D&D (2024) D&D Player’s Handbook (2024)

[Mistwell]

USA is roughly where we were 5 years ago cost of living crisis.

I know people who basically can't afford any hobbies.

I know a family who moved from Los Angeles to New Zealand during the pandemic (because it was safer) and stayed there. But, noteworthy, they are very rich. They do seem to love it there though and find it a great place to retire.

 

[Parmandur]

Those pages are absolutely not final. If you look at the Fighter Subclasses header it only says, "This section presents the following sub-classes: Champion and Eldritch Knight." No mention is made of Battle Master, much less the mystery 4th subclass.

Also, pages are not finalized this far in advance. Not when there's lots and lots of changes and edits and art inserts still to do. This is a mock up, what they call a "vertical slice" in the video game sphere. They took some available text and art, and put it together using the planned layout and formatting in order to have a sample of something resembling the finished product that they can show off.

That's useful internally, both for showing the team what the intended final result is and for showing the bosses that you're on the right track. It's also occasionally useful for when you want to show it off externally, for a press event or trade show when the book isn't ready but you want to tease it anyway.

Well, they said during the panel that these were a work in progress...however, that doesn't mean this is just a vertical slice, as they are headed towards publication. These are a good indication of what the pahe design will look like, if not the 100% finalized text.

 

[ART!]

I think that's true of most people.

That's good to hear - I don't see people talking about this much, just the rules, so I tend to think I'm in a minority.

 

[Zardnaar]

Whooooa there, the difference between $180 MSRP and $200 is still more than one metric burrito.

But yeah, you are right, it is a good bang for the buck. $180 won't even get yoy 3 whole PS5 games.

PS5 games are low effort.

BG3 probably gonna get several hundred hours out of it no effort required.

That's probably 2 years gaming for hard-core players eg 4 hour sessions weekly.

Shorter sessions not weekly or both you're looking at 4 years maybe longer. That assumes you can find such a group.

And there's games bigger than BG 3 and cheaper. Assassins Creed Odyssey ultimate edition often 66--75% off and twice the size of BG3 roughly. So around half the price of a phb.

So RPGs aren't actually that good value wise unless you're a heavy user over the long term. Effort/reward hell logistics.

Our consoles also double as devices and fall into stuff we have anyway. Somewhat moot point for us but ENworld skews older, American and mostly middle class or upper middle class. Would not be surprised if majority here have university degrees (25% here iirc).

Others can technically afford it but opportunity cost eg vs Netflix, PS5, booze, dining out or whatever. Value proposition.

That excluded things like social groups or even finding groups online.

For us it's not can we afford $200 bucks (maybe more) but how much are we actually gonna use them vs cost vs effort.

Haven't seen the books yet. Bare minimum probably buy core rules eventually. The difference is buying 3 books vs traditional 30-50.

 

[Morrus]

Might be worth putting up the pages we saw from the PHB (h/t @darjr )

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Where were those from?

 

[Zardnaar]

I know a family who moved from Los Angeles to New Zealand during the pandemic (because it was safer) and stayed there. But, noteworthy, they are very rich. They do seem to love it there though and find it a great place to retire.

It's great if you own property eg don't have to pay rent or mortgage.

My wife and myself could not duplicate our lifestyle now with our backgrounds eg no bank of mum and dad.

We had a 20% deposit, bought at right time despite making a lot of blunders along the way. Basically lived like students into our 30s to do it. Minimal help from parents (moved back in for 6 months was about it).

25% population growth in 17 years, 2% per annum recently. My brother could sell up and buy freehold in LA or Seattle. We could sell up and buy freehold in most of America (and we live in the cheapest city).

What America is getting now we hit that about 2017 or 19. And it's worse now.

Just checked. Gotten worse in USA average price is similar to my city. So cheapest city here is average USA.

 

[Mistwell]

It's great if you own property eg don't have to pay rent or mortgage.

My wife and myself could not duplicate our lifestyle now with our backgrounds eg no bank of mum and dad.

We had a 20% deposit, bought at right time despite making a lot of blunders along the way. Basically lived like students into our 30s to do it. Minimal help from parents (moved back in for 6 months was about it).

25% population growth in 17 years, 2% per annum recently. My brother could sell up and buy freehold in LA or Seattle. We could sell up and buy freehold in most of America (and we live in the cheapest city).

What America is getting now we hit that about 2017 or 19. And it's worse now.

Just checked. Gotten worse in USA average price is similar to my city. So cheapest city here is average USA.

Our story is basically the same. Bought slightly above our means at the very bottom of the real estate bust in Los Angeles in early 2009. Our home is, at least on paper in theory, worth nearly triple what we paid. Which feels absurd to me to triple in value in 15 years. I could never afford our home if bought now.

 

[Oofta]

PS5 games are low effort.

BG3 probably gonna get several hundred hours out of it no effort required.

That's probably 2 years gaming for hard-core players eg 4 hour sessions weekly.

Shorter sessions not weekly or both you're looking at 4 years maybe longer. That assumes you can find such a group.

And there's games bigger than BG 3 and cheaper. Assassins Creed Odyssey ultimate edition often 66--75% off and twice the size of BG3 roughly. So around half the price of a phb.

So RPGs aren't actually that good value wise unless you're a heavy user over the long term. Effort/reward hell logistics.

Our consoles also double as devices and fall into stuff we have anyway. Somewhat moot point for us but ENworld skews older, American and mostly middle class or upper middle class. Would not be surprised if majority here have university degrees (25% here iirc).

Others can technically afford it but opportunity cost eg vs Netflix, PS5, booze, dining out or whatever. Value proposition.

That excluded things like social groups or even finding groups online.

For us it's not can we afford $200 bucks (maybe more) but how much are we actually gonna use them vs cost vs effort.

Haven't seen the books yet. Bare minimum probably buy core rules eventually. The difference is buying 3 books vs traditional 30-50.

Meanwhile, only 1 person is playing BG3 at a time, not 5-7 or more and you have to buy the gaming machine. You can always share the costs of the books, the only person who needs to pay more than $60 is the DM. Even then, we just shared books back in the day. The comparison is a bit apples to oranges.

I mean, if you feel you can't afford it, you can't. We can't always get what we want but I also see no reason for WOTC to sell books at a loss.

 

[Parmandur]

Where were those from?

From the Pax panel, @darjr did a bunch of screengrabs on that thread.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It probably wouldn't be profitable, but it would nice to have little A4 sized "handbooks" that cover one class, or a small group ("The Fighter PHB" or "The Martial PHB"). Just includes only the items a single class would access. Maybe with extra subclasses, gear, backgrounds or races closely associated with the class.

And I'd gobble up if they came out with a modern version of the old 2E Player packs - semi-rigid burlap/cloth or hard case, PHB (and space for the likes of a supplemental book - like Tasha's or Xanathar's forecoming replacement, character sheets, minis or acrylic stand-ups, set of dice, pencil, condition tokens and a hit point counter.

View attachment 347845

The complete bard's handbook was a great example of such a book. It repeated all rules for the bard and added so much fun with subclasses.