Isn't it more comfortable to use a small laptop/tablet where you can search rules if necessary?
>>97153717The DM should know all the rules, and you should just ask him. I don't even let player handle books during a session. I'm god.
>>97153743>The DM should know all the ruleshe doesn't tho
No, it is not.
>>97153763This.
>>97153717No because most PDFs have fucked characters and weird fonts and formatting that makes searching them a nightmare, and i usually know where in the book the rule is so its easier to just open to the page than vaguely guess from a scroll bar. I also dont have to wait for a book to load
>>97153717It's genuinely less comfortable.
>>97153717I love the beauty of everything about this hobby being... whatever the opposite word for "digital" would be in this case (sorry: ESL here). Using tablets and whatever is for me the equivalence of someone hacking a video game to give himself all of the items and then wanting to play with me. It sullies the entire experience.I also do not like the idea of everything being "too convenient". People are spoiled and lazy as it is; I see no need to optimise reading books, as part of a hobby, in such a way that OP suggests.
>>97153840>whatever the opposite word for "digital"analog
>>97153717>Are you still using books at the table?Yes.>Isn't it more comfortable to use a small laptop/tabletNo, not even remotely. It makes it much more of a hassle to pass things around, you can’t grab a scrap of paper to temporarily mark your place while you look something else up, and you can’t have your sheet and two books open with each other simultaneously.It’s also literally, physically less comfortable than just using books.
Writing my notes out by hand makes my games better. No bullshit, my players and I have both observed the trend and they can consistently tell if I prepped a session in a word processor.
>>97153854Thank you
>>97153717No.
>>97153717yeah I really hate looking at screens
>>97153717If I was going to use a tablet I'd just play some Genshin bullshit.
I only use a tablet because my brother wants to for our Stars Without Number game. Other than that I never use one. TTRPGs are my tech detox time.
>>97153717>Are you still using books at the table? Yes.>Isn't it more comfortable to use a small laptop/tablet where you can search rules if necessary?No.
>>97153717I'm not going to argue that books are a better technology than computers. But I like having a screen-free hobby. It's like if I took up wood carving and someone said "you should carve polymer resin because it's stronger and lighter." Maybe, but I like the feel and smell of wood.
By necessity, I don't - my players live in different states, so we have to do things digitally. That said, the only reason we are able to run our games efficiently is because we're using Foundry, which obfuscates a few things and gives me the ability to quick reference rules within the system itself without breaking flow too terribly. I've played in-person sessions with a laptop, and it was positively miserable because it took up precious table space and was not at all faster for looking up rules.
>>97153717Not really desu. I'd even argue rule searching, even through books, drains the fun from a game. If I'm not in a game and I'm trying to "immerse" my self in a book analog is better. If I'm browsing for little rules bits (feats, abilities, spells, monsters) for pre-game prep I use pdf especially if the game has lots of supplements. But I then write that stuff down.
Full rulebooks? Nah I have that on tablet or Laptop with me. Way too heavy. Condensed rule summaries? Yes I like having those around in paper.
>>97153743this, players should be worrying about ROLEplaying ther char, not about rules, thats the work of the DM...Fucking minmaxers, always trying to squiz every single action, every single second, and when you ask them to think or say something that his Caracther would said, they always to blank... go fucking play a war game, wtf
>>97153717>Isn't it more comfortableNo. Dead tree is far more comfortable than plastic.
>>97153717screens don't have a tactile feedback I crave as a living human being, screens are making my eyes hurt, screens don't have a nice smell, you can't hold to different page spreads to go back in forth on a screen [surprisingly, I would think someone would introduce this feature by now] so no a book is more comfortable for me>inb4 searchwith books I actually use for gaming I have a system of sticky bookmark-notes that help me look up stuff almost as fast if not as fastPSscreens don't look cool on my bookshelf
>>97153717Yeah I still use books at the table. My GM doesn't want me to use his electricity.
