Pdf's

Posts: 2525 · Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 11:42 am

I have reached a time where I must find a way of culling my current collection, most of which has been easy. But on looking at a brand new copy of Rappan Athuk Reloaded, a limited edition, and fantastic megadungeon, I pose a question which this dungeon has brought up:

Why the nead to own the physical copy?

I have the PDF from RPGNow and it's very high quality, and the odds of me ever being able to DM it are slim unless my partner and I have kids that I can entice into RPGs. So why do we feel the need to own the physical products when there are different ways of owning the actual information therein?

Posts: 413 · Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 12:08 pm

mbassoc2003 wrote:

I have reached a time where I must find a way of culling my current collection, most of which has been easy. But on looking at a brand new copy of Rappan Athuk Reloaded, a limited edition, and fantastic megadungeon, I pose a question which this dungeon has brought up:

Why the nead to own the physical copy?

I have the PDF from RPGNow and it's very high quality, and the odds of me ever being able to DM it are slim unless my partner and I have kids that I can entice into RPGs. So why do we feel the need to own the physical products when there are different ways of owning the actual information therein?

Even if I can't run an adventure I love reading through them. I just can't get the same depth of enjoyment reading from a PDF and witht he cost of printing some of these up it is cheaper to have the original.

Then the collectable aspect is about having that paper talisman like that single sheet for $18,000 (Me I'd rather have $17,999.90 and a photocopy)

Posts: 4545 · Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 3:31 pm

mbassoc2003 wrote:

I have reached a time where I must find a way of culling my current collection, most of which has been easy. But on looking at a brand new copy of Rappan Athuk Reloaded, a limited edition, and fantastic megadungeon, I pose a question which this dungeon has brought up:

Why the nead to own the physical copy?

I have the PDF from RPGNow and it's very high quality, and the odds of me ever being able to DM it are slim unless my partner and I have kids that I can entice into RPGs. So why do we feel the need to own the physical products when there are different ways of owning the actual information therein?

I've amassed quite a few pdfs the last few years, and have been culling my collection at the same time. Particularly at lot of the 3E stuff; I really just want to read it or glance through it, or use a map, but I won't ever run it. No point in owning the hardcopy.

Mike B.

Posts: 2525 · Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 6:23 pm

That's how I feel about stuff now as well, and it's easy with the Goodman Games stuff. I just have a folder with all the PDFs in it, and the odds are I'll only ever draw on them as source material and never play any of it.

But I notice the last Rappan Athuk sold on eBay for $175 BIN, and it is a tremendous piece of work. I doubt I'll see another dungeon like it in my remaining years unless we see a really good rendition of Castle Greyhawk. RA is a masterpiece. I just don't know whether to sell on my boxed set and keep the PDFs, and it raises the whole 'I'm never gonna use it so why do I need to keep it' issue.

Posts: 413 · Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 6:58 pm

mbassoc2003 wrote:

That's how I feel about stuff now as well, and it's easy with the Goodman Games stuff. I just have a folder with all the PDFs in it, and the odds are I'll only ever draw on them as source material and never play any of it.

But I notice the last Rappan Athuk sold on eBay for $175 BIN, and it is a tremendous piece of work. I doubt I'll see another dungeon like it in my remaining years unless we see a really good rendition of Castle Greyhawk. RA is a masterpiece. I just don't know whether to sell on my boxed set and keep the PDFs, and it raises the whole 'I'm never gonna use it so why do I need to keep it' issue.

I'm not familiar with this Rappan athuk. What is it?

Posts: 3191 · Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 8:01 pm

JasonZavoda wrote:

I'm not familiar with this Rappan athuk. What is it?

Blurb:

Quote:

This may not be the world's largest dungeon, but its certainly the deadliest!

The granddaddy of all dungeons returns! From the lair of Zelkor to the lair of Orcus, intrepid adventurers have crawled these halls for decades. Treasures and monsters abound, but can you find your way out again? Lost in the red mists, you wonder. The Bloodways await.

Kill them all, Orcus will recognize his own!

Rappan Athuk Reloaded™ contains the entirety of the original Rappan Athuk™ series, along with many new levels and a massive wilderness expansion, all updated for the revised rules. Not just a rework, this expanded version contains tons of new material, detailing 36 dungeon levels and dozens of wilderness areas.

* Endless adventure in the most challenging dungeon ever devised.
* The most difficult puzzles, traps, riddles and quests to solve.
* Years of adventure for your characters.

