Reading the hand outs in Armitage Files

[OlderNick]

Might be some SPOILERS HERE!!!

Not any BIG SPOILERS!!! But anyway:

Stay away if you're hoping to play The Armitage Files.

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So, I've finally started a proper read of The Armitage Files. I must say, though gorgeous, the hand outs are really hard to read. Even the ones where Armitage is moderately sane.
In fact, I gave up and used the plain text version that followed each hand out, only looking back at the hand outs occasionaly.

Considering the players in my group, I can see one, maybe two of them, that might bother going through such a big mess of a text...

So, those who have allready played or is playing TAF; Did you force your players to only read the hand outs, or did you supply the more readable text as well?

[Dwarin]

My thoughts exactly: I am not an English native although I am more than proficient with the language and yet I had to read some passages from the plain text. This has less to do with my comprehension of writen English than with the readibility of the text.

[crimsontree]

My players are Dutch. They were given the handouts & the typed versions at the same time. The actual documents provide a visual gauge to the mindset & situation of the author. The typed versions provide some clarity. I thought the handouts were beautifully executed by Pelgrane. The 2 versions deliver atmosphere & readability. There are also quite a few clues contained in the actual handouts that are not in the typed versions.

[OlderNick]

Oh yeah, totally forgot about the language barrier. There really isn't one, though English is only a secondary language for us as well.
Nice to see that I wasn't the only one with the "problem" though

[Mulciber]

To be honest I haven't found this a problem. I've tried to introduce documents so that players can ponder between sessions. If there's a big difficulty with a section then typed version would come into play.

[tannjew]

All but one of my players need a German translation. So far I have translated the first three documents together with another German roleplayer. During play I gave them all three versions of each document, thus everyone had a text which he/she could understand and additionally the handwritten hand out for the mood which comes along with the documents.

[Eibon]

Our campaign is on hiatus right now, and we've only made it to Document #3, but the players have already suggested buying Dr. Armitage a typewriter. That said, they've been able to get through them okay, with the occasional trip to Armitage's office to ask him "What do you think this word is?"