somebody here knows.
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I have a definite answer, but it's probably not one you'll like :)
They've made no announcements regarding PDFs one way or another (as of yesterday). They did sort of announce a new set of e-tools, Morningstar, which is currently in beta.
That said, when the PHB is officially released, some DM and Monster stuff is supposed to be added to the Basic rules. So at least part of the books is supposed to be legally available as PDFs.
Cheers!
Landon
Mum's the word so far, which probably means no PDFs. Which would be disappointing and befuddling, not to mention shockingly short-sighted.
For now I choose to believe that they won't commit such an epic blunder right out of the gate. But it's getting harder...
I have a definite answer, but it's probably not one you'll like :)
You're right, it's not the answer I would have liked :) Thanks for the info, I guess I'm just going to have to keep my fingers crossed for a real PDF version to be released for purchase.
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...and with the PHB officially released yesterday, still no PDFs. In fact, they seem to be pretending PDFs don't exist.
Lame, lame, lame. This is a fear-driven decision that does nothing to reduce piracy while completely eliminating PDF revenue. Frankly, this is tone-deaf enough to make me re-think the entire edition.
13th Age in PDF? Check
Pathfinder in PDF? Check
C&C? Savage Worlds? Fate? Check, check, and check.
And somehow I have still purchased EVERY SINGLE ONE (in both formats, for heaven's sake!)
D&D...?
...
...
...crickets.
W
T
F
?
Yeah, its 2014 now. I mean seriously....
Apologies if I sound entitled, but I want to support D&D. I just can't understand why WotC seems so hell-bent on making doing so so painful.
Guys, please: Take my money. Don't make my only option your competitors!
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But everybody knows PDFs are what pirates use to steal your corporate bonuses! Heard that at the golf course last week. Also, Earl told me about this crazy new Iphone thing. Wonder if Microsoft's gonna have much success with it, personally I'm sticking with my Nokia. Reminds me, gotta check how much my shares of them are.
But everybody knows PDFs are what pirates use to steal your corporate bonuses! Heard that at the golf course last week. Also, Earl told me about this crazy new Iphone thing. Wonder if Microsoft's gonna have much success with it, personally I'm sticking with my Nokia. Reminds me, gotta check how much my shares of them are.
I may have gone with "Blackberry." But otherwise, this seems spot on. Sadly. :(
My guess is the PDF isnt available because it will be under morning forge or moning star, whatever that company is thats doing their digital stuff. Not sure if you wil be able to get PDFs through them eventually or if it will be a new DDI type thing.
Unfortunately, the data not living on my hard drive is a deal-killer for me.
I also think it is a very clear sign that someone over there just doesn't get it. I had hoped that they would learn from 4E.
Maybe it's time to give some serious thought to starting that 13th Age game instead.
Any platform that allows some Warren Worthington The Fourth to wake up one day with a hangover and to shut down my access to it permanently gets a big 'no'.
Of course Lisa Stevens and DTRPG owners can do that as well, but at least I have my PDFs on my computer.
Never thought I'd agree so strongly with the bag man, but...this. Exactly this.
I might consider getting core D&D Next books in pdfs if there will be any. Otherwise I am sticking to the basic rules. I am pretty sure I won't have much use for them so I won't be getting paper books. Unless someone gives them to me as a present (haha, fat chance) or I get them on sale ten years from now (hey, I got World Of Warcraft D20 core rulebook for one pound recently).
Wizards could be doing better in this regard from what I've seen. Though, they could be setting up the infrastructure to do this on their own without needing DTRPG.
That said, Paizo isn't a paragon of 21st century technology either. Having come from the digital side of printing and publishing (yes, both), they could be doing much more. But, at least they do provide PDFs.
I'm iffy with Morningstar. They've said they'll store the data locally to keep performance high. However, that's no guarantee you can extract or use that data in a human readable form if something goes wrong. If it has an export article feature of some kind, then that will go a long way to easing that worry. Even so, if you'd need to do that manually across all chapters/entries then it'd be cumbersome. I like my digital tools, but, I agree that I like having control over my purchases as well.
I have a 600G hard drive on my dinky little laptop. The idea of not being able to have electronic copies of my game books at my fingertips is beyond absurd.
But, I have a feeling, they will want to continue to sell hardback art books (because that's what they are at this point) while giving away the plainer text for free. Until someone or something makes them change.
Well, push come to shove, you can always scan your books and run an OCR on the pages to create a searchable index. Most people don't want to do that, though.
Well, push come to shove, you can always scan your books and run an OCR on the pages to create a searchable index. Most people don't want to do that, though.
Unfortunately, with recent assaults on fair use, that might not actually be legal. IANAL, of course.
I'm pessimistic about this overall. However, the ray of hope is that they are actually releasing PDFs again (so they're obviously not totally opposed to electronic distribution, in principle).
They seem to be taking a drawn out approach to 5E's launch, so perhaps their plan is to announce a friendly OGL2.0 later in the year and PDFs early next - try and have several "announceables" over the first year of release to keep their momentum going.
As I say, I'm not optimistic but fingers crossed..
I don't think WotC has PDFs of any products it has released in print in the last year. For example none of the reprinted core rulebooks from 1E, 2E, 3E, or 4E are available in PDF.
Yeah, they're clearly not fully embracing PDFs. Personally, I'm not particuarly optimistic about it.
Nonetheless, they are releasing them (one of the Sundering adventures was only available in PDF, for example) - so maybe there's hope and it's part of some over-arching strategy.