The boxed set contains three books:

Book 1: The Dungeon of Graves - 232 pages of dungeon crawling
Book 2: Servants, Slaves and Food - 96 pages of monsters and NPCs
Book 3: Pathways to Damnation - 56 pages of maps.

ISBN: 1-58846-795-3

Personally one of the better 3.x products out there that can span any edition (if you know how to convert things that is Smile

)

ShaneG.

Posts: 4545 · Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 1:14 am

Plaag wrote:

Personally one of the better 3.x products out there that can span any edition (if you know how to convert things that is Smile

)

ShaneG.

It's also one of the few (at this time) 3E collectibles, having been limited to 1000 copies. It's a super dungeon very old school in design, which is understandable as apparantly it first appeared as the "house" dungeon for the writers, and was originall either a 1st or 2nd edition item for their camapaign. It originally cost $75, but I bet it's running twice that now due to it's scarcity.

However, the original 3 module set for Necromancer games still turns up a lot and can be found much easier, running you about $50 or so (with R3 being the harder to find).

Mike B.
Mike B.

Posts: 2525 · Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 5:12 am

Rappan Athuk Reloaded is a must have for any collector. It's much more old school than anything I've seen since the mid-90's. And as I recall, Reloaded is more than just R1-2-3 added together. The artwork is much more professional, the printing quality is a lot higher, and there is additional materials from the original campaign.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250252827217

Posts: 413 · Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 11:14 pm

mbassoc2003 wrote:

Rappan Athuk Reloaded is a must have for any collector. It's much more old school than anything I've seen since the mid-90's. And as I recall, Reloaded is more than just R1-2-3 added together. The artwork is much more professional, the printing quality is a lot higher, and there is additional materials from the original campaign.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250252827217

Wow, I'll have to keep my eye out for it. I did just pick up Rappan Athuk 1-2-3 and five other modules tonight on ebay. R3 seems to be the expensive one.

Posts: 2525 · Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 8:32 am

R3 is hard to find, but the compilation Reloaded is much more than the sum of its parts. Having just flicked through it again and then repacked away safely, I'm leaning towards keeping it unless I have a serious reason to sell it. Every time I read parts of it I am impressed at how well it is put together.

At the other extreme, The Worlds Largest Dungeon is completely shite and I'd sell that without hesitation, except the world seems to be swamped with overstock of that doorstop.

Does anyone know if The Worlds Largest City is as bad as Dungeon?

Posts: 1117 · Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 9:02 am

mbassoc2003 wrote:

At the other extreme, The Worlds Largest Dungeon is completely shite and I'd sell that without hesitation, except the world seems to be swamped with overstock of that doorstop.

Does anyone know if The Worlds Largest City is as bad as Dungeon?

No idea on City, but what is the current going price for Dungeon? I know someone who's looking for it, but I think his budget may be below market value. And yes, I've already warned him that it's complete and utter crap.

Posts: 413 · Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 9:31 am

g026r wrote:

No idea on City, but what is the current going price for Dungeon? I know someone who's looking for it, but I think his budget may be below market value. And yes, I've already warned him that it's complete and utter crap.

One seller on ebay continually has them for $60 shrinkwrapped.

Posts: 1348 · Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 9:34 am

There aren't many pdfs I want, but I do have a few, simply because it is easier, say, to print out the pre-gen characters of a module than to scan it in, fold the book to do so, and then print it out... also, I can modify the contents of a pdf, if I want, through text editing. I can even strip the images and change them should I feel the need. Also, a very few things only come in pdf...

Posts: 4545 · Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 9:50 am

g026r wrote:

No idea on City, but what is the current going price for Dungeon? I know someone who's looking for it, but I think his budget may be below market value. And yes, I've already warned him that it's complete and utter crap.

I have a theory that World's Largest City will be collectible someday....

Due to the price, and people getting burned on WLD (which yes was crap), and lower print run, and lower profile (definitely don't see as many of these) I think it will be tough to find in the future. Definitely tougher than WLD which you should be able to get for half price at LEAST if you nose around a bit.

Mike B .

Posts: 2525 · Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 5:25 pm

I have seen WLD go as low as $40 second hand near mint. Someone must have paid $60, took off the shrink, realised they'd been screwed and cashed in their chips.

So, Mike. Do you have WLC? Is it any good?

Posts: 4545 · Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 7:55 pm

mbassoc2003 wrote:

I have seen WLD go as low as $40 second hand near mint. Someone must have paid $60, took off the shrink, realised they'd been screwed and cashed in their chips.