>>97153717Lmao.>Just a second guys, my rulebook is loading slowly because PDF's are a terrible format, and the latest sabotage firmware patch just dropped, because the people at Amazon want me to upgrade.Dead tree media will outlast your entire misbegotten lineage.
>>97153717books? I pirate all my media (not a crime in my jurisdiction, btw), so it all comes digital by default
>>97153717When playing in person?Oh yeah.Although these days I most play with my online group.
>>97153717Fuck off, digital fag.
>>97153717I prefer to have the basic rules in physical book form, but if we have something that gets consulted less often yet still regularly, I guess I'd like to put those things on a tablet
>>97153717Meh, they're about the same unless they have a PDF with hyperlinks or have an good app for their game. Plus I kind of prefer having a book over just a PDF, though I don't deny I have plenty of PDF of games and systems. (As well as homebrews)
>>97153717For anything less complicated than GURPS it's not really convenient enough to justify the loss of tactility
>>97153840I agree anon. Part of the reason I prefer physical dice to rolling apps. Also I hand draw every single one of my maps in color pencil and never use printouts or even run modules. The creativity is part of it.
>>97153717Just asking for player vs player combat. Who's buying the delicate slap sticks? Playing on rolled up newspaper sounds more efficient. I also agree with every poster up to an hour ago.>>97154537I get this post completely.
>>97153717It's a distraction and the tablet addicts invariably have these shitty, slow ass hulks that take forever to do anything. I don't ban them but players are expected to have a copy of any book they want to use rules from.I don't mind them for GM notes or similar but generally I print my notes out or use the tablet strictly as a backup or to store shit between sessions.
>>97157207I agree. I don't mind a tablet but they if they are a tourist and they only have that for everything you see them often slow everything down going from app to app. GM using tablets and laptops to hold everything is okay but have something more than just a tablet and dice now. Especially for 3rd party shit, when I GM if they want to add things. I often want the physical copy to show it's not some basic bitch homebrew unless I know and like the idea already. (Admit that I have a few PDF only homebrews I love to use in my games.) It's funny how even asking them to print it out is enough to get them to stop asking for it some of the time.
>>97153826Nigga what?Where the fuck do you get your PDFs that ctrl+f doesn't work? You do know, they're not supposed to end in .exe?
>>97153717>Isn't it more comfortable to use a small laptop/tablet where you can search rules if necessary?No, physical bookmarks are much more convenient. Of course, if I need something more specific, I will use some electronic device. I’m not hauling around 5+ books everywhere.
>>97157737Older pdfs scanned from physical books often won't come with OCR, and average joe isn't savvy enough to re-process them adding it.Also bunch of "artsy" stuff (such as Vampire: Dark Age) can't get reliable OCR due to weird fonts.
>>97153717No, it's absolutely not.I fucking play online and even I know that it's hard to beat an actual book and actual physical reference notes.Fucking zoomer idiot.
>>97157797To add to this, many .pdfs have search issues due to formatting issues, with sections ending words at non-standard places, making them not read as full words. And if they are OCR scans, all fucking bets are off.Nevermind that even with search, you may just get hundreds of results to plow through, instead of just immediately opening roughly the right page.
>>97153717No.It's really convenient for trying or just peeking at games because of the share thread. But thumbing through is usually faster than searching unless the book is poorly organised enough that you can't guess where things are. Which is admittedly all too common, but still.I'd at least print off anything I expect to reference like common tables and the like. In a better world games would come with printable pamphlet summary versions without images and fluff. But then people might notice how little game they were paying for.
>>97153743DMs knowing all the rules seems insaneWhat do you do when you try a new systemPlay with only yourself weekly for 6 months?
>>97159751>What do you do when you try a new systemTake 1 hour to read the rulebook?
>>97153717if you think searching a pdf is faster than flipping to the page that you know where it is, then you need to put the fucking screens down and read some books kid.
>>97154692Plastic is also dead trees.
