[Michael Chandra]

Assassin's Primer is street-legal nowadays.

And yes, you managed to find them, but that was because you knew what you were looking for. It can be real hard to find every ruling+clarification Bull made that isn't in the FAQ.

[tequila]

Forgot about the Assassin's Primer.  Added that and Gun H(e)aven 3 [that's Missions legal if I remember correctly].

I was attempting to compile his rulings in one place to make it easier to get the rulings & supported books/pdfs into the FAQ.  Hmmm, maybe they should get moved to their own post.

[KarmaInferno]

Is the Enhanced Fiction line PDF-only, or is there print versions planned?

Because it's certainly been more than 30 days since the PDF releases of Sail Away Sweet Sister and Vladivostok Gambit.


-k

[KarmaInferno]

Karma:  Unfortunately, the rule stands.  Mainly to keep the playing field level for all players.  Many SHadowrun players do not buy PDF books (There's a surprisingly large subsection of players who barely even look at the PDF offerings or even pay attention to release dates and upcoming books.  They just pick things up when they show up at their FLGS.  Thankfully, this subsection is shrinking, but still).   Allowing these products earlier based on the PDF date and not the print street date, especially around convention season when we get the most people playing, is basically telling players that they HAVE to get the PDFs if they want to stay competitive with their fellow players. 

I'm all for more PDF sales, but ultimately, this isn't fair to all our players.

Thanks for addressing at least.

My concern is not specifically on Run an Gun, but more generally a worry that if these print delays become excessive that's no good for Missions either.


-k

[Dinendae]

Is the Enhanced Fiction line PDF-only, or is there print versions planned?

Because it's certainly been more than 30 days since the PDF releases of Sail Away Sweet Sister and Vladivostok Gambit.


-k

I think they are PDF only, although down the line there could be a compilation book come out for some of the PDF only resources, like happened in 4th Edition.

[biotech66]

As long as the PDF only resources are fine then I'm happy buying PDFs. 

[Ursus Maior]

Searching Amazon, however, reveals that Run and Gun physical copy is announced... but Amazon has one of their placeholder dates, so there's no release date set yet.

My dealer here in Germany told me that I'd have to wait until November for the English edition to arrive. Well...

[martinchaen]

Karma:  Unfortunately, the rule stands.  Mainly to keep the playing field level for all players.  Many SHadowrun players do not buy PDF books (There's a surprisingly large subsection of players who barely even look at the PDF offerings or even pay attention to release dates and upcoming books.  They just pick things up when they show up at their FLGS.  Thankfully, this subsection is shrinking, but still).   Allowing these products earlier based on the PDF date and not the print street date, especially around convention season when we get the most people playing, is basically telling players that they HAVE to get the PDFs if they want to stay competitive with their fellow players. 

I'm all for more PDF sales, but ultimately, this isn't fair to all our players.

Bull,

As a former European I feel like I have to speak up for my European friends in this case, as I think one needs to consider that physical copies of books are not always easy to obtain; with shipping costs as high as 40USD per order, physical books just aren't fiscally viable for a lot of Europeans.

Digital releases on the other hand are much easier to get a hold of in most non-US markets, and it seems to me that the above statement caters more to the minority than it does the majority; to my mind, this rule isn't fair at all, because by catering to the lowest common denominator (people who only buy physical copies of books) you make me, someone who exclusively buys PDF products, kind of feel like I've bought and paid for a product that I now can't even use at all during conventions. Where's the fairness in that?

If anything, I think you should be embracing the technology that is available to you much, much more; if you were to allow the inclusion of material 30 days after digital release I firmly believe that more PR would be generated at conventions by the simple fact that people who have the digital releases will be using items or powers or whatnot from them, and people who DON'T have the digital releases can be awed by the content.

I strongly believe that rather than feeling slighted, these players would more actively seek out the material, maybe even converting to digital if they can't wait. To my mind, you should be welcoming the free PR that can come with such usage of the published material, rather than try to stymie the content that you've all worked so hard to create.

I really wish you take a second (or n^th, at this time) look at this policy, and suggest that you ask us, your community, what we think. Start an official poll and get some numbers or something; in the absolute worst case scenario I can imagine (I know, my imagination is limited...) you end up with more information, and more information to base your decisions on has to be a good thing, no?

Cheers,
Martin

[PeterSmith]

I find myself agreeing with Martin here. If somebody is unwilling to use all of the options available to them I place that on their shoulders, and only their shoulders.

[SlowDeck]

The key word there is options; for a lot of people in the U.S., pdfs are still effectively not an option.

The reason has to do with the limits a lot of internet providers put on downloads. Those can be surprisingly small; for example, the pdf for the core Shadowrun rulebook is actually around four times the size of the limit imposed by my old internet service. If I still used them, I would never be able to download it (and keep in mind I live in a city). Limits like this are pretty common, which is part of what makes PDF-only distributions typically not as successful as PDF-book distributions.

