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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 3835869" data-attributes="member: 22424">Perhaps. I don't think this "Basic Set" will sell terribly well. I might be wrong about that.The DMG will no doubt include reams of advice on how to prepare adventures, design campaigns, and run the game. All of these are things that really should be there. After all, what is the DMG if not a guide to DMs on how to run the game?And yet, six months after the book comes out, those will just be Y, Z and T pages that people flip past every time without even thinking about it.But then, let's consider the 3.5e DMG for a moment. How much of that really gets used by people on a regular basis? I suspect not too much - there's the XP chart, the Wealth-by-Level guidelines, the traps, and the magic items (although even there, the ones that get used over and over have long since been memorised). Oh, and seven Prestige Classes. That's about 100 pages out of a 300 page book.The book also contains advice on adventure design (read once), the sample cosmology (read once, and not used since... and I actually use the Great Wheel), the Epic Level rules (read once... when they were in the Epic Level Handbook). I'm sure there's more there, but I don't use it. And let's not get started on the waste of paper that was the 2nd Edition DMG!Hell, let's look at the PHB. This is the core rulebook for the game, but when was the last time you really used the sections on time and movement, encumberance and light? Or did you read these once, memorise the content, and then flip past them every time? Then there are all the spells. Not only do most casters use the same small subset of the spells, but many many groups never go above 12th level. So, really, what's the point of the spells of 7th, 8th and 9th level? Aren't they just wasted pages?The point is, every RPG book (and especially the core rules of a new edition of the game) is going to have some number of pages that are rendered unnecessary after a very short time playing the game. And not everything can be of equal utility to every group. So, where something is of significant utility to a significant portion of gamers (specifically, new DMs), why not include it?Actually, it's a symptom of a cure to a much more malignant disease. The simple fact is that the existing player base will dwindle in time, by simple attrition if for no other reason. D&D must attract new players if it is to survive.D&D as it stands has a level of complexity that is fine (some might say ideal) for experienced gamers. And it's a fairly easy game to teach - the concepts are intuitive and the gameplay fun. But if you don't have an experienced player to teach you, and an experienced DM to run the game for you, it is a nightmare to learn. If you give a set of the core rulebooks to a group of teenagers (even a group who are keen to play) and leave them for six months, you won't get six players out of it - you'll get a set of ignored core rulebooks as they play Magic, Warhammer or WoW instead.</blockquote>

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