Fair enough. Granted not a blessed one of those things is the sort of thing I'd feel uncomfortable improving off the cuff. Partly because I think I have a pretty good handle on how boat combat should feel and enough of a general grounding in boat physics that I don't think much of that would panic me. Then again I run a pretty fast and loose kind of game. No map, no minis, no five foot boxes--mostly in our heads. So a lot of the stuff that becomes terribly important in the more tactical game pales in comparison to the smell of the sea, the bucking of the ship underfoot, the coarse rope held taut in a calloused hand.Then again, it's also so infrequent that we actually get on a boat that I think in my gaming career it's happened twice--neither of them D&D games.
So yeah, I guess I can see now someone having a use for that kind of book--where before I was a bit baffled. Still not my thing though. Don't need it, really, at all--unless I needed to smash a bug. What I can use though are as many solid races and classes as I can get my hands on. Good equipment is good too. Feats and spells I'll take because they come with...
Good reason for them to offer both style of books. I know I could care less about more and more races and feats. To be honest I dont feel many of the race/complete books have had good races/classes equal to the amount of junk. Winds up bieng a waste of DM planning time trying to figure if the class is balanced in the setting.
However, since I ran a heavy natuical Iron Kingdoms campaign I found the sea book quite useful. Kept a consistent manner for the numerous sea battles we had. Plus useful equipment for the setting. Even a class or two that related to the enviroment. I dont know if Id use the Frostburn or Sandstorm.
Each group is diffrent in what they want. Good reason to have seperate books instead of one mix.
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You can download any D&D book on line for free. Granted they are not as cool as a hardback book, but you are not shelling put $90.00 every year for a DMG, PH and MM.
Yes, you can go out an steal your books. You can spend your money on other things. You can sit on the sidelines and watch .. no HELP this hobby shrink by not supporting it.
Yes, feel free. Who needs to actually pay for anything.
Mind if I come over and take all of your stuff?
If the implication is that WotC "stole" them from you then you have much to learn about free market economics.
Somebody needs a hug.
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Merely illustrating absurdity with absurdity.
Having been stolen from through burglary AND via electronic means, there's really no comparison between the two. Ergo, the aforementioned poster would feel much different if you "came over to his house and took all his stuff."
I can tell you this about free market economics, though. A corporation's reason for existence is to maximize shareholder wealth, not keep Dungeons and Dragons alive. If nixing D&D, or discontinuing it and sitting on it is more in line with maximization of shareholder wealth, it will be done.
So if the implication of "sitting on the sidelines while Dungeons and Dragons is dieing" is meant as more than just a chiding to an unapologetic internet thief, then I'm not the guy who needs the eco. lesson.
Another saying I heard in Costa Rica: "the big tree falls so the little trees can reach for the sun." Some marvellous entrepreneur will figure out how to create a new system whereby randomly generated numbers will determine the success or failure of actions, thus generating a fantastical story.
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Merely illustrating absurdity with absurdity.
Having been stolen from through burglary AND via electronic means, there's really no comparison between the two. Ergo, the aforementioned poster would feel much different if you "came over to his house and took all his stuff."
The comparison is actually less absurd then you think. You worked hard and invested capital to build your life. You have a system whereby you earn a living to support your material comfort. When someone steals from you its a setback. You need to work harder to make up for what was lost. The more that is stolen from you the more you need to work. At a certain tipping point the amount you lose through theft could push you into a dire circumstance where you cannot work hard enough to make up for what you have lost.
The more gamers that steal books - either electronically of physically because there is no difference - then the more the publisher will need to do to maximize their profits and make up for the loss of sales.
I can tell you this about free market economics, though. A corporation's reason for existence is to maximize shareholder wealth, not keep Dungeons and Dragons alive. If nixing D&D, or discontinuing it and sitting on it is more in line with maximization of shareholder wealth, it will be done.
Yep. The corporation owes us nothing. I wish more people understood that when they begin make the tacit claim that WotC "owes" them anything, including an explanation as to why they cancelled Dragon or Dungeon.
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Yeh, you showed me. Getting ripped off on the internet is the exact same thing as some a&$$@@@ coming into your house. I wonder why shooting a home invader can be construed as self defense even.
I'm gonna buy gobs of 4e. stuff. YOu totally said what I was trying to say and didn't even know it.
Thanks for warping my words into what I really should have meant.
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I have a guy in my group who constantly brags that he has every single D&D book electronically and free from various sites. 100% illegal and disgusting to me.
I hate WotC for the junk they are pulling but theft whether electronic or not is unacceptable, however the comparison of the 2 is vastly different. The thought of somebody Physically going into a place that is mine and taking a physical possession is just more of a violation to me then if someone stole my password and used my bank funds from 3 states away. Would I like both people punished equally? Damn right, but the guy who went creeping around in my house is gonna have me worried about him returning to punish my family or me for locking him up.
