Download Delving Deeper Ref Rules For Free!

[funkaoshi]

Oct 24, 2012 19:53:43 GMT -6 idrahil said:

I found the opposite true. I had such a hard time wrapping my head around like d6 for every weapon, fewer classes and I read quite a few posts and blogs on the various aspects of it. S&W offered optional rules which I didn't get at all.

I prefer the terseness of Delving Deeper as well, don't get me wrong.

Delving Deeper barely has any optional rules, and doesn't discuss any alternatives to the rules that came in later games. Devling Deeper's presentation makes the rule set a bit more coherent, and thats why I thought it'd be a good book for beginners. The problem here is, I know how to play D&D, so its hard for me to look at the rules and really be objective about that sort of thing. (I should ask my wife to read them and see if she can figure out 'enough' of the game.)

Sword and Wizardry has all these tangents. I think seeing where rules diverge at least highlights things that people consider contentious, or too simple. (For example, the prevalence of D6 for everything, descending AC, etc.) That's interesting for someone who is curious about the game as a thing, but probably not useful for someone who wants to learn how to play D&D.

Thanks for being the 6th person to read my blog.

[Zenopus]

Oct 25, 2012 8:00:41 GMT -6 funkaoshi said:

Thanks for being the 6th person to read my blog.

I'm following it now!

[ravenheart87]

Any news about the other (non-free) booklets?

[waysoftheearth]

Nov 7, 2012 15:27:21 GMT -6 ravenheart87 said:

Any news about the other (non-free) booklets?

Which other booklets are you asking after Ravenheart?


BHP's DD boxed set and all the included goodies are being produced by John.

Cameron also has a couple of products on the go from Wobbly Goblin.

I have also heard that Zenopus is working toward a Holmes-like DD variation.

I will be putting out some supplementary materials in the future, buy I haven't announced anything firm yet.

Hope that helps

[Haldo Bramwise]

I am finishing up the illustrated booklets. You should get some more of them in the next few days.

[ravenheart87]

^This is the answer I was looking for!. Thanks!

[Mr. Darke]

Downloaded a copy and I am impressed.

[waysoftheearth]

Nov 23, 2012 16:45:07 GMT -6 Mr. Darke said:

Downloaded a copy and I am impressed.

Good to hear

I hope it serves you well!

[ratikranger]

Very nice work. I really like this set of rules.

[waysoftheearth]

Mar 19, 2013 12:37:11 GMT -6 ratikranger said:

Very nice work. I really like this set of rules.

Thank you for stopping by to comment

[machpants]

Thanks for the new version, I was planning to print these off and adding them into my DD box set. However the PDFs appear to be password encrypted so I am checking if printing them is OK? To clarify 'printing' them I mean getting them printed professionally, and they (rightly so) say NO to password protected docs.

EDIT: Whoops wrong thread, I'll put it in the version B thread!

[hareton]

Why are these PDFs of such nuts quality? The graphics are incredibly blurry, font choice is poor too, but that's standard. Is it possible to get somewhere a version with covers that don't look like they get through shredder, got eaten by a dog, and got put up together again?

[idrahil]

Hi Hareton!

Did you download them from RPGnow? If so, try DLing them from ImmersiveInk's (Waysoftheearth) site (Use version 2):

forum.immersiveink.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=113&p=13867#p13867

I have printed booklets from the v2 Reference rules and they are great.

[waysoftheearth]

Jan 10, 2014 13:41:17 GMT -6 hareton said:

Why are these PDFs of such nuts quality? The graphics are incredibly blurry, font choice is poor too, but that's standard. Is it possible to get somewhere a version with covers that don't look like they get through shredder, got eaten by a dog, and got put up together again?

Where did you get the PDFs from hareton? And how are you viewing them--as a printed hard-copy, in a browser, in a PDF reader, somehow else?

The images should be sharp and the text perfectly crisp. If they are not, then something isn't right.

[hareton]

Jan 10, 2014 14:34:22 GMT -6 idrahil said:

Hi Hareton!

Did you download them from RPGnow? If so, try DLing them from ImmersiveInk's (Waysoftheearth) site (Use version 2):

forum.immersiveink.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=113&p=13867#p13867

I have printed booklets from the v2 Reference rules and they are great.

Thanks, when I display them in Chrome both pictures and font are all right! When I open in Acrobat Reader it is much worse, but not as bad as version from rpgnow.

[mgtremaine]

Perhaps your Acrobat is "zooming in". Is there an option under View to say "Actual Size" or "Zoom 100%", or something like that?

