Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Latest D&D Survey Says "More Feats, Please!"; Plus New Survey About DMs Guild, Monster Hunter, Inqui
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 7700521" data-attributes="member: 37579"><p>2e is a funky beast. </p><p>It had a lot of splatbooks early on, but the big hardcovers were not very PC focused: <em>Book of Artifacts</em>, <em>Legends & Lore</em>, and such. There was pretty much only <em>Tome of Magic</em> for players. The PC splatbooks were rather secondary, with exclusive kits rather than firm options that were less useful in advancing your character. You couldn't really use more than one kit. Many of its books were just advice books on historical topics, different types of campaign, and the like. Plus the endless world sourcebooks.</p><p></p><p>The bloat was really exclusive to magic items and spells. And the DM has more control over the former, and the latter when it came to all but Priests and pallys. </p><p></p><p></p><p>At the risk of edition warring, 4e produced a staggering amount of content in a short time. The bi-monthly PC splatbooks and <em>Dragon</em> really increased the bloat, especially the latter as it went from occasional new crunch every other month to new options each week. </p><p>4e ended up with more feats than 3.5e in fewer years. And many of the classes - especially the PHB ones - were pretty heavily laden with content and options.</p><p></p><p></p><p>4e certainly avoided much of the subsystem bloat, with it's everything-is-core philosophy (and class/subclass design that was really hungry for pages, not leaving as much comparable space for optional rules and subsystems). </p><p>But it was still pretty bloaty in terms of character options. And since class bloat is synonymous with power creep that really didn't help the edition in terms of longevity. </p><p></p><p></p><p>We're getting close with fighters, yeah. There's a lot of UA options. They might need a little tweaking in terms of power, but there's a goodly amount of options there. But UA's a good place for that content since they can churn it out safely, as DMs can easily approve everything in a case-by-case basis. They're far more optional, being untested. It doesn't fill store shelves with stacks of books for new players to feel intimidated by. </p><p></p><p>It was a year or so ago where I compared D&D with Board Games rather than CCGs in terms of expansions. CCGs cycle through regular expansions, with new expansions coming into vogue and then going out of print. There's always a finite amount of product on the shelf because it circulates. But D&D can't do that and needs to keep it's products always in stock. So building too many books becomes an issue. </p><p>Board games work similarly, periodically releasing a large evergreen expansion that changes the rules of the game and adds new options, but are firmly optional and you seldom play with more than 1 or 2 at a time. And they don't continue indefinitely; the company just sustains itself on slower but regular sales of the core material and expansions, with the occasional small revision of the rules or repackaging of the material.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jester David, post: 7700521, member: 37579"] 2e is a funky beast. It had a lot of splatbooks early on, but the big hardcovers were not very PC focused: [I]Book of Artifacts[/I], [I]Legends & Lore[/I], and such. There was pretty much only [I]Tome of Magic[/I] for players. The PC splatbooks were rather secondary, with exclusive kits rather than firm options that were less useful in advancing your character. You couldn't really use more than one kit. Many of its books were just advice books on historical topics, different types of campaign, and the like. Plus the endless world sourcebooks. The bloat was really exclusive to magic items and spells. And the DM has more control over the former, and the latter when it came to all but Priests and pallys. At the risk of edition warring, 4e produced a staggering amount of content in a short time. The bi-monthly PC splatbooks and [I]Dragon[/I] really increased the bloat, especially the latter as it went from occasional new crunch every other month to new options each week. 4e ended up with more feats than 3.5e in fewer years. And many of the classes - especially the PHB ones - were pretty heavily laden with content and options. 4e certainly avoided much of the subsystem bloat, with it's everything-is-core philosophy (and class/subclass design that was really hungry for pages, not leaving as much comparable space for optional rules and subsystems). But it was still pretty bloaty in terms of character options. And since class bloat is synonymous with power creep that really didn't help the edition in terms of longevity. We're getting close with fighters, yeah. There's a lot of UA options. They might need a little tweaking in terms of power, but there's a goodly amount of options there. But UA's a good place for that content since they can churn it out safely, as DMs can easily approve everything in a case-by-case basis. They're far more optional, being untested. It doesn't fill store shelves with stacks of books for new players to feel intimidated by. It was a year or so ago where I compared D&D with Board Games rather than CCGs in terms of expansions. CCGs cycle through regular expansions, with new expansions coming into vogue and then going out of print. There's always a finite amount of product on the shelf because it circulates. But D&D can't do that and needs to keep it's products always in stock. So building too many books becomes an issue. Board games work similarly, periodically releasing a large evergreen expansion that changes the rules of the game and adds new options, but are firmly optional and you seldom play with more than 1 or 2 at a time. And they don't continue indefinitely; the company just sustains itself on slower but regular sales of the core material and expansions, with the occasional small revision of the rules or repackaging of the material. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Latest D&D Survey Says "More Feats, Please!"; Plus New Survey About DMs Guild, Monster Hunter, Inqui
Top