GC 2006 - Ptolus Hardback $120!?!

[Vocenoctum]

With a payment plan in place, I see nothing wrong with the $120 cost. The payment plan makes moot these arguments about accessibility. Nearly anyone can afford the payment plan and if they can't afford the low monthly payments, they couldn't afford the book at $100, $80, 0r even $60 dollars upfront.

Sorry, but if you allocate an RPG budget, it's still costing.
If you allocate $40 a month for RPG's, now you either get $30 worth of product for that $40, or you raise your budget to allocate for Ptolus.

The payment plan is a nice convenience, but it's still money.
It's the same as "for the price of a cup of coffee a day". You can only do that so much before you're just broke.

 

[A'koss]

It not just another standard D&D city, it's Monte's D&D city.

I see... Well, despite having Monte's name attached to it (not that it's a bad thing, mind, I own plenty of Malhavoc books myself) what I wanted to know was what was it about Ptolus itself that's urging some people to pre-order it? Is it just because Monte wrote it?

Personally, I loved Planescape, Iron Heroes (where I'm basing my own campaign) and the magic system from Arcana Evolved. On the other hand, I was disappointed with the Diamond Throne setting so I'm casting a wary eye towards the Ptolus hype. Now if Ptolus came across as something truly original, something ground-breaking and just plain awesomely cool... I'd be on-board too. But page count and production quality mean little if the content itself isn't inpiring. So I'm asking again, what is about Ptolus that grabs you?

 

[mythusmage]

...what is about Ptolus that grabs you?

A better chance of meeting 12th level courtesans.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Right, hence why I said a mid-range product with less frills could be cheaper.
But really, asking someone to justify 640 pages of content when 130 of them are art, isn't really fair!

Yeah, they could also cut down costs by printing it on newsprint with 6 point courier and no formatting...just a couple hundred pages of nothing but dense text. Every word of ptolus would be in there, useful to those poor fans who are otherwise being left out in the cold. Not that a single person would buy that, even though they could probably run it off cheap as dirt.

There is a mid-range product with less frills and less expense. The PDF version. And, to tie into another complaint, if you only want 1/4 of ptolus, you only need to buy 1/4 of the PDFs, of which there will apparently be eight. Isn't life swell? You can even print out your own copy at Kinkos. Or six copies, if you had a hankering to wallpaper your house with it.

 

[drakhe]

I was hesitant when I first saw the price for Ptolus. But I got curious and started to go throught the pages at Monte's site. That got me interested, but I was still thingking, will this see print? BHut then finaly, considering I did buy WLD and noticing that Monte had actualy spent time at GenCon to promote this book, I fell for it and pre-ordered it. With all the extra's I think he has a winner here. But as stated before, not a book fr all comers. The car analogy is spot on, some people buy a little Honde Civic, others buy a Ferari, and then there are even those that can afford a Ferari, but don't.... Decide a) whether you like/want/need the book, then b) cosider the price. If you can't afford it (even with the payment in installment option) then don't get it ...

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Why would it? Call it the law of diminishing returns, but once you hit a point, the eyes glaze over and the further material is wasted. The book is too big to handle easily, too big to curl up with and use.

But, what it comes down to is "in my opinion, there's no one book that would be worth $120 to me".

Which means, of course, that if any of us don't believe in a maximum price for an RPG book, but instead would want to know what kind of value there is in such a book that warrants that kind of expense, you have absolutely nothing to add to the discussion.

Back to the car analogy: it's like if you stumbled across some people discussing whether a $24 000 car is worth the money, and you said "No car worth more than $15 000 is worth it to me." They ask "why," and you say, "they could have left out the cruise control and the power doors and the alarm system and all the other bells and whistles and it would be the same car but more affordable and so fans of the manufacturer could buy it and won't be disappointed." Then they say, "some of us want those features and are willing to pay for them." Then you say "No! No car over $15 000 is worth it!"

Well, maybe despite your personal preferences, it happens to be the case that some people think that a single $120 book with certain attributes is a pretty good deal. And your personal opinion, ungrounded in any kind of persuasive argument, is not going to appear convincing to these people.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Because we're visual animals. We get things faster when they're illustrated, when we can see what's being talked about. For text to be as useful as text an pictures it has to be very well written. Even then things will be missed that wouldn't if there were illustrations to, well, illustrate the subject.

And properly used pictures set the tone. Check out Iron Kingdoms: World Guide some time. The interior illustrations do a damn good job of setting the feel of the place. There's a reason why they say a picture is worth a thousand words.

Also, we're to believe that the art in Ptolus has not just illustrative purpose, but is also schematic and assists the reader in finding his way around the book. Removing the art would therefore remove functionality, not only aesthetics.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Sorry, but if you allocate an RPG budget, it's still costing.
If you allocate $40 a month for RPG's, now you either get $30 worth of product for that $40, or you raise your budget to allocate for Ptolus.

The payment plan is a nice convenience, but it's still money.
It's the same as "for the price of a cup of coffee a day". You can only do that so much before you're just broke.

So, are you trying to say that if you get on the payment plan, you don't get Ptolus for free?

 

[WildWeasel]

Sorry, but if you allocate an RPG budget, it's still costing.
If you allocate $40 a month for RPG's, now you either get $30 worth of product for that $40, or you raise your budget to allocate for Ptolus.

The payment plan is a nice convenience, but it's still money.
It's the same as "for the price of a cup of coffee a day". You can only do that so much before you're just broke.

So what makes Ptolus so unique that money you spend on it is money you're not spending on X other product, yet if you that spent the money on X, it's not money you could have spent on Y?

No matter what, money spent on one thing is not money spent on anything else. What difference is it when that sum is spent on one book or four, when it's the content that's the primary value?

And where does this "pay $40 for $30 of product" come from?

 

[Vocenoctum]

No matter what, money spent on one thing is not money spent on anything else. What difference is it when that sum is spent on one book or four, when it's the content that's the primary value?

And where does this "pay $40 for $30 of product" come from?

If you've allocated $40 for RPG products, and $10 of it is going to Ptolus that month, you have $30 to spend on RPG products. I'm simply replying to the point that because it's $10 a month, it's different than paying $120. It's easier for some folks to pay the installements, but the money still comes from somewhere. (the RPG budget, as it were)