How Much Do You Care About Form Factor/Book Size?

[Ath'kethin]

Does the size of a book influence your decision whether or not to buy it? For example, do you prefer (or avoid) zine-sized books as oppposed to full-size (A4/8.5x11") books?

Someone recently launched a crowdfunding campaign for a TTRPG book I throught sounded really good, but when I saw that it was going to be zine-sized I just lost interest.

How do y'all feel about such things?

 

[J.Quondam]

For gaming materials, it depends on how the text and illos are formatted. If images are generally simple and if the text is large enough, uses bullets/indents, tables, etc, or otherwise mostly highly formatted, I don't mind smaller sizes. For denser things or more traditional "rulebook" styles (eg, double columns, complex/color art, elaborate maps, etc) I prefer larger sizes.

 

[aco175]

First, you should tell/show what a zine is? I tried to look it up and saw several things such a a half-sized book, a folded booklet like old modules, a tiny hand sized book, a scrapbook, a DIY Publisher calendar thing, etc... Maybe all of these things fall under what is being talked about.

It this is the case, I guess it depends on cost and content. An adventure on DMsGuild might look a bit like these things and some of the time looking at the preview tells me that it should be ok to get. Sometimes a cool cover picture hides a bunch of junk on the inside as well.

 

[Umbran]

I am at a point where I care about print size more than page size.

I prefer that smaller books not be so thick that they have no hope of lying open. My Savage Worlds books are like 6.75" by 10.5" and they seem to work fine.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Got to say I think conditioning plays a very big role in this; size and shape of books are imprinted in us. When something is outside of those parameters it feels and looks wrong. (Okay, it may just me)

 

[Sacrosanct]

I think it also matters what you're writing it for. For example, with my current KS, I decided to make the books match what the size of the edition is. OSE and Shadowdark are smaller than 5e books for example. So I wanted that to be a consistent experience for the player.

The key is to ensure the print size is still readable.

 

[Jd Smith1]

For the last 20-odd years, I only buy pdfs.

 

[Deset Gled]

It's not always about caring, it's also about practicality. A large or annoyingly shaped book that doesn't fit on the shelf doesn't get put on the shelf. Which means it will probably be forgotten about in the basement. A smaller book will still end up on the shelf, but may accidentally get sorted into the general fiction stuff instead if gaming.

The best way to make sure a book gets stored with my other RPG stuff is to make it close in size to my other RPG stuff.

 

[dragoner]

I do letter hardback in pod, digest would be bit too thick for some and I'd have to break it up. I have thought about soft cover. Someone sent me this:

 

[TheAlkaizer]

It's never been a purchase factor for me. However, it does affect my experience with the product after.

I used to dig the big hardcovers. I'm falling more and more in love with digest size books.