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

[Mistwell]

For those curious about printing costs overseas:

Here is the first link I found, of thousands. The price range is $0.1 - 3.99 / Piece. That price is Freight On Board - China Port (FOB China).

Add about 30% for customs and shipping (Seattle Port) delivery to your door by truck, and associated landing fees (so maxes out around $5.20/ea).

The more you print with that company, the lower your price. Hasbro prints a LOT of stuff, so the price will be lower for them than for a short run of 500 obviously.

Turn-around time usually ranges from 30 days to 90 days. The more you print with a company, the more pull you get in turn-around time.

Shipping takes 3 weeks on the water, and then another three days or so to clear customs and truck to your warehouse.

Here is a link for board games. That range is about $2-$5 plus 30% shipping.

 

[Wyckedemus]

If that only were sincere.

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

Derren, that is an easy claim to make. But I think you know it is impossible to deliver, knowing that they have a large semi-fractured audience they have to appease. It's almost like you want to set your expectations and demands so if they don't fail one way, they are sure to fail another way. Every post I see from you comes across as you want them to fail. Is that your intent? That's how it comes across.

D&D is 40 years old, with 40 years of player and DM expectations.

Players of those edittions want all the PHB 1 classes and races presented, with a good selection of class options so fans of those different editions have something familiar that can give them the warm and fuzzies. They want cool toys and lots of cool spells that are pulled and reimagined from those (often disparate) older editions, with backgrounds/skills and feats and actual rules to play the game. That is a lot of stuff to fit into a physical book.

D&D has the almost unique challenge of providing for a larger variety of campaigns, expectant players, and playstyles. I say unique, because almost every other game out there has the luxury of having a single campaign and loreset to pull from, and D&D has to be able to run any kind of D&D setting and lore. Numenera is a giant book, with only one setting and set of conceits. 13th Age designers are creating a specific game that they like with one playstyle and campaign creation style. They don't have to cover other styles. Pathfinder had 3.5 to shoulder its burdens of lacking material while it shored up what it was missing over the years. Dresden Files and Serenity and lots of other games don't need to cater to disparate fans. They can have and support one vision.

If the D&D designers added any DM-specific advice and tools, and a decent selection of monsters in the same book as the player rules, those tools can't possibly be comprehensive enough to appease those who want them. There are so many core monsters, and valuable chapters in the MM and DMG books that the designers would still have to publish Monster books and a DM advice book for all the options and modularity they want to provide.

And can you imagine the number of players who would be frustrated if monsters and encounter/adventure creation, and other advice for DMs was included in the PHB, taking up precious space and replacing whatever player options that had to be cut from the book? Real estate in a book is very important! In fact, if you would put DM advice and Monsters into a single 320-page rulebook, what player stuff would you remove? What options?

And finally, many fans of D&D are used to the 3 book model, and if all three books are good, then they will certainly be acceptable. I look forward to reviewing them when they are released.

In my mind, the Player's Handbook should be focused on players and the core mechanics of the game. How characters interact with their world.

Magic Items are optional treasures that the DM can choose to make available in the game and therefore should be in the DMG. If the DM wants there to be a Magic Mart, she can make it available.

... in my opinion.

 

[Ichneumon]

It's worth remembering that you don't need magic items for D&D Next - except, maybe, the potion of healing. So the Player's Handbook could deliver a complete game without them. Which is OK - they were always better placed in the DMG.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION] I tend to agree that magic items are the province of the DM handing them out. But I think 4e took after BD&D in that regard, with lots of class-based magic items that were relevant for players to be aware of. Maybe if magic items are more wondrous, not assumed, and have broader appeal they should belong on the DM/world-building side.

Fifty smackers will net you the 13th Age Core Rule Book, which has everything you need to create a character, the rules of the game, a bestiary, a setting overview and a sample adventure.

At $50.00, I expect the 5e PHB to deliver similar value.

I tend to agree with this. Something along the lines of BD&D's Rules Cyclopedia, with a setting intro, basic DM guidelines, and basic monsters. Bonus points if there's a starter adventure.

