Cynicism of an AD&D refugee

[malraux]

I don't get this.

How?

Future splats could be chock full of brand spankin' new stuff to get the bang for my buck.

They don't need to parse out the core in order to make new splats a "better deal."

The "better deal" would be to give us new stuff in the future, rather than just making us more able to do again what we did two years ago just fine.

But really, for 3e, the splats were never as good as the core, IMHO. Certainly there was never a splat so good that I didn't see a reason to use it over my PHB, just as a supplement to.

Besides, I'm certainly not arguing that WotC is parsing out little bits of stuff, just that they are thinking ahead so that future books will have a space.

 

[chitzk0i]

I see an additional option: borrowing books from your D&D group. Unless you play exclusively online, if someone else in your group has a book, you could use it too.

 

[Imaro]

One thing that I think keeps getting missed in this argument is the cost of development.

Even if the core books have fewer options or mechanics or word count, they could still be a better value through development. Time, effort, skill, care, and love for the work of developing quality rules costs money. That value isn't recorded in number of options or word count.

I guess an example would be simplifying the rules. Lots of fine tuning of rules and stripping some of them down to bare essentials, while trying to still provide good play, results in a smaller word count, and seemingly or really, in fewer options.

Another example is editing. Sometimes good editing starts by being ruthless and cutting until only the simplest of prose that expresses an idea is left. Should that end product cost less than the unedited, uncut version? Not necessarily, because the value might have gone up even as the end product got lighter.

Call me skeptical of this reasoning... especially since the skill challenge rules still don't seem to have been ironed out properly (even with the errata) ... and there has been a nice bit of errata for the core rules released since they went on sale. Just not sure I'm buying this is where all the value went.

 

[Delta]

While I am sure the new D&D was designed with lofty game play goals in mind, I do not hesitate to suggest it was designed with certain financial goals in mind, too. Now, I am one for good business, but I would never deliberately attempt to make my customers pay more for less value, and that's what I feel is being sold here.

Gygax agrees. From Dragon 1979:

From a standpoint of sales, I beam broadly at the very thought of an unending string of new, improved, super, energized, versions of D&D being hyped to the loyal followers of the gaming hobby in general and role playing fantasy games in particular.

As a game designer I do not agree, particularly as a gamer who began with chess. The original could benefit from a careful reorganization and expansion to clarify things, and this might be done at some future time. As all of the ADVANCED D&D system is not written yet, it is a bit early for prognostication, but I envision only minor expansions and some rules amending on a gradual, edition to edition, basis. When you have a fine product, it is time to let well enough alone. I do not believe that hobbyists and casual players should be continually barraged with new rules, new systems, and new drains on their purses.

 

[darjr]

Call me skeptical of this reasoning... especially since the skill challenge rules still don't seem to have been ironed out properly (even with the errata) ... and there has been a nice bit of errata for the core rules released since they went on sale. Just not sure I'm buying this is where all the value went.

No, I'm not saying it's where all the value went. I do think that, at it's core, its a great game, and they've done great work with it. I'm satisfied with that value. Some of the bits and pieces, some even important ones, have issues, but the big value changes for me are in things like the increased ease of putting scenarios and encounters together.

That kind of thing, in my opinion, took a lot of heavy lifting, and demolition of the older rules, sometimes right down to the foundation, before building 4e could begin. I think more so than in any other version change. In some ways I'm very surprised there are not more issues with the system.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But really, for 3e, the splats were never as good as the core, IMHO. Certainly there was never a splat so good that I didn't see a reason to use it over my PHB, just as a supplement to.

Well, part of that was that 3e didn't want you to replace the PHB with anything else. It was made so that you wouldn't have to or want to.

That said, there were definitely campaigns that I played where splatbooks gave us more classes and races for the players than the PHB did. And there's a whole galaxy of 3rd party products that were leaps and bounds better than the core in many respects.

Certainly, 3e gained a lot of value for me by focusing on brand new stuff after the core covered the basic needs of what D&D had been up until 3e began.

 

[Vegepygmy]

I'm beginning to think the worst thing WotC ever did was give away 3.X for free in the form of the SRD. By doing so, the created an expectation that the D&D rules should be mostly free, fairly complete, and all further/future supplements were only "splat" that served to clutter the game with rules the DM must work tirelessly to squelch.

That expectation did not originate with 3E or the OGL. 4E is the first edition of the game that was not intended to be "fairly complete" in 3 books: the DMG, PHB, and MM. (I'm talking about the AD&D-2E-3E-4E line here, obviously.)

 

[Imban]

That expectation did not originate with 3E or the OGL. 4E is the first edition of the game that was not intended to be "fairly complete" in 3 books: the DMG, PHB, and MM. (I'm talking about the AD&D-2E-3E-4E line here, obviously.)

A lot of the Basic line was complete in one book or boxed set, of course.

 

[Sigdel]

That expectation did not originate with 3E or the OGL. 4E is the first edition of the game that was not intended to be "fairly complete" in 3 books: the DMG, PHB, and MM. (I'm talking about the AD&D-2E-3E-4E line here, obviously.)

I don't quite agree with you on this. I think that in all the editions of D&D that it was made with a level of complete in the three core books. With 4e they knew that splats were going to be demanded by the players so they made it with built in "sockets" that you can just simply apply the new books in. Where they clamped down is that the characters are more rigid in their use. Adding in the spellblade from FRPG will not unbalance your game like adding in a warlock in 3.5 might.
Trust me on the warlock bit, I ran one for two years (lvls 1-18) in a game that was not meant to handle something with those mechanics. It wasn't the DM's fault, it's just the game had no way to counter that fact that I could nail a touch AC on a 2+, and that was without and kinds of feats to boost my to hit rolls. The game just did not have any built in defenses to that kind of oversight. With the way 4e is designed (so far) that will just be too hard to do.

 

[Jack99]

If the price of a better, more balanced and more fun game (4e) is that I have to buy a few more books in order to be able to do the same that I could in previous editions, it is fine with me.