D&D 5E Are Hardcover Books the Best Format for Settings?

[Dannyalcatraz]

Hmmmm...good point about boxed sets and pretty maps. I'm a fan of those as well, and would accept softcovers in a boxed set as a reasonable substitute.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Books are rarely the best format for reference in a world with computers. But, they still excel when reading. When I buy a setting book, first I want to read it. I'm only going to reference it occasionally. So, I think a well organized hardcover is the best product. I like boxed sets, but not generally for the written material. I'm in it for the maps, so a hardcover book with a separate map pack would work well for me.

That said, an online wiki-like reference would be a fantastic addition. So why not both?

 

[Jer]

Books are rarely the best format for reference in a world with computers. But, they still excel when reading.

Exactly. When I'm coming up with ideas for the next adventure my PCs will be hit with, I need to sit down with a book and flip through it for inspiration. Scanning through a wiki isn't going to cut it for me - even using a PDF I find hinders my old man brain on occasion because of the inability to easily flip around the pages looking for inspiration. And I so rarely need to use my setting books as actual "reference" books rather than as adventure inspiration that I don't know that I'd use a wiki reference even if it were available to me - except maybe to cut and paste stats out of once I had my adventure ideas in mind.

 

[Zhern]

I mentioned this point in the "Seriously, why no setting support?" thread, but felt it could deserve it's own discussion rather than being lost in the other arguments and discussion points.


Are settings well served by a big hardcover book?
Is that the best way of presenting the information?


I love books in general and have a soft spot for my big hardcover campaign setting books. And a softer spot for big boxed sets.

...

The *only* campaign setting I've seen work around that level of interconnectivity worth a damn was Ptolus. That relied on sidebars and sidenotes to refer people to different sections of the book and colour coded sections (and the sidebars) to make it easier to find out the whole picture.
But that kind of product requires a heck of a lot more work, since you need to write the book then read it a few times to figure out where sidenotes and references are necessary. And it still necessitates a lot of flipping.


I'd argue digital tools (a wiki, Epic Words, or something like Lone Wolf's Realm Works) is likely a far superior way of conveying that information than a book. An app would also be interesting, functioning like an offline wiki or digital encyclopedia. But that's a very specialized product...

I love my books too, and will keep buying the hardcovers, but I really do want digital copies of them also. Which is my biggest issue with 5e - no digital support. I've made up for that by using Fantasy Grounds for a lot of things but I would love to have all my setting material in Realm Works, which I do use for my homebrew stuff. So, yes, I agree with you, books aren't the best medium for conveying good setting info and lore. That is one the best things about companies like Frog God Games, they provide a PDF with every physical book purchase.

And I would agree about Ptolus, it was the only one that worked worth a damn but it still was a lot of flipping back and forth.

 

[Mercule]

The 3e FRCS is an extraordinary book, probably the best setting book I've ever seen.

I despise the Realms and I have to agree. Even though I've had a 20 year ban on buying Realms material, I was extremely tempted to pick that one up.

 

[Zhern]

I despise the Realms.

Preach!