Bringing back old product lines as one-shot books

[SkidAce]

I feel there are more benefits to the "one book, one conversion" approach than there are detractors.

Keep this thread alive and call WOTC over here!

 

[MerricB]

Honestly, I would far rather see instead of a setting book "Al-Qadim", a cultural book "Arabian Adventures", with the tools (prestige classes, feats, races, monsters, magic items, etc.) for creating a wide range of arabian-themed adventures and settings in 3.5E D&D.

Thus, the players who have Al-Qadim can use the rules elements of that supplement to enhance the material they already have.

Meanwhile, the players who don't have Al-Qadim can use it as source material for their own campaign setting.

Perhaps a couple of Al-Qadim references can be used as source material - as for instance the City of Brass and Sigil were referenced in the Planar Handbook - but the entire work isn't so tied to one setting that it can't be used elsewhere.

I would think that the approach I suggest would be far more useful to us.

Cheers!

 

[MonsterMash]

Actually a more generic Arabian adventures book would be good. Maybe i should try writing one!

 

[Sammael]

The inherent problem in that idea is that a lot of people are sick to death of prestige classes, feats, races, monsters, and magic items. I was looking forward to the Planar Handbook until I discovered that it was just like the Complete X supplements, with the addition of "kill the boss, take the power-up" crap that is Planar Touchstones. Yuk. I can't believe Bruce Cordell wrote it.

 

[JDowling]

it would seem that between Defilers & Preservers and the 2nd Darksun boxed set I missed a huge amount of changes to my old favorite... maybe i'll buy the pdfs to look them over heh.

a lot of people are sick to death of prestige classes, feats, races, monsters, and magic items

that's about how i feel.

 

[Umbran]

I would think it would be almost guarenteed profit. Maybe not a high margin, though.

I think the major problem WotC (and Hasbro) would have with this idea is that it would take away revenue from Eberron and Forgotten Realms. Big companies like to show big numbers for small numbers of items. They like to be able to say what they produce that's profitable in a single sentence. By diversifying, they detract from their "flagships".

It is simpler and more reasonable than that. A company will make more money selling 35 copies of one book than 5 copies each of seven different titles.

Each title has a "tool up" cost - the cost of geting a product written and ready to print. If you are going to sell X books, you would prefer to do so while only paying that cost once. Dividing your total sales among a bunch of products, each with it's own background cost, makes the profit margin on each book smaller.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

I'd love to see either a Al-Qadim or an Arabian Adventures book. I love the Al-Qadim setting, but I think that a generic setting book would be more useful. I've been in 2 campaigns in the last couple years that had Arabian elements in them, often pulled out of my Al-Qadim and GURPs books, with the mechanics usually worked up on the fly (for the GM) or in conjunction with the players if needed for PCs. Having a resource that had all the mechanics already done would be very nice, and if it included the Al-Qadim setting specific material as well, that would be great, but not necessary for me to buy it.

 

[MerricB]

The inherent problem in that idea is that a lot of people are sick to death of prestige classes, feats, races, monsters, and magic items.

The same applies to Campaign Settings...

In any case, if you just want the fluff... then it already exists. Go to your original setting books. If game mechanics don't interest you, there's no point in re-releasing it.

CHeers!

 

[I'm A Banana]

But Merric!!!! It's not SHINY anymore!!!!!

Oriental Adventures. Nyambe. Deadlands d20. These are nigh-perfect examples of 'cultural supplements' in my mind. They're almost like a campaign setting, except they don't disregard the core rules, they add onto them. A 'Arabian Adventures' would be perfect. I have high hopes for Septentrionalis when it hits the publishers, too. I want to see as many of these on the market as possible.

 

[Whisper72]

I for one would love to see one book 'conversions', 3.5 edition versions of Spelljammer and DarkSun. The setup could be similar to the FRCS/ECS, complete with a chapter on how to handle the 'regular' classes in these settings, new races, classes etc.

Yes, I am sick and tired of more 'regular' feats, monsters, magic items etc. but some specific for the setting would be fine, even necessary IMHO. Just keep the prestige classes low please, as most are simply a bunch of useless excuse for wasting the paper they are printed on anyway.