Or should I buy the PDF for Shadowrun books off of an online dealer like Drivethru-RPG for 30% off? I feel guilty, since supporting something as impersonal as the "free market" feels very soulless, but it's 30% off!!! HELP ME!!!!!!!!!! The PDF is as convenient, if not more, since I can print multiple copies for free off of my college's printers...

As far as our college goes, we can only print about 10 pages without being charged. After that, it's about 10 cents a page. Honestly, I do not like the PDF version of the book. It's slow and hard to navigate. It's a lot easier for me to search a physical copy for some reason. The slow PDF isn't worth the 30% off if you ask me.

Also, when we originally had the PDF, we had to bring a laptop to our games because we couldn't afford to print it out. It made the process of searching for rules take forever.

I've gotten so used to my pdf that I feel weird when I look at a real copy of the book. I have all the important page numbers memeorized and can zoom to whatever area I want. Now the big hard bound book feels clunky.....strange eh?

I will but a hard copy though, but I am waiting for the second printing....

Assuming the relative convenience of both formats is equal, what is your answer to the moral conundrum? Support my bottom line, or my comic book shop, which buys every sourcebook that is in print without much of a second thought to ITS bottom line?

I've got a copy of the book, and a copy on PDF with a laptop at the table. Its damn handy to have 2 copies floating around.

I would support the shop. They have it rough, at least in these parts...It really isn't that much of a difference for the consumer to make it worth it if you would feel bad about it...

I HAVE A LIMITED BUDGET DAMMIT but thanks a lot.

I say buy the book and download the PDF for free. Its not copyright infringement if you own a hardcopy of the book.

A bound, complete, hard-covered book is worth the extra money.
I have a PDF of the SR3 manual which I snagged from a friend, but had previously bought the paperback. (I'm pretty sure this is'nt violating any laws, and I can't see how Fanpro can complain anyway. I paid good money for it, and I'm buying the SR4 book in a few weeks.) Owning a PDF only makes sense if you own a laptop, anyway; having 200 pages of printed text inside a binder is really a pain in the kiester.

Frog--You may want to be careful about who you say that around...Intellectual property rights are nebulous and vague...and owning a print copy does not give you any more right to an electronic one...but that is a discussion for another place and time.

Emo--Buy the book from your comic book store, suck it up and skip your coffee for two days...problem solved.

I bought both, PDF and the hardcover.
And i can't say that the PDF is hard to navigate. With knowledge of the general book structure and the provided bookmarks, i'm normally faster finding a rule than with the book.
It is true, that the first PDF made available had problems with page display speed, the second one, released one week after the first IIRC and made available for those who bought it already at no cost, didn't have these problems anymore. It's quite convenient.

But, OTOH, nothing beats a book in terms of readability IMHO. I have problems reading PDFs for a prolonged time on a monitor and so the book suits me better in this regard.
And i bought the book from my LFGS, because i want my store to live and prosper, so that i can wait for the next books, and take a look at them before i buy 'em.

Okay. Then I'll buy Shadows of Asia from them. The actual SR4 base sourcebook is short on print and won't be available, here or on Amazon, until I leave for college again, so that absolves me of guilt for buying the PDF.

Insane DRM restricitons kill any use downloadable pdf's have in my opinion.

DRM??

Watermarking isn't DRM -- it doesn't prevent you from using the file in any PDF reader, on any platform, with or without a net connection.

No FanPro PDF releases use DRM. Not on DriveThruRPG, not on BattleCorps.

Thanks for correcting me.

Thanks for the clarification--my company talks about the security features of such but I hadn't heard the abbreviation before.

Adam--Good to see you around, I hope it means that you aren't quite as swarmed over as previous months....

My local store's cool; they carry just about every RPG sourcebook in existence that hasn't been out of print for 10 years. And they have the large gaming space in the back, which is surrounded by obscure comic-book themed t-shirts and old but complete anime series on tapes. I think I'll buy from them. Thanks a alot.

I bought the PDF first, then ordered the print copy through my local store(25 minutes away). The hard question for me was "to Ebay or not to Ebay", since the Ebay stores were offering the print SR4 for $25 + shipping. Still a good deal. In the end, in my case it did come down to some amount of loyalty to the local store, which has been really good about special orders for me.

Being an old-fashioned gamer, I just couldn't get a solid grip on the game without having the print book in hand. After using it a while, I'll get to the point to where I can just open the book to the correct page for whichever rule is needed anyway. But, I will use the PDF too, like someone else said, it is good to have 2 copies of the big book around.