D&D 5E Future format of books that mimic SCAG: Will you buy them?

[Mercule]

They need to rein in D&D to be about *their* stories, so you'll rather pay them for films and toys than creating and playing in your own.

This is where I've been saying they are confused about their own IP. They could market the snot out of the Realms and leverage that brand without trying to make it synonymous with D&D. Instead, they're reducing the IP they could be using by trying to squish them into one round hole.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

(snip) Are they really curbing piracy? I don't know. You didn't have to look very far to find all the key crunch leaked for SCAG. I have a player that's using one of the SCAG options even though I can all but guarantee he never bought the book. (snip)

WotC's policies on PDFs were never about stopping piracy: they were always about ticking that box on some corporate memo that said something like, "Have you taken appropriate anti-piracy measures as identified by outside/in-house counsel?" In other words, it wasn't about taking effective action: it was pretending that effective action was taken.

By contrast, Paizo actually takes action to stop piracy while also satisfying its customer base.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Scrivener, when did you start working for WotC?

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Yep, I agree. In fact, I think they may even have said that explicitly.

Eh? The last word I heard from WotC is that they're looking to do one or two books per world, based on how the Realms books do. WotC has said that their focus for the time being on the Realms, not indefinitely.

True. Indeed, it's worth noting that even the SCAG doesn't have "Forgotten Realms" on the front cover (might be on the back, though - I haven't checked that).

Factoid: WotC has been minimizing its world logos for some time now, for both sourcebooks and novels.

If I recall correctly this practice started at the tail end of Third Edition.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I'm not interested in settings, so nope.

 

[MechaPilot]

I haven't even looked at SCAG yet, and I likely never will. If a book with that format comes out for Ravenloft, Spelljammer, or Planescape, then I'll take a look and make a decision. I have some players currently who I believe have not had exposure to those settings, and those are my favorite settings. If buying a book like that entices them to move from FR to a setting I actually like, then I'd consider it worth the cost.

 

[aramis erak]

I'd very much prefer something else. $40 for 160 pages is a tough sell.

But... if that's the format they eventually put the finalised Eberron material in, then yes I'd buy it. (But I won't be buying the "Dalelands AG" or the "Birthright AG", or whatever - only the book that hits my specific interest.)

DING! I can't justify the asking price for that page count.

160 page hardcovers...

Well, let's see. FFG sells 96 page HC for $29.95. Their 160pp books tend to be in the $40 range. Their 300 page ones run $60+ Looking at their price list, Strongholds is 144pp, and $39.95. Stay on Target is 96pp and $29.95

Almost certainly, with a couple of caveats:

- Quality is always a factor. If the maps suck, the writing sucks, etc. forget it. My affirmative assumes competence.

- No more Realms. I haven't bought SCAG because it covers the Realms. I really wish the Realms would just find a corner and die, but that's not happening. Eberron, Greyhawk, Ravenloft, and Dark Sun are all gimmes, though. One of the principle reasons for my excitement about SCAG is that it feels like a capstone product to exclusive support of the Realms. If the next SCAG-type product is for the Realms, then I'm out. It'll be just one more product supporting that sad, bloated setting in a different edition. The Realms may be D&D, but D&D is not the Realms.

I agree with your stance on the realms. Unfortunately, unless they blow it up again, it's the setting with the largest specific setting fanbase. In other words, it's the one that is most likely to make money. Nothing much for FR doesn't work in either Mystara nor Greyhawk, tho' both GH and Mystara have thiings that don't work well in the realms.

WotC's policies on PDFs were never about stopping piracy: they were always about ticking that box on some corporate memo that said something like, "Have you taken appropriate anti-piracy measures as identified by outside/in-house counsel?" In other words, it wasn't about taking effective action: it was pretending that effective action was taken.

By contrast, Paizo actually takes action to stop piracy while also satisfying its customer base.

Paizo fails. The pirate scene isn't even finding it a technical challenge to "clean" the PDFs Paizo sells. They chip in, buy using a prepaid card, a spoofed or pitchable email, and then remove the watermarks and hidden customer ID numbers. And then put them up. And they make the purchase and download from other people's wifi... such as by going to McDonalds...

Wizards fails, too. Almost everything D&D 5 goes up within a couple weeks of release as a decent OCR scan.

 

[ExploderWizard]

160 page hardcovers...

Well, let's see. FFG sells 96 page HC for $29.95. Their 160pp books tend to be in the $40 range. Their 300 page ones run $60+ Looking at their price list, Strongholds is 144pp, and $39.95. Stay on Target is 96pp and $29.95

And? I don't own any FF stuff either. I did just buy the Fantasy Age core book from GR. It was $30.00 for 144 pages. I wanted to check it out and its the core system. I haven't cared much for Realms material after the grey boxed set, so that price for a few character options wasn't worth it.

 

[delericho]

160 page hardcovers...

Well, let's see. FFG sells 96 page HC for $29.95. Their 160pp books tend to be in the $40 range. Their 300 page ones run $60+ Looking at their price list, Strongholds is 144pp, and $39.95. Stay on Target is 96pp and $29.95

And I don't own any of those books, because I find FFG's books to be wildly over-priced.

Edit: I do, however, own both halves of the Tyranny of Dragons storyline, which were $40 for less than 160 pages. Which would be why I said it was a "hard sell", not "I would never, ever buy such a book."