So, Mike. Do you have WLC? Is it any good?

No, don't have it, and I haven't seen it near as much as WLD.. That's why I figure it's harder to find, I never pay full price, and I can't find it cheap.

Mike B.

Posts: 2525 · Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 4:15 am

Okay. A BIG moral question for those with strong opinions on the board....

If I sell an expensive or rare book on eBay, and in light of the need for the new buyer to want to keep it in as good condition as he can, is it morally wrong for me to offer to supply him with a digital copy of his purchase along with the item?

After all, he is permitted to make a digital copy under the law in both the UK and US, and it saves me just binning the CD I put the PDF onto.

The danger of course would be that a PDF of say the UK Basic could go wild though a buyer reselling or lending to a friend, and we all know that PDF security (password protection, DRM, watermarking etc.) can be stripped with relative ease.

I'd be interested to hear what the board thinks.

Posts: 2635 · Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 10:32 am

xraygord wrote:

The reason I ask is this, when we were kids playing, we would share modules and resource books with each other for the purpose of gaming. I was wondering if you could do the same with PDFs. I guess the difference is that the recipient of the PDF would have a permanent copy, and the sender would still have theirs.

A month late on this, but yes. You can share PDFs with your friends. How you do so will determine if it's legal or not. Generally speaking, if you can't do it with a printed copy, you can't do it with a PDF either.

If you all crowd around your computer screen at home, that's legal. If you print out a copy and you all read it together in your house, still legal. (ie, not considered a broadcast).

You can give your PDF file to a friend, along with any copies you've made. It works just like giving your friend a book. And later, they can give it back the same way, I suppose. You can't have the same copy when your friend has it -- that's not possible with a book; not legal with a PDF.

mbassoc2003 wrote:

If I sell an expensive or rare book on eBay, and in light of the need for the new buyer to want to keep it in as good condition as he can, is it morally wrong for me to offer to supply him with a digital copy of his purchase along with the item?

Strictly speaking, if you don't destroy the personal copies, you're required to give him any copies you've made. Copyright laws vary between countries somewhat, but in general copies must be "disposed of" at the same time as the original.

As far as morals are concerned, well...tough one. If you have existing PDFs, you might offer them to the buyer, and destroy them if he isn't interested in them. I think it's slightly more shady to offer to create a digital copy that doesn't already exist. That's simply a method of increasing the sale price, you're not really making a copy for "personal use". I'd just let the new owner worry about making PDFs for personal use, if that's his bag.

Posts: 2525 · Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 12:34 pm

deimos3428 wrote:

As far as morals are concerned, well...tough one. If you have existing PDFs, you might offer them to the buyer, and destroy them if he isn't interested in them. I think it's slightly more shady to offer to create a digital copy that doesn't already exist. That's simply a method of increasing the sale price, you're not really making a copy for "personal use". I'd just let the new owner worry about making PDFs for personal use, if that's his bag.

As I have already created the PDF to safeguard the book (as I don't carry home contents insurance), I was actually thinking of putting said product up for sale on eBay (UK Black Basic) and saying that I will include the PDF with the purchase. But whilst I know I have never distributed the PDF, there is the possibility of it then 'going wild'.

Posts: 41 · Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 6:31 pm

Interesting questions...that I have no answer for. I just wanted to chime in to say that .pdfs and hard copies are two completely different worlds to me. The originals have that nostalgia that can't be duplicated with an electronic copy (which is why I'm so poor). But .pdfs are fantastic for DMing. You can search, copy and paste text, notate, work up and print out player maps, carry hundreds of volumes on a flash drive, etc. I'm happy to pay $5 each for all of that, but at the same time, if I'm paying for a product, could I please get a decent scan of a M/NM copy please? I've gotten so many copies that were scans of Good copies, I'm ready to buy a VG/F copy, scan it myself and sell it off again (unless that's not legal, in which case I'll never do that Rolling Eyes

).

And what is the deal with WOTC selling .pdfs of new copies at the same price as the actual product? I wanted to buy a 3e product that was $34.95 retail and the .pdf was the same price. I contacted the seller to let them know that they confused the two and he said, no, that's the price. I asked him why I wouldn't pick one up on Amazon for their $16 price, scan it and resell it and he had no answer. Charge $5 more for each product, include the .pdf from the manufacturer's original files so it's mint and I'll be happy. I won't pay $70 for both versions when I don't think the original hardcopy is even worth it's bloated retail price.