What's your objection to splat books?

[Dannyalcatraz]

My 0.02¢ on splatbooks.

Overall, I like them. My sole problem with them is in the form of power creep, which is itself a twofold problem:

1) they often offer powerful goodies that are "under-costed" in some way, which can unbalance the game.

2) they often support only a narrow selection of previous offerings, leaving certain "orphaned" races, classes, or other system options progressively less viable in terms of overall balance or number of "kewl options".

My solution has been this: unless the splatbook contains something that is easily added or is a needed correction to a prior flaw in the game, if it wasn't in print at the beginning of the campaign, it can't be used. Coupled with a GM Veto, it works pretty well.

And by that veto, I mean that I will not allow anything in the campaign I think will throw the campaign seriously out of whack. Unless it is utterly egregious, I'm not going to outright ban a concept, but I might ask you to rework it, and offer suggestions as to how it can be tweaked to fit in better.

 

[Hyper-Man]

My 0.02¢ on splatbooks.

Overall, I like them. My sole problem with them is in the form of power creep, which is itself a twofold problem:

1) they often offer powerful goodies that are "under-costed" in some way, which can unbalance the game.

2) they often support only a narrow selection of previous offerings, leaving certain "orphaned" races, classes, or other system options progressively less viable in terms of overall balance or number of "kewl options".

My solution has been this: unless the splatbook contains something that is easily added or is a needed correction to a prior flaw in the game, if it wasn't in print at the beginning of the campaign, it can't be used. Coupled with a GM Veto, it works pretty well.

And by that veto, I mean that I will not allow anything in the campaign I think will throw the campaign seriously out of whack. Unless it is utterly egregious, I'm not going to outright ban a concept, but I might ask you to rework it, and offer suggestions as to how it can be tweaked to fit in better.

Would you consider The Ultimate Series for the Hero System to be splat books?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yes I do.

 

[Koloth]

To answer the original question, I think splat books overall are a good thing. It is a rare publisher that can put everything they want into the "Core" set of books. And in most cases, if they tried, the sheer size of the book would likely scare some folks off and result in damaged feet when dropped. Splat books allow incremental expansion of a game. Some of the down sides are that the splat books can result in rules proliferation. And often, the splat books are not play tested with the complete game to the same level the Core set were. I think most of us have seen what happens with a character feature from splat book 8 is combined with a feature from splat book 3 and results in a over powered character.

Another issue that often happens is diminishing returns in later splat books opposed to the first ones. The first book on Elves usually has a bunch of good material. The 8th book on Rolling Hills Elves, not so much.

But if publishing splat books keeps a company in business, that is usually a good thing.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

I'm a "say yes" sort of GM - if a player wants to use something in a splat book, I'd rather be able to say yes, so I do tend to try to collect them all. I also like to see how a RPGs setting is expanded, detailed and clarified. That veers into the type of splat preference - I'd rather see a lot of new "fluff" than a lot of character options that have little or not context within the game world. I am not a fan of character options for the sake of character options. Same goes for "yet-another-monster-book" - if there's no context for the monster then why publish it at all?

So, while I like splatbooks, I'd prefer them to be a bit less frequent than they were in 3.5 and 4E and currently are in Pathfinder. My ideal publishing schedule would be two or three setting books a year that have character options and critters tied to the setting along with one adventure path (consisting of anywhere between 4 and 8 adventures) a year and maybe three or four non-AP adventures for various level ranges. Several books a month is too much and results in power creep, potential for poor quality to creep in, and simply too much to buy if you're a completist or want to give your players what they want or whatever reason you may have for buying stuff.

 

[delericho]

What's the fundamental nature of the objection?

I don't have an objection to splatbooks as a class, but the examples from the history of D&D are very poor. In 2nd Ed, the contrast between "The Complete Priest's Handbook" and "The Complete Book of Elves" is striking - the former is one of very few books ever to lower the power level of the game, while the latter is a byword for brokenness.

In 3e, the very first splatbook, "Sword & Fist" showed a remarkable lack of playtesting - to the point where one of the Prestige Classes had no BAB progression listed! (Infamously, WotC then tried to claim that was deliberate, until they corrected it with errata of course.)

But a further objection to the 3e/3.5e splatbooks came in the form of the myriad Prestige Classes they added to the game. PrCs had been introduced as a world-building tool for the DM, with the notion that each PrC would have an organisation behind it, and a specific place in the world set aside for it. And then they published hundreds of the things, and made mock of that notion.

(I can't comment on the 4e splatbooks as I never played 4e much. Except to note that they were almost completely redundant - almost the entire content was found in DDI.)

It seems to me that some would have an active desire for a publisher to not produce products. Or is it that they're producing the wrong products?

