I love the Traveller Book and all its supplementary goodies: but I have to admit that my usual style of play - solitaire - is most conducive to having the first 3 LBBs open in front of you at once.
FFE vs. Mongoose Publishing
- Thread starter Appleseed81
- Start date
I love the Traveller Book and all its supplementary goodies: but I have to admit that my usual style of play - solitaire - is most conducive to having the first 3 LBBs open in front of you at once.
An iPad (and I assume the other tablets) make the PDFs more usable. I fired up an internal web server on my machine and put some pdfs on it, then browsed it with the iPads web browser. When you do that, iBooks will ask if you want to add the PDF to it. When you say Yes, it downloads it to the iBooks reader on the iPad. Then you can bookmark and arrange the books, etc.
Granted, something like an iPad is an extravagance (and not exactly a cheap one), but it does make working with electronic books more friendly, and they will only be getting cheaper as time goes on.
For example, I once bought an obsolete Palm Pilot solely for use as an e-book reader off of eBay for, like, $20. It was perfect for reading just text books (like Baen Free Library). The small form factor isn't very good for PDFs though.
But the large devices work pretty well.
Granted, something like an iPad is an extravagance (and not exactly a cheap one), but it does make working with electronic books more friendly, and they will only be getting cheaper as time goes on.
For example, I once bought an obsolete Palm Pilot solely for use as an e-book reader off of eBay for, like, $20. It was perfect for reading just text books (like Baen Free Library). The small form factor isn't very good for PDFs though.
But the large devices work pretty well.
Quite a few of us, actually. Like most of my gaming group. We don't have room for more dead tree, and most of us have dedicated ebook readers... the MT books are a bit small on the full-screen mode on a PRS-600, but quite readable a half-page at a time using the PRS-600.
The mongoose text it just a hair too small to read comfortably as well.
However, the LBB's are just perfect on most ebook readers.
Having the entire collection, searchable, on an SD card, I can search it on the reader, or on almost any nearby desktop or laptop.
nats
SOC-12
I personally hate PDFs and cannot read them. more to do with sitting at the computer reading hem than anything else. I like to have a book to flick through whilst sitting on the settee etc. Perhaps tablets might make them a little bit more readable and I have been thinking about getting one at some point - more for PC games rules that all come on pdfs these days. I just dont read them and mess about with the game trying to figure things out instead, they are a right pain. I cant imagine playing an RPG around a table with everyone using laptops or palmreaders trying to flick through several documents not paying attention to whats going on around the table, that sounds terrible! There is a lot right with paper that you can leave in front of you. And I dont subscribe to all this saving trees is saving he planet rubbish when you have £multi-million construction conglomerates using tons and tons of lumber perfectly sustainably. It would be a sad day indeed if the world world ever turned completely electronic.
See, Nats, you're projecting a lot of seriously mistaken assumptions...
1) I don't normally even allow people to be flipping through physical books at the table. So the ebook reader issue isn't any more of an issue than would be a book.
2) None of us use general-use tablets; we have dedicated eInk based devices (which have the same readability as a newspaper on recycled newsprint... pretty good...), none of which have support for games. Which prevents the whole getting distracted by the games.
3) the ability to search reduces the time spent looking. (Sony Reader and Kindle are the best for that.) A lookup that used to take 10min typically now takes 3 min or less... if the PC is available, plug the reader in, open the PDF on the PC, look it up, then turn off the screen again once done, as it searches about 5x faster than the Sony.
I hate rules-lawyering at the table. And the best cure for it is not to let rules lawyers have books open at the table.
Further, half my gaming these days is on-line.
1) I don't normally even allow people to be flipping through physical books at the table. So the ebook reader issue isn't any more of an issue than would be a book.
2) None of us use general-use tablets; we have dedicated eInk based devices (which have the same readability as a newspaper on recycled newsprint... pretty good...), none of which have support for games. Which prevents the whole getting distracted by the games.
3) the ability to search reduces the time spent looking. (Sony Reader and Kindle are the best for that.) A lookup that used to take 10min typically now takes 3 min or less... if the PC is available, plug the reader in, open the PDF on the PC, look it up, then turn off the screen again once done, as it searches about 5x faster than the Sony.
I hate rules-lawyering at the table. And the best cure for it is not to let rules lawyers have books open at the table.
Further, half my gaming these days is on-line.
mbrinkhues
SOC-14 1K
I have scanned or retyped the GM screens that I own and made into PDF(1). Loaded on a mini-Tablet (Nokia N770) or later a "big" smartphone they are quite readable. Beats carrying around all the stuff.
Same for characters. I have typed up my characters as short text files the made to PDF and onto the tablet/phone. That way I have my characters with me all the time. Before that it was an DIN A4 "hard" binder that I had to lug around.
And notes went directly into the phone as well. No more paper to loose.
Since the smartphone is around me 24/7 I never forget the important stuff. This was even better with my old WiMo 6.5 unit that also had a nice dice roller program running.
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With full scale Active Digitizer Win7 tablets becoming more and more available this will become even better. Instead of lugging around equipment books and supplements to show my players maps/vehicles/aliens I scan the pages/pictures and put them on the tablet. A 2kg (with charger) tablet beats 4-6kg of books any time. That it can play music, take notes, scribble on the graphics without loosing them (and delete the scribble again tracelessly) etc. makes this even better
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Granted, a "tiltable" large LC Display that has a special "reading" mode on the PC helps also. And a laser printer (That I need anyway) allows for cheap printing. With a scanner it also beats the copyshop trips (and likely costs less)
(1) Since I own the physical copy AND the eCopy is mine only this is IMHO covered by german "fair use/privat copy"
Same for characters. I have typed up my characters as short text files the made to PDF and onto the tablet/phone. That way I have my characters with me all the time. Before that it was an DIN A4 "hard" binder that I had to lug around.
And notes went directly into the phone as well. No more paper to loose.
Since the smartphone is around me 24/7 I never forget the important stuff. This was even better with my old WiMo 6.5 unit that also had a nice dice roller program running.
=====
With full scale Active Digitizer Win7 tablets becoming more and more available this will become even better. Instead of lugging around equipment books and supplements to show my players maps/vehicles/aliens I scan the pages/pictures and put them on the tablet. A 2kg (with charger) tablet beats 4-6kg of books any time. That it can play music, take notes, scribble on the graphics without loosing them (and delete the scribble again tracelessly) etc. makes this even better
======
Granted, a "tiltable" large LC Display that has a special "reading" mode on the PC helps also. And a laser printer (That I need anyway) allows for cheap printing. With a scanner it also beats the copyshop trips (and likely costs less)
(1) Since I own the physical copy AND the eCopy is mine only this is IMHO covered by german "fair use/privat copy"
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