Draconomicon: surprises ahead! (scoop + speculation)

[Mouseferatu]

You have got to be kidding me. MULTIPLE Draconomicons? What a waste.

Huh. And here I thought the stuff that Rob, Bruce, and I had written was actually pretty interesting and useful. Thanks for setting me straight on that.

 

[Exen Trik]

My bets for the metallic book (assuming the 5 basic are covered) are: steel and mercury. Can't think of a third common metallic type.

Lead?

 

[Spatula]

Huh. And here I thought the stuff that Rob, Bruce, and I had written was actually pretty interesting and useful. Thanks for setting me straight on that.

Well, I'm sure it can be both useful to those that are happy buying multiple dragon books (with more detail per dragon), and a waste to those that would prefer one book with less depth and more breadth. As a freelancer you presumably had no say in how the books are structured, so I don't see why a criticism of the business decision should be taken as an insult to the work you & the others have done. Which would be hard to criticize in any case, since we haven't seen anything more than a promotional summary of it.

 

[Dausuul]

I wouldn't consider it a waste. In fact, I'm giving some thought to buying the first 4E Draconomicon, which I didn't bother with in 3E. The fact that it's chromatics-only gives me hope; I've never liked the "organized dragons" so popular in earlier editions, and dragon-themed sourcebooks always seemed to drift in that direction. I like dragons to be loners, with little interest in human society, whose interactions with their own kind (aside from mating) consist mostly of vicious battles.

Since 4E is specifying chromatics as the "solitary, savage predator" dragon type, and leaving organization to the metallics, I'm cautiously optimistic that the first 4E Draconomicon will actually cater to my tastes in dragonkind. I might actually get a decent amount of use out of those 288 pages, instead of 144 of them being totally wasted.

Of course, Mouseferatu could tell me if my hope is well-founded or not...

 

[Kaodi]

Maybe it is interesting and useful, Ari, but I do not believe that that much focus is needed, even for the games iconic monsters. If you told me that you, personally, could write a 288 page book on a single character class (the wizard, for instance) and that it was both useful and interesting, I would believe you, but my complaint would be the same. I think that launching a Draconomicon early on in 4th Edition is a good business move, but Spatula is essentially correct in assessing that I think a book with more breadth and less depth is what was needed, especially at this stage in the game. Looking at the 3e Draconomicon, perhaps the only thing I was disappointed in was that the monster section did not include reprints (or updates) of some of the less iconic dragons that had been included in various sources. I would be cool with a Draconomicon that covered only the the MM1 Dragons, as long as it covered ALL of them in a single text.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I would be cool with a Draconomicon that covered only the the MM1 Dragons, as long as it covered ALL of them in a single text.

Uh, that's what Draconomicon 1 does. Metallics, as has been revealed recently in the review on Aint It Cool News, aren't in the first MM.

As far as "more breadth, less depth," perhaps you should wait and see what's in the book before deciding if it's too deep, too shallow, too broad, or too narrow. There's a lot more variety to the material in the book than you might expect.

 

[Kaodi]

Metallics are not in the first MM? That is news to me. Man, what is the world coming to when there are no metallic dragons in the MM of D&D...

Part of the problem lies in that I most definately fall in he category of consumers that is not out to be every single supplement, just because I cannot actually afford to do so. Some people can, and I suppose that is great for them, but whatever. If it were not for Eberron, I would probably be content with just the PHB I, DMG I and MM I for my 4e purchases, since I am not going to have significant money to spend for a long time. Since I do love Eberron, however, and will likely continue to purchase all of those supplements ( I, for one, am grateful for the breather until 2009, just Stormreach to pick up at my birthday. You write for Eberron, don't you, Ari? ), as well as the 4e material that allows me to run a core Eberron game, which I imagine will likely consist of PHB II, DMG II and MM II, and probably not a whole lot else, assuming Primal and Psionic are in the PHB II. But there are a few exceptions that I would have been open too, because I would of thought them important enough to be considered Core+. In 3e, that was MotP, D&Dg, and to an extent, the Draconomicon. But by dividing up all that dragony goodness into multiple tomes in 4e, the chances of me buying it in the long run have gone from moderate to little if any, because it is now twice as hard to justify buying (because I would have to buy them both, naturally, if I bought either, as that how the collector's instinct goes). In fact, looking at the paltry size of the MotP compared to the Draconomicon I, I think that is probably unnecessary as well, and add to that the future D&Dg. So, it is possible that, for me, multiple Draconomicons has actually cost WotC three potential purchases, multiplied by however many people use the same arithmetic. Now, it is completely possible that WotC will make that up in terms of people who DO buy multiple Draconomicons, but I imagine that there is probably a scenario in which they could of released just as many books either way and not had people like me deciding that so many fairly important concepts were extraneous.

 

[AFGNCAAP]

First thing that I thought of with the mention of the 3 new chromatic dragons were: orange, purple, and yellow.

It completes the color wheel (if you will), and all three have had prior treatments/stat-ups for D&D (notably in issues of Dragon).

Grey and brown are also contenders for the same reason.

However, I do have to wonder if there'll be chromatics with color schemes that could be misconstrued with those of metallic dragons (things like visible elements such as a metallic shine/gloss vs. a flat color aside). Silver & platinum can cover grey; new, bright copper can cover orange; both brass and gold could cover yellow.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Metallics are not in the first MM? That is news to me. Man, what is the world coming to when there are no metallic dragons in the MM of D&D...

Well, look on the bright side. If there are no metallics in the first MM, and you don't buy the second MM, then you can also buy the first (chromatic) Draconomicon without feeling the need to buy the second (metallic) one.

( I, for one, am grateful for the breather until 2009, just Stormreach to pick up at my birthday. You write for Eberron, don't you, Ari? )

I have certainly done so in the past. Saying anything more at this time would be inappropriate.

 

[Cadfan]

I don't see how:

Red = Fire
White = Cold
Green = Poison
Black = Acid
Blue = Lightning

is so confusing.

Acid is black, and makes everything around it shadowy? Lightning is blue and lives underground?

Bad: We need a dragon that is red. We'll make it breathe fire, and live in a volcano, because those are also red.
Good: I want a volcano themed dragon. He'll live in lava, breathe fire, and be fiery colors. Red will be prominent.

Both approaches may lead to the same place in some situations. But you probably won't see this:

Bad: We need a dragon that is blue. He'll breathe lightning, because we gave cold to the white dragon, because lightning hasn't been used yet, and because nothing else is remotely close to blue. He'll live in a desert even though deserts aren't really famous for their thunderstorms, and he'll burrow underground, because we haven't used those yet.

You might see this though:

Good: We need a storm dragon. He'll breathe lightning and love stormy weather and rain. He'll be mostly blue, with the following other details. Etc, etc, etc.

Good: We need a desert dragon. We'll make him brown and patterned like a snake. We'll give him a habit of lurking with his body mostly covered in sand, then leaping out to devour people. That way his pattern and his habits work together- its camouflage!