D&D 5E Why is no one talking about THE BOOK OF MANY THINGS?

[Burnside]

Interesting, I think Planescape is a great product. First time I became interested in the setting!

But to the OP (@THEMNGMNT), I passed on the Book, what is there that would make me want to get it?

To clarify, I think the setting book is good and the bestiary is fine; I think Turn of Fortune's Wheel is among the very worst official 5E adventures and is so shockingly bad that it really brings down the box overall for me.

 

[aiouh]

It's an 86€ box set where I live and the price seems to be tied to a 200 page book and physical accessories.

It's just one of those WotC products you see yourself picking up in the future on a classifieds site at a 70% discount from someone who let it rot unused on their bookshelf for 5 years

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

Book of Many Things would be a much more frequently recommended product if you didn't also need to buy a $50 deck of cards you'll never use in order to get it

 

[Starmaster]

I just didn't get it was because it was outside my price range for a D&D product.

I think there were several reasons people didn't pick up this product.

First, it had a narrow focus.

Second, as you mentioned, the price was pretty hefty for such a focused item (not that the contents weren't worth it for those who wanted to shell out the bucks).

Third, the early releases were delayed due to bad cards.

Fourth, some of those bad card sets showed up on Amazon even after they were supposed to be replaced, which led to large returns and horrible Amazon reviews. If I recall, Amazon at the time showed an average reviewer rating score of between 1.0 and 1.5. The reviews got much better after the sets with good cards were stocked and are now averaging a 4.6 rating.

Fifth, the big box bookstores didn't stock this product, or at least they didn't get it into the stores at the time it was released, and they also didn't list it in their online catalogs. I'm specifically referring to Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million since those are the stores within my driving distance. They list it in their online catalogs now, but didn't then. This happened at the time WotC changed their distribution network, dropping Penguin Random House, so I figure that's probably why the big bookstores weren't able to initially get any stock. So, folks without a FLGS in their area were hard-pressed to get a copy at time of release.

Bottom line . . . For all the above reasons, probably not many people purchased this item when it was originally released which would lead to few postings before interest had cooled.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's an 86€ box set where I live and the price seems to be tied to a 200 page book and physical accessories.

It's just one of those WotC products you see yourself picking up in the future on a classifieds site at a 70% discount from someone who let it rot unused on their bookshelf for 5 years

I had a gift card.

 

[Umbran]

While it's cool that the content is thematically tied to the deck, organizing the actual chapters in the book according to the themes of the cards arguably ends up being a cute gimmick that makes the book harder to use than it might otherwise have been. However, the intro section does provide a reasonable guide to locating the sort of content you want, albeit spread throughout chapters.

That, specifically, is a reasonable critique.

I personally, don't mind it - I find it less a "cute gimmick" and more "artistic conceit". And, in terms of interpreting cards, I find it an interesting example.

 

[BruceWright]

I didn’t get it yet, I don’t have a current need for it. But I liked the campaign idea in it that has your party BUILDING a DoMT by each card being a quest item. Some cool lore and worldbuilding around the deck.


And I also like the idea of using the deck as a kind of tarot spread to design a session around what the cards reveal.

 

[Sulicius]

I've actually been using it quite a bit on Roll20, and someone sent me her spare set of cards that she got with the purchase. They were in perfect condition and look amazing. I am having trouble convincing myself to get a physical copy, even though I am pretty sure I would get it if I didn't already have the cards.

 

[Chaltab]

To clarify, I think the setting book is good and the bestiary is fine; I think Turn of Fortune's Wheel is among the very worst official 5E adventures and is so shockingly bad that it really brings down the box overall for me.

Do tell. I've heard more complaints about Phandelver II: Obelisk Boogaloo and Vecna. TFW's reception was more positive IME.

Not played any of them myself.

 

[Burnside]

Do tell. I've heard more complaints about Phandelver II: Obelisk Boogaloo and Vecna. TFW's reception was more positive IME.

Not played any of them myself.

I don't want to derail the thread, so I'm just gonna direct you to Mastering Dungeons with Teos Abadia and Shawn Merwin; they express my feelings about this adventure more eloquently than I could: