Any Chance of an Updated Doomsday Dawn PDF?


General Discussion


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The two pages of DC changes listed in the update file are great, but I can't help but think that it would have taken half the amount of time to change a few numbers in DD itself and push out a new download.

Admittedly, I'm not accustomed to running premade adventures as it is, but the last thing I want is to now have a fourth or fifth file open to tab back and forth between to run the playtest. Inevitably, I'm going to miss something, somewhere.


I'd like this as well (even though I purchased a physical copy). It would be great to see it for the Core Rulebook as well...even if it were just the Screen Reader version (which I use more often than the other anyway).


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I don't know if this would be possible. Even with the screen reader version. There are two thoughts I have on this, one of logistics, and one of clarity:

For logistics, the playtest is a hectic time, especially given that they're also publishing starfinder products, simultaneously, so it can't even be a all hands on deck activity. So I wonder if there are the manhours to update the PDFs for every update. Even for just DD, this probably involves at least a couple passes through, to ensure it's fit for distribution.

For Clarity, which is probably the major consideration, How will this affect the data? By going off an errata PDF, when surveys ask "are you using update 1.X?" it's easy to say yes or no. With an updated DD or CRB PDF, it's harder to say. The CRB is especially an issue, because what of groups playing with different copies of the rules. Or people on the forums or other avenues of feedback, who might specify page numbers or rules that don't correspond across updates.

For a Full Released version, yeah, updating with each errata is the right way of doing things, but for a playtest, I don't think it's the best idea.

Sczarni RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

I agree. I have both the PDF and the physical book, but mostly I've been using the PDF. Having a ton of changes throughout the adventure is going to mean a lot more work for me to flip back and forth to apply the updates.

I considered switching to running from paper, but while I prefer that for prep work, it makes it harder to actually run at the table since it's not searchable. If I do go the dead-tree route, I'm going to have to spend a lot of time and sticky-notes updating all of the DCs in the rest of the adventure. And there's a pretty good chance that I'm going to miss something and it'll throw off the playtest data :-(


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Tholomyes wrote:
For logistics, the playtest is a hectic time, especially given that they're also publishing starfinder products, simultaneously, so it can't even be a all hands on deck activity. So I wonder if there are the manhours to update the PDFs for every update. Even for just DD, this probably involves at least a couple passes through, to ensure it's fit for distribution.

CTRL-F about 30 times with a few minor numerical/text changes is absolutely less time than typing up "Pale Mountain's Shadow: Page 29—In the second paragraph, in the first sentence, change “DC 25 Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion” to “DC 23 Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion”. (The text concerning the DC’s reduction to 20 does not need to be changed.) In the third paragraph, in the first sentence, change “DC 19 Thievery” to “DC 18 Thievery”. In the seventh paragraph, in the first sentence, change “DC 29 Perception” to “DC 27 Perception”." for each separate entry needing changed. There's no question about that. I kind of get the not changing the master document ruleset, but Doomsday Dawn could absolutely get tweaked in about 20 minutes. And formatting wouldn't really change either because the spacing to go from "29" to "27" doesn't change.

Quote:
For Clarity, which is probably the major consideration, How will this affect the data? By going off an errata PDF, when surveys ask "are you using update 1.X?" it's easy to say yes or no. With an updated DD or CRB PDF, it's harder to say. The CRB is especially an issue, because what of groups playing with different copies of the rules. Or people on the forums or other avenues of feedback, who might specify page numbers or rules that don't correspond across updates.

If you're claiming to use Update 1.3, you'll be using the new DCs. If you're using 1.2 or lower, then it's also implied you're using the old DCs. I'm not sure how this affects anything in regard to an updated DD pdf. The surveys already start off by asking which update you're using.

Quote:
For a Full Released version, yeah, updating with each errata is the right way of doing things, but for a playtest, I don't think it's the best idea.

I would normally be inclined to agree, but Doomsday Dawn has repeatedly been said to be designed for purely playtesting reasons. They wouldn't format it with such rigid design rules, major level skips, and

Spoiler:
entire adventures in which you're intended to not survive
were it for a real release. So update it now and help the GMs out a little bit because there won't be a use if updating for final release. We're doing a good bit of the heavy lifting as it is right now.
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