If there’s anything fantasy gamers know about, it’s books.

This is another prompt that could be taken any number of ways. I’m going to use it to talk about my absolute love of physical publications. I usually don’t write a review of anything I don’t have physically in hand. I might do screen grabs of PDF copies, but I much prefer the physical book in hand at the table.

Which is not to say I have a problem with E-Pub or PDF files. I actually have several on my phone for when I’m at the various kids’ events waiting for something to happen. I get a lot of reading done in my car while I’m waiting for pick-up in the afternoons. It’s also how I get a lot of bathroom reading done. The phone’s not just for social media, right?

Okay, kids- get ready to run. I’m gonna say it.

Back in my day, we didn’t have all these fancy electronic files and subscription services. We ordered all of our books by mail, and by golly, we liked it. Ha!  Some of us were lucky enough to have Friendly Local Game Stores where we could walk in and actually buy our books personally. We could pick them up and read through them to decide if we wanted to buy the books.

Oh, that’s not even the best part. We didn’t have websites and forums with reviews. There were three options: word of mouth, printed reviews, or seeing it in person. Most public libraries didn’t carry TTRPG books and still don’t. In my hometown, the librarians were pretty freaked out about the Satanic Panic, so we were happy they carried the Battletech Rules Compendium.

I truly miss print magazines.

Obviously, the two most popular TTRPG magazines back in the day were Dragon and Dungeon. Before the RPGA fell apart, I would have made a strong case for Polyhedron. Before White Dwarf became advertising for the various Games Workshop products, they had a lot of interesting articles. A lot of those old magazines are still floating around in the Internet ether if you dig in the archives enough.

There were also plenty of indie magazines that popped up and vanished over the years. I wrote some articles for one that was printed in a copy shop called Papyrus. That was my first real article writing experience in college.

I backed The Familiar when it came out, buying the first issue at Gen Con. It covered a lot of non-mainstream TTRPGs. White Wolf had its own publication, too. Crusader’s Journal was interesting in terms of covering what we would now consider OSR material. I haven’t even scratched the surface on all of the titles, large and small, that went by for the 25-30 years printed TTRPG magazines were a thing.

I used to talk a lot about how global telecommunications changed news.

The TTRPG business tends to reflect a micro scale of the real world in terms of news, industry, and finance. Paper and shipping prices go up, and so did the cost of game books. The advent of the smart phone and a commonness of the computer got us digital products everywhere  and less reliance on print. Global mass communications via email, website, social media, and in some cases text messaging gave us ready access to what other gamers think of any given TTRPG products.

Nowadays if I want to know if a given TTRPG book is any good, I start digging for playtest info, reviews, previews, social media posts, YouTube videos, and sometimes I even email the author. (True story: I met Kelesey Dionne after I read her entries in Monsters of the Guild and was blown away by her work. I just chatted casually over email with her through the pandemic and then some. Since then, I’ve bought a lot of Arcane Library stuff.)

We’re closer and more in touch with game designers, artists and products than any other time in TTRPG history. I can talk to any number of my idols in the TTRPG industry on Discord, social media direct messaging, email, and maybe even book a Zoom call if they’re willing. I try to avoid contacting someone via direct messaging on X (Twitter) or Instagram unless it’s something pretty important and when I do I try to be super polite.

Back in ye olden days we had to send postal (snail) mail and hope our message reached the company, survived the intern who sorted the mail, and then wait endlessly for any kind of response. Honestly, it was a close toss up between Santa Claus and T$R back in the day. Now we don’t have to send reviews and fan mail to game companies. We can post online in any number of places. It’s awesome.

That word-of-mouth advertising has become crucial in the modern age.

A good review of a new TTRPG product on social media is worth tens or maybe hundreds of sales depending on the influencer. Getting canceled on any given social media platform can permanently torpedo an entire TTRPG company or writer within a couple of days. Get in enough trouble on X (Twitter) and self-publishing on one’s own website might be the only option left. It’s important to try to keep things positive and stay in the good graces of the TTRPG community as much as reasonably possible. (We all have our niches and audience, however.)

I think this is a lot of why a certain very large TTRPG mega corporation sends free copies of upcoming releases to their growing army of YouTube shills. Some people feel obligated to drop a good word about the product, others honestly enjoy it, still others keep plugging their merch along with everything else. A rare few no longer receive product for either not saying anything or being brutally honest.

Personally, I think game companies would go a lot further by granting full or partial access to pdfs of a game for review rather than the expense of sending whole books. One of my favorite creators, @jessfromonline, has flipped me some free PDFs for reviews in the past and honestly I would have paid full price for them. She does great indie work.

I know not everyone does the diligence I put into TTRPG purchases or is quite as game psycho as I know I am. I put a lot of stock into researching a game or even a full product line before diving in. Even the Quick Start Guides for some games tell quite a story about the game and setting. The community is as good if not a greater guide, but there is also value in using one’s own discernment.

Books had to be good then because quality meant more sales.

Back in the 1980s, I didn’t buy anything I didn’t have 100% faith in. I used to memorize the Chessex game catalog almost cover to cover on RPG entries back then. That was before I got into working retail. It was easier to sell a good book that was clearly written, statistically crunchy, and on a subject that appealed to a lot of gamers.

Star Wars RPG from West End Games broke the mold because it was based on a well known movie franchise. It was probably the first RPG book I went after site unseen because I loved Star Wars so much. It helped that the system was easy to learn and lent itself to many crunchy good times as well. The Star Wars games since have been a resounding “meh” from me, but better than nothing.

Now books and game companies are built on reputation as much as quality product. I know a couple of indie companies that publish to their own sites exclusively because they offended the rest of the #ttrpgcommunity once too often. They were subsequently banned for their controversial views from DriveThruRPG and Itch.io. It’s not a good look for the company, and so the product goes by the wayside to what might have been a lot of sales otherwise. The moral of the story is: Don’t shoot your mouth off on social media if you want your brand to succeed.

Print prices keep increasing.

I think knowing what I’m getting as a customer has become even more important since COVID. Some hardcover gaming books are pushing $60-70 each for 325 ish pages. I’m on a fixed income these days, so my purchases are very limited. The game companies I buy from these days better be more than a hype engine on Tik Tok.

Sure, PDFs are more appealing on a certain level. I can carry far more of them on my phone, I can use the search feature to find things fast, and I can pull stat blocks into documents on my computer. However, if the power goes out, I still have my paper, pencil, dice, and dead tree editions of most games to play. Ha!

When it comes to publishing, my hands are proverbially bound by electrical wires.

Unfortunately, print is not in my budget as a writer yet. My art isn’t there and I can’t afford to hire someone for the kinds of pieces I’d want. Until I hit the big time on DTRPG, I’m going to stick to PDF publishing. Hopefully someday soon we’ll see print on demand.

On the upside, my print runs don’t cost a dime. PDF technology is easier to obtain than ever. (Microsoft Word or Publisher can save to PDF.) Back in the 1990s, I learned how to layout an entire newspaper by hand. Doing a TTRPG book on the computer is a lot simpler. See, back in my day we had to learn everything the hard way- manually.

The other good news is I can publish electronically by my blog here. Old fashioned print magazines didn’t come out once per day and I had no way to effectively produce my own. 2,500 word days are very doable on computer. Try that on an electric typewriter sometime with as many typos as I put out. (My poor Backspace key.) Blogging is a form of electronic publishing. (I sleep better knowing this.)

Please enjoy print TTRPG products for as long as we can.

There may come a day when the TTRPG space is overrun by the digital space with its subscriptions and microtransactions. We might even see PDFs become a thing of the past someday in the near future. If a certain TTRPG megacorporation has its way, the entire industry might follow suit. We scoff now, but it’s very possible.

Personally, I can’t imagine sitting down to run a game with just my phone or laptop and everyone else sitting around on their devices. We will be pulling out books and dice as long as we’re in person if I have to run to the printer and create a binder for someone. I think it’s a far more exciting interpersonal experience to have the feel of real books in hand.

Thank you for stopping by. I truly appreciate you. Please embrace the things that bring you the most joy today.

Publius.