Quality wise I'd like it to have sturdy lay-flat binding, non-smudge ink, full color, moderate to largish font, very little white space, a plain white background to make photocopying character sheets & printing from PDFs easier, a page count in the 320-420 page range, and very thorough editing/proofing.

 

[DM Howard]

I want a Player's Handbook that doesn't feel like I'm lugging around an actuarial or physics textbook as I don't, personally, enjoy the size of Pathfinder's core rulebook. I'd also like a Player's Handbook that feels fun to just read again. I remember reading the 3.0 handbook just for the pure entertainment value.

 

[frogimus]

And the discovery of the properties of the suspected magic item leads to some interesting play sessions. Comparing its barcode to your list in the PHB...meh

 

[Imaro]

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!

Not sure how you're calculating your math but whatever... It is nitpicking because it doesn't change the bigger point of the comparison.
Core books with all the rules to run the game vs. a players handbook.

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.

So why did you bring up Numenera? It wasn't in the post I quoted... I assumed you were speaking to the other thread the one about the Barnes and Nobles releases... if not again, why did you bring Numenera up since it was Pathfinder and 13th Age in the post I quoted?

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.

No Pathfinder doesn't require two books, in the same way you made the assertion that the Dragonspear module was everything one needed to run and play though almost everyone would want more... the Pathfinder core supplies everything needed to run and play.

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

Wait so if I am running a more mundane or Sword and Sorcery campaign in trapped ruins of a lost age.. where the vast majority if not all antagonists are human, sub-humans (half-orcs), mysterious Fey (elves) and evil sorcerers and priests... could I do that with the core rulebook alone? If so more monsters are just icing on the cake... not required to actually run a game. Now do most people want more monsters sure... does this in any way change the fact that all the RULES to play the game are in the corebook? No.

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.

Appeal to majority... that doesn't prove anything but ok.

 

[Imaro]

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?

This is wrong again, I agree one needs antagonists in order to play Pathfinder... what I don't agree with is the fact that the corebook doesn't give you any rules to create them... is it as wide a range as you want? That's a subjective question... but you do have the tools to make anatginists to put up against your PC's using just the pathfinder core if you want.

 

[Mistwell]

Not sure how you're calculating your math but whatever... It is nitpicking because it doesn't change the bigger point of the comparison.
Core books with all the rules to run the game vs. a players handbook.



So why did you bring up Numenera? It wasn't in the post I quoted... I assumed you were speaking to the other thread the one about the Barnes and Nobles releases... if not again, why did you bring Numenera up since it was Pathfinder and 13th Age in the post I quoted?




No Pathfinder doesn't require two books, in the same way you made the assertion that the Dragonspear module was everything one needed to run and play though almost everyone would want more... the Pathfinder core supplies everything needed to run and play.




Wait so if I am running a more mundane or Sword and Sorcery campaign in trapped ruins of a lost age.. where the vast majority if not all antagonists are human, sub-humans (half-orcs), mysterious Fey (elves) and evil sorcerers and priests... could I do that with the core rulebook alone? If so more monsters are just icing on the cake... not required to actually run a game. Now do most people want more monsters sure... does this in any way change the fact that all the RULES to play the game are in the corebook? No.





Appeal to majority... that doesn't prove anything but ok.

Again, if you don't need monsters to run Pathfinder, then you don't need monsters to run 5e. And you don't need magic items from the DMG to run 5e. And you don't need all those optional rules from the DMG that were mentioned to run 5e. So, but your logic, all you need to run 5e is the PHB.

But you wouldn't be arguing this all along if you actually believed you only needed that to run 5e. The idea that you don't need a bestiary to run Pathfinder is ridiculous. It's not "appeal to majority" to say "how to people RATIONALLY view this issue", that's appeal to just about everyone, which is definitely relevant to how words and phrases are defined. Just about everyone (and I think including you - I think you're arguing "NPC-only game to try and win a point" rather than because you actually play the game that way) agrees you need a monsters to play Pathfinder.

 

[Imaro]

I'd also like a Player's Handbook that feels fun to just read again. I remember reading the 3.0 handbook just for the pure entertainment value.

I'm hoping WotC is thinking/thought about this as well.