The crime is the same but the physical violation leaves more damage to me. I can just change a few passwords and be slightly more careful online in one case, whereas the other case could leave me facing a psycho who is out to harm me for getting him tossed in jail for a couple weeks.
Slamming Heathy for his statement is bad form. There are vast differences in the 2 types of theft, although the crime is the same.
FH
If you steal then you are a criminal even if all you did was jack a book by downloading an illicit pdf.
While I agree; if the overwhelming majority of people are criminals, perhaps it is not the people which are the problem.
Yep. The corporation owes us nothing. I wish more people understood that when they begin make the tacit claim that WotC "owes" them anything, including an explanation as to why they cancelled Dragon or Dungeon.
You are absolutely correct. They owe us nothing. However, when they fail to work on maintaining customer relations, such as when they take the magazines back from Paizo, this tends to set up a particular feeling in the community.
Once this feeling is established, it figured into our decisions on purchasing products, it may indeed be the difference between us giving, say, a new edition the benefit of the doubt.
Thus, its kind of hard to say, in one breath, that the corporation doesn't owe us anything, and then turn around and say that we "need" to give 4th edition a chance. They don't owe me anything, and I don't need to do anything for them.
My point is that theft causes problems for the people or companies whose stuff gets stolen.
If you steal then you are a criminal even if all you did was jack a book by downloading an illicit pdf.
I'll also agree that its wrong to download illegally reproduced material, and I do realize that this sort of thing takes money away from not just the "evil corporations," but also from the working stiffs that have mouths to feed and bills to pay.
However, saying that downloading PDFs is the moral equivalent of breaking and entering is not accurate by a longshot. Its wrong, and should be illegal, and doesn't help the industry, and no one should do it. But its not the same as breaking into a home and stealing someone's physical goods.
I'm just not a big fan of misinterpreting the severity of things. If you tell your kids that pot is as bad as heroin, and God forbid, they actually smoke a joint and their heart doesn't explode, it tends to make them think that you are full of it when it comes to heroin as well.
I'm just saying that care should be taken when judgments like this are made.
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Thus, its kind of hard to say, in one breath, that the corporation doesn't owe us anything, and then turn around and say that we "need" to give 4th edition a chance. They don't owe me anything, and I don't need to do anything for them.
You are correct - you as a consumer do not owe them anything at all. If you want to pre-judge 4E because WotC made a business decision that you did not like then go for it.
Here is the thing about change. When a corporation makes a change to a product or service there will always be a certain percentage of existing customers that drop off simply because things changed. If the corporation did its homework and changed for the right reasons then it will add more customers than it will lose.
We do not owe WotC anything but we won't be able to know if this change was a positive move until the books come out and sales roll in or they don't.
None of us can say for certain that 4E will be better or worse until the books arrive this summer.
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I'm just saying that care should be taken when judgments like this are made.
I agree. There is a difference in magnitude. One is not just a criminal violation but a personal violation. I get that.
When I was at my local shop and one of the regulars proclaimed that he would just download 4E rather than buy the books the store manager nearly popped.
For him it was as if the guy stole books right off his shelf. Game shops don't have huge sales volume so the damage from illegal downloads goes beyond the corporation.
It may not be a personal violation but it harms our hobby from the publisher to the shops we hang out in.
Here is the thing about change. When a corporation makes a change to a product or service there will always be a certain percentage of existing customers that drop off simply because things changed. If the corporation did its homework and changed for the right reasons then it will add more customers than it will lose.
One of the things I've been careful about is to say that all I can do is to present my opinion. I'm not saying that I'm representative of anyone but myself, but at the same time, I am one person that was buying nearly everything WOTC put that that will not be doing so in 2008.
WOTC may have figured me out of the equation. They may have figured enough losses to compensate for both of the gaming groups that I belong to, as neither one seems particularly ready to jump to a new edition. I don't know, and if they have, they may be phenomenally successful. But that isn't going to keep me from having an opinion.
None of us can say for certain that 4E will be better or worse until the books arrive this summer.
I've also said that 4th edition, as a game, may be a fine game. It may be fun to play and intuitive. However, it may or may not feel like the same overall game as D&D.
However, as someone that likes Vancian magic, liked the Forgotten Realms, the Great Wheel, and various planar species the way they were, and Dungeon and Dragon Magazine as physical products. To this degree, unless they make a drastic change in their marketing strategy and what they have stated so far, they have told me enough to know that this won't fit the kind of game that I run or play in and enjoy.
I agree. There is a difference in magnitude. One is not just a criminal violation but a personal violation. I get that.
When I was at my local shop and one of the regulars proclaimed that he would just download 4E rather than buy the books the store manager nearly popped.