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I would imagine that they want to let the initial rush of book purchases conclude before they offer the PDF. Which would actually be a pretty wise business move....sell as many books as you can, THEN offer the electronic alternative. Just because its not how.Paolizo does it, that doesn't make it wrong.
They've offered a steady stream of PDFs ever since they started reselling them. One of the things they said early on was that the eventual goal was all titles from all editions. But if they simply dump everything all at once, then they will.lose sales. Its much more palatable to.most.consumers to pay for 2 PDFs a week for a year then to buy 100 PDFs all at once.
I think they will offer the 5e books as PDFs. Maybe not in 2014, but I'm sure they will offer them eventually.
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I'd be delighted to buy digital copies of the books, but if they're going with a rental/SaaS model, pass. What an excellent way to hobble your new edition. :(
Yeah, they're clearly not fully embracing PDFs. Personally, I'm not particuarly optimistic about it.
Nonetheless, they are releasing them (one of the Sundering adventures was only available in PDF, for example) - so maybe there's hope and it's part of some over-arching strategy.
Mearls did a podcast interview recently where he was asked point blank about PDFs and he refused to answer, but did say they have plans for a digital product. This is better than a flat "no," but I suspect this means that we're looking at some sort of sandboxed subscription product.
Honestly, I'd be perfectly content with a tablet app with all the rules available by in-app purchase, similar to what a lot of 3rd party tablet apps have done with the PRD content, but I will be very disappointed if digital access to the rules requires an ongoing subscription.
They have said that the digital ebooks available through the DungeonScape app will not be subscription based and will be a one time purchase.
They have said that the digital ebooks available through the DungeonScape app will not be subscription based and will be a one time purchase.
If that's the case, why not just sell industry-standard PDFs?
If they're trying to employ DRM shenanigans, all they'll do is annoy people. And someone will crack it, especially on an open platform like the PC. That's the open secret of content encryption -- you have to give your customers the key in order to read the content.
Playing devil's advocate, PDFs are not meant for books. It's a generic document format. Ebooks, though, DO have a specific format and are optimized for that purpose. I agree DRM shenanigans could be a pain, but they could also be doing it for format compliance. Plus, accessibility is always a concern when it comes to books which I would think ebooks probably do better than PDFs.
They have said that the digital ebooks available through the DungeonScape app will not be subscription based and will be a one time purchase.If that's the case, why not just sell industry-standard PDFs?
If they're trying to employ DRM shenanigans, all they'll do is annoy people. And someone will crack it, especially on an open platform like the PC. That's the open secret of content encryption -- you have to give your customers the key in order to read the content.
I imagine the DS Ebook will be able to do things that are hard or impossible to do with PDFs. But we shall see.
As someone who's honestly been blown away at the quality of 5e, I nevertheless think it's shortsighted of them not to give their customers as many options as possible. This DungeonScape thing sounds very nice to me, but it's presumptuous to assume that everyone interested in 5e will be comfortable with it.
Maybe I'm a Pathfinder player who's used to and fine with PDFs. Maybe I want to look at the rulebooks' artwork on my tablet. Maybe I like my rules laid out in book form, but don't want to carry the rulebooks around with me. Maybe I want a backup copy just in case WotC discontinues support for DungeonScape. Maybe I want to play 5e, but I don't want to engage with the larger transmedia strategy they've built to interface with DungeonScape. The reasons for PDFs are as numerous as the players who want them.
WotC's got a strong product on its hands this time, that much is clear, and D&D is to this day the most recognizable brand in tabletop role-playing games. It may not sell the most anymore, but it's the TRPG your nana has heard of. On top of that, Hasbro's pockets are orders of magnitude deeper than even Paizo's. It would be naïve to say that all this doesn't grant Wizards an amount of leeway that its competitors in the TRPG space lack. But just because they can afford to leave that PDF money on the table now doesn't mean they can afford to do so forever. Even the Beatles had to come to iTunes eventually.
I think the D&D team is doing a damn fine job right now, but if they're still in this place a year or even six months from now, they will have squandered the window of opportunity they've opened for themselves right now.
I don't think WotC has PDFs of any products it has released in print in the last year. For example none of the reprinted core rulebooks from 1E, 2E, 3E, or 4E are available in PDF.Uh, what? They are all on DTRPG. Even those that weren't reprinted are available as PDFs from Drivethrurpg.
The 5e PHB isn't available as a PDF, though, which is concerning. Maybe they'll release all three core books as PDFs together, after they are all out in print? I'd be really disappointed if they didn't, since it would mean I probably wouldn't be able to play 5e.
That's incorrect!
It is true that none of the printed/re-printed core rulebooks have been (re-)released as PDFs but WOTC. Thus you can get OD&D books (premium reprint), AD&D 1st, 2nd, 3.5 premium reprints, but NONE of these core books are available as PDFS. Also the AD&D scenarios they have reprinted are noticably absent from their PDF offerings (the A and S series).And on the other hand: they have released PDFs (thank god!) of the Basic/Expert (Moldvay/Cook) D&D books as well as Rules Cyclopedia... but.... that coincides with these rulebooks being the exact ones they HAVEN'T reprinted....
So it really seems...so far.... that for WOTC it's either print OR pdf, but not both.... strangely....
If i could also buy pdf editions of, say AD&D 1st edition core books, it would only make it more likely that i would start a campaign using those books... leading to further physical books being sold too .... i dont get their strategy at all so far
I don't think WotC has PDFs of any products it has released in print in the last year. For example none of the reprinted core rulebooks from 1E, 2E, 3E, or 4E are available in PDF.Uh, what? They are all on DTRPG. Even those that weren't reprinted are available as PDFs from Drivethrurpg.
I look forward to you linking to them. :)