Monster Manuals no more

[delericho]

As part of the 4e marketing strategy, WoTC does away with monster manuals, instead printing only cards as part of a collectable monster series?

Then someone, be they official, licensed or unofficial, will compile an online database of all the monsters, that will be used heavily, and the majority of us will play on as before. WotC may try to stamp on such an effort to retain control over the market... but they'd either fail or kill the game.

What I can see happening is them publishing an abridged set of spells in the new PHB, then doing expanded spell-lists in collectable card format. At the end of the year, they can then compile all the year's spells in handy book format and sell that. They might try the same with magic items.

However, the big hurdle to this is moving the DM base to the mindset that a player can introduce whatever he has to the game. As long as the majority of DMs require the current level of oversight over what goes into the game (or takes the view that 'anything I don't personally own is banned'), this strategy is likely to fail.

 

[Ry]

If there was a fantasy RPG that was simple enough that feats/spells, monsters, and npcs could fit on a card with a nice big picture and some flavor text, I would be ALL over that. I'd be happy to collect it even if it were in a randomized format.

 

[RedFox]

I don't own it, which explains my use of "seem". Just going by what I have heard.

On the other hand, if you, as a theoretical owner of the game book, lack the perspicacity to realise the difference between dice as a required item for play and official, collectible miniatures . . . you might lack a few crucial brain functions for actually playing the game anyway.

That's a horrendously offensive statement.

At the time I posted last, I was thinking specifically of myself circa 14 years old, when I first got ahold of an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons book, and started after WEG Star Wars books soon after, because I loved the movies.

Taken as the words are written in the book, with no hindsight as to what a "role playing game" is supposed to be, I would have certainly assumed that the Star Wars miniatures were a necessary component of the game. As much so as the funky dice and pencil.

Sure, now, as an experienced gamer and long-time Game Master, I know how to take Star Wars Saga Edition "off the map" and run mini-less. But the hypothetical fresh kid off the street picking the book up in the Borders Star Wars section won't.

I'd have preferred if the book had taken a more miniatures-optional approach. But it, as written, does not.

 

[pawsplay]

Sure, now, as an experienced gamer and long-time Game Master, I know how to take Star Wars Saga Edition "off the map" and run mini-less. But the hypothetical fresh kid off the street picking the book up in the Borders Star Wars section won't.

I'd have preferred if the book had taken a more miniatures-optional approach. But it, as written, does not.

You know, I think playing "off the map" requires a certain level of expertise. Using miniatures is valuable for someone who is starting, otherwise you could really end up "off the map." Saying "I don't use minis" to me is a lot like a cook saying, "Oh, I don't measure anything." Well, that's great, but a newbie taking that approach is likely to encounter disaster unless they happen to have a great affinity for that approach.

 

[mhensley]

Nah, you're not thinking big enough. In 4e, each monster will come out in it's own hardcover, 128 page, splat book @ $29.99. The first one will be The Complete Aboleth.

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

Nah, you're not thinking big enough. In 4e, each monster will come out in it's own hardcover, 128 page, splat book @ $29.99. The first one will be The Complete Aboleth.

Yet another neat idea hidden in humor. Imagine a non-collectible single mini for about $5 (more for larger sizes) that also includes a small booklet with complete stats, ecology and possible encounters. Maybe do larger sets for a full group (a full orc lair, for example, complete with adepts, barbarians, and misc others). A true use of the word "complete" in that the set would include every possible permutation of the MM creature.

 

[hexgrid]

Sure, now, as an experienced gamer and long-time Game Master, I know how to take Star Wars Saga Edition "off the map" and run mini-less. But the hypothetical fresh kid off the street picking the book up in the Borders Star Wars section won't.

I'd have preferred if the book had taken a more miniatures-optional approach. But it, as written, does not.

I think that experienced gamers and long-time Game Masters sometimes don't give the hypothetical fresh kid off the street enough credit. I have a hard time imagining someone smart enough to learn how to play an RPG from a book, but not smart enough to eventually figure out that the you can play the game however you want, regardless of what the book says. Heck, I'll bet some of them will even be able to see the "required" use of Star Wars miniatures for the marketing ploy that it is.

We all figured this stuff out, and I think the new kids will, too.

 

[VirgilCaine]

There are so many times that, as DM, I want to have multiple monsters open in front of me and/or don't want the players to see that I'm looking in the Monster Manual (for, say, stealthy critters) that I can't even begin to count.

There's this amazing device we have now called a photocopier. You can copy pages out of books on it.

 

[Hussar]

Pardon me for being stupid, but, isn't this exactly how the 2e Monster manuals were first produced? Not collectable, true, but, loose leaf, one page sheets that you had to put into a binder in whatever order you felt necessary.

Not exactly a new idea.

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

Pardon me for being stupid, but, isn't this exactly how the 2e Monster manuals were first produced? Not collectable, true, but, loose leaf, one page sheets that you had to put into a binder in whatever order you felt necessary.

Not exactly a new idea.

And I actually really liked that format because I could take only the monsters I needed to the game...not the whole darn book.