Newbie questions about the RpG books

[Lord Lance]

Hallo people.
Sorry, I'm a total (foreign) noob about DF. I saw the PDFs of my friend, and I'm in love with it. Cool graphic, nice  system Fate-based etc.
I wanna ask to you: is it easy to find the physical books?
Are they upgraded or a sort of 1st version? Are there a lot of erratas / balance issues?
When they was published? Are they quite recent (2009-2010) or are they older?

Thanks in advance for your answers!

[luminos]

The books are just freshly released.  The PDF's came out a couple of months ago, and the books have just now begun arriving in stores.  The physical books may be difficult to find in other countries, I do not know how to go about getting them outside of America.  In America, a local game store may have some in stock.  The books are sort of updated.  The original PDF's that went out to the general public have been modified with some last minute updates based on the feedback that people gave on these forums, and the physical books reflect these updates, and the updated PDF's can be obtained from the same people you bought the originals from.  The game hasn't been out long enough for there to be any erratas.  The balance is actually very good for the game, although dedicated powergamers will find areas that can be abuse.

[sjmcc13]

When they was published? Are they quite recent (2009-2010) or are they older?

The publisher started shipping the physical books last month. 

is it easy to find the physical books?

You should still be able to order from the publisher.
[yrl]http://www.evilhat.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=65_72[/url] No idea about in store availability.

[GruffAndTumble]

Availability was covered, so here's your other answers:

There are two versions of the PDFs in existence, because of a pre-order early release, but the hard copies only have the later version's rules (which changes only a few minor things). There is no errata beyond that, and there are no few inherent balance issues. Rules loopholes exist, but someone has to be consciously attempting to pervert the spirit of the game for mechanical benefit to fit through them--there's almost no chance of "accidentally" breaking any character or campaign.

[Lord Lance]

Thanks for the quick reply, guys!
So this RpG is quite new: very well, then I think is one of the last "incarnation" of the Fate rules, newer (and maybe updated) than Legend of Anglerre or Starblazer... right?

Men, it's really expensive to support them, 'cause the books are about 90$ ... and I have to sustain heavy shipping costs...
Maybe I should stay with the PDFs version (40$ bundled together), and hoping for a cheap home-made printing work.

PS: final question. Are the PDFs "smart"? I brought some PDF from Pinnacle or TAG (Savage Worlds) and they have layers, so I can disable backgrounds, images etc. before to print. This is useful even if I use the PDFs on my slow CPU netbook, that is my "GM screen" during RpG nights!

[SoulCatcher78]

You should be able to turn off the graphics in the PDF to speed up your usage.  I did something similar when printing a section of the book from PDF for easier reference.

[GoldenH]

You're not going to get THAT many pages printed, bound and looking nice for $40. Maybe if you can just print out a ream of paper at your local college and get away with it, but otherwise - nah. Toner and all those other hidden costs will get you! If you absolutely have to be cheap, get Your Story printed and Our World in pdf - you can always just print out the individual pages of OW you're using.

[TheMouse]

You're not going to get THAT many pages printed, bound and looking nice for $40. Maybe if you can just print out a ream of paper at your local college and get away with it, but otherwise - nah. Toner and all those other hidden costs will get you! If you absolutely have to be cheap, get Your Story printed and Our World in pdf - you can always just print out the individual pages of OW you're using.

It depends on whether something like printme1.com exists where the OP is. Here in the States, you can print, bind, and ship both books in the DF RPG to about 24 USD. It's black and white, but that's pretty cheap for what you're getting. (It's 0.035 USD per page, which includes binding and shipping in the US. The last print shop I went to charged 0.06 USD per page and charged around 2 USD for binding.)

[GoldenH]

isn't that a special 2-for-1 deal anyway?