SCOOP! Wizards to release 3E Draconomicon

Atleast they aren't trying to sell us the same, slightly tweaked, literalist cliche's that some fantasy fanboys would like to see.

Click to expand...

Ah yes, the old crunch/fluff nutshell gets trotted out again.

The kind of content the Draconomicon will provide will almost assuredly be fluff vacuum-packed inside crunch, just like most crunch which isn't pure mechanics. You'll be buying "literalist cliches", but they'll have numbers attached, which will stroke your powergaming pleasure centre with new feats for dragons and dragonslayer prestige classes. Don't pretend otherwise.

Crothian said:

There's cutting corners and saving money. Not all companies have the ability to pay for the best artists.

Click to expand...

Then they should save their pennies until they do, IMO.

Crothian said:

However, that doesn't prevent them from turning out great products. Personally, I want to support the people who turn out the best products, not the people who have good products with the best art.

Click to expand...

We already know reps from WOTC and other d20 companies peruse these boards. I believe the sentiment you express above has contributed to the deterioration of certain production values in game product because they know that with many players they can get away with it, as long as the text features a couple of interesting concepts. Which leads to things like Yuan-ti going from this:

To this:

Kai Lord said:

Then they should save their pennies until they do, IMO.

Click to expand...

So, only people with plenty of money should attempt to start a gaming company. And should everything be full color as well since that looks better?

I have no idea why you care about the Yaun ti picture or even where it's from. So, what books do you feel fall into this lesser catagory? Do you only get Wizards books or have you at least bought a few of the others?

Kai Lord said:

As for gaming content, I don't know, I've yet to see a non-WOTC d20 product with production values worthy of my time to peruse them.

Click to expand...

Monsternomicon
Various Rokugan Books
Freeport - hell, most anything by Green Ronin
AEG's "One-Word-Title" books (esp. Mercenaries
The Scarred Lands R&R and CC books
The Eldritch Might books
...are all more useful to me than almost all of the non-core WotC books. Really, you're shutting yourself off from a lot of really good material if you won't even give something a second look just because it doesn't have an art budget comparable to an "official" book.

Crothian said:

So, only people with plenty of money should attempt to start a gaming company. And should everything be full color as well since that looks better?

Click to expand...

I think a company shouldn't release anything without art that their proud of, regardless of how much it cost. Did you ever play Cyberpunk 2020? The art in that book was badass, and it was all black and white and from no-name artists. If a company doesn't have the budget for a name artist, and they don't do the legwork to find an affordable breakout artist that no one's heard of, then I say don't bother.

Crothian said:

I have no idea why you care about the Yaun ti picture or even where it's from.

Click to expand...

The first Yuan-ti is from Savage Species. The second is from Races of Faerun. RoF is the first major release to show the results of WoTC gutting their in-house art department. Absolutely nothing from Lockwood, Wood, WAR, Sweet, Brom, or any of the other premiere artists. Pure economical crap.

Crothian said:

So, what books do you feel fall into this lesser catagory?

Click to expand...

Tome of Horrors for one. Pretty much anything that isn't WOTC. That doesn't mean WOTC is off the hook, however, RoF has shown they aren't above releasing products that showcase the doodles of a five year old (with apologies to all the talented five year olds out there). I forgot about Rokugan, however, their books are very nice, and did indeed appear to have the content to back it up. If I was into Oriental adventures, I wouldn't hesitate to purchase one of their products.

Crothian said:

Do you only get Wizards books or have you at least bought a few of the others?

Click to expand...

So far only Wizards. As I said, I'm open to other material, but only time will tell if I deem anything in the future worthy of a purchase.

You care a lot more about art then I do. Heck, even my artists friends don't care so much about it. In the end it's the rules I play with in my game, the art stays in the book.

Crothian said:

Official? What an odd concept. What's official? Is it only the stuff in the SRD? Or perhaps only books published by certain companies? I don't like the concept of official in an RPG because it sounds like someone is trying to tell me what I can use in my game.

D

Click to expand...

I agree with Crothian, but unfortuately, the other players in my group really value 'official' material, official meaning WotC. In general, they won't give non-WotC material much of a look.

I think it's important to keep in mind as much as we like 3rd party products here in this community, WotC products outsell all 3rd party publishers combined. And a WotC book on dragons will outsell any one 3rd party product by 10 to 1 (all those stats were said by Monte Cook at various places earlier).

Personally, I wouldn't mind a WotC Dragon book. Dragons always deserve another book. But I'll still value my Slayer's Guide to Dragons by Gary Gygax.

Psion said:

You aren't looking very hard then. I could cite examples, but you make that statement so broad and inherently defeasible, do I really have to try?

Click to expand...

Nope. Cause you know them by heart and so do I.

Limper said:

Did I miss something? When did dragons need ANOTHER book? When did they need more crunch?

Does anyone use THAT many dragons in their campaign?

Click to expand...

No but considering the umph my one shot Solars in Oathbound...might have considered using a guy summoning LOTS of dragons.