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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Beginning of the End" data-source="post: 5349800" data-attributes="member: 55271">Clearly not. You can't (a) increase the number of books available and (b) triple the number of "buy this first" products on the market and achieve those goals.New Customer Pre-Essentials(TM) is forced to look at a wall o' product and eventually figure out that they need the PHB / DMG / MM to start playing the game.New Customer Post-Essentials(TM) is forced to look at a wall o' even more product and eventually figures out that they can buy either the PHB/DMG/MM, the Starter Set, or a combination of 2 or 3 different Essentials products to start playing the game.Arguably the Starter Set at least represents a lower price point, but since it's actually a pay-to-preview product the Essentials line actually increases the cost to start playing the full game compared to the PHB/DMG/MM triumvirate. (And that's true even if you skip the Starter Set entirely. Nor does it include the full line of Essentials products.)With that being said: WotC had certainly dug itself into something of a hole by degrading the label of "core rulebook" until it meant "everything we publish". They might have been able to re-brand the "Essentials" trademark to replace that lost utility, but if that was the goal they reallty didn't achieve it: Labeling 10 different products with a total retail cost of several hundred dollars as being "essential" and "everything you need to play" D&D doesn't look particularly effective to me.AFAICT, the Essentials products don't solve these problems. They make them worse.There are, IME, two kinds of players: Those who want to own the rulebook and those who don't. They will often intermix at the same table. So the OP's math seems like a fake-out to me for several reasons:(1) Many tables feature "one set of rulebooks" (usually owned by the DM). For these groups, the cost has gone from $105 (PHB/DMG/MM) to $110 (Rules Compendium, one Heroes book, DM's Kit, Monster Vault); $130 (for both Heroes books); or even $150 (if they also bought the Starter Set).(2) If you have a player who likes to own the rulebook (instead of just borrowing a copy from someone else), then I find it doubtful that they're going to stop with just the character creation rules. They're going to also buy a copy of the Rules Compendium. So they've gone from $25 to a $40 investment.(3) The idea that a DM isn't going to want a full set of rulebooks -- including the character creation rules -- seems alien to me. So saying that everyone at the table is going to own one of the Heroes books except for the DM seems bogus to me. The DM is going to own both of them, which immediately cranks their costs back up.Finally, the concept of "everyone chipping in to buy a game and try it out" is an inherently geeky concept. And, IME, even most geeks don't do it.Essentials is more confusing and more expensive.</blockquote>

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