All D&D Books To Be Available As PDFs

sckeener writes "DriveThruRPG has just announced that it will be selling all of WotC's 3.5 Edition D&D products in e-book format - over 90 books. Wizards has elected not to make the three core rulebooks for Dungeons & Dragons available as eBooks at this time, but almost every other current Dungeons & Dragons title will be available from DriveThruRPG. New titles are scheduled to release one each weekday on DriveThruRPG: Some of the titles to be released first include: Book of Vile Darkness, Heroes of Horror, Arms and Equipment Guide, d20 Apocalypse, Champions of Ruin, Complete Arcane, Unearthed Arcana, Masters of the Wild and Book of Challenges. The books are still full price and are DRM protected." I'd be happier about this if they were even slightly discounted, but it's a good step. Heroes of Horror is worth every penny.

D&D Books in PDF is awesome.

[Kranfer (620510)]

I love this idea. While I like having my nice tidy bookshelves full of books, being able to have my laptop right there with a PDF to search for Rules or concepts would make people who are rule whores like me be able to find the specifics quickly without spending 20 minutes looking. I would like to see the PDFs discounted though, that would be a kicker to have to pay full price for the PDFs again just to have them on my laptop and not have to have 09571340987 books to look through. It would also be nice to see the Fantasy World books put out by Wizards to be in PDF too. Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, etc.

Re:D&D Books in PDF is awesome.

[Lacota (695046)]

You don't need these. Aside from the lovely consept art, most of the D&D content can be found in the SRD (System Reference Document). Which encompasess the core rulebooks, as well as some of the fringe 3.5 content (Psionics, Divine feats, etc) You can download it in chunks or the whole thing. They are in unencumbered RTF files. Totally free too! In Wizard's own words, here is the missing content from the SRD: Q: What's missing from the SRD compared to the core D&D rulebooks? A: Mostly the "flavor" elements. There are no named gods, none of the spells have significant NPC names, there's no mention of Greyhawk, etc. You'll also note that there are no rules for character creation, for advancing characters in level, calculating experience, or anything else related to the topics forbidden by the d20 System Trademark Guide. Here is the D&D SRD: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/s rd35 [wizards.com] Here is the D20 Modern SRD (MSRD): http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/m srd [wizards.com]

Re:Cool... but...

[Kranfer (620510)]

I don't think you're trolling and I agree. 3rd Edition is perfect rules for Video Games. I always liked the 2nd Edition rules with THAC0 and such. Hopefully they WILL put 1st and 2nd edition into PDFs. I would definately buy them.

Re:Cool... but...

[lytlebill (659903)]

Actually, you can already get a ton of them as pdf. And not too expensive, either.

http://paizo.com/store/downloads/wizardsOfTheCoast /aDAndD2/ [paizo.com]

Perfect for video games?

[BlackCobra43 (596714)]

Then how come most 3rd ed. d&d game have performed poorly while Baldur's Gate 2 (AD&D - the "worst" ruleset according to a good many!) is widely hailed as a spectacular CRPG, if not one of the best games of all time?

Re:Perfect for video games?

[tbannist (230135)]

I think that's obvious, there are three groups of players who like 3rd Edition: newbies, fanbois and powergamers. It suffers from 2 steps forward, one step back syndrome. Most of the game mechanic changes are reasonably good, I always liked the more intricate miniature rules for combat, for example. However, I loathe the new multi-classing rules, prestige classes are terrible, and some of the weapons are just retarded. Spiked Chain? Mercurial Sword? Cabers?

Couldn't stand the new system.

Re:Perfect for video games?

[frankie (91710)]

As an old-school (1977 blue-box) life-long RPGer, I disagree on several points. 3E rulset (or 3.5E, same thing, really ought to be 3.1 from a versioning standpoint) is substantially cleaner and more sensible than any previous DND. 1E/2E multiclass rules were annoying and arbitrary, and dualclass was just plain absurd.

Your post was the first I heard of mercurial sword in a DND context (I don't own any 3E books, just read the SRD. Also, I haven't played PNP in years, and if I did I'd use Fuzion, FATE, or so

Sweet!

[sunrise.kid (931504)]

No all I need are some friends to play with :-(

yeah but...

