D20 Filtered: What do you think?

[BradfordFerguson]

Lowered Price

Due to an earlier miscommunication with the printers, I can afford to lower the price of the print magazine to $6.00 per issue. I'm doing a little test to see if the magazine will sell on eBay. I'm offering it with Buy Now and shipping costs an extra $1.50 for USPS Media Mail (usually 5 days in the US) or an extra $2.50 for USPS First Class.

I haven't yet decided whether to change the price for the PDF. A couple of stores in the U.S. will sell the print version. I will post another reply with their names in a week or so.

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Bradford Ferguson
D20 Filtered

 

[Darrin Drader]

I think this is generally useful overall. It was good to finally see a review on Serpent Kingdoms. The interview with Monte Cook was also interesting, as always.

The main problem I see with this was the obviously biased and slanted review of the Planar Handbook. Apparently the main criticism of this book in the review is that it isn't Planescape. Well duh! I like the comment from the review "Why drop the original flavor and go for the mundane?" Planescape as a setting was a misnomer in the first place since the planes have been part of D&D since 1E, yet everyone seems to be working from this annoying and misguided perception that nothing came before it when it was released in mid-2nd edition. I'll be honest here, I was never a fan of the Planescape setting. I didn't like sigil, I didn't like the art, and I didn't like the lingo. At most, every product could be refined down to a few pages that actually presented useful material on the planes that I could use. That said, the Planar Handbook gives fans of Planescape more information for their 3E game than any other product released to date, and yet people complain because it isn't Planescape. It really just shows that you can't make certain people happy so there's really no sense bothering in the first place. Do I think Planar Handbook is the best D&D book ever? Of course not, but I do think that it succeeds to some degree in what it set out to accomplish.

As for the pay or not to pay issue, while I aknowledge the effort that went into this, paying for a review zine isn't something I'm willing to do unless it also has a good amount of game content I can use. No offense, but I can get this kind of material here at ENWorld, at D20zines.com, or a number of other quality sites. I don't begrudge anyone who is willing to pay for this type of e-zine, but I won't be one of them. Frankly, whenever I download an E-zine, I usually look it over for anything useful, which takes about 10 minutes, and then delete the file.

 

[BradfordFerguson]

Thanks for the input Whisperfoot. I agree about the Planar Handbook review. I have my reviewers state their bias when they are doing reviews and the reviewer stated her bias. I usually try to review products individually.

Thumbing through the book before I sent it to the reviewer, I did not find the product compelling either. There didn't seem to be any unifying theme as it was a collection of revised material (or rethought material). The art isn't as good as what is typical for WotC. It just seemed to be thrown together.

Anyhow, from next month's issue onward, D20 Filtered will have more exclusive excerpts and previews that you will not be able to find other places. Also, if you are a reader of Monte Cook's work, we will also have reviews of Beyond Countless Doorways and Grimoire II. You're right in that you can find reviews elsewhere, but they aren't in one convenient place and presented in a unified way.

 

[HellHound]

hmmm... I've been biting my tongue until this last line.

"they aren't in one convenient place and presented in a unified way."

I have to disagree - www.enworld.org is very convenient. A lot more convenient than paying for a collection of reviews.

And the link to the staff reviewers gives a selection of reviews from respected and quality reviewers that I feel I know, that I know their biases and have learned where they are coming from.

And they are free. That is more convenient than adding money to my paypal account and then buying a PDF.

Please note that this is my -personal- opinion as a consumer of reviews, not as a publisher or representative of E.N.Publishing. I think the magazine would have to offer something more than a primary focus on reviews to really get my attention.

 

[Talrinys]

Well i liked it, but it just isn't worth the money i think, as many have alrady pointed out ENworld is a great way to get reviews, the interview i did enjoy though, and that would be a good recurring feature.

 

[KingLurker]

I can't imagine spending money on a selection of reviews of some of the larger products on the market.

The fact is that the really big products are already well known and people know what is in them and generally about the quality -=- well, at least people who use the internet which obviously includes those who buy PDF products such as this magazine (the early-adopter set).

To make the magazine useful to the PDF-buying market, it would have to concentrate on smaller products than the big-name items you have reviewed in the current issue.

Oh yeah, and you would have to provide a more compelling reason to buy it. After all, the reviews on E.N.World are typically by people who have written hundreds of reviews -=- these are reviewers that we have learned to trust and know. Your reviewers (well with a few exceptions) are new to the scene, and one of them ragged on a product basically for being a 3e product instead of a rehash of a 2e product.

Bleh.