D&D 5E Book of Many Things pre order up.

[FitzTheRuke]

It's the same MRSP as Curse of Strahd Revamped, which is a box set with a book, a deck of cards, and a car deck use booklet.

Mmm... Curse of Strahd Revamped is a nice-looking product. But it sells a teeny tiny fraction of what Curse of Strahd by itself, or even the Tarokka deck by itself does.

I don't think it would be worth it to WotC to put out the card deck separately from the card book product, or the other way around (though the Beyond version is just the main boo kfor $30).

Again, I'm not sure that I agree. What about people that might want to buy the Deck, but not the books? (Say, if they buy the book digitally and use their tablet, but would like the Deck as a prop at the table?) Or people who'd like the book, but are happy with using a deck of cards that they've scribbled on, or one of the many older versions of the Deck that they might still have in their possession. Or people who would be happy to pick one up, and go back for the other later? No matter how you slice it, packing it all up together makes for a beautiful product... that far, far less people will buy.

The Venn overlap of "people who want this book" and "people who want the full 66 card deck with nice illustratuons" is super high.

Right, but even people who want it all might want to split it up and mix-n-match. They've marginalized this product in order to make it a "high-end" product.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

That sounds good, yes.

WotC knows that the majority of DMs are using homebrew. They are not pushing the lore into all the books because it's what people want, it's because there is a segment of the audience that will buy every bit of content with lore in it. It's wasted space for the majority, but WotC knows they can get that smaller group of folks to jump through the appropriate hoops every time.

are they? using homebrew that is. I am genuinely curious. How many? How large a majority?

 

[Weiley31]

Well, upon seeing the Alt cover, I've come to the conclusion that the ONLY alt cover I never really liked was the Ghosts of Saltmarshes.

 

[Parmandur]

are they? using homebrew that is. I am genuinely curious. How many? How large a majority?

Perkins Gabe some numbers way back in the day: slightly more than half of games were homebrew, slightly more than a quarter used Forgotten Realms, and the remaining less than a quarter were all other settings (led by Greyhawk with ~5%, IIRC). However, more than half of those homebrewers are running a fairly generic homebrew and use generic products (like FR stuff) and file off the serial numbers for their custom world. Hence, by making FR products conducive to having those serial numbers filed off, WotC could sell products to most homebrewers, FR players, and even Greyhawk players.

 

[Remathilis]

That sounds good, yes.

WotC knows that the majority of DMs are using homebrew. They are not pushing the lore into all the books because it's what people want, it's because there is a segment of the audience that will buy every bit of content with lore in it. It's wasted space for the majority, but WotC knows they can get that smaller group of folks to jump through the appropriate hoops every time.

If they are homebrewing, they can just change what they don't like about the origin or ignore it and make their own. People homebrewing is not an excuse to make the game a bland bowl of gruel because some DM is going to get hurt that Venca is the origin of undead monster X.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

People homebrewing is not an excuse to make the game a bland bowl of gruel because some DM is going to get hurt that Venca is the origin of undead monster X.

It's quite a leap from "everything doesn't need to have Forgotten Realms injected into it" to "everything will be a bland bowl of gruel unless Forgotten Realms flavor is present."

 

[mamba]

It's quite a leap from "everything doesn't need to have Forgotten Realms injected into it" to "everything will be a bland bowl of gruel unless Forgotten Realms flavor is present."

I am not sure injecting FR fixes bland in the first place

 

[Remathilis]

It's quite a leap from "everything doesn't need to have Forgotten Realms injected into it" to "everything will be a bland bowl of gruel unless Forgotten Realms flavor is present."

Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk or Dragonlance or Ravenloft or Planescape or...

The Deck of Many Things got an origin story. They chose Faerun. They could have just as easily picked Oerth. Either way, it's just a flavor for the DM to be inspired by or to ignore. But bellyaching about "mah homebrew" isn't garnering any sympathy from me.

 

[Parmandur]

This is one Mystical spider

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk or Dragonlance or Ravenloft or Planescape or...

The Deck of Many Things got an origin story. They chose Faerun. They could have just as easily picked Oerth. Either way, it's just a flavor for the DM to be inspired by or to ignore. But bellyaching about "mah homebrew" isn't garnering any sympathy from me.

I am sorry that expressing my opinion upset you so deeply.