GC 2006 - Ptolus Hardback $120!?!

[Lonely Tylenol]

At times it certainly seems like there are though. The whole one bad apple and all that no doubt.

Hi there! I'm a fan of Malhavoc Press. Lots of good stuff comes out of there. Lots of stuff I couldn't care less about too. Anger of Angels? Whatever! Requiem for a God? Yawn! But I love the Books of Eldritch Might and I play AE regularly. I'll be picking up the Iron Heroes PDF even though I have doubts I'll ever play it. Before I came to ENWorld, I cut my messageboard teeth over at Monte's place, and a finer bunch of chaps you'll never find. Always very polite, never snarky, no personal attacks to be seen... I won't be buying Ptolus because it's too expensive for my tastes and I'm not that fond of city adventures.

I'm very sorry to spoil everyone's pet theories about fans of Malhavoc. I suppose I could pretend to be a droolingly rabid Monte loyalist.

 

[pogre]

I wish more publishers would come out with premium, complete products like this. I won't pre-order it, but I will likely pick it up because I love the concept and I like the idea of the BIG hobby package.

I may not love everything his company puts out, but I'm a Monte fan because he has guts and is doing what he loves.

 

[Nightfall]

I paid $100 for A Game of Thrones Deluxe Limited Edition, so yeah, I'd drop $120 on Ptolus.

See I'm just going to stick with getting that in PDF format.

 

[Arnwyn]

Considering how anal some posters here have stated they are about people putting thier grubby hands on thier books I thought the joke would be a bit funny.

Ah... I see what you meant - yeah, that is funny.

Book marks, full color, embrossed cover, glossy paper, etc. To me those are unnecessary bells and whistles.

Yeah, I'm with you there. The stuff you mention above is definitely not value-added. (But the stuff that I mentioned makes up for that, in my particular case.)

 

[Imruphel]

USD120 is not so bad for something that I expect to get about two years' worth of play out of.

I based everything on the "movie ticket" test: if I convert the price to movie tickets do I get more use out of the product that seeing the equivalent number of movies? I'm sure Ptolus will pass the "movie ticket" test with ease.

 

[Pants]

Now see... I don't mind spending $120 on several different products over the course of several months, but dropping that much on one, huge books is just... not my style. Hopefully this does well for Monte, but unless he releases a 'Ptolus for Cheap Bastards' there's no way I'll pick this up.

 

[Frozen DM]

As yet another person who dropped $100 ($130 canadian) on the Game of Thrones signed limited edition book, I could see myself buying this. I've spent thousands