Spelljammer 64-page Spelljammer books?

[Parmandur]

WotC hasn't let me down yet with 5E, short of Tasha's. Van Richten's was very good so I have some confidence I'll be happy with this purchase. At the least, new monsters and ship deck plans that I'll be able to use regardless of the quality of the writing.

Normally, I would have waited until I'd seen a flip-through of the book at least before deciding. But, I'd been eying B&G of other books (namely CoS), and not wanting to take the chance this would be sold out, put this on preorder at a hefty discount. It's a calculated bet, with the odds heavily in my favor.

Thst last point us also relwvant: a lot of people won't be paying $70. My FLGS has a 10% pre-order discount, and it's $59.99 on Amazon.

 

[Rogerd1]

Do we know if there is any chance these books will come out in pdf too? Has there been any news?

 

[Parmandur]

Do we know if there is any chance these books will come out in pdf too? Has there been any news?

No, Wotac doesn't release PDFs. They will probably be on Beyobd, and the individual books may be available separately, probably for $30 a pop based on market rates.

 

[Kurotowa]

Do we know if there is any chance these books will come out in pdf too? Has there been any news?

There is zero chance because there's no realistic way to copy protect a PDF. At best you can watermark it, and that's pretty weak. That's why there's no official PDF of any of the 5e books. WotC doesn't want super high quality versions of their books in the pirate file trading circles. And yes, the rest of us lose some measure of convenience as a side effect. But it is what it is.

As a D&D player, I too miss the convenience of official PDFs. As the child of two authors, I fully understand wanting to get fair payment for your hard work. It's a dilemma no one has a good solution to yet.

 

[Nikosandros]

No, Wotac doesn't release PDFs. They will probably be on Beyobd,

They have been available for preorder on DDB for a while now. Or are you referring to the likelihood that they will be available as separate purchases?

 

[Micah Sweet]

There is zero chance because there's no realistic way to copy protect a PDF. At best you can watermark it, and that's pretty weak. That's why there's no official PDF of any of the 5e books. WotC doesn't want super high quality versions of their books in the pirate file trading circles. And yes, the rest of us lose some measure of convenience as a side effect. But it is what it is.

As a D&D player, I too miss the convenience of official PDFs. As the child of two authors, I fully understand wanting to get fair payment for your hard work. It's a dilemma no one has a good solution to yet.

And yet, WotC is about the only game company that doesn't use pdfs, despite those issues. Do they just care more?

 

[Nikosandros]

As a D&D player, I too miss the convenience of official PDFs. As the child of two authors, I fully understand wanting to get fair payment for your hard work. It's a dilemma no one has a good solution to yet.

I actually don't think that piracy really is a factor in that decision. All the manuals are quickly available as high quality scans, from what I've seen.

 

[Parmandur]

They have been available for preorder on DDB for a while now. Or are you referring to the likelihood that they will ab available as separate purchases?

Yeah, Beyond usually has some a la carte options, though less cost efficient than just getting the whole thing.

 

[Parmandur]

And yet, WotC is about the only game company that doesn't use pdfs, despite those issues. Do they just care more?

D&D and other RPG companies aren't batting in same League. And WotC does put out PDFs...for older products.

 

[darjr]

D&D and other RPG companies aren't batting in same League. And WotC does put out PDFs...for older products.

They have put out PDFs for new things too. Like the Monstrous Compendium and things in DMSGUILD (see several charity adventures, etc)

But the removal of the Monstrous Compendium pdf for a link to DnDBeyond may be a glimpse into their future plans.