The Actual Table of Contents for Xanathar's Guide to Everything

A lot of good stuff there.

Of course, on the DM side, a lot of stuff is not there, but I like what I see.

Actually, one of the most useful things will be the appendix of sample names.

 

[Guest 6801328]

The New Yorker article (linked in another thread) sheds some light on who their real market is. NOT a few score (or even a few hundred) veteran game optimizers.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Really, having flipped through some older Dragons/Dungeons...the more things change, the more they stay the same. Ad copy and utilizing fan's work.

Oh they always had ads and used fan-submitted material. But much of it was quite good and it was edited and curated.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

They've provided three non-AP books past the core books: Mearls has specifically stated that SCAG won't see any setting book follow-ups, because it works better for people in APs.

Yeah, I was a bit hyperbolic there. Volo's is a decent release. Though it's rather front-loaded on fluff, it's still got some valuable and solid monsters. I'm not sure what one can conclude from SCAG given how crummy a product it is. Their heart was definitely not in it, that's for sure. I've played characters with content from SCAG but mostly I just need to Google for the spell descriptions in the event my character sheet notes aren't sufficient. That's how useless it is.

I guess I'm just a consumer whose preferences are really out of line with what WotC wants to do/believes the market wants. In many respects I wish I didn't love the game that so clearly wants to go in a direction I'm so utterly uninterested in and won't support any other direction meaningfully (particularly with officially released player content, spells, magic items, etc.). APs to me are just... bleh and I don't want to buy their digital offerings either. If I thought I could actually run a game I wanted to, I'd just dump WotC entirely.

 

[Parmandur]

Although I wonder if that will be fully true in the future, now that the Spring release isn't going to be a traditional AP as it has been before. I wonder if we'll see some sort of setting/adventure hybrids, something along the lines of SKT and ToA, but with smaller adventure sections, and expanded detail on the "sandbox" around...

It'll be interesting to see what they do, since the three books a year strategy seems pretty set: another reprint, or other material...?

 

[DM Howard]

Aren't there dozens of Youtube channels that give this kind of advice?

Regarding my interest article examples? Sure, but that doesn't mean I watch them, or that I even watch the best ones. I'd also be all about WotC curated YouTube content as well.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, I was a bit hyperbolic there. Volo's is a decent release. Though it's rather front-loaded on fluff, it's still got some valuable and solid monsters. I'm not sure what one can conclude from SCAG given how crummy a product it is. Their heart was definitely not in it, that's for sure. I've played characters with content from SCAG but mostly I just need to Google for the spell descriptions in the event my character sheet notes aren't sufficient. That's how useless it is.

I guess I'm just a consumer whose preferences are really out of line with what WotC wants to do/believes the market wants. In many respects I wish I didn't love the game that so clearly wants to go in a direction I'm so utterly uninterested in and won't support any other direction meaningfully (particularly with officially released player content, spells, magic items, etc.). APs to me are just... bleh and I don't want to buy their digital offerings either. If I thought I could actually run a game I wanted to, I'd just dump WotC entirely.

I actually quite liked SCAG, but I like the FR: lots of great fluff in there, and fluff is just as good as crunch to me.

I've bought every AP except CoS (my Brother in law is running it, so I'm avoiding spoilers for now), and I love them, too. WotC definitely can do wrong, but they really seem to be tailoring their schedule around my interests right now, which is fun.

 

[cbwjm]

I actually quite liked SCAG, but I like the FR: lots of great fluff in there, and fluff is just as good as crunch to me.

I've bought every AP except CoS (my Brother in law is running it, so I'm avoiding spoilers for now), and I love them, too. WotC definitely can do wrong, but they really seem to be tailoring their schedule around my interests right now, which is fun.

I'm the same in regard to SCAG, mechanics is nice and all and I'm not sure I'd buy just a fluff book but I definitely like having all of that information of the gods and locations in there. I think it is a top quality book.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm the same in regard to SCAG, mechanics is nice and all and I'm not sure I'd buy just a fluff book but I definitely like having all of that information of the gods and locations in there. I think it is a top quality book.

I ended up likely be Volo's Guide more, but SCAG is very much fun reading for me: I've actively enjoyed reading all the 5E books so far.

 

[flametitan]

I ended up likely be Volo's Guide more, but SCAG is very much fun reading for me: I've actively enjoyed reading all the 5E books so far.

As someone who started D&D with 5e, it seems like the SCAG was targeted more at me than at someone like Gyor. It gave me a nice primer to the Forgotten Realms and why I might want to play in it, without being overwhelming in its level of detail.

 

[Azzy]

As someone who started D&D with 5e, it seems like the SCAG was targeted more at me than at someone like Gyor. It gave me a nice primer to the Forgotten Realms and why I might want to play in it, without being overwhelming in its level of detail.

That's encouraging. Personally, I believe that setting books should cater to new players/players new to the setting rather than players more experienced with the setting, and that the contents should not overwhelm the newbie. For the most part, players with experience in a setting don't need a new setting book—outside of setting-specific mechanics (races, classes, etc.) if any, they can run a campaign using any previous setting materials they have.

That's why I, as a Greyhawk fan, am not terrible concerned about WotC publishing a Greyhawk setting book—I've got tons of existing setting material to work with. Sure, I'd like some of the setting-specific spells, monsters and what not, but I'm in a far better place mechanically than fans of Eberron, Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Kara-Tur, Al Qadim, etc.