D&D 5E What belongs in a $50 PHB?

[Derren]

Yeah I got it:

$50, 300 page book with Player Info only - an outrage

$50, 300 page book with Player Info, a chapter for noob DMs and a little bestiary - groovy

If that only were sincere.

But yes, that is the gist of it
$50 for a game versus $100 for a game.

 

[Wulfgar76]

You might want to reread (there it is again) the thread title.

"What belongs in a $50 PHB"

Answer: A complete game.

Ah the answer. Glad your subjective opinion constitutes universal agreement.
I guess nobody's going to buy a single 5e PHB.

 

[keterys]

The best option for the game is to have as many people involved in playing it. Lowering the average buy-in for a player tends to remove a barrier to entry, and thus likely increases the number of folks playing.

I definitely agree there - but if we're having a $50 PHB, then we've already left that theory. At which point, I'd rather drop a DMG entirely from the radar.

I still want a tiny cheap book or box that gets people into the hobby and has everything they actually need. A Fate Core Accelerated type thing. But, I'm not expecting it.

 

[Mistwell]

The desire to have magic items (and other stuff) not in the base book for the game suggests to me that people think players aren't also DMs. Maybe that happens, but it's definitely not the optimal situation.

Maybe that happens? Like you have doubt? For D&D, maybe the players are not also the DMs?

Come on Keterys. We don't have to guess at this. Tens of thousands of people just play they game, and don't DM it. There's no choice in this - you're never going to change that situation and as a core of the player base gets older had gets married and has children, you're likely going to find even more people who have enough time to play but not enough time to DM.

So yes, given that will be the case, you want the DMs stuff split from the player stuff. One reason is that, hopefully, some DMs can actually surprise their players, for at least a time, with stuff they have not seen in the DM books (DMG and MM).

 

[I'm A Banana]

I still want a tiny cheap book or box that gets people into the hobby and has everything they actually need. A Fate Core Accelerated type thing. But, I'm not expecting it.

Isn't one of the B&N listings a cheaper boxed set with an adventure and all the trimmings?

Is that not what you're looking for?

 

[keterys]

Isn't one of the B&N listings a cheaper boxed set with an adventure and all the trimmings?

Is that not what you're looking for?

It _could_ be.

I'd be willing to bet fairly extreme odds that it is not.

 

[keterys]

Maybe that happens? Like you have doubt? For D&D, maybe the players are not also the DMs?

In the three groups I normally play in, precisely 2 people don't DM the game with any regularity. Both of those are the wives of people who do, so either way from a household perspective that's a dozen households who would buy all the relevant books for playing and DMing both (or share around, as appropriate).

I'm _super_ dubious of this concept of hiding things from the players. But carry on, if that's what floats your boat.

 

[steeldragons]

What goes in a $50 PHB?

Same stuff that goes into a $10 or $25 or $200 PHB: "What is/How to play a Roleplaying Game", Character Creation, Ability Scores, Races, Classes, in 5e's case will include sections of such things as Backgrounds/Skills/Feats, Alignments [in the case of 5e this will include various Options of systems for using it or not], Equipment (including weapons and armor), Spell Lists.

...and I can't stress this enough, art that is evocative of fantasy and imagination [which I think is what everyone here is meaning when they're saying they want "good art"].

Just a matter of the amount of each $50 gives you the space to fit in.

 

[DMZ2112]

Yeah I got it:

$50, 300 page book with Player Info only - an outrage

$50, 300 page book with Player Info, a chapter for noob DMs and a little bestiary - groovy

I'll turn this on its head -- cost of printing aside, if Wizards needs three 300-page sourcebooks to explain how to play D&D5, I might not be interested anymore.

 

[Imaro]

Again, and to be clear the quote named two books and one was Pathfinder, you are incorrect. Pathfinder does not include the bestiary in that book. It's definitely not all the rules to run a game.

The other book named is Numenera, and it's retail price is $60, not $50. See Amazon for that.

So neither example proves the point. One requires a minimum of a second book, the other is more money.

Dude seriously, are we really at this level of nit-picking (especially since everyone else seems to have gotten my point)??... Ok to clarify...

My allusion to the other thread was the more broadly applicable conclusion (which applies to Pathfinder and 13th Age which were the games referenced in this thread and the quote posted above my answer) that the comparison is corebooks (with all the rules needed to run a game) vs. a Players Handbook... is that clear enough now?

Second... If I wanted to run a game, I could run it with just the Pathfinder Core... especially since NPC's are built just like PC's. So all the opponents would be NPC's but it's still doable, since we are being precise.