[i.r.id10t (595143)]

... They won't have Larry Elmore, Clyde Caldwells, or Gary Gygax's signatures on them like my old copies!

Re:yeah but...

[fightzombies (876201)]

You have signed copies!? Those must be worth like thousands of GP!

Boo

[giorgiofr (887762)]

There they go and take a perfectly cool idea and corrupt it. These books should be sold with a huge discount because lots of costs have been cut by distributing them online as PDFs. And don't they realize that the very value of a PDF is intrinsically lower than that of a hardbound book? I might as well just buy the real thing and be done with it.
Besides... PDF DRM? I've been given tons of supa-dupa-drm-protected PDFs in the past and usually they gave up in under 10 seconds. As usual, determined attackers will get what they want, while people who are obviously loyal to the brand and good customers get shafted by having their book usage restricted.
(OK, I have an axe to grind... I never really forgave them for the switch to d20... or for buying RTS at all)

Re:Boo

[Red Flayer (890720)]

"And don't they realize that the very value of a PDF is intrinsically lower than that of a hardbound book? "

Absolutely false. The cost of production might be lower, but the value is determined by the consumer, not directly by the characteristics of the item.

To me, the PDF would actually be MORE valuable, since I commute a long distance and would be able to read them on my laptop without lugging around some heavy tomes. Easier to tag, cross-reference, etc. How about indexing the books and being able to instantly (well, near-instantly, these are pdfs after all) call up all references to a certain spell in all the books?

In short, value is ascribed by the perceived utility of the object, not by production and distribution costs.

Love electronic distribution but...

[cgranade (702534)]

While I do love electronic distribution, trying to read something as long as the Spell Compendium in a PDF makes me shudder. I love being able to physically flip pages, pass the book around and read without a computer. There are certianally things that are nicer about an electronic distribution, but when they try to recreate a book on a computer, it loses a lot of what makes reading on a computer better. When I can do a spin-find, resize the window and have the text rewrap, change fonts for maximum readability, etc., then I'll give it some more thought. Until then, I prefer that my books are in fact books, and that my files stay delightfully DRM-free.

Good Idea

[Thyamine (531612)]

This is certainly a good idea since a large number of computer geeks (yes, admit it.. you are, and so am I) play, and we're the most likely to adopt e-books or books in PDF form. However I personally prefer to have a book in physical form for all things, so unless there's some motiviation to purchase the book in this format (financial or otherwise) I'm not going to be doing this.

The one benefit that is very clear though, is the ability to purchase books and have them immediately, and not be limited by what the bookstore happens to have in stock today.

Re:Good Idea

[pla (258480)]

I just hope they allow eventually you to roll your own rulebooks with the elements of individual PDFs. That would be especially handy.

Psst - You can break the rules!

Really!

If everyone in your gaming group agrees a particular rule sucks - ignore it. If you hate using spell memorization rather than per-level MP (my own biggest peeve), just use MP and to hell with memorization. If you think a fixed exp per kill leads to mindless killing sprees and dungeon crawling, make better use of roleplaying-based advancement.

PDF, eh?

[pla (258480)]

Cool, so the DRM comes pre-cracked, and these should appear online within a month or so. ;-)


On a more seriously note - I think RPG rulebooks work better in physical form. Granted, you can't drag an entire shelf of books around with you, but the players guide, DMs guide, and whatever setting-specific guide applies to your campaign, doesn't really take that much effort - The Dew and snacks for the evening probably weigh more than the books you need.

And as for looking up a particular rule... C'mon, admit it folks - you have the rulebooks all but memorized, and just need to check whether half-ogre gets a 15% or 20% racial modifier to damage with a double-handed flail...


Sigh... And after writing the above, guess what captcha I get? "losers". Not so subtle hint, oh Gods of Slashdot?

Here's how new gaming sessions will go...

[MagicDude (727944)]

DM - As you enter the dimly lit room, you see a creature lurking in the corner, laughing in the corner. As you approach it, things to dark for a second and then the entire room is illuminated with a bright azure light. You have encountered - A BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH!!

Fighter - I punch the the screen with my fist.

Rogue - I sneak around back and attempt to unplug it.

