D&D 5E 5e isn't a Golden Age of D&D Lorewise, it's Silver at best.

[delericho]

Thanks, that's helpful, and reveals that WotC has been kind of pricing with "what it can get away with" rather than "what it costs" for a long time.

Welcome to capitalism.

More seriously, there has been a bit of a sense of that all along with 5e (the core rulebooks for this edition saw a slightly-above-inflation rise over the previous editions). But that was significantly balanced with a much-reduced release schedule, meaning that the outlay was less overall, and there was also a strong argument that RPGs were almost insanely undervalued for years before that point. So WotC deciding to treat it as more of a prestige brand (or, indeed, as the luxury it is) was justifiable.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Agreed on all points. Unfortunately, it does really sting having the price increase come at the same time as the amount of material is reduced - IMO, they would have done better to introduce one at a time.

But then, I'm going to be skipping this new Spelljammer for other reasons, so I guess it doesn't bother me too much.

See, this is the quite possibly the last WotC product I'm ever going to buy, so having it made this way is painful.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Comparing Tyranny of Dragons to epelljammer is like to like, though, comparing Wpwlljammer to the PHB is not.

So you're saying Spelljammer is an adventure, not a setting? Because that's not the marketing. It's certainly marketed as a setting book.

So compare it to a setting book, if you want to claim like to like. Let's find the earliest ones!

Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (2015) - 160 pages - $30

Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica (2018 - yes quite a gap) - 256 pages - $49.99

 

[Ruin Explorer]

there was also a strong argument that RPGs were almost insanely undervalued for years before that point. So WotC deciding to treat it as more of a prestige brand (or, indeed, as the luxury it is) was justifiable.

I think this is pretty funny to try and claim, given the main issue I have with WotC is that they're actually supplying extremely poor value-for-money in recent books.

Also you're literally not allowed to simultaneously claim "undervalued" and "capitalism sets the prices right". You can pick one.

 

[delericho]

So you're saying Spelljammer is an adventure, not a setting? Because that's not the marketing. It's certainly marketed as a setting book.

It's both - one of those 64-page books is an adventure. That's quite a bit bigger than the adventures in Eberron or Ravenloft, though also quite a bit less even than the thinnest adventure products (HotDQ at 96 pages).

 

[Shardstone]

How about, why is 192-pages now $70 dollars instead of 50?

 

[Parmandur]

Thanks, that's helpful, and reveals that WotC has been kind of pricing with "what it can get away with" rather than "what it costs" for a long time.


There's a big difference between gradually jacking up prices for products of the same or equal amount of material, and massively jacking up prices whilst massively decreasing the amount of material.

$70 for 320 pages. It's a rip-off, but it won't be in 2-3 years. Fine.

$70 for 192 pages. Yeah I don't think so mate.

Then don't buy it. This, too, is how the system works. WotC has concluded that $70 MSRP is the price that the market will bear, which is what matters. I suspect they are right, particularly when the real price is $42 (per Amazon). I don't mind paying the support my local store premium to get the alt covers, bit most people will be paying the discount at Amazon or Target.

 

[Parmandur]

So you're saying Spelljammer is an adventure, not a setting? Because that's not the marketing. It's certainly marketed as a setting book.

So compare it to a setting book, if you want to claim like to like. Let's find the earliest ones!

Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (2015) - 160 pages - $30

Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica (2018 - yes quite a gap) - 256 pages - $49.99

It is an Adventure book, and a Monster book, and a Genre booster book, yes. Tyranny of Dragons is a large part bestiary and location information, too, so yeah, they are more like for like.

 

[Shardstone]

Then don't buy it. This, too, is how the system works. WotC has concluded that $70 MSRP is the price that the market will bear, which is what matters. I suspect they are right, particularly when the real price is $42 (per Amazon). I don't mind paying the support my local store premium to get the alt covers, bit most people will be paying the discount at Amazon or Target.

I don't think the conversation is about why WotC is doing it, but the conversation is about how it isn't really all that ethical. You keep trying to turn this into a conversation about facts, when instead its a discussion about how much the product should be worth.

 

[delericho]

I think this is pretty funny, given the main issue I have with WotC is that they're actually supplying extremely poor value-for-money in recent books.

Price per page, or quality? Because on the latter count I'm somewhat in sympathy.

Also you're literally not allowed to simultaneously claim "undervalued" and "capitalism sets the prices right". You can pick one.

Actually, yes I am - because the point at which WotC increased the prices for 5e also happens to coincide with the game exploding in popularity. I'd tend not to argue that the price rise caused the surge (although stranger things have happened), but it clearly didn't hurt.