D&D 5E The Final Announcement from The Descent Live Stream: Eberron Hardcover

hbarsquared · May 20, 2019

I'm just surprised they would have announced the hardcover when some of the content is not even in the feedback phase, yet. The (two) latest artificer UA articles haven't even had a survey, yet.

Prakriti · May 20, 2019

a.everett1287 said:
I guess that makes sense.

I don't know, I'm not such a miserable sack of crap that I feel the need to denigrate an optional supplement just because I'm not a fan, but to each their own I guess.

(not directing this at you, Staffan.)

I love Eberron. I played DDO for years, which is set in Eberron. But I can like Eberron and still think this is a boneheaded business mistake.

Of course, it could be worse: WotC could have announced Mystara, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, or another M:tG setting instead.

Of course, some of those settings I like, but personal preference has nothing to do with it. The multiverse is one of D&D's key selling points, and here we are 5 years after the release of 5E without any real foray into that area of the game. No Elminster's Guide to the Planes, no Planescape, no Spelljammer... nothin'. If you had told me that this would be the case back in 2016, I would said you were crazy, WotC is smarter than that. Yet here we are. :uhoh:

Markh3rd · May 20, 2019

I'm excited to see more Eberron material. Our store will love playing new adventures in it as well as Saltmarsh and Descent. I'm sure planescape is already in the works as well. Things seem to be going that way. I wasn't a fan of Ravnica but I still am enjoying the game and new adventures. Too much to do and too little time to see it all!

Jester David · May 20, 2019

My reaction was probably similar to a few thousand other people: well, I sure wasted $20 on the DMsGuild.

As I said elsewhere, I'm disappointed by this.
We already have Eberron. We could already run games in that world. This doesn't give us anything new. We can't tell stories we couldn't before. We don't get more races. We don't unlock another world on the DMsGuild. The DMsGuild Adepts are unlike to do any products that they haven't already released.
We're not really given any more toys to play with that we weren't already expecting, as the artificer was already supposed to go into the Wayfinder's Guide. (If they can even managed to get the artificer not to suck before the books is released.)

Okay, yeah, there could be more monsters. Wheeee. I literally have well over a thousand monsters spread over eight books, with a ninth on the way.
Oh, and the world lore. Which I already have. Because Eberron's timeline hasn't changed. That doesn't need to be updated to 5e.

It feels a little like a snub that Eberron fans get TWO full campaign setting books before before fans of any other classic setting get anything.

Meanwhile, I'm left wondering why they gave Descent into Avernus the "Baldur's Gate" surtitle, if there's no second BG book. And wondering how many more years we'll have to wait before we get to see the rest of Hell.

Abstruse · May 20, 2019

I don't know if I'd call it a snub per se...but it is definitely in the "Not Cool" books for me personally when they charged $20 for a PDF and, a year later, ask for full hardcover price of $50-60 for the same thing again only this time it's "not playtest".

If I buy a video game and it's in Early Access, I still get the full video game when the beta period is done. Just feels odd when a tabletop RPG company is showing less consumer ethics than EA...

Dr. Bull · May 20, 2019

There are a lot of people posting opinions about this topic.

I am not interested in their opinions.

I think this will be a good book.

I will buy this book.

- Dr. Bull

vecna00 · May 20, 2019

I mean, I spent $20 for a PDF a year ago as well. I bought it because I like Eberron and wanted to tell WotC "More of this, please!" And now, I'm getting more of it.

The information that we were getting a hardcover at some point was out there, it's not a surprise, we just didn't know when it was happening.

Parmandur · May 20, 2019

Abstruse said:
I don't know if I'd call it a snub per se...but it is definitely in the "Not Cool" books for me personally when they charged $20 for a PDF and, a year later, ask for full hardcover price of $50-60 for the same thing again only this time it's "not playtest".

If I buy a video game and it's in Early Access, I still get the full video game when the beta period is done. Just feels odd when a tabletop RPG company is showing less consumer ethics than EA...

The crossover between the two books is not very significant, basically what is free on UA. Per Mearls the day the PDF was released, they were not planning to re-use anything that they were not putting up for free in a "theoretical" hardcover. So, you paid $20 for a detailed Gazeeter of Sharn, and a ton of fluff and role-playing aids from Keith Baker.

Jester David · May 20, 2019

Parmandur said:
The crossover between the two books is not very significant, basically what is free on UA. Per Mearls the day the PDF was released, they were not planning to re-use anything that they were not putting up for free in a "theoretical" hardcover. So, you paid $20 for a detailed Gazeeter of Sharn, and a ton of fluff and role-playing aids from Keith Baker.

70% isn't significant?

Abstruse · May 20, 2019

Parmandur said:
The crossover between the two books is not very significant, basically what is free on UA. Per Mearls the day the PDF was released, they were not planning to re-use anything that they were not putting up for free in a "theoretical" hardcover. So, you paid $20 for a detailed Gazeeter of Sharn, and a ton of fluff and role-playing aids from Keith Baker.

How can you say what the crossover between the two books is when the above article is literally all the information we have? Like, do you think I'd post an article that's just one sentence of "We're getting Eberron in hardback" if there was more to report? We don't know how much of Wayfarer's Guide is going to show up in the hardback. It could be none of it is repeated, it could be just a general re-write and republishing of the exact same material We don't know.

And the not-knowing is part of the problem with the announcement. If they'd ended the stream with "We're doing a hardcover of Literally Any Campaign Setting Other Than Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Ravnica, or Eberron!" we wouldn't be having this discussion because any other setting hasn't already been profiled in 5e and WotC hasn't charged us money for it. It would just be fans of other settings upset their setting wasn't next in line for a 5e update or people wanting something entirely original.

But no, they decided their capstone announcement for The Descent, the massive three-day-long 2019 streaming evening announcing the rest of this year's books would end with..."Eberron hardcover" *micdrop* *cuttoblack* (And I'm only very, VERY mildly exaggerating on that. Solely because Nathan Stewart did not, in fact, drop his mic. The rest is pretty accurate.)

The point is they have told us nothing other than "Eberron hardcover" and any backlash for people who feel cheated for having spent $20 on Wayfarer's Guide to Eberron at this point in time are pretty justified in being upset.