D&D 5E 3rd party publishers and 5E

[Satyrn]

Now referring? I always did. I said it "was 3PP". Of course I'm not arguing that it's now 3PP. I said it started as such. Which is true. Perhaps you need to go back and reread my post.

Yeah, you originally said it "was 3PP."

And then your later post said it was "3PP originated" and that "it's origins were 3PP."

It's an interesting clarification that I noticed.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Yeah, you originally said it "was 3PP."

And then your later post said it was "3PP originated" and that "it's origins were 3PP."

It's an interesting clarification that I noticed.

I guess I'm not seeing it. "Was" is past tense. I guess it's pretty much inferred that I wasn't arguing that it's now currently a 3PP product, or even was once WotC took it over. I mean, when I said "was", when did you think I was referring to? Last week? Last year? "Was", "started as", "originated" all are pretty much the same meaning in this context. I didn't change my position at all. Perhaps you're being overly pedantic?

 

[Sacrosanct]

Suffice it to say, I disagree with any assertion that being published by WotC makes a work of obviously higher quality than a work created by a good 3PP.

That we obviously agree on. Map Folio? Forest Oracle? DMGR8: Sages & Specialists? There have been some stinkers that were official. And that's not even talking about universally hated products like Wilderness Survival Guide, Complete Book of Elves, or others.

I do think there's a higher risk with 3PP naturally. But I think someone is doing themselves a disservice to automatically or refuse to use 3PP assuming it's going to always be worse than official. And as I mentioned it, it's pretty ironic when many of the people who make that statement have spent most of their time saying how the official stuff is garbage, and how the designers are lazy, etc. Seems an odd argument to make to me.

 

[Satyrn]

I didn't change my position at all. Perhaps you're being overly pedantic?

If I'm being overly pedantic, you're being underly so.

I really don't intend for you to read "clarification" as "changing your position."

.

 

[MNblockhead]

<SNIP>By companies that have checkered publishing credits in recent years. (I docked Kobold Press a few points for Tome of Beasts and Hoard of the Dragon Queen.) <SNIP>

What didn't you like about Tome of Beasts? I put that near the top of the list of TTRPG purchases I've made in the last five years.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Eberron was 2nd Party, not 3rd Party. It was created by an independent source for the owner of the rules system to publish. It would only be 3rd Party if Baker had published it himself without any input from WotC.

 

[Morrus]

What an odd conversation! Eberron is a first party D&D product, published by WotC. WotC, like most game publishers, uses freelancers extensively. This does not make their products third or “second” party. The publisher is WotC.

 

[Guest 6801328]

There is no such thing as lack of options in 5th Ed. There is over 60 subclasses available! I use to look the old classes, and the sane thing 5th Ed did was to condense the hell out of them. And balanced a lot of them so they don't become trap options, increasing a lot of the viability of certain concepts (fighter and monk, I'm looking at you!).

Saying that there is no options is just plain ignorance. I, with only the PHB, could build a character at level one impossible to work in 3.5: a master crossbowman. And it was just a fighter!

I think the complaint is often about the relative lack of (or simplicity in) "build" options.

Yes, there are a goodly number of sub-classes, but once you choose your class and sub-class there just aren't very many decisions to make, except for a Feat (maybe) every now and then.

I'm not one of them. I'm not really into the whole game (or non-game?) of spending lots of time tweaking and tuning and reading the arguments on the forums about option X vs option Y. But some people love that, and 5e doesn't really scratch that itch for them. I acknowledge that.

The irony, of course, is that more 5e-compatible classes/subclasses don't really solve it.

 

[Guest 6801328]

What an odd conversation! Eberron is a first party D&D product, published by WotC. WotC, like most game publishers, uses freelancers extensively. This does not make their products third or “second” party. The publisher is WotC.

1st Party and 3rd Rate

 

[Sacrosanct]

What an odd conversation! Eberron is a first party D&D product, published by WotC. WotC, like most game publishers, uses freelancers extensively. This does not make their products third or “second” party. The publisher is WotC.

I don't think anyone is disagreeing that Eberron is, and has been for a long time, 1st party. I think the point is getting lost. The reason I brought it up in the first place was in the context of people who refuse to look at 3PP because they assume fan creation is automatically of poor quality or so much of it is garbage they can't find any good stuff and can't trust any reviews. And in that context, Eberron (a beloved setting by many if not by me) was a fan creation outside of WotC, and thus that attitude is flawed. That was the point I was getting at, and with the way internet discussions go, it delved into pedantic back and forth when the point got lost.

And outside of Eberron, I think we can all agree that 3PP have put out some really great stuff, just as good if not better than WoTC, like ToB, or AiME.