If you print them you also need to make sure they are printed in "Booklet" Mode or digest sized paper, which is 1/2 of a normal Letter Sized page. Booklet mode is cool it will lay it out in a booklet that all you need to do is fold and put a couple of staples through and you have a booklet. It sounds simple but there is a learning curve to it and some artistry to get it real good. [Bone Folding Tool is essential to good booklets, good stock paper for the cover, and learning how to do the staples with just an awl and the bone folding tool. You master those and your booklets look and feel as good or better then the ones you've bought.]

-Mike

[waysoftheearth]

I just went and downloaded DD Ref Rules v2 Volume 1 as a PDF from download.immersiveink.com/DDRefRulesV2/DD%20RR%20v2%20Vol%201.pdf

Then I viewed it in Chrome, and also in Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.2. Even when viewed at 200% of actual size the images and text are still crystal clear, so my guess is that it's something to do with your PDF viewer... can you tell us what version of acrobat it is?
Do you get the same problem viewing other PDFs in that viewer?
Do you get the same problem viewing that PDF in another viewer?

FWIW, I also found this site which lists a few common problems/workaround for viewing PDFs. Maybe a quick skim through these might help?

[hareton]

Jan 11, 2014 19:27:04 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

I just went and downloaded DD Ref Rules v2 Volume 1 as a PDF from download.immersiveink.com/DDRefRulesV2/DD%20RR%20v2%20Vol%201.pdf

Then I viewed it in Chrome, and also in Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.2. Even when viewed at 200% of actual size the images and text are still crystal clear, so my guess is that it's something to do with your PDF viewer... can you tell us what version of acrobat it is?
Do you get the same problem viewing other PDFs in that viewer?
Do you get the same problem viewing that PDF in another viewer?

FWIW, I also found this site which lists a few common problems/workaround for viewing PDFs. Maybe a quick skim through these might help?

It isn't a problem with my viewer, most current PDF releases has nuts quality graphics, both in print and file, for example Labyrinth Lord, and they print blurred no matter in which printing house I tried. They are poorly optimized, maybe is has something to do with Windows 7 and its stupid fonts. My version of Acrobat is 10, some other PDFs display correctly, some not. I use Windows XP. I don't have another viewer than Acrobat and Chrome.

[waysoftheearth]

The DD Ref Rules PDF cover graphics (and all graphics in the Ref Rules) are optimized for high print quality at their actual size (digest). The cover art is 6" x 9" and 318dpi at 100% size. This resolution should be good enough for almost any printing purpose -- unless you are blowing the images up to much larger than their actual size.

I have printed the DD PDFs at 100% size at two different print shops, as well as on my own laser printer, and I've only seen sharp reproductions of the images and text.

Are you able to post screen shot or a photo of the nuts quality graphics so we can see exactly what you're seeing?

[hareton]

Hm, good to know, because I was planning to print DD on A4 size. I will try on A5, 5.83 × 8.27 inches, because there are no other options here I believe. Maybe some problems with printing are because in Europe formats are different.

No point in posting screenshots, especially when they don't show exactly what monitor displays anyway.

Will next DD print be distributed by drivethrurpg? Also are you planning to add optional book with material from OD&D supplements? Druid class would be useful.

[waysoftheearth]

Jan 12, 2014 3:53:45 GMT -6 hareton said:

Hm, good to know, because I was planning to print DD on A4 size. I will try on A5, 5.83 × 8.27 inches, because there are no other options here I believe. Maybe some problems with printing are because in Europe formats are different.

I'm in Australia where A-series paper sizes are also standard, and I've printed the DD PDFs at A5 size without any problem.

It's plausible that scaling the images up to A4 size (approximately 150% zoom) might affect the visible image quality -- this would reduce the printed image resolution from 318dpi to 212dpi.

If we believe some of the recommendations posted on the internet (e.g., here) then a 200dpi image should be fine for laser printers up to 1200x1200dpi.

In any case I will print one at A4 size and see how it looks.

edit:
But even if I see a good quality image it won't imply anything about what you will see hareton, unless you have exactly the same printer and printer drivers as I do (which is pretty unlikely).

If you're interested there is a nice explanation of how image resolution and print quality work together here. That article suggests that, for laser printers, the printer driver software is important in determining the quality of the final printed image.

[waysoftheearth]

Jan 10, 2014 13:41:17 GMT -6 hareton said:

font choice is poor too, but that's standard.

FWIW -- the body text font used in the DD Ref Rules is Futura Lt BT.

Futura is an iconic and very widely used font (see here). Of particular relevance to DD; futura was used for the text of the OD&D booklets (and also the AD&D hardcover rule books).

[hareton]

I'm sorry, I thought it's one of these crap fad cleartype fonts, because the first pdf displayed them so blurry. Typewriter fonts are the best in terms of readability and aesthetics in case of D&D, so it's good choice.

[waysoftheearth]

Okay, so I did some printing of the DD Ref Rules v2 Volume 1 cover. Here are some pictures...

Firstly, here it is on my screen blown up all the way to 200% size (which is bigger than letter/A4-sized):



If I look very closely at it (with my nose almost touching the screen) I can see some tiny blurring around the curves that I can't see at 150% zoom. But I have to try real hard. And bear in mind that that 200% zoom is four times the size that the image is designed to be viewed at.


Here is the same cover image printed at A4 size on my HP color laserjet (a pretty old 600 x 600 dpi colour laser) from a Windows XP machine. The printer driver software tells me that it is printing at 85 lpi:



This isn't a fantastic photograph (taken with my camera phone), but I have to say that the image printed on paper looks better than the 200% zoomed image on the screen. I cannot see a flaw with my naked eye no matter how closely I look. But we also know that A4 size is approximately ~150% zoom, so it's not surprising that this reproduction is crisper than the 200% zoomed image on screen. Another thing is I can tell is that I am physically straining my eyes to find something smaller than what I can really see.  My eyes are 43 years old.

That image was printed in greyscale. I also printed the same image again in full colour. I took a photo of that also, but you can't see anything more or less than the above photo, so I didn't attach it here.

However, in the colour version I can see the tiniest pixelation around some of the very light weight curves.  Once again it's not surprising that the colour reproduction of the image is slightly worse quality than the black & white reproduction; that's exactly what the article I linked above suggests.


So in summary, I'm not seeing anything that I would call "bad", and certainly not "put through shredder, eaten by a dog, and put together again"; even with the images blown up. The 200% sized image looks great at normal viewing distance on my screen, and the A4-sized printed image looks perfect when printed in black and white on my old laser, and very nearly as good even when printed in colour.

If you are seeing other results hareton, please post some images of them so we can try to help.

[hareton]

If this is RPGNow version, it displays very differently on your system indeed.

[waysoftheearth]

Jan 13, 2014 7:27:17 GMT -6 hareton said:

If this is RPGNow version, it displays very differently on your system indeed.

The images above are of the PDF I downloaded from the immersiveink forum.

It's (another copy of) the same PDF file that I uploaded to RPGNow although, from memory, I believe RPGNow embeds a watermark in the PDF when it is downloaded to include the customer's name. I guess it's plausible that this process could affect the image quality -- although that would be a bit surprising.

I will download it from RPGNow and try that file too.

[mgtremaine]

I have the drivethru's and they are fine. I'd post the giant image but I think the issue is not in the PDF's.

-Mike

[waysoftheearth]

Jan 13, 2014 17:00:14 GMT -6 mgtremaine said:

I have the drivethru's and they are fine. I'd post the giant image but I think the issue is not in the PDF's.

-Mike

Thanks Mike, that's good to know. I'll take a close look at them tonight in any case, just to be absolutely sure.

[waysoftheearth]

Okay, I downloaded the individual "Delving Deeper Ref Rules v2 The Adventerers Handbook" (not the bundle) from RPGNow.

I viewed it on my screen at 200% (and higher) zoom, and printed it out to A4 size, just like I did above, and got pretty much exactly the same result. If anything, the printed copy "seems" like it might be marginally better, but that is probably just because I had to put new paper in the printer.

Just to be sure I repeated the whole process on my older PC, and then I did notice something worth reporting. The image does look different on my two different screens; it is noticeably more pixelated around the edges on my older PC (at 200% zoom mind you--it still looks fine at 100% and 150% zoom).

In any case, with a bit of fiddling around I figured out why.

The two different machines have different monitors, which (apparently) prefer different display resolutions. On both machines the system default rendering resolution was set to 96 ppi (or at least that is what Acrobat Reader is reporting), but one machine renders the image perfectly at this resolution, and the other does not.

In Acrobat Reader you can change the rendering resolution:

Edit --> Preferences --> Page Display, then choose either the system default, or a custom resolution and set it to whatever you want.

In the case of my older machine, it was not producing an ideal rendering of the PDF at the system default resolution of 96 ppi (not sure why; perhaps due to the pixel size/pitch of the monitor itself? Or the video driver for the monitor?). But when I changed Acrobat Reader to use a custom resolution, and set it to 72 ppi, it fixed the pixelation issue and the PDF then rendered exactly as sharply as on the other machine.

[hareton]

I tried three different resolutions in Acrobat reader and it equally sucks in terms of text display, but it's probably Reader's fault. Chrome display is fine.
PS. I have 5:4 monitor at 1280x1024.