>>97160579No, rubber is, plastic is a petroleum by-product which means plastic is a mineral derivative as hydrocarbons are formed in intense heat and pressure underground by certain combinations of minerals.
>>97160639Hydrocarbons are made from fossilized organic material. While that predominantly means marine algae and plants (because those made up the majority of the world's biomass), land plants and even trees do make up a portion of those fossilized hydrocarbons. And, though the majority of fossilized tree/land plants/etc. end up as coal rather than oil or natural gas, with those two being the main sources of hydrocarbons for plastic production, some terrestrial plants did end up as natural gas (and as some oil as well).Incredibly long story short: Millions of year ago, an ancient forest was buried in anaerobic conditions, eventually turned into peat, which over millions of years changed into coal, natural gas, and some oil, was relatively recently drilled out of the ground, sent through hundreds of industrial refinement processes, and eventually turned into a funkopop.
>>97161289no, they are not.There are hydrocarbons on some of the moons of jupiter and saturn, there were no dinosaurs or algae on them.Also some russian scientists demonstrated the production of oil from minerals by heat and pressure, no one has ever demonstrated the production of same from fossils.
>>97161306https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel>no one has ever demonstrated the production of same from fossils.Considering it takes millions of years, I think we're still waiting on those results. In the meantime, we have other easier showcases of fossil fuels being made from prehistoric organisms, like an abundance of microfossils of their more durable parts still within the petroleum.
>>97153717I'm gonna take the bait.If you're using a digital character sheet and don't have a physical one, and the power goes out/your device crashes/whatever, your character is fucking dead
>>97161431>power outagesSorry, I don't live in the third world (US)
>>97161306>russian scientists
>>97159751>Being THIS much of a never-game
>>97153717It's far more comfortable to read the rules, make two copies of an easy-to-read cheat sheet, put it on the table for players and start running.If you need to check the rules while running, you shouldn't be GMing, period. It just means you can't adapt nor improvise and likely also don't know the system itself, and those are the three most vital qualities to have.So regardless if you are lugging around a book or a tablet, you already failed, you are poorly prepared and you also likely suck at doing this thing. If you can't make an ad-hoc ruling on a fly or aren't familiar enough with the system you are running to make said ruling within existing frame, you already failed.I managed to run Twilight 2000 2.2 ed from memory. Whatever stats I actually needed, I had written down. Everything else was just my familiarity with the system, the cheat sheet covering all the important stuff on a double-sided A4 printout. And this isn't even about bragging, but to highlight how easy and simple this shit is once you know what the fuck you are even supposed to do as a GM. Pro-tip: it's not paging a rulebook to search for some obscure table that likely doesn't exist in the first place.
nah. a session 0 thing is "we are playing this OSR game as people would have played games in the old days, we're keeping it entirely analogue, for extra fun"(of course the secret underlying reason is to STOP people checking their phones.)if anyone said something like "b-but i keep my spells on there!" then holy fuck, i'm so glad i can filter these people from the table. they're the same types who go "WE have to draw a map? ugh..."
>>97153717Maybe if I could find a good tablet for a decent price.
>>97153717But the Zoomers I play with look down at me for pirating everything
>>97162217Then look back at them, from a higher chair
>>97162195at this point you might as well get a fold-phone, same screen real estate, but fits in the pocket
>>97160579Retard.
>>97161383>we're waiting on those resultsAnd yet you're going to boldly claim that it is dinosaurs even though you have no evidence to verify it.Whereas anyone sensible can see by repeatable experimentation that hydrocarbons do in fact, form from minerals subjected to heat and pressure.
>>97153717We don't like screens at the table. It's not the right vibe. Might google something on my phone real quick if needed, but we have printouts of class abilities and such for each player. We also use laminated cards for spells and items. The DM knows most rules, and the players also know at least the important stuff.. If we get very specific he might look something up but honestly it's not that complicated most of the time. We barely ever touch the books.
