I have this habit when I run games online - I want the adventure I'm using in print.
Doesn't matter if I wrote it, if it's in PDF format, hard copy I picked up at the game store, whatever the case may be. I want it in print so i can refer to it while it sits on my desk in front of my monitor. Alas, this past Monday, that was not to be.
Why? Because my printer was being temperamental, and for some inane reason decided it didn't want to print the first two pages of The Attack of the Frawgs. I'm not talking cover and contents pages, I'm talking the first two pages of the actual adventure.
To I slid my Google Chrome to the left side of my monitor, put Attack of the Frawgs on the rights side, opened up Hangout in G+ and hoped for the best. I figured I'd revert to the printed pages after I got past those few pages.
Surprise, I didn't. Ran it from the PDF and the printed map. And I liked it. I really liked it.
It meant I didn't spend too much time looking down at my desk but instead I was looking at the screen. Taling to players, look at the screen. Reading the flavor text and combat stats? Look at the screen.
Worked much better than I expected.
Of course, it does help that I have a 27" screen ;)
With tablet computer thingies being all the rage at the moment, one of our game soc GMs only uses that now, has everything on PDFs, with bookmarks galore, and seems to do better than people trying to find stuff in main rule books and source material going off little more than dog-eared post-its. I look forward to the day when I can afford a tablet to try it myself.
ReplyDeleteSadly, I keep spending all my money on hard copy RPG books.
I do the same for my on-line game, just using Map tools, PDF and whatever else and switching between them (easy to do on a mac). Works well for me, and allows me to concentrate on what's going on.
ReplyDeleteThe best thing about adventure PDFs is annotations. You can put in pop up notes and stuff that really help and keeps everything in one place. I love one page dungeon format in PDF with annotations in there for extra content without having to flip pages.
ReplyDelete