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Full History - 2019 - 06 - 27 - ID#c65zvv
17
NLS, in the USA, released a Dungeons &and Dragons player handbook with more recordings along the way. (m.facebook.com)
submitted by rkingett
preiman790 1 points 4y ago
I’m not gonna lie, the idea of using a game manual in audio sounds hellish, almost to the point of unusable. Most of the point of these books, is to be able to reference rules quickly often at the table and I just don’t know how you do that in audio.
rkingett [OP] 1 points 4y ago
There's bookmarks and highlight bookmarks for quickly jumping to sections, you can also jump directly to a certain header or chapter or even timestamp, but you can also get the gist before you start a game. Heck, take your own notes beforehand and have them in a simple text file.
preiman790 2 points 4y ago
Still seems really limited to me. maybe if there was some method to see each chapter and section and jump right to where you want, maybe a table of contents with the time stamps, so I know that the advantage rule is at 2 hours and 23 minutes, or the stats for a battle axe are at 4 hours and fifteen minutes. As to taking my own notes before hand, that is great for what you know you’re going to need but not so much for the sorts of questions that come up at the table, which is a big part of what the book is supposed to be there for. I just don’t see the advantage here, a rulebook should be well indexed and if not physical pages, searchable. This seems fine if I just want to sit down and read the book like I might with something like a textbook but that’s not really how a game manual is used.
I am a big believer in audiobooks, but this feels like a really bad fit when other options are available. At best I can see using this for your first brows through the book, before transitioning to a screen reader compatible digital version, otherwise you’re going to remain nearly as dependent on sighted players as we used to be, before the digital age, something I am very very glad I no longer am.
CloudyBeep 1 points 4y ago
NLS audio books are highly structured, so that you can easily jump between sections and subsections. You can also move by paragraph. In this sense, they are only somewhat more limited than electronic text files. They conform to the DAISY standard, which was designed as a precursor to ePub to allow people with print disabilities to easily navigate through books. DAISY is used by almost all accessible-format libraries worldwide.
preiman790 2 points 4y ago
I do understand that, but without some listing of those sections and a way to jump directly there it still feels lacking. I am absolutely prepared to be proven wrong, but I really don’t think this will be as helpful as people hope it will. To me it feels like you’ll end up with a lot of the same issues you get trying to do math in audio plus the concerns I’ve already stated.
I am downloading it now but don’t expect this to take the place of PDFs and web resources for games like this, at least not for me.
cookieinaloop 1 points 4y ago
Is it possible to have access to it from another country?
rkingett [OP] 2 points 4y ago
I'd take a look at the below. I'd say the answer is yes, under a few cases, but you would be better off looking at Bookshare, not NLS.

https://www.loc.gov/nls/about/services/overseas-services/
cookieinaloop 1 points 4y ago
Thank you!
rkingett [OP] 2 points 4y ago
I'd also check to see if your countries library has something similar. I just downloaded the NLS version and it appears to be the official handbook, 5th edition, so if you want something older, look to other authors, not the official handbook that is on NLS
HDMILex 1 points 4y ago
Happy Cake Day bro!
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