WotC have got to be kidding me...


4th Edition

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Legendarius wrote:
C) new books means more revenue without which WotC produces no books at all

As long as they don't flood the market and practically drown themselves like TSR did. There's a balance that needs to be maintained.


Shinmizu wrote:
Legendarius wrote:
C) new books means more revenue without which WotC produces no books at all
As long as they don't flood the market and practically drown themselves like TSR did. There's a balance that needs to be maintained.

Though the current model largely avoids some of the pitfalls that hit TSR. Part of the problem there was not just flooding the market with supplements, but the fact that they were cranking out those supplements for a ton of different settings - thus, each one had a much smaller overall audience. While not as many players might be interested in 'the Dragonborn book' or 'Martial Power 2: Electric Boogaloo' as in the PHB, there will still be plenty of people who are interested - anyone in any game who might ever play a dragonborn, or a fighter or rogue or ranger, etc. Not all of those players will want or need a new book of options for that character, but it is still a much more sizable default audience than the demographic of 'people who play in a Spelljammer campaign'.


Matthew Koelbl wrote:
Shinmizu wrote:
Legendarius wrote:
C) new books means more revenue without which WotC produces no books at all
As long as they don't flood the market and practically drown themselves like TSR did. There's a balance that needs to be maintained.
Though the current model largely avoids some of the pitfalls that hit TSR. Part of the problem there was not just flooding the market with supplements, but the fact that they were cranking out those supplements for a ton of different settings - thus, each one had a much smaller overall audience. While not as many players might be interested in 'the Dragonborn book' or 'Martial Power 2: Electric Boogaloo' as in the PHB, there will still be plenty of people who are interested - anyone in any game who might ever play a dragonborn, or a fighter or rogue or ranger, etc. Not all of those players will want or need a new book of options for that character, but it is still a much more sizable default audience than the demographic of 'people who play in a Spelljammer campaign'.

One issue I see with the DDI that can hurt WotC is that once you get the basic books that you might need to re-read or just plane want to have you might be tempted as I am to not buy any further books. The DDI will update with the new releases and that can't help their book sales.

Yet the DDI is one of the biggest draws of 4e. Might be the biggest draw.

I don't know about shelf space and all, I can't recall the last time I bought a book at a store I wasn't there to buy, heck most times I buy online.

I can see setting books struggle, I think they always have. People have a setting or two that they buy and the others are just ignored. Me if it aint greyhawk I don't bother and well I read through the 4e realms and wont touch 4e setting books with a 10 foot pole after that mess. Race books do draw some attention, again I look for nice things that can help set the races apart, but I don't use non-standard races much (dragonborn, telfling, that stuff is all non-standard to me so I skip it). But I might look for a book on gnomes, dwarves, elves, and the like. Again though the DDI might be my source for such material too but I do like having the books so I can sit read and soak in the racial fluff, helps give me ideas for my own game and lets me think of ways to introduce those little quirks that make each race so very different.


Thurgon wrote:


One issue I see with the DDI that can hurt WotC is that once you get the basic books that you might need to re-read or just plane want to have you might be tempted as I am to not buy any further books. The DDI will update with the new releases and that can't help their book sales.

Sure - but its such a phenomenal trade off for WotC. You don't buy as many physical books but you give them subscription money every month.


For me, these 4E race books have the issues of:
1) if it's just a lot of fluff about the race, I have a lot of racial fluff from books like 3E "Races of" series and numerous books from the previous game editions. Do I need more fluff?
2) if it's just a bunch of mechanics, the DDI will cover most/all of that

Now if all of these races books were merged into a single (or maybe two) deluxe hardback races supplement rather than be a pile of smaller one race books, that would be more efficient for my shelf and end up costing less.

L


Legendarius wrote:

For me, these 4E race books have the issues of:

1) if it's just a lot of fluff about the race, I have a lot of racial fluff from books like 3E "Races of" series and numerous books from the previous game editions. Do I need more fluff?

Which may well be one reason Dragonborn are first on the list - while the classic races are already well-covered, the newer 4E races are more in need of that background material.

Which isn't to say there isn't room for race books on those classic races, to fill in the 4E elements for them... but I'll say for sure that if they have a race book come out for Deva, I'm there in a heart-beat, but it will take a lot more to get me interested in a book on elves or halflings.


Matthew Koelbl wrote:

... but I'll say for sure that if they have a race book come out for Deva, I'm there in a heart-beat,

Agreed! If I were playing a Dragonborn, I would probably be interested in the suppliment, but I would buy the Deva one even if I wasn't playing one.


There's a summary of the contents up on RPG.net that you can find here now that the book is out. It features about 40% crunch and 60% fluff based on page count. My predictions earlier in the thread ended up being a little low on how much crunch would be present, but I think that's because I didn't account for them including magic items, which there are three pages of. All in all, looks good. 4 paragon paths, an epic destiny, a few pages of feats (lots of breath weapon feats), some magic items (including a set), and a bunch of backgrounds.

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