Assuming for the sake of argument that you are a fan of Dragonlance and actually want a 5E setting sourcebook... would it actually matter if they in fact DID include a chapter in the setting book for Spelljammer / Krynnspace? Would that one chapter in an otherwise full 200+ pages of Dragonlance information STOP you from buying the book, rather than just buying the book for all the stuff you want and then just not reading or using that chapter? Do you actually need every single chapter and page in a book to be useable to you for it to be worthy of purchase?
First off, it's not binary buy/don't buy based on that, and obviously I didn't' suggest it was - that's solely on you, the whole "STOP" narrative, so you might want to consider if you're putting words into people's mouths - because right now? You are. I know it's probably not intentional, but I think it's good to let people know (I find it helpful when I'm doing it, to be told).
You even end with a false question:
So if that's going to stop you, why are you even waiting for a new 5E setting book in the first place?
Who the said it would? Oh that's right, YOU did, not me! Come on mate. You've set up a whole argument I wasn't even having. I'm not actually offended if it seems like, I'm just amused and slightly vexed!
However, it is something that makes me somewhat less likely to buy a book.
Every "probably useless" chapter is. If a book has
enough of it them, unless it has something totally amazing to balance that out, its very likely I won't buy it. I definitely agree that all books contain info I won't get much out of. The question isn't binary pass/fail, it's "how much is too much"? This is especially true as books get smaller. When you have 300+ pages, devoting say 10-20 to Krynnspace and so on might feel fine. When you have 200-ish, and can barely even fit the main setting description, 10-20 pages on Krynnspace seems rather extreme. Especially when monsters might be dozens of pages, rules are likely dozens of pages, "how to run X" and "cool ideas" and so on is probably dozens of pages.
I mean why would I buy a Dragonlance book? Because I kind of like Dragonlance, and because particularly I'd like to see how the setting is updated and changed for 5E. Secondary to that would be wanting to see rules updates. Yeah, as you say, if I wanted to just run older editions - including Krynnspace, note! - I have material for those. But I want to see what they do with it.
And focusing on materials for different settings is not really how you do that, and reeks of cross-marketing of the more unpleasant kind. And particularly if we saw a mandatory devotion of space in all future settings to supporting some "Multiversal" setting, that would lower the value of all those books a bit to me (and honestly annoy me especially given 5E setting books run too short rather than too long imho). Further it means claims that you can "just ignore it" are likely to increasingly become untrue. Because once you've established every setting has to feature the multiverse, it's nearly inevitable that some setting elements in certain settings which aren't multiverse-focused (i.e. not Spelljammer/Planescape) will start to go that way too.
www.enworld.org