Ironically, because of those limitations, bittorrent is a successful download program (it can be stopped and started to help you get around those limits). Which, given how most PDF-distributions are handled, means that typically anyone who has one of those limits and successfully downloaded a PDF-only distribution probably pirated it.

[Michael Chandra]

Discriminating against players buying Physical Books only sounds like discriminating against FLGS. Doesn't sound like the best way to go.

[martinchaen]

That's kind of my point though, Michael; allowing the use of digital content at conventions should hardly be considered discrimination, as it's not like anyone is treating such players "unjustly" or with "prejudice". If anything, allowing digital content to be used at conventions 30 days after release adds incentive for players to pick up the digital material, to my mind, but it does not in any way, shape, or form discriminate against players who chooses not do to so.

Players would still be entirely free to wait for the content to be released in physical format, and I don't think anyone is suggesting that someone who didn't have access to the digital content wouldn't be allowed to play in a game. In my opinion, the latter case would certainly be discrimination; there's a big difference between allowing people who to use content they have "early" access to because they bought the digital version of said content, and barring someone from a game because they chose note to.

Finally, I think it's important to recognize that even though the 30 day policy is in place, players still aren't required to buy the physical copies of new content to play at a convention. I could take the first character I created using just the core SR5 rules to a convention a year from now and still expect to have a good time, despite not having used any of the new books. Am I being discriminated against? Not at all. Am I perhaps at a disadvantage from an optimization standpoint, having missed out on some cool new rules and gear; quite probably. Is that my choice? Abso-fraggin'-lutely.

I'll be honest; I don't play at conventions. The only reason I'm even posting here is because I feel like the decision to implement the "content allowed 30 days after physical release" is based on an unfair premise in and of itself, and because I disagree with the justification for it. I have no stake in the matter, except hoping that CGL can broaden their audience and sell more digital AND physical books (because that means they'll make more), and I firmly believe that introducing their content to as many people as possible as early as possible is the best way to go about this.

To my mind, physical vs digital doesn't matter. The content is out there; it is up to players to decide if they want to spend their hard earned cash on the product, and using it at conventions should be similarly optional as soon as possible, in my not so humble opinion.

[/rant]

[Tenlaar]

The reason has to do with the limits a lot of internet providers put on downloads. Those can be surprisingly small; for example, the pdf for the core Shadowrun rulebook is actually around four times the size of the limit imposed by my old internet service.

Er...your download limit was 25mb?  When exactly did you have your old internet service?

Here is a list of broadband company data caps from less than two years ago, and only one with a cap even offers less than 30 gig.  I live in a town of less than 10,000 people in cornfields and beer country in southern Illinois, and I have a 350 gig data cap.  Just where and what kind of internet service do you have to have for a 100mb download to be a limiting factor in the year 2014?

[SlowDeck]

The reason has to do with the limits a lot of internet providers put on downloads. Those can be surprisingly small; for example, the pdf for the core Shadowrun rulebook is actually around four times the size of the limit imposed by my old internet service.

Er...your download limit was 25mb?  When exactly did you have your old internet service?

Here is a list of broadband company data caps from less than two years ago, and only one with a cap even offers less than 30mb.  I live in a town of less than 10,000 people in cornfields and beer country in southern Illinois, and I have a 350 gig data cap.  Just where and what kind of internet service do you have to have for a 100mb download to be a limiting factor in the year 2014?

2010, and it was Comcast. Neighbors kept them up until 2012, when Clear really began to hit this area, and confirmed absolutely nothing had been done to raise it. So I can personally say that the info that site has on Comcast is at least partially untrue (it depends on where you live). Both what is now Hughes.net and the celltower-based Clear successfully used Comcast's limit and poor service against it in local marketing campaigns. In fact, Clear didn't even get a chance to start their marketing campaign before they began to need more cell towers constructed.

And I just checked. On Comcast's own site, some of the same service issues I experienced back then are still being complained about (including the water-in-cable issue).

Now, keep in mind the above is what a major telecom pulled. Get into what the minor ones pull. A 25 MB limit is luxurious compared to what some of the small towns face if they don't go satellite. And even when they do go satellite, they still have to face limits, such as this one.

[Tenlaar]

I've been trying to find out what the lowest data cap on a plan available in the US is purely out of curiosity, but so far I'm failing.  I lived so far out in the woods years ago that I had to use satellite myself, and while it was pretty bad, it was nowhere even close to the point of making a 100mb download a problem.  Even the HughesNet site's plan with the lowest data cap is enough to download the SR5 pdf over 150 times in one month.  I don't want to say that I don't believe what you're saying, but I'm finding it quite difficult to believe that Comcast had you on a plan with a 25mb data cap four years ago without some kind of evidence.

And while I find this stuff kind of interesting in a general sense, I don't believe that the number of people for whom a 100mb download is a barrier to entry is high enough to base decisions off of.