Re: Moving to PBEM

From: graham@DELETETHISaffordable-leather.co.uk

Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2000 18:46:41 +0000

Hi there,

On Thu, 31 Aug 2000 21:34:27 +0100, "Roy Pollard" <plod@ntlworld.com>
wrote:

>>  first point, I *like* "clumsy and clunky" printed turns, you can't
>> mark with highlighter or scribble notes on a  computer screen!
>>
>Gotcha - Main argument we're using is that we're looking to turn Day One
>from a generally UK/Europe based game to cater for more people in faraway
>places whose postal system might be more difficult and who may possibly want
>something a little more accessible.

Ok, I can understand that and, yes, from that point of view, e-mail
turns make life easier and don't cause tedious turn around delays.

Presumably, then, you won't be having any sort of "internal mail"
system,  or players will be doing this themselves via e-mail?

>> So, anticipating the next point, yes, I can print them out myself, but
>> this means that *you* need to ensure that the documents are easily
>> printable and that you don't go OTT on fancy (and unreadble) fonts,
>> graphics or ink hungry pictures
>>
>Fancy graphics I'd say are a plus in our minds rather than anything
>negative.

Umm, there's actually a comma in my above paragraph...!

I've experienced bad PBMs, RPGs and websites which seem to have gone
for "style over legibility" where fonts are concerned, sometimes it
feels like your eyeballs are going to start bleeding if you read any
more!

>> Also as I've mentioned elsewhere and when, I've had too many bad
>> experiences with badly designed and laid out pdf files which make them
>> a pain to try to read on screen and can't easily be printed,
>>
>The easiest way to layout a PDF imo is to treat it like a piece of paper,

A3 or A4 or what? Some of the PDF files have been laid out effectively
as a double spread of A4 (ie A3 sized) which means that I can't print
them or view the whole page at a usuable size, nor can I split them
into two A4 pages and it means that I keep having to drag them from
side to side to read them on screen.

>set it to how far away you'd normally read a piece of paper and then design
>the pages to that criteria.

But what size monitor are you using?  If you use a 17" monitor and I
use 14", what you may think is comfortably readable may be
irritatingly small for me.

>That said, I'd agree with having to spend money on extra ink, but if you knew
>the stuff some of our lot use their inkjets for I'd say they were perhaps putting
>them to better use with PDFs ( :-) )

I have an Epson Photo Stylus printer to allow me to print images at
photo-quality (it's easier than fiddling around in darkrooms!). I
don't want to use up consumables and print head life knocking out
pages of poor quality irrelevancies.

>> Now yes, of course, this saves you money on printer consumables,
>> paper, envelopes and stamps  but what are you going to charges
>>
>Our charges are zero so we're not worrying about how cost-effective it is
>for our players, who get a good thing for nothing anyway.

Ah, fair enough,  I wasn't aware of that.

>What we're after is to turn a negative cost to US to a zero cost to everyone.

Well, it's a slightly better way to do business...!

>Thanks for the issues, Graham. Much appreciated and food for thought.

You're welcome.

Cheers,
Graham.

References

Moving to PBEM
"Roy Pollard" <plod@ntlworld.com>
Thu, 31 Aug 2000 11:12:26 +0000
Re: Moving to PBEM
graham@DELETETHISaffordable-leather.co.uk
Thu, 31 Aug 2000 19:57:18 +0000