PDF vs. Print

[kdresser]

I just finished reading the Core Rules and want to start to LM with some friends. I've never actually played before though.

I'm deciding now what to (or not to) invest in, supplements-wise. I bought a hard copy of Rivendell and Lake-Town from Amazon on an impulse-buy a month ago. I bought a book/pdf combo when I got the revised rulebook, but I'm trying to figure out what materials would be helpful for me as a new LM and whether I should get them as a PDF or in print or both. What do you recommend for assembling a campaign?

I'll probably run The Marsh Bell once or twice with different people as a one-shot to acquire players interested in a longer campaign. Do you find yourself using some supplements more in print and others in PDF? I assume it would be good to get a PDF of an adventure book so I can copy and paste things into a document as I'm learning to run games, but would I honestly get any use of a printed copy of one? What about regional sourcebooks? Do you find yourself copying and pasting from them a lot, or do you mostly use them for inspiration?

Thanks, everyone!

[zedturtle]

I have everything in print and PDF. When running games face-to-face, I often only bring my core rulebook and that's really to just use the Hazard tables... and the possibility of there being a rules question. I could probably get away with just bringing Hobbit Tales or making a little cheat sheet or something.

For reference, I find myself most often looking at Rivendell and possibly Heart of the Wild. I find myself finding things a bit faster in the physical book than the PDF, but I often have a ridiculous situation going on... The main game thread for what PbP game open on one monitor, the dice roller site on another monitor, with PDF(s) open behind/beside that window, rulebooks on the desk, drawing table, and/or the shelf next to the desk.

I don't often copy/paste things from the PDFs (unless I'm going to quote a small passage for the purposes of rules discussion, as I'm about to do in another thread momentarily). I tend to rewrite things into my own words, which PbP gives me the time to do (and also pretty much requires that you do so). When I'm running face-to-face, I pretty much always have the printed material with me (usually just as reference, but I do sometimes read out-loud certain sections that I really like). I find that without something to refer to, I can screw stuff up (even if it's stuff that I wrote ).

Hope that helps.

[Zulgolra]

You have a regional sourcebook already (Rivendell), so you can look into it and try to think about how useful the descriptions are for an adventure... In the end it's a personal taste thing...

Ok, Revised Rulebook, Rivendell, Laketown are in your possesion. Then I would invest into some adventures! Unfortunatly there are only 2 classic adventure anthologies on the market: Tales from the Wilderland and Ruins of the North. Altough "Ruins" would fit better to your collection, because the regional sourcebook for it is Rivendell, I would recommend "Tales".It is better for the start, has more adventures (one or two if I remember correctly) and the "power level" is somewhat lower...
You can use it without the regional sourcebook (which would be "Heart of the Wild"). But in the End ot is your choice.

Print vs. PDF
Well, I think both is the best! But if you wan't to save some money or do not mind reading on a screen, then take the PDF. It is always more useful for a Loremaster, because you can print a map easier, than copy it from a book.

[kdresser]

You can use it without the regional sourcebook (which would be "Heart of the Wild"). But in the End ot is your choice.

Isn't Darkening of Mirkwood also a campaign book for Heart of the Wild?

[zedturtle]

You can use it without the regional sourcebook (which would be "Heart of the Wild"). But in the End ot is your choice.

Isn't Darkening of Mirkwood also a campaign book for Heart of the Wild?

Yes, it's 30 adventure seeds that form an epic campaign. I think Z meant that the other two products have fully plotted adventures for you to use.

[kdresser]

You can use it without the regional sourcebook (which would be "Heart of the Wild"). But in the End ot is your choice.

Isn't Darkening of Mirkwood also a campaign book for Heart of the Wild?

Yes, it's 30 adventure seeds that form an epic campaign. I think Z meant that the other two products have fully plotted adventures for you to use.

Oh cool! I didn't know there was a difference. Wilderland and Ruins are laid out more like The Marsh Bell is, then?

[zedturtle]

Oh cool! I didn't know there was a difference. Wilderland and Ruins are laid out more like The Marsh Bell is, then?

Yeah, Wilderland is 160 pages for 7 adventures, about ~22 pages per adventure. Ruins is 144 pages, with adventures ranging from 17 pages to 32 pages. Darkening is 144 pages, with most years taking up 3-4 pages. Now they're excellent ideas with lots of good scenes, but they do need some expansion into full adventures by the LM.

It's kind of like the difference between what you might get out of Wild Adventures and what you get out of The Cup of True Love or Theft of the Moon.

[Rich H]

Rob a bank; get them all in print. They are gorgeous products that your bookshelf at home needs to have on it.

[Majestic]

I'm old fashioned and prefer the hard copies to actually hold in my hands. Plus I end up looking at them and using them often (as Rich said, they're gorgeous too). I use the PDFs as well, but when I play FTF I find it much easier (usually) to just turn to what I need in a book. Only rarely do I have to do a PDF search. FWIW, just reading through the books - even if you never planned to use them - are well worth it. I find nearly every page has some nugget of gold and good stuff (quite different from some books, where it's dry, boring text).

[kdresser]

Part of the reason I ask is that I have a Barnes & Noble gift card...but I don't want to use it on a hard copy that I'll end up using more as a PDF.