There's an opportunity cost associated with it. Even when it was at the height of 3e, WotC could only produce one or two books a month. Their bandwidth is now drastically reduced.

So if they produce a splatbook, that means they're not producing something else. And, generally, I would prefer that "something else".

 

[delericho]

Paizo, for example, has an epic ton of splatbooks; those are any book in the Chronicles and Companions line (they also have a lot of core rule books, which also isn't a great strategy for allowing game growth).

However, one problem that comes up with Paizo is that they need to sell all of these books.

Actually, I don't think this is correct. Because of the subscription model they use, Paizo know that the books that they produce have already sold enough copies to be worthwhile before they send them off to the printer. If the subscriber numbers for a given sub-line drop below that threshold of being viable, they're pretty quick in revising or retiring that line - see their standalone adventures line or the "Planet Stories" fiction line.

That subscription model, and the foreknowledge that it gives them, is a spectacular advantage to Paizo - to the extent that if everyone stopped subscribing but instead bought exactly the same products from the FLGS, that might still be enough to kill the company.

So, in turn, they tend to release their APs and have those APs reference existing splatbooks. Mummy's Mask, for example, directs people to the splatbook People of the Sands. Iron Gods can be effectively unplayable if you don't have the Technology Guide.

This is true, except that they are very good at putting the rules material you need online for free on their SRD.

Some very few APs are difficult to run without a particular sourcebook (Iron Gods and the "Technology Guide"; Wrath of the Righteous and "Mythic Adventures"), but these are actually the exception.

 

[Jhaelen]

Who says it's me buying them? If it's my players buying one or two of them and enjoying the content, I may get social pressure to incorporate them (issue 5) and once I start to allow them to creep in that's bringing the other issues.

Yep, that's how it usually starts:
Yo have a group of 5+ players and each of them, having slightly different interests and preferences than the others, buys a different splat. Now, if you'd like to allow one of them to use material from his chosen splat, you're basically obliged to allow the other players to use _their_ splats.

In our games this problem seems to be more pronounced because
- most players are also GMs for other groups
- our group meets at most once a month, so there's a lot of rpg-free time that players enjoy to bridge by buying splats and reading them

All of this doesn't necessarily have to be bad, until players start to share their splats. Then the optimization-gene that seems to be present in almost all of our players takes over:
Options from several different splats are combined in unusual and unforeseen ways to create more or less broken characters. To compensate, the GM starts buying splats to deal with the inevitable power creep resulting in the dreaded arms race that signals the beginning of the end. Soon everyone's fed up with the game and the campaign implodes or fizzles.

After a short while the same process starts again with a new system, edition, or simply a new GM.

Regarding what the publishers should do:
Continue to publish splats but focus on background material, introduce player options slowly and carefully. Disallow combining options from different splats whenever possible, i.e. splats should be mostly self-contained.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Power creep and rules bloat are my problems. I'll be glad if WoTC avoids that this time around. I look at PF and there is no way I want to get into that sprawling rules system. I would be content if in 5 years we are still playing with just the 3 core books.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

Actually, I don't think this is correct. Because of the subscription model they use, Paizo know that the books that they produce have already sold enough copies to be worthwhile before they send them off to the printer. If the subscriber numbers for a given sub-line drop below that threshold of being viable, they're pretty quick in revising or retiring that line - see their standalone adventures line or the "Planet Stories" fiction line.

That subscription model, and the foreknowledge that it gives them, is a spectacular advantage to Paizo - to the extent that if everyone stopped subscribing but instead bought exactly the same products from the FLGS, that might still be enough to kill the company.

Actually, from what Paizo has said on their official forums about the subscription model, it generates just enough income for them to keep the doors open. There have been repeated calls on their site for a PDF subscription model, but they've explained repeatedly that allowing such would cause their income to drop too low for the company to keep afloat. Apparently, a significant portion of their actual profit comes from the FLGS sales.

Their stand-alone adventures line still continues, too; they've got a new one coming out next month. And, apparently, they're still not a big money-maker; the APs are apparently where the actual money is.

This is true, except that they are very good at putting the rules material you need online for free on their SRD.

Except they don't. Try searching the SRD for the rules from the Technology Guide. You can find the info on websites like Scrolls of Nethys, but those websites are not run by Paizo.

The only things in the SRD are from the core rules line; the vast majority of their publications will never make it in there.

Some very few APs are difficult to run without a particular sourcebook (Iron Gods and the "Technology Guide"; Wrath of the Righteous and "Mythic Adventures"), but these are actually the exception.

Notice how both of the ones you mentioned are also two of the latest ones out? ​Mummy's Mask can also be difficult to run without People of the Sands. And the Giant Hunter's Handbook to go along with the Giantslayer AP is already out. It's the exact same problem with having to tie products together to sell them that I was talking about.