GC 2006 - Ptolus Hardback $120!?!

[WildWeasel]

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)

It's different from paying the $120 all at once. It's called saving up. People do it for things they can't or aren't willing to spend the money on in one lump.

You really are presenting quite the moving target here. "$120 is too much to spend all at once!" "Then do it in smaller chunks." "But you're still spending money!"

EDIT: And you still have $40 a month to spend. You've just pre-allocated some of it, and have to wait (the horror) to see a return on it.

 

[mythusmage]

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)

Is it the cost of the book? Or that you have to set money aside for it? I need a new Macintosh, what with everything being written for OSX (opaque grape iMac, OSX won't install) my machine is fast becoming obsolete. But to get it I have to save my money up. (Actually, pay my credit card off, but it amounts to the same thing.) In about 6 months I should have enough to get a Mac Mini and monitor.

To be honest with you, I don't really need a new Mac. I could do without. But, given my disability and all that it entails, without a way to keep in touch with the world, to stay involved in the world, I'd be in huge trouble inside a few weeks. The same applies to gaming. It's a way to keep myself occupied so I don't fall apart from boredom. It keeps me engaged in the world. I get a group together I will be using Ptolus in an urban series. For me it will be worth the price. Doubt I'll be using the included adventure as is, but even then it can be incorporated into ongoing activity.

I'm buying Ptolus because I want to. I support your right to not buy Ptolus, but I reserve the right to purchase it myself.

 

[drakhe]

Slight nuance...

Why should all gamers be able to afford all gaming products? Again, the Ferrari metaphor. You can buy a $10 000 car or a $100 000 car. Either one will get you to work and back. Is it somehow unfair to "car fans" that they can't afford the $100 000 car? <snip>

Actualy there is one major issue with the Ptolus/Ferrari metaphor.

People who can't afford the Ferrari can still get a vehicle that will bring them from a to b, albeit at a slower pace (and mind you, even tho a Ferrari is cool as ..., it's a darn uncomfortable ride or so I've been told)

People who can't afford Ptolus, don't have an alternative if they want to run a Ptolus game. The 32 page ($2 for print, free as PDF, as mentioned before in this thread) players guide does not seem to be enough to run Ptolus (although individual DM's might make it work). Mind you I do like the idea to have a print/PDF version of players information to go with this size of a DM book! Having 5 copies included in the pre-order deal was what pulled me over the line!!

As already mentioned a couple of times: Thanx Monte for havin' the guts to try this, I'm sure it'll be worth it! (looking forward to read your journals on the way to Aug'06)

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

People who can't afford Ptolus, don't have an alternative if they want to run a Ptolus game. The 32 page ($2 for print, free as PDF, as mentioned before in this thread) players guide does not seem to be enough to run Ptolus (although individual DM's might make it work).

Don't be silly. Go over to www.montecook.com and visit their forums. It's full of folks running Ptolus games. I'm running the Banewarrens (a $20 module you can buy from Amazon.com for $13) in Ptolus by scrounging around data posted by Monte for free on his web-site. Sure, it won't be as detailed as the real thing, but to say you don't have an alternative is silly. The alternative is to make it up yourself, in the grand tradition of D&D DMs! Monte Cook selling his book for $120 isn't going to take away your imagination, is it?

For me, that's why I'm not buying it. I can certainly afford it, but I don't want Monte's campaign setting, I want his campaign!

 

[Staffan]

So Arcana Evolved is 11 cents a page. Why isn't Ptolus $77 dollars again? Did Cook lose money on AE?

Part of the reason AE was so cheap was that a lot of the development costs had already been paid off via Arcana Unearthed + The Diamond Throne. If you have those two already, I'd say that AE is only about 20% new material (levels 21-25, evolved racial levels, Dracha, Ritual Warriors, 10th level spells, info on dragons and the lands they rule, plus assorted minor revisions).

 

[Numion]

Actualy there is one major issue with the Ptolus/Ferrari metaphor.

People who can't afford the Ferrari can still get a vehicle that will bring them from a to b, albeit at a slower pace (and mind you, even tho a Ferrari is cool as ..., it's a darn uncomfortable ride or so I've been told)

But they wont be able to get a cheap Ferrari. Like gamers wont be ablo get Ptolus for cheap. But they cant get some nice, comfortable and cheap setting that is not Ptolus, like they can also get a car that is not Ferrari for cheaper.

And, as people have pointed out, you can build your own Ptolus / Ferrari replica from scraps on MC site and Banewarrens

 

[TwistedBishop]

But they wont be able to get a cheap Ferrari.

That's really not the point. The point is travel. You can get anywhere in any car, nullifying this "you could take public transportation" argument. You can only get to the REAL Ptolus through this book. Not some place you invent 80% of the content for and call it Ptolus. A cheaper car doesn't bring you to a town that's at all different from the one a Ferarri takes you to.

 

[TwistedBishop]

Part of the reason AE was so cheap was that a lot of the development costs had already been paid off via Arcana Unearthed + The Diamond Throne. If you have those two already, I'd say that AE is only about 20% new material (levels 21-25, evolved racial levels, Dracha, Ritual Warriors, 10th level spells, info on dragons and the lands they rule, plus assorted minor revisions).

Arcana Unearthed was still at 11 cents a page, and Diamond Throne was even cheaper at 9 cents.

 

[Numion]

That's really not the point. The point is travel. You can get anywhere in any car, nullifying this "you could take public transportation" argument. You can only get to the REAL Ptolus through this book. Not some place you invent 80% of the content for and call it Ptolus. A cheaper car doesn't bring you to a town that's at all different from the one a Ferarri takes you to.

I have friends who are car nuts, and for them the point is not in travelling - they wouldn't be caught dead in a ricer, for example, but it has to be a mercedes. If travelling was the point, who would ever buy a 300 k$ car, when you can have one for 10 k$?

Ptolus is for the gamer nuts who can afford it. Playing something is not the point - but playing the Ptolus. Just like car nuts are not necessarily interested in travelling from A to B, but in driving a Merc / Ferrari / etc.. I think it's a fine analogy.

 

[philreed]

Arcana Unearthed was still at 11 cents a page, and Diamond Throne was even cheaper at 9 cents.

I will never understand this "$/page" obsession people seem to have.

Rifts Game Master Guide is 352-pages for $24.95 -- $0.07/page -- but for some reason the D&D DMG II -- $0.14/page -- has outsold the Rifts Game Master Guide.

The No Press RPG Anthology is 152-pages for $20 -- $0.13/page -- but for a reason I'm sure none of us can understand the Eberron adventure "Shadows of the Last War" -- $0.31/page -- has far outsold the No Press RPG Anthology.

If "price/page" was really the only important factor in the value of a book that would be one thing. But obviously, as just the two examples above illustrate, there's something far more important than "price/page" at work when it comes time to calculating the true value of a product.

And if we look at it this way -- Ptolus is $120 for 1,000 pages -- that's $0.12/page.