Besides what others have said, one weird thing for me is that I find paper easier to read than a screen, for some reason. Psychological most likely, but I feel I'm more likely to find my eyes skimming across the surface rather than reading, if you get me. Maybe it's having been subconsciously coached into the eternal doomscroll or something?
>>97153717All of my groups stopped using physical books more than 15 years ago and never looked back.We also just pirate everything, because why would anyone pay for something which he could get for free?
>>97153932This, tabletop is good to get away from screens. Perhaps e-paper would be ok (well if it had good refresh rate - I don't know much about the current state of them)
>>97162055I just play a lot of different systems>>97160042You can memorize an entire rulebook(well usually it's quite a few to be honest and not just one) in an hour?
>>97164257>I find paper easier to read than a screen, for some reason.>Psychological most likelyVery weird way to spell physiological
>>97166273>I just play a lot of different systemsAnd yet you struggle with the concept of opening a rulebook and reading it for an hour, you dumb twatAt lest tell me you are a zoomer, so it's going to be less embarrassing this way.
>>97167158Are you saying that you can sit down for an hour and know all the rules of gurps? PF2? the black eye?Don't lie AnonIf you could do that you would have multiple PhDs
>>97167190>know all the rules of gurpsRoll under 3d6 and compare with sheet value>PF2Roll d20 and wait for the players to quote lines from their sheet; if they don't have any, it's their problem>DSARoll under d20 and compare with sheet valueWow anon, this is all so hard! I guess I need to cram shotgun rules or the spellbook for druids to be doing this stuff! And totally reading the book cover to cover grand total of once won't do.Unless, of course, you are questioning ability to go through 100-150 pages in a single hour, but that's on you if you are a slow reader
>>97167228>doesn't actually know all the ruleslmao
>>97167237>He thinks he needs to know anything else than basic task resolution and how modifiers are applied (if they exist in the first place)Like I've said, you are a never-game.
>>97167285You did read the post I was quoting right?>The DM should know all the rulesJust admit that I am rightIt's okay to be wrong sometimes Anon>never-gameHere's a picture from June
>>97167327>makes ragebait thread>gets ragebaited into arguing against troll position>5e player
>>97167327>The DM should know all the rulesBut that's wrong.Consult those anons for a change >>97153762 >>97153872 >>97154406 >>97160042 >>97162105 >>97164542 >>97167158>Just admit that I am rightWhy would or should I lie?>All that clutter in the photoMy last Wednesday game of BoL one-shot consisted of bringing 2 sets of six d6 dice, a slip of paper with 5 points of what's to include during the game and 3 names of important NPCs. handful of char sheets and a cheat sheet for the players
>>97153717Having done both, using a tablet is convenient but honestly soul-less. If anything, I want my eyes off the character sheet as much as possible.
>>97168117>I was just pretending Would you have been happy if I posted a picture of a different game?>>97169623>>The DM should know all the rules>But that's wrong.Well yeah That's my entire position >My last Wednesday game of BoL one-shot consisted of bringing 2 sets of six d6 dice, a slip of paper with 5 points of what's to include during the game and 3 names of important NPCs. handful of char sheets and a cheat sheet for the playersI don't really care about how you play what gamesJust saying that you are wrong
>>97154537I don't wanna die because you put some out of depth bullshit in a hallway. Damn.
>>97153717>are you based enough to use books?Why, yes. Yes, I am.>Isn't it more comfortable to use a small laptop/tablet where you can search rules if necessary?Electronic devices *can* supplement books. They'll never replace them.>pic unrelated
>>97171310>>>The DM should know all the rules>>But that's wrong.>Well yeah>That's my entire position>Just saying that you are wrongAnon, I...Let me just restructure it a bit>The DM should know all the rules>But that's wrong.>Well yeah. That's my entire position. Just saying that you are wrongAre you actually, genuinely retarded, or you're ESL and double negatives are a thing in your native? Because you just said your own position is identical to mine, but I'm supposed to admit said position is wrong. As in: that you yourself are wrong.
