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

[DMZ2112]

And not a single piece of 'awesome sauce' art by Wayne Reynolds.

I can't give you experience points.

 

[Kobold Stew]

A colour hardback 300 page book costs less than $20 to print with bulk discounts. Heck, if you're willing to do it in China, even less.

I've never worked at this scale, but there are many other costs which are not negligible:

what is the acceptable profit per book for the FLGS?
what is the acceptable profit per book for the company?
does that include distribution?
does that include paying designers? artists? layout/editors/etc?

 

[Morrus]

Wow, seriously? $20/unit, just for paper and ink? I think that qualifies as "not much," personally.

You have to add a load of other costs on top. Shipping is ludicrously expensive. Warehousing, packing, not to mention development and marketing costs. It all adds up pretty fast.

 

[Morrus]

I've never worked at this scale, but there are many other costs which are not negligible:

what is the acceptable profit per book for the FLGS?
what is the acceptable profit per book for the company?
does that include distribution?
does that include paying designers? artists? layout/editors/etc?

Yes, obviously those are on top of printing.

 

[Wulfgar76]

A colour hardback 300 page book costs less than $20 to print with bulk discounts. Heck, if you're willing to do it in China, even less.

Well if it costs $20 to print, what do you need to sell if for to pay your people, recoup your costs, and make an acceptible ROI?
I certainly don't know.

 

[darjr]

I'll gladly pay extra to avoid the 4E smudges.

OH SNAP THIS!!! a thousand times this!

 

[Mistwell]

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.

Hiding things worked for OD&D, AD&D 1e, and AD&D 2e. It even worked for much of 3.0e. You should try it, it can work really well.

As for the groups you know - do you agree with me than many, MANY people out there are players but not DMs, contrary to your three groups? I mean, you must have seen this concept expressed outside those three groups enough at this point to know your groups might not be typical?

 

[Mistwell]

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

Nit picking? Wrong in content by an entire book (which is 50% of the books, or 33% of the books, depending on which game) is significant. There is nothing picky about that!

My allusion to the other thread

There was no allusion to another thread in what I was responding to. You quoted something, it made those two points, you commented directly on those two points. I don't know what other thread was in your mind at the time, and as you didn't even bother referencing it directly I probably couldn't have known.

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)

I don't know enough about 13th Age. I do know Pathfinder takes two books (you were off by 50%). That's material errors, not nit-picking. And if it's not material to you, then I guess we have no disagreement because the WOTC products are off by less that 50% in quantity as well.

that the comparison is corebooks (with all the rules needed to run a game) vs. a Players Handbook... is that clear enough now?

It was always clear, and you're wrong. You REQUIRE monsters to play Pathfinder, and THEY ARE NOT IN THAT BOOK.

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.

I don't think anyone will agree with you that everything needed to play Pathfinder, as that phrase is rationally used, is contained in that one book. And, if that point is correct (which I think we both know it's not), then you could do the same thing with 5e NPCs. But, we both know it's silly - Pathfinder takes two books at minimum. And, because the other book was missing a lot of stuff many GMs need, they put out the GameMastery Guide too.

Heck, if your point is correct, you don't need magic items to play either. In fact, I cannot think of anything anyone's mentioned here (all the optional rules for example) of what should go in a DMG that would make the DMG "necessary" to play the game as you're defining it here under this new very-narrow definition. So I guess you only need the 5e PHB to play 5e - NPCs using the PC rules for monsters, and no optional rules or magic items. Happy now, or is this silly enough yet?

 

[I'm A Banana]

If there is an option that affects the character sheet, then it belongs in the Player's Handbook. Magic items affect the character sheet, they belong in the Player's Handbook. It's just more convenient for the player, and at this point in my gaming career I value having that convenience.

I dunno, I'd question all those assumptions.

Lets start with that it is more convenient for the player to have magic items in the PHB.

But, if magic items are something the DM is handing out, in what way is it more convenient for the player to have a massive list of things that they can't access, that they have to sort through to get the one or two things that their character uses? Wouldn't it be more convenient for the player just to have the magic items that directly affect them given to them during the gameplay, so that they don't have to wade through a massive, irrelevant list every time they forget what their new dingus does?

Then there's the idea that magic items necessarily affect the character sheet -- that they become "part of the character." But any game involving disenchanters and rust monsters and whatever is going to have that assumption questioned, too. A magic sword is no more a part of your character than damage that a monster gives you.

Which brings around the idea that everything that affects a character sheet needs to be in the PHB. Applied consistently, this means that spell damage should not be in the PHB (since it affects monsters), but monster damage should (since it affects your HP). That doesn't seem smart on the face of it.

I'm suspicious of binary thresholds. I don't think a PHB that includes only things and all things that affect a character sheet would be a good idea. Seems like there might be a better, more relevant, more useful standard to apply

 

[Serendipity]

A complete bloody game that's what.