Concerns for the well being of D&D

[Evenglare]

Now im kind of worried about D&D in terms of classes. If the reprints are stopped we lose our basic classes . Fighter , wizard, cleric, rogue, ranger etc. Dont tell me a knight is the same thing as a fighter. A knight is a very specific kind of fighter. They are NOT the catch all that the fighter is. Also, what about the magic items. Surely they are not going to be able to reprint all of them in these paperback books they are touting. As well as all the classic monsters from MM1. Sure some of them may be in the new manual. I guess what im trying to say is that there is no way the new essentials could possibly give us all that we had in PHB, DM, and MM. As well as the question from new people after essentials looking at new suppliments. PHB 2? Where's PHB 1? As can be said with all of the books.

 

[mkill]

I can only speak about myself, but I'm completely unaffected. I have a PHB, MM, and DMG, and there is no reason to buy a second one. There is also the material in DDI.

Besides, even if there are no reprints currently, first WotC has to run out of stock, then all online retailers, bookstores and local game stores have to run out of stock, then ebay has to ban D&D, and then ... it's 2012, and depending on what prophecy you believe in, it's either the end of the world or WotC will publish a revised PHB (or both).

 

[Aegeri]

A re-release update of the core three books, ESPECIALLY the original Monster Manual with the original monsters "Unsucked" I would buy. I don't see them removing these from print as a bad thing, because they are vastly out of date with the essentials. Publishing new books wth the errata would make much more sense.

 

[doctorhook]

Now im kind of worried about D&D in terms of classes. If the reprints are stopped we lose our basic classes . Fighter , wizard, cleric, rogue, ranger etc. Dont tell me a knight is the same thing as a fighter. A knight is a very specific kind of fighter. They are NOT the catch all that the fighter is. Also, what about the magic items. Surely they are not going to be able to reprint all of them in these paperback books they are touting. As well as all the classic monsters from MM1. Sure some of them may be in the new manual. I guess what im trying to say is that there is no way the new essentials could possibly give us all that we had in PHB, DM, and MM. As well as the question from new people after essentials looking at new suppliments. PHB 2? Where's PHB 1? As can be said with all of the books.

You're worrying way too much. You needn't be "concerned" for the "well-being" of the game; it's not going away, and your version of it isn't changing. (Certainly, the ink in the books on your shelf isn't going to update itself, for one thing.)

As for the Knight, remember that there's probably at least one more new as-yet-unrevealed Fighter build/subclass in the Essentials, and that each such subclass is (or soon will be) as customiseable as the PH1 Fighter builds are. Also, be aware that the PH1 Fighter builds are the oldest and arguably least well-designed of all the Fighter builds currently available; the new subclasses have the benefit of the design lessons learned from two years of public scrutiny -- the best kind of playtesting available. Ditto for magic items, and everything else.

Don't worry that the Fighter or Cleric or Wizard is going away; even if the old versions never see print again, take heart that they'll probably still be on D&DI, and have faith that the old stuff is being replaced with new stuff that does the job better.

 

[ourchair]

mkill has a good point.

It's not like the Essentials combined with the lack of reprints of the first books means that these mechanics are going to fade away. These aren't poorly kept manuscripts or badly stored film reels. Some catastrophic disaster notwithstanding, the original classes and races aren't going away.

1) Wizards still has the means to reproduce the old mechanics by initiating a new wave of prints if they really feel like it. It's not like they don't still have the PDFs and inDesign files for the original material.

2) There're enough torrents out there of the original material that at worst, we're going to see it lying around as 'abandonware.'

3) The Character Builder still has the mechanical content of those 'old' classes.

The point is that it's going to take a lot more than 'no reprints' to kill those things. Lord knows that Golden Age comic books, forgotten black and white film reels and pre-20th century literature has survived worse.

 

[FireLance]

The obvious solution is for all gamers everywhere to buy up all the existing PH1 stock. Then, WotC will print brand new PH1s (hopefully with errata) to meet the overwhelming demand.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Most likely, all the errata'd material from the out of print books will eventually be re-printed in later volumes, as if it were new material. The Essenstials Compendium will contain the errata'd versions of all the basic rules (rules that aren't character classes, prettymuch) from the PH, and the DM set will presumably do the same for the DMG. Probably not just the PH & DMG /1/, either. Latter post-essentials products should continue that trend. If you already have books & errata, you're set, if you're a latecomer, later products should fill you in.

And, of course, if you don't want to try to puzzle all that out, just get DDI. WotC touted DDI to Hasbro as a WoW-like income stream, and I can't imagine it's delivering, so anything that makes the dead-tree line sufficiently voluminous and confusing that it forced folks into DDI is a good thing.

Don't doubt that Hasbro will kick D&D to the kurb if WotC can't deliver the $s.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Could we not stop with the end is nigh threads until the end is actually nigh as in essentials have been published and WoTC have actually announced some policy, or at least a week.

 

[ourchair]

Could we not stop with the end is nigh threads until the end is actually nigh as in essentials have been published and WoTC have actually announced some policy, or at least a week.

I suggest a digital delivery stream that will converge all of the ENWorld threads on D&D Essentials (and any other RPG products that have not yet been released) into one Internet access dependent online tool.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Now im kind of worried about D&D in terms of classes. If the reprints are stopped we lose our basic classes . Fighter , wizard, cleric, rogue, ranger etc. Dont tell me a knight is the same thing as a fighter. A knight is a very specific kind of fighter. They are NOT the catch all that the fighter is. Also, what about the magic items. Surely they are not going to be able to reprint all of them in these paperback books they are touting. As well as all the classic monsters from MM1. Sure some of them may be in the new manual. I guess what im trying to say is that there is no way the new essentials could possibly give us all that we had in PHB, DM, and MM. As well as the question from new people after essentials looking at new suppliments. PHB 2? Where's PHB 1? As can be said with all of the books.

I'm not seeing anything "lost" here. The fighter hasn't been a "catch all" class since Pre-Arcana AD&D and Basic D&D.