GC 2006 - Ptolus Hardback $120!?!

[Wayside]

A book is worth $120 if it saves me $120 worth of time.

But this assumes that the buyer can do what the book does as good as the book does it. I don't think it's a stretch to say that the book is worth more than the time it saves the buyer, since, in general, it's doing something many (but of course not all) of its buyers could never do half as successfully.

 

[romp]

I was going to go into a longish post about how pricing an item in a luxury driven market place (such as the entertainment RPG hobby) really works (hint: it is not really supply/demand). But thought not to bother, it might launch yet another flame war and some mod might assume I am bad mouthing Monte and temp ban me ...

Monte is a master at the hype machine, all this fuss got me to mosey over the Ptolus web page and look at the sample pages, oooohh i started to like what I saw there, and then to drool when I read the part about cross referencing and the sample tavern page with nice adventure hook, kewl 600 pages+ of that and ... must resist the preorder button ... aaagghhh, pretty maps ... must resist ...

The PDFs might be more my speed, at least they would be way cheaper, especially if there were a way to order dead-tree maps seperately from the book to go along with it. Though I doubt Monte would do that until later, replacement maps might be a good idea.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

1) Monte wrote it (The fanboy rationale)
2) Sharp Layout (This is cool and all, I grant you)
3) Tight Art (which is unfortunately subjective to the nth degree. Would it be as worthwhile if the art was just as good, but B&W? Or does it have to be color art to make a book worth a huge amount of money in relation to other products in the industry?)
4) Pagecount (Of all the things in this list, this is the one that would influence me the most as far as a large price tag, although art comes a close second)

If I bought it, all of the above would apply; I like Monte's work, the book is very pretty, and it has a lot of information packed in to it. But for me, the deciding factor would be:

5) Designed for maximum utility.

Cross-references, maps, flavour and mechanical information all mixed in together . . . it's the level of detail that would sell me on it.

 

[ecliptic]

I simply cannot get myself to pay $120 for a campaign setting.

 

[sinmissing]

Malhavoc got its last dollar from me with Iron Heroes. I doubt I'd want it, even for $30.

 

[catsclaw227]

I caved in and pre-ordered it. I CAN'T WAIT!

I am a big fan of his stuff. Even though I don't use AE, I own it for the ideas. His Eldritch might series is great, the iron might, roguish luck, hallowed might.... all good. Beyond Countless doorways... great.

Whatever.... I started reading his Ptolus stuff a long time ago and GMed the Banewarrens. I am drooling over this one. I budget myself $100-$200 per month for PDF and Print RPG products. This one will do just fine, since I won't be buying much for a month or so, being deep into the Drow War campaign from Mongoose.

 

[catsclaw227]

There's the trade-off. If D&D was my only hobby, I might be willing to sacrifice more hours to it. But it isn't. I've got my girlfriend, I've got reading (non-gaming materials!), cycling, hiking, backpacking, photography, a well paying job that I intend to keep (which can mean long hours), non-gaming friends, my family, etc. All of these things take time, so aside from weekly write-ups for the game, vetting the PCs, and the occasional conversion, I can't spare more time for D&D.

And most of my players are also busy professionals. We get together every week, get in 3 hours of gaming and 1 hour of socializing, and that's it. For us, this is a hobby, not a lifestyle. It's a game, not "immersive roleplay", so yes, it's too much work if I have to do much more than read the adventure/campaign setting. I love Monte Cook's work, so if he decided to do a "Shackled City" or other type of adventure path, I'd buy it even if it was $200.

This is also my exact situation. I totally concur. (just exchange girlfriend with newlywed wife)

 

[tetsujin28]

Malhavoc got its last dollar from me with Iron Heroes. I doubt I'd want it, even for $30.

You didn't like Iron Heroes?

 

[philreed]

You didn't like Iron Heroes?

That surprises me. I thought Iron Heroes was beautifully designed. While it's still "over-the-top action" the challenges (both skill and combat) and minor elements like armor and reserve points were fantastic.

 

[Sammael]

I got the Iron Heroes PDF and disliked it as well. Once again, it has great production values and a big-name author, but I didn't like the concepts, the execution, the art, and the flavor.