For him it was as if the guy stole books right off his shelf. Game shops don't have huge sales volume so the damage from illegal downloads goes beyond the corporation.
It may not be a personal violation but it harms our hobby from the publisher to the shops we hang out in.
On this, we definitely agree.
Is any RPG company free from pirated online books?
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One troll post, and the thread derails :( Views on illegal downloads have been expressed, let's move on and return to topic.
When annual PHBs, MMs, DMGs were first announced, I expressed my hope over at the WotC boards that each PHB release would contain all the rules necessary to play the game (skills, combat etc), but using new races/classes and the feats, magic (power sources), skill trees etc to support those races/classes.
In 3.5, I've had new players look through the PHB for something more exotic than elves, dwarves and gnomes, and be disappointed. No doubt, WotC are including Tieflings, Warlocks and (rumoured) Dragonborn to appeal to these players, which IMO is a good thing.
Let's look ahead a few year, a new player wants to play a Lizardfolk Shaman, a Gnome Ninja, or whatever. All he needs is the PHB3 (for example) containing his race/class choice and also all the rules he needs to play. No need to ALSO purchase or carry around PHB1.
Don't like Eladrin, Tieflings or Dragonborn? Holding out for the Druid, Monk or Spellsword? Then skip the first PHB and wait for PHB2.
Currently, all MMs contain a fistful of critters. While MM1 contains many of the classics, it is not a required purchase, you could design a home-brew campaign drawing creatures only from subsequent MMs. So why not the same for PHBs and DMGs?
The idea didn't get much traction over at the Wizards boards. Most people complained they'd be paying for pages of rules repeated across all books. However, I think it lowers the entry bar for new players, and encourage variety in play experience.
Thoughts?
It'd almost be a good idea to do what World of Darkness did. Have the first book be all the general stuff you'll need to know no matter what you play. No races or classes, just feats, equipment, rules, spells and whatnot. Don't even mess with the other stuff. That way everyone buys the PHB, then they can buy later books with classes and races once a year--pick the ones you want, ditch the rest. Plus with all the pages you've saved you could do a nice 3-5 page writeup on a few of the campaign settings as a primer for those unfamiliar with them--a particularly nice gesture since apart from Eberron and Forgotten Realms, a lot of them probably wouldn't see support any other way.
Granted, although it would be a great way to do it--alas that's not the way it's going. I think you're looking at a main book that everyone's going to have to buy, with others that will pretty much be optional, plug and play stuff running off the required rules in the first.
Then again, nothing says you can't just bum off a friend, learn the essential rules, and then use whatever books you like.
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Then again, nothing says you can't just bum off a friend, learn the essential rules, and then use whatever books you like.
Share PHBs or use the SRD until the PHB with the race/class you've been waiting for has been relased.
I was largely disappointed that the 3.5 PHBII wasn't an alternative PHB complete with new races/classes and fully self-contained rules to play the game. Okay, it had some of that, eg new base classes, feats etc, but it was meant as an expansion to the PHB, not a fully playable alterntive to it.
I imagine a table where every player might be playing from a different PHB release, and all they really needed were the rules from the version they had, because everything relevant to their race/class, skills, feats, combat, magic, talent trees etc, was in there.
Eg, everything the Fighter needs to play is contained in PHBI, everything the Barbarian needs is in PHBII. There shouldn't be a need to repeat feats like Dodge, Cleave etc, from one book to the other either. Fighters and Barbarians are free to use feats from each other's books if they're eligible for them, but they shouldn't be required to.
One common rules book as you suggest, ala Rules Compendium, might have been an idea, but then that would only have increased by one the minimum number of books required to play the game.
I just think that PHBI shouldn't be the only point of entry to the game. PHBI might not appeal to some, but PHB3 might! More points of entry would encourage more players!
I was largely disappointed that the 3.5 PHBII wasn't an alternative PHB complete with new races/classes and fully self-contained rules to play the game. Okay, it had some of that, eg new base classes, feats etc, but it was meant as an expansion to the PHB, not a fully playable alterntive to it.
I share your pain. I really liked PHBII for it's much more character intensive, drama centered content, but I just couldn't bring myself to buy it because there wasn't enough stuff in it. A couple of new classes and a bunch of advice on how to play characters just didn't justify the expense. As much as I love the direction of the book, I hope the 4e PHBs to follow the first keep well away from that format.
That said, I still think new stuff for each book is a must--which means that the nuts and bolts mechanics should really stay in one book. More of all the rest (classes/races/gear/feats/whatever) are what I'm really eager for. Like I said a ways up, if everything could feel like a monster manual I'd be happy--all useful, usable info with as little waste as possible.