Wizard - I cast "Bigby's Typing Hands" to press Ctrl-Alt-Del

Cleric - I cast "curse" on Bill Gates

Sorceress - I summon Tech Support

Must be a definition of ALL I'm not familiar with.

[Chainsaw76 (261937)]

"Wizards has elected not to make the three core rulebooks for Dungeons & Dragons available as eBooks at this time,"

Perhaps the title should be reworded to say, all but the best selling ones.

-Jason

Pay a premium for digital goods?

[Alan Shutko (5101)]

I just checked, and for Frostburn (for instance), I could save $13 by buying it in hardcover form from amazon rather than buying the PDF. Sure, a PDF is more convenient in some cases, but this is ridiculous.

Ideally, I'd want some kind of subscription service. Let me sign up with DTRPG, authorize my credit card, and whenever a new book came out $5-$10 came off my card and I got the PDF right away. If they're worried about people pirating the PDF, a lower price would help that to... for $5 bucks I'd just give books away if I wanted to share the rules.

Saving Costs...

[MrLizard (95131)]

A lot of people here seem to be sans clue about the 'costs' of physical books. Books are sold to distributors at about 25% of retail cost (and there has to be a small profit on that), so, if you just cut out the physical costs of the books, you will save about 15-20 percent. Furthermore, if PDFs are significantly cheaper than physical books, this undercuts retailers, who get angry, and stop ordering the product. If brick-and-morter stores stop buying, this cuts out the main source for new players entering the hobby. Keeping the physical distribution chain alive is key to the long-term survival of the genre.

Here's the deal.

[by Anonymous Coward]

If they're going to load them up with DRM and make it all crippleware, I'll pay 1/10 of the price of a hardbound copy.

If they remove the crippleware and sell them as straight PDFs, I'll pay 1/2 of the price of a hardbound copy.

If they sell crippleware versions at the same price of the hardbound copy, then I'll wait until someone cracks the DRM and posts them on the internet, and I'll get them for free.

That's how it works. It would be refreshing if some publishers realized that, but it's no big deal from my end.

Another media company fails to get it

[lilnobody (148653)]

This shows foresight, as WotC hasn't had to deal with piracy for as long as the music companies have. They must be aware just how freely their books are available on limewire, and as long as people want them digitally, they'll sell them instead of not even have a piece of the action. Good! I imagine we'll even be able to search the text, once the DRM is cracked--most excellent.

What they don't get is that I download copies to supplement the physical copies I own, so I can look up something on the road from a book I don't have as I prepare the next session for my group. They are seeing it as a replacement, as it costs as much as a book.

I'm not planning to pay as much as a book costs to get something that isn't as good as one. Back to limewire for me. But their quick acceptance of digital distribution, unlike that of most media companies, leaves me hope that they will get it before 4.0...

nobody

Roll your own

[sckeener (137243)]

(I'm buzzing. I always love it when I submit something that is accepted.)

I recently looked into rolling my own PDF copies of my gaming books. Here is the thread on Enworld [enworld.org].

For those that don't want to click on that link, I basically talked to 3 IP lawyers about how to do it. It all comes down to the receipt. You have to have the receipt to prove purchase. A scanned receipt is fine as long as it shows your name and the product. Basically you are making your own watermarked pdfs. One IP lawyer with 20 years in the software IP field told me a horror story about how you could have the original software CD, license #, have the software registered with the vendor, and you would still need to produce the receipt to prove ownership. Without the receipt it could be stolen.....

This just shows how slow WoTC has been

[Phase Shifter (70817)]

Steve Jackson Games has been doing this for a while now [sjgames.com], with their own games as well as others.

This may be a big deal for D&D fans, but for people who play RPGs in general it's nothing new.

Re:Been using PDFs for a while

[Red Flayer (890720)]

"PDFs are not as handy for a casual read, like when you are in the bathroom."

Yech. Maybe it's just me, but I don't want to be flipping through a book that my GM's been reading on the crapper. I know, the book is probably perfectly clean, but given what my current GM looks like, the visual is disturbing.

Besides, now I'm going to be thinking of unique items like Ragnar's +2 Plunger of Clog Slaying, or Charmin's +5 Vorpal Toilet Paper.