Paper Or Plastic: Digital vs. Print Wargames
5 Minute Read
Sep 30 2013
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Physical books used to go hand in hand with the world of gaming, but time is marching on…
I never bother to read the reviews of the latest gaming offerings in that first week or two. The response, even for a product that will later come to be loved and cherished and named George will tend toward the overwhelmingly negative. That’s the danger of trying to entertain a group of people who are well-known for both hyperintelligence and obsessive behavior. The day that geeks of all shapes and sizes use the majority of the internet for gentle, “live-and-let-live” discussion is a day I barricade myself in the celler–for surely that is the calm before the storm that will bring about the end of seasons, my friends, and the living shall envy the dead.
This is how I imagine it.
So when I browsed the reviews of the “enhanced” digital version of the Space Marines Codex, I was unsurprised to find it dancing merrily on the margins of 3 Star Land. The vast majority of complaints, however, were fairly unified–largely that links were broken and certain promised features were missing.
This could be a made as an argument for the superiority of printed rulebooks versus digital, but we all know that the tried and true bound rulebooks aren’t immune to imperfection: errata and FAQs are released in perpetuity, and the combined weight of these tomes could lead one to reasonably assume that companies like Games Workshop or Wizards of the Coast has money invested in chiropractors all over the country.
As a grouchy old grognard who fears and detests change, my allegiance has always landed squarely in the camp of print material. Part of that is because I’m a book sniffer: my genetic instinct with a brand new book is to run my fingers over its shiny, embossed over, crack the pages open, shove my nose between them, and lay there shuddering like some tortured disco hound in a bad after-school special about addiction.
Pictured: Freshly minted crack.
Regardless, my experience with the world of E-Books and digital rulebooks has led me to believe that if I’m interested in sticking with the hobby, I’ll find myself playing for the other team faster than a freshly-spurned freshman girl.
This has almost everything to do with convenience. Don’t misunderstand me: there’s a heavy element of “Ooooooo–new, new, shiny, shiny” in this realization, but that was always going to be the case. A geek is a geek, and my desire (and your desire) to play with the latest toys will always be a paramount concern.
My initial belief with E-Books would be that they would remain just that: books you read on an electronic device. I had experienced that with downloaded rulebooks from Paizo and DriveThruRPG. They were largely PDFs, which is all I expected, and outside of their usefulness where convenience and portability were concerned, I just didn’t see the appeal.
To get an idea, I downloaded an issue of White Dwarf. Within the first few minutes of flicking through the massively gorgeous pages (e-pages?), I was appreciating the full extent of multimedia that this format was capable of. I was enjoying a sample of the latest Black Library audiobook while getting a good look at the new Lizardman models from every angle. All this while I drank red wine in the tub.
I may have a problem.
This sort of “jump straight to the rule you need” tech is perfect for games like Warhammer, where pausing to argue one of the hundreds of rules involved can sap lots of time out of a game. Being able to jump straight from one set of rules to another without the time-honored prerequisite muttering of, “Alright, lemme see here… page 201…nope, that’s…crap…index…” sounds pretty great. Plus, the notion of taking a high tech item to fight a high tech war feels pretty solid (I refuse to believe that I’m the only person who’s ever pretended his iPad was an Auspex).
To be fair, the aforementioned complaints about the Space Marine Codex seem to be dealing directly with these “at-your-fingertips” special features, which seems to negate its purpose. That said, these sorts of digital publications are fairly new, and I don’t think it’s a terribly Pollyanna idea to assume that their creators are only going to get sharper about it with time.
Is it a question of a generational gap–the inability of those of a certain age to perceive value in something that they can’t really feel or touch? I think that’s a safe assumption. After all, I’ll balk at the notion of someone ten years my junior spending money on farmed gold in World Of Warcraft or other fictional universes, while drooling over first edition literature that goes for many hundreds of dollars.
“It’s real!” I’ll say, bashing some young scumbag with my signed copy of Death Of A Salesman and dropping its rating from Excellent to Acceptable. “I can feel it! Touch it! I can practically smell Arthur Miller’s liver spotted fingertips on the pages!”
“And Farmville sucks!”
But my love and reverence for that tome or any tome is what gives it value. And I believe it won’t be long before everyone sees the value in these fantastic digital books. I’m not happy about it. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t hate the idea, either.
But I am a book sniffer.
Does your iPad runneth over with rulebooks? Does your back ache from hardcover after hardcover? Tell us where you stand!
Phil Keeling is a comedian, writer, and gamer. He can be found at www.philkeeling.com and on Facebook. He occasionally says amusing things on Twitter. His various other nerd musings can be found at Notes From The Conquistadork.
Author: Guest Columnist
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