Classic D&D of All Eras Back In Print

Print on Deman

Anyone else notice that WotC snuck a few titles up as Print-On-Demand at DMs Guild?

(I purchased three of them, both to support the initiative but also cos I cant help collecting hard copies of D&D material )

 

[dropbear8mybaby]

I have a tattoo of one of the dragon line drawings from Draconomicon on my back. Obviously one of my favourite books

 

[Jester David]

Yeah, that's gonna suck. People are going to just happily dump all over anyone suggesting wotc should actually update a setting with anything more than a UA article for the mechanical options of that setting.

Realms needs an update because they effed with the world.
Dragonlance could use one because so much was going on in the novels, the sourcebooks couldn't keep up and are out of date.
Planescape could use one as the planned event to fix the setting after Faction War broke Sigil never ended up happening.

Other than that, the old books are just as good. Eberron is exactly the same as in the 3e/4e books. As is Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Greyhawk, Mystara, etc.
I mean, the complaint is that you can't get the books in print anymore without going used. But that ceases to be relevant if you can get any of them at any time with a mouse click.

An update just risks having people who don't care about the setting write the product. Or just people who lack passion. It often adds nothing.

 

[ninjayeti]

I'd settle for them figuring out how to cheaply print the giant poster maps that came in so many of the supplements back in the day - not just the boxed sets, but a lot of the saddle-stitched supplement booklets came with a good-sized poster map. A few of my very old Gazeteer maps have become unusable through overuse (Gaz1 & Gaz3 in particular, since back in the day I set many a campaign in either Karameikos or Glantri) and I wouldn't mind buying a newly printed-on-demand copy of those books if I were going to get replacement poster maps with them.

If you are just looking for maps there are some fairly hi-res ones on the internet. Here is one for Karemeikos:
http://www.pandius.com/karameikos-8-forested-hills.png
Petty sure you could get that printed poster size and have it look fairly decent.

 

[Hussar]

This is fantastic stuff. Well done them.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Realms needs an update because they effed with the world.
Dragonlance could use one because so much was going on in the novels, the sourcebooks couldn't keep up and are out of date.
Planescape could use one as the planned event to fix the setting after Faction War broke Sigil never ended up happening.

Other than that, the old books are just as good. Eberron is exactly the same as in the 3e/4e books. As is Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Greyhawk, Mystara, etc.
I mean, the complaint is that you can't get the books in print anymore without going used. But that ceases to be relevant if you can get any of them at any time with a mouse click.

An update just risks having people who don't care about the setting write the product. Or just people who lack passion. It often adds nothing.

Yeah, I'm not gonna have this argument again. We disagree, leave it at that. Or read the thread on the topic that's going right now.

 

[IgnatiusJ.Reilly]

That's awesome if it's applied to a much greater volume of the back catalog. I wonder if my more than decent sized collection of out of print titles will plummet in value, not that I'd ever sell any of it anyway. I guess it'll depend on print quality, I'd be very curious about that.

 

[Jhaelen]

That might be my chance to get hold of a few 2e Planescape supplements that I'm missing in my collection - awesome!

Regarding the POD quality: Based on the oWoD Werewolf supplement for the White Howlers, it's really quite good.
I've also bought some POD card game expansions in the past. Those weren't as good; they were obviously less saturated than the originals, especially the darker colors.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, that's gonna suck. People are going to just happily dump all over anyone suggesting wotc should actually update a setting with anything more than a UA article for the mechanical options of that setting.

I think they will provide the mechanical support, in some form; and that they will do coffee-table style books, like James Wyatt is doing for magic right now, that can totally be system neutral campaign setting guides.

But they have been signaling for a while that the older edition setting guides work fine for 5E, aside from fiddly crunch bits...

 

[Riley]

I think this is going to be awesome! Interesting eclectic choice of products to start. I ran out there looking for the FR grey box in hardback...

I would love to have that in hardcover or soft - I just want it without that horrid dark paper.

 

[Jer]

I think they will provide the mechanical support, in some form; and that they will do coffee-table style books, like James Wyatt is doing for magic right now, that can totally be system neutral campaign setting guides.

I would actually love this approach. Especially if the "mechanical support" could be turned into a PoD product rather than just a PDF. To be honest, I would love to see them actually take the James Wyatt MtG "Plane Shift" documents and set them up to be PoD products. And if they could do similar for Eberron, Greyhawk and Dark Sun along with an associated "edition neutral" atlas I'd be really happy. (I'd be exceedingly happy if they'd do the same with Mystara, since that's my first love of D&D campaign worlds. But I suspect I will need to just live with my Gazetteers and fan sources on that front for the future).