D&D 5E Comment on the negative article by John Dodd

[delericho]

But costs more pounds than dollars. What's that, twice the $12 US price?

Yeah. There's something odd about the Pathfinder price there.

The D&D price is much higher in the UK because the moment you add dice to the boxed set it becomes a game rather than a book, and so gets hit with import duties and the 20% VAT. So $20 morphs into £17.

What's odd, though, is that the Pathfinder RRP appears to be a direct translation of the US price - $35 becomes £20ish. So it would appear that Amazon are taking the hit on duties and VAT for us. Which is nice of them, I guess.

And then both get a nice big discount from Amazon as well.

(Obviously you, Morrus, knew about the VAT situation. Just thought I'd better set it all out for the majority US readers here. )

But the larger point made on this thread is certainly valid: the RRP difference between $20 and $35, not to mention to typical discounts on the likes of Amazon, certainly favours the D&D 5e set, and a review that doesn't take that into account is somewhat lacking, to say the least.

 

[Mistwell]

The reviewer was talking in UK pricing when he referred to the PF Beginner Box as being a little more expensive. As people were focusing on his lack of mentioning a price, and the thread was about his review, I've been writing my posts with his terms. There's nothing disingenuous about it.

delericho is the reviewer?

 

[Agamon]

The reviewer was talking in UK pricing when he referred to the PF Beginner Box as being a little more expensive. As people were focusing on his lack of mentioning a price, and the thread was about his review, I've been writing my posts with his terms. There's nothing disingenuous about it.

This post was brought to you by the letters B, O, L, and D!

 

[Morrus]

[HI][/HI]

delericho is the reviewer?

The reviewer is John Dodd, who manages the RPG schedules for UK Games Expo.

 

[Zhaleskra]

Without negative comments, it's harder to come up with an informed opinion.

I'm probably weird, I tend to skip two kinds of reviews on Amazon.com: 5-star and 1-star. As far as I'm concerned, a 5-star review is usually a biased behind-kissing, while a 1-star is biased the other way towards being a rant. Do some reviews break this mold? Of course they do, but I generally find that people are more honest in the 2-4 star reviews and actually review the product not just "I liked it" or "I hated it". Those reviews give better information with which to formulate my purchase decision.

Having said all that, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about being negative.

 

[Shemeska]

Without negative comments, it's harder to come up with an informed opinion.

I'm probably weird, I tend to skip two kinds of reviews on Amazon.com: 5-star and 1-star. As far as I'm concerned, a 5-star review is usually a biased behind-kissing, while a 1-star is biased the other way towards being a rant. Do some reviews break this mold? Of course they do, but I generally find that people are more honest in the 2-4 star reviews and actually review the product not just "I liked it" or "I hated it". Those reviews give better information with which to formulate my purchase decision.

Having said all that, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about being negative.

I generally ignore the first few reviews, and any reviews that appear prior to the book actually being released. I've noticed a number of books lately getting glowing 5 star reviews while also being pretty skimpy on the details of why, with the note that the reviewer received a free copy of the book prior to the general consumer release.

 

[Zhaleskra]

I've noticed a number of books lately getting glowing 5 star reviews while also being pretty skimpy on the details of why, with the note that the reviewer received a free copy of the book prior to the general consumer release.

It must be hard to review without revealing spoilers when you have an advance copy. Reviewing with vagueness would just be even weirder.

 

[reiella]

£7 is the price of adding my popcorn and drink to the cost of my ticket at the local cinema. It's the price of 2 novels in Tesco's "2 books for £7" deal (obviously ). It's usually the first 'reduced' price a DVD will drop to in that same supermarket (so a DVD that's been out for 3 months or so). Or two coffees at Starbucks.

So it's not a tiny amount, but it's also not particularly huge either.

It's also way more than the current price difference on Amazon UK: £14.92 vs £14.26. (Yep, right at this moment, the Pathfinder set is cheaper. It wasn't this morning - the 5e set moves around quite a lot just now.)

Something to note with that Pathfinder price at 14.27 is that does not include the 4.75 in shipping fees (third party shipper). Whereas D&D is 14.92 including shipping by Amazon, or 8.07 + 2.80 shipping from a third party Amazon vendor.

Honestly though, we're picking nits on the price at this point.

 

[Xodis]

Something to note with that Pathfinder price at 14.27 is that does not include the 4.75 in shipping fees (third party shipper). Whereas D&D is 14.92 including shipping by Amazon, or 8.07 + 2.80 shipping from a third party Amazon vendor.

Honestly though, we're picking nits on the price at this point.

Thats why you should stick with the MSRP when comparing, its the most balanced approach. I mean its no surprise that WotC/HASBRO have better and cheaper outlets of distribution that Paizo lol.

 

[Rygar]

Lately I've been wondering what the majority of users think about the new edition. I was noticing the negative article on the Starter Set found on the home page today.
I wanted to directly comment on this news headline. I see it's possible but I don't know how. If someone knows, I'd love to hear how. Some read these articles and think that the the writer's opinion is the way most think.
I find it interesting that there are a lot of posts at the bottom that don't agree. I wonder what the majority think of 5e so far? According to Amazon's customers, most like it. Are there other sites that are unbiased where you can get a good idea of the general feeling toward 5e?

I don't think it's posible to get an idea of the general feeling yet. I say that because...

-Some number of people wrote it off awhile ago and aren't even watching
-Some number of people are waiting for the DMG to form an opinion

This really could go either way. I also suspect that more than any other edition, 5th edition runs the risk of early player loss. They seem to have been designing around Organized Play, and made some decisions that over time could rub people the wrong way, so it is possible that we'll see in a year or so a lot of "I liked it at first but...".

There just isn't enough information yet.