Complete Overload

[Vaxalon]

I think the "crunch boom" will be going away soon. As you say, there's just soooo much out there.

Instead, I think what will sell are modular tools that DM's can use to build their own game settings. A game setting is more specific than a campaign setting; it's the individual setting for his own game, and every DM does it, whether it's for a published setting or his own.

 

[Mystery Man]

I think the "crunch boom" will be going away soon. As you say, there's just soooo much out there.

Instead, I think what will sell are modular tools that DM's can use to build their own game settings. A game setting is more specific than a campaign setting; it's the individual setting for his own game, and every DM does it, whether it's for a published setting or his own.

I agree and fervently hope so. They need to start taking care of the DM's for a change!

It's what the industry needs badly. Way too many people who want to play with no one wanting to DM. If you have no DM's, you have no one playing the game thus no reason to buy new products. One would think...

 

[Gez]

You know, there's in average one DM and four other players.

PC-crunch books have thus a five-time larger audience. That's also why adventures and settings sell less, only DMs are really interested by them. (And maybe cheaters for adventures, but they are not that numerous.)

 

[Henry]

Buttercup, Nightfall is probably thinking about your posts where you were musing about getting the Midnight Campaign setting.

Echohawk, where did you get those numbers? I'm snipping this for posterity (because the question comes up ALL the time) and knowing the source of the figures would be helpful.

I honestly don't feel inundated at all - but then, I also get choosy about what I buy, too. My current FR game uses ONE book besides the three core books - and that's the FRCS. I don't pick and choose through all my stuff, nor do I open the doors wide. What I do is ask the player to bring feats, spells, PrC's, etc. on a case by case basis; generally, I can tell if it's unbalanced, and if an imbalance occurs later, I work with the player to resolve it. That way, the players are not stuck only choosing from what I buy, and I also don't have to comb endless source books. If the player explains in detail why he wants a certain feat/class/etc, then I either allow it, or not. In the end, we still have fun, and there's less focus on rules, more on the game at hand.

 

[MerakSpielman]

It's getting to the point, I think, where the DM just has to choose which books other than core he's going to allow in the campaign. You can limit the number of extra books depending on the dedication of your players to actually read all that stuff, but I don't think my group could handle more than three or four non-core books, and that includes splatbooks.

 

[Altalazar]

It's getting to the point, I think, where the DM just has to choose which books other than core he's going to allow in the campaign. You can limit the number of extra books depending on the dedication of your players to actually read all that stuff, but I don't think my group could handle more than three or four non-core books, and that includes splatbooks.

I don't think it is necessary to even think about it at the "book" level - no one brings in a whole book, they bring in a single class or feat or spell, usually one at a time. That is really easy to handle on a case-by-case basis. If it looks balanced and adds to the character, great, it's in! If not, it's out! No muss, no fuss, no worries about having to read all of those books or blanket rule any of them in or out.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

I really don't like the direction D&D has gone in.

I love the 3e/3.5 system, there is no doubt about that. It fixes all the problems I had with the 2e system.

BUT STOP IT WITH THE SPLATBOOKS ALREADY!

That goes for all the d20 publishers too. I'm drowning in prestige classes, racial variants, base classes, feats, and systems that I'll never get around to using- while good setting material and adventure modules are scant. 1e and 2e provided all kinds of great material in these respects- I'm just not seeing enough new product with it. Even publishers who started out writing good adventures have been making less and less (Necromancer Games)... it's rather sad, really.

Also, I'm not sure how much truth there is to this 4/1 ratio of DM's to players- it seems most of the players I play with buy modules and setting material to run their own games with, but maybe my situation is unique in that respect.

In addition, WotC has not created some material I would have found very valuable, such as a good domain management system (AEG and Mongoose have entries in that field now), a real mass combat system (not a Miniatures game), or a Magic: The Gathering setting... but we can argue about that one all day...

Oh well. Back to converting the classics.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

I love it. Give me more!

The more classes, feats, spells, monsters and so on there are to choose from, the richer my game is, both from a PC standpoint and a DM standpoint.

So...hook me up!

 

[Desdichado]

Oh yeah, how I wish I was still living in that fabulous age where all my afternoons and evenings I had I could fill with sifting through tons of game material to pick and choose those among the hundreds of feats I compared carefully with others of the same ilk before choosing them, when I had hours at my command to screen every incoming class, prestige class, template and race for it's merits, flaws and how it would fit, or not fit, in any of the campaign worlds of mine.

Of course, you could (gasp!) not buy everything that comes out if you don't want to.

I don't mind more options.

 

[Desdichado]

Here's a quick count of the D&D products published by TSR/WoTC each year since 1974, excluding magazines and reprints of products with no new content:

[...]

I think the numbers speak for themselves

Yeah, but what does that include? Back in the day, modules and novels probably made up a big portion of those high numbers, or are those numbers filtered for that?