We have a wide range of options to devour books these days. While we used to be at the mercy of the publisher’s decision, thanks to Kickstarter, we now often have the choice of getting our gaming books in Hardcover, Softcover or digitally – or all three! So what’s your preference?

For me, I can’t say that I have a clear preference, it’s more of a “depends” situation.

When it comes to adventures, I prefer digital copies. Typically I will rework any bought adventure, so I like to have the digital copy so that I can cut out sections, paste in new material, edit what is there to suit my own campaign or vision of the adventure, etc. In this case, hard copies are more useful as reference material, but certainly in such cases I would want it to be softcover, as it’s lighter and more easily referenced.

For rulebooks, generally I prefer softcover hard copies as well digital copies. Similar to adventures, I like to rework game systems, so having a digital copy lets me play with the rules. However, I also like to have a reference copy of the rules easily accessible, so again like a light, portable and easily referenced version of the book – namely a softcover version.

I should also note that if I’m only interested in mining a game/adventure/other for ideas, I’ll typically opt for digital only. It’s cheaper and easier to access for hacking it up.

So when do I like hardcover books? If I really like a game, I may go for the hardcover because of the durability and appearance of the hardcover, especially when it comes to high page counts.

How about you?