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I just feel a Players Handbook should be worthy of the title, and actually contain everything required to play the game. As good as it was, PHBII didn't do that, it was more like a Complete ... book, and probably should have been titled as such.
I feel Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed was more of a PHBII, as it did contain all new races/classes with all the rules needed to play them .. although they weren't nearly as compatible with the PHB as I would have liked .. he just couldn't leave the rules alone (3.75)
I also enjoyed the Dragon Compendium (DrC), containing all new races/classes/feats etc. It had potential as an alternate PHB, though the races/classes chosen might need to have been modified to be a little more compatible with one another. For example, favoured classes for the new DrC races are all from the PHB, none from the new DrC classes. The new DrC races all describe relations with PHB races, but not amongst other DrC races. I realise these components were all drawn from separate Dragon magazine articles, but bringing them together into one volume, they might have benefited from some implied setting to connect them together. Commissioning artwork featuring the new races/classes throughout the book might also have helped bring them to life, helping you imagine a diabolus, diopsid, dvati, lupin, tibbit adventuring party. It was like all of these cool new components existed in their own vacuum, whereas I'd like to have seen how well they played together.
I often wondered what a game might resemble if you banned all of the the standard PHB classes/races, and instead allowed only those from the Dragon Compendium?
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There is no way that WotC would have subsequent PHB's be self-contained PHB's independent of the original. The older, friendlier WotC of 3 plus years ago wouldn't do something that would enable people to buy less books to play. If you think that the newer, more cutthroat WotC would do this, you are completely out of touch with reality.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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There is no way that WotC would have subsequent PHB's be self-contained PHB's independent of the original. The older, friendlier WotC of 3 plus years ago wouldn't do something that would enable people to buy less books to play. If you think that the newer, more cutthroat WotC would do this, you are completely out of touch with reality.
Less Cynicism aside. I'd hope the PHB X would not reprint a bunch of rules, if I were getting 4th. I'd hate to want to play a Changeling Warlock and have all the mechanics in the PHB 1 also in my PHB 3.
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Let's look ahead a few year, ...Don't like Eladrin, Tieflings or Dragonborn? Holding out for the Druid, Monk or Spellsword? Then skip the first PHB and wait for PHB2.
Currently, all MMs contain a fistful of critters. While MM1 contains many of the classics, it is not a required purchase, you could design a home-brew campaign drawing creatures only from subsequent MMs. So why not the same for PHBs and DMGs?
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Thoughts?
While I like the idea conceptually, I wouldn't actually want paper duplicates of the rules so many times over.
In my eyes, the biggest problem with this whole "Everything is Core" mentality of WOTC will be the spells.
In a MM, 90-95% of the information is self-contained and self-relevant. Classes use spells, and *share* spells to a large extent. Take a glance at the Expanded Psionics Handbook - plenty of "Dimension Door, Psionic - see PHB page ###" entries.
At least for psionics most are straight forward spells, but can you imagine a class spell list for any arcane caster in the PHB 3? Most likely it will reference at least 3 different books for spells? A druid will have about half new spells, half repeats. And when you lookup the spells in the PHB1, they most likely won't have that handy "Clr 3, Drd 4" notation.
I realize some are already used to this, but I feel this sort of result is one of the primary annoyances involved here.
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I'm not too sure there would be all that many mechanics need to be reprinted in each book. Skills are being consolidated. D&D is an exceptions based rules system, so if combat is kept simple, all the crunchy stuff could be described in race/class ability/talent tree/feat/spell descriptions. The majority of the PHB is race, class, feats, spells anyway, which should be unique to each release.
If I purchase the Expanded Psionics Handbook (or PHB2 - power sources ki and psionics), I'd expect rules for Dimension Door to appear in that book, looking it up elsewhere is an annoyance and slows down gameplay.
WhiteWolf reprinted rules in each of their core Vampire, Werewolf, Mage etc World of Darkness products, which were released a year apart from each other. If you bought into one of these, all the rules you needed were there. I though this was a good model, and could be similar to annual PHB releases.
I realise this isn't a popular idea with many, but many 4E ideas haven't been all that popular either - how well it would be received would depend on it's execution, it could be done well, and when we see it we might think, "Yeah, why didn't they do it this way before?" Personally, I feel the utility outweighs it's drawbacks.
Maybe subsequent PHBs could reduce the page-count of reprinted skills/combat sections with less artwork or examples, assuming that many players already have access to that information in PHB1, though others won't. Or maybe they can refresh the skills/combat sections with artwork and examples using the new races/classes specific to each PHB release. It would be cool if the common rules fell on the same page numbers, so a product could say "refer condition: bloodied, PHB page xx" and it would be true of ANY version of PHB.
Still seems like a lot of books to own. And with today's "Wallet Pinching" economy it might not be the best tactic.