D&D General Dungeons & Dragons Encyclopedia - new product

[Remathilis]

Looks fun, great gift idea for kids and teens who like to read.

Might not be a bad option for newer players who want a brief overview of elements of setting lore.

 

[Starmaster]

Seems okay, though I'm going to wait for it to be discounted before picking it up (which seems like it happens fairly regularly for these kinds of D&D books; Worlds & Realms is currently sitting at an oddly-specific 57% off for a new copy at Amazon, Lore & Legends is 58% off, etc.).

In years past, Amazon used to sell most of their books at a very nice pre-order discount of 20-30% off retail. Now they've flipped the script. You usually have to pay full price (or maybe get a modest discount of 3-10% if you're lucky) until demand dies down a few months after release. Typical behavior for a company that's taken over the marketplace. If you don't mind waiting until that long after the item's release date, that's when their heavy book discounts kick in. I use CamelCamelCamel to alert me when the price of something I'm interested in drops below my willingness-to-pay threshold.

I don't do this with D&D rulebooks. I get them at FLGS on their release date (2 weeks before regular street date) for several reasons. First is to support FLGS. Second is to get alternate covers when available. Third is that I'm too anxious to wait on these. Fourth is that books I receive from Amazon these days range from moderate damage to smashed to hell. I started ordering books from them in the 1990s and back then they would arrive stacked from largest on bottom to smallest on top. The whole stack would then be shrink-wrapped to an oversized sheet of thick cardboard on the bottom, and then put in a box. The result was that very rarely would anything arrive damaged. Again, what I see now is typical behavior for a company that's taken over the marketplace.

 

[Dire Bare]

So, about the actual book?

The marketing blurb being wrong, perhaps even deliberately deceitful, is much, much more important.

But to the actual thread topic . . . I'm excited for the book. I've always been a fan of the Marvel and DC encyclopedias that DK puts out, so I'm hoping this one will be equally fun.

 

[Alzrius]

The marketing blurb being wrong, perhaps even deliberately deceitful, is much, much more important.

 

[M.L. Martin]

Looks like the headers are color-coded by setting: Purple for Eberron, Green for Forgotten Realms, Red for Dragonlance, Blue for Spelljammer, Black for Ravenloft, and Gray for 'generic' D&D. There's a Yellow header on the Moonstone Dragon, but I'm not familiar enough with those to know with which setting they might be associated.

 

[Mecheon]

"Almiraj" lets give parents a word that is easy to pronounce....

Technically the name should just be "Mi'raj". Al means 'the'. But, well, this is a long standing issue.

Its the actual name of the mythical critter in question regardless, and miraj isn't exactly a tricky name.