D&D 5E Initial D&D Next Releases Showing Up on Barnes & Noble Website

[MoonSong]

For $50 it'd rather provide at least as many options as the 3e phb, (or the player part of the PF CB plus splat from APG). No less than five subclasses per class, and enough equipment and feats please. I will refuse to buy such an expensive book if it only has as little as the 4e PHB1.

 

[Kinak]

I'm looking for a simple rules set, so I guess I'm just going to be looking at the beginners box.

Unless the PHB is a blatant cash grab, it'll have at least as much material as Pathfinder. I don't really need another game that complicated. Oddly, if it is a tiny book that they're charging a ton for, I'll probably spend some time looking at it.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[I'm A Banana]

It's pricy....but lets do a value calculation.

If I run one 5e campaign of about 1 year in length, playing each week for 52 weeks, for 4 hours each session...that's 208 hours. Divide $150 (assuming the Three Core Books model) by that to get $/hr, and with a little rounding for neatness, we've got $0.75 per hour.

Is 5eD&D worth $0.75/hr to me and four of my friends (which, if I got them to help me buy the books, we'd have about $0.15/hr/person)? Yeah, I think so. I spend significantly more when I hit the pubs for a night.

At $40/book ($120) would be ~$0.60/hr, which means we're looking at a fifteen-cent-per-hour increase in the cost to play D&D form 2008. That's not too bad for me. It's a big jump, but I can eat it. If I was a bit more on the fence about 5eD&D, maybe I didn't anticipate playing more than 1 session of it to "give it a try," I'd imagine I'd go for the starter set at $40, and then we'd be looking at about $10/hr, or $2/hr/person, which isn't the worst value in the world (maybe about in line with a night's drinking at that point, but like sharing your drink with four other people at the same time!).

Is one session of 5e D&D worth not going to the pubs one night? Yeah, I think I can sell that to myself.

There's also no telling what digital initiatives are coming down the pipe, or if they might try OGL again, or they sell it on PDF, or what other ways there might be of getting that content. I'd love to see something like the Compendium continue into 5e, at least. But that's all big speculation.

It's a jump, and it's not insignificant, but I think it's still a value for me. D&D continues to be a pretty affordable hobby, all things considered. A little less so, I guess, if you don't actually play that often.

 

[Jester David]

It's pricy....but lets do a value calculation.

If I run one 5e campaign of about 1 year in length, playing each week for 52 weeks, for 4 hours each session...that's 208 hours. Divide $150 (assuming the Three Core Books model) by that to get $/hr, and with a little rounding for neatness, we've got $0.75 per hour.

Is 5eD&D worth $0.75/hr to me and four of my friends (which, if I got them to help me buy the books, we'd have about $0.15/hr/person)? Yeah, I think so. I spend significantly more when I hit the pubs for a night.

At $40/book ($120) would be ~$0.60/hr, which means we're looking at a fifteen-cent-per-hour increase in the cost to play D&D form 2008. That's not too bad for me. It's a big jump, but I can eat it. If I was a bit more on the fence about 5eD&D, maybe I didn't anticipate playing more than 1 session of it to "give it a try," I'd imagine I'd go for the starter set at $40, and then we'd be looking at about $10/hr, or $2/hr/person, which isn't the worst value in the world (maybe about in line with a night's drinking at that point, but like sharing your drink with four other people at the same time!).

Is one session of 5e D&D worth not going to the pubs one night? Yeah, I think I can sell that to myself.

There's also no telling what digital initiatives are coming down the pipe, or if they might try OGL again, or they sell it on PDF, or what other ways there might be of getting that content. I'd love to see something like the Compendium continue into 5e, at least. But that's all big speculation.

It's a jump, and it's not insignificant, but I think it's still a value for me. D&D continues to be a pretty affordable hobby, all things considered. A little less so, I guess, if you don't actually play that often.

Movies tend to my go-to comparison. How does <product X> compare to an evening at the movies with popcorn and a drink. Which is like $15-20 for a couple hours.
I agree that the per/hour value of D&D is excellent compared to something like movies. Even if you're not playing weekly (which I'd love to do but will never happen). I'm lucky to get 100 hours of playtime in a year. 100 hours of movies would be $1000. But D&D has a cost/hour of $1.50. Which is pretty cheap. Moreso if you can divide the cost among friends.

However, it is a one-time purchase. Many people will have to save up their "mad money" for a couple months to afford the $150 purchase. It's an investment that pays off over time but has an high initial fee, which is something that not everyone likes. Especially when most other RPGs on the market are all-in-one books that run $50. So D&D is equivalent of buying three different RPGs at once.
So you could buy Numenera, Eclipse Phase, and 13th Age or you could buy D&D.

And, again, $50 is what they were charging for collector's edition books with fancy covers and a low print run. As it will almost certainly have a much larger print run, the PHB had better have similar production values and quality but a larger size, or be a fantastic looking looking book.

 

[Derren]

If the PHB is a monster sized book with all the optional rules in it, I could see myself spending the cash for it. If the phb is just as any other phb, I will definitely be skipping this at this time.

By far, my favorite RPG is Shadowrun and I've held myself from buying its fifth edition mostly because of cost. I don't see the value of yet another edition of that game at the current price. I might find myself on the same situation with D&D's fifth edition.

At least with Shadowrun you only need one book to get the complete core rules (It is called Big Black/Blue Book, BBB, for a reason). Although there will be the usual splatbook rotation like in every Edition.

Btw, its currently down to $20 for the pdf.


Now, why would WotC price their core books at $50 each? High profit requirements? Or do they, rather reasonably, expect that the core books sell the most as even people who ultimately wont play 5E will buy the core books to check the edition out?

 

[Dire Bare]

If that's the case Mistwell, then I'm in. However, Wizards being, well, Wizards, it wouldn't shock me if they enacted a minimum pricing structure. Not saying it will happen, but it just wouldn't shock me. Forgive my pessimistic attitude. I want in, I really do, but if it's going to be $150 just to buy in as a DM, I'll have to look elsewhere.

Minimum pricing structure? Something WotC has NEVER done before? Sure, very likely to happen, in negative-fantasy land. Sheesh. Wizards being Wizards, they'll set the MSRP at $50 and let folks sell it at whatever discount they want. Won't change WotC's bottom line in the slightest.

 

[Jester David]

I find it interesting that after six-plus years of having their products spoiled by online retailers, WotC still has not learned to announce forthcoming products in a timely manner.


At this point, the D&D section of WotC's marketing department has ONE JOB: keeping us informed on the forthcoming products. And they failed that again.

Given it was likely written last week or the week before, it's doubtful Legends & Lore this week will mention the release or give us more information on the size of the book, contents, and pricing. At best, we'll likely see a hastily put together news release on the D&D front page, which will quickly vanish into the archives like the 40th Anniversary "announcement".

 

[Mistwell]

I find it interesting that after six-plus years of having their products spoiled by online retailers, WotC still has not learned to announce forthcoming products in a timely manner.


At this point, the D&D section of WotC's marketing department has ONE JOB: keeping us informed on the forthcoming products. And they failed that again.

Given it was likely written last week or the week before, it's doubtful Legends & Lore this week will mention the release or give us more information on the size of the book, contents, and pricing. At best, we'll likely see a hastily put together news release on the D&D front page, which will quickly vanish into the archives like the 40th Anniversary "announcement".

You know, we're all assuming this is accurate and not just a placeholder.

I asked Mearls in Twitter and hopefully he responds. Wouldn't be the first time a placeholder name and price and date was listed, just to establish ISBN and release windows.

 

[Mistwell]

Got this answer back from Mike Mearls:

"sorry, can't yet comment on products"

 

[delericho]

There is nothing good or reassuring about either of these.

Sadly, I'm forced to agree.

"Starter set" @ $20 implies useless crap like the 3e or 4e Essentials "box sets," both of which were awful.

Yep. My best guess is we'll get pretty much a repeat of the 4e "Red Box". Apparently, WotC were happy with the sales of that box, so it's not hugely surprising. But hopes for something like the Pathfinder box would seem to have been dashed.

The PHB being $50 implies there will be a DMG and an MM, each of which will also be $50.

Great. A $150 entry point means another 1,000+ page monstrosity of core rules, which I'd really hoped to avoid. And if they don't make the books appropriately huge to justify the price point, it's a money-grab.

Either way, not ideal.