D&D 5E Evil characters material not going to be in the PHB

[Sunseeker]

They want the first PHB to be very accessible to new players, as well as something existing players will want. You do that with a less expensive book, that isn't huge.

I disagree, you do it with different versions. Basic/Standard/Advanced. New players start with the "Basic Rulebook" it's thinner and cheaper.

 

[Sunseeker]

I may get flamed for this.

People who post on role-playing game boards are not the core of the hobby. Ninety-nine percent of the hobby never posts on role-playing game forums. The tiny segment of the hobby (out of millions) who post on game boards are those who are dedicated enough to spend large portions of their time discussing the hobby.

That's not a core audience. That's a fringe group.

The fringe group for whom the choice between reading a three-hundred page textbook, or playing Monopoly, is not a meaningful decision.

You're not making much of an impression if your post can basically be summed up as "the opinions of people who post online mean nothing." which would equally apply to your own opinion as mine.

 

[Mistwell]

You're not making much of an impression if your post can basically be summed up as "the opinions of people who post online mean nothing." which would equally apply to your own opinion as mine.

He didn't say the opinions are meaningless, he said the tastes differ.

And he's right. We have four threads on a single option for a fighter/ranger/paladin, lasting pages after pages after pages of posts. Your average player truly does not care on whit about that level of minutiae. By the nature of the thing, people who post a lot of message boards are harder-core fans than the bulk who do not.

Regardless, I think it's very safe to say you're not going to get a $50 price-point on a massive tome for the first PHB. I am pretty sure they are using the 1e/2e/3.0e model of thinner PHB, low price-point.

 

[Sunseeker]

Regardless, I think it's very safe to say you're not going to get a $50 price-point on a massive tome for the first PHB. I am pretty sure they are using the 1e/2e/3.0e model of thinner PHB, low price-point.

Which you will then end up with more books, with less content, for higher price-per-page costs.

 

[Nellisir]

Which you will then end up with more books, with less content, for higher price-per-page costs.

From WotC's perspective, that's probably a feature, not a bug.

This is the core book, or books, of the hobby, from now until hopefully a long ways out - I think there will be a lot in there. It'll be streamlined, though. Not much for Advanced options, but perfectly functional for Basic & Standard. Not a lot of frills - your aboleth pact warlock goliath is going to have to be homebrewed a bit.

 

[Falling Icicle]

I'm joining this conversation a bit late, but I think that the approach they're taking to alignment in Next makes this largely a moot point. Classes no longer have alignment requirements. Spells like detect evil now detect things like devils instead. So there's really nothing preventing you from playing an evil PC at all. If you want to play an evil paladin, for example, you can. That said, I would be very irritated if they took a lot of iconic spells, like animate dead (which IMO shouldn't be an "[evil]" spell to begin with), and left them out of the PHB.

 

[Random Bystander]

He didn't say the opinions are meaningless, he said the tastes differ.

And he's right. We have four threads on a single option for a fighter/ranger/paladin, lasting pages after pages after pages of posts. Your average player truly does not care on whit about that level of minutiae. By the nature of the thing, people who post a lot of message boards are harder-core fans than the bulk who do not.

Regardless, I think it's very safe to say you're not going to get a $50 price-point on a massive tome for the first PHB. I am pretty sure they are using the 1e/2e/3.0e model of thinner PHB, low price-point.

Exactly. I have posted regularly and irregularly on message boards, so I am including myself in the fringe of the hobby. I have played Monopoly perhaps eight times. When I sat down to read the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Player's Handbook, I finished reading it in one sitting. I am not the core, either.

And I mean no insult by this. There is nothing insulting implied in being passionate about a hobby, no more than there is something insulting about a casual member of a hobby. However, we are outnumbered by casual gamers. It is the casual gamers who make the bulk of purchases in the role-playing game hobby, and thus it is the casual gamers that Wizards must cater to. Another company, one with a more niche game, could perhaps not loose income with a more complicated basic game, or no basic game at all. There are, in all probability, very few casual gamers who are fans of the Amber series of novels. For a niche market such as that, appealing primarily to the passionate fringe may make sense.

For Dungeons and Dragons, the most recognized role-playing game world-wide, I am sorry, but from Wizards' perspective, appealing primarily to the casual gamer is likely to make the most sense.

 

[Sunseeker]

From WotC's perspective, that's probably a feature, not a bug.

Of course.

This is the core book, or books, of the hobby, from now until hopefully a long ways out - I think there will be a lot in there. It'll be streamlined, though. Not much for Advanced options, but perfectly functional for Basic & Standard. Not a lot of frills - your aboleth pact warlock goliath is going to have to be homebrewed a bit.

Frankly I'm still going to hope for a thin, maybe even paperback "Basic" version and a hefty, hardbound, expensive "Advanced" version. Because I'd rather drop big bucks for one book, than 2 to 3 times the amount for the same material in a bunch of tiny books.

 

[was]

I think an introductory book like the PHB should be streamlined and priced reasonably. Therefore, I have no problems with the material for evil classes being included in the DMG. IME, the DM is the one who uses such material 90% of the time anyways.

 

[Hussar]

Of course.


Frankly I'm still going to hope for a thin, maybe even paperback "Basic" version and a hefty, hardbound, expensive "Advanced" version. Because I'd rather drop big bucks for one book, than 2 to 3 times the amount for the same material in a bunch of tiny books.

The problem is, from a publisher's standpoint, those two books cost about the same to produce. It's not really the page count that determines most of the price - it's distribution and whatnot. All the stuff after the book is made. I mean, heck, a large chunk of the cost of a book is the cover and the binding, not the actual pages. So a 100 page book and a 300 page book aren't really all that different to produce. But, when you start getting into distribution, that size makes a huge difference because you need a lot more physical space to transport those books. What would fit in one box, now fits in three. That sort of thing.

While I understand what you're saying, it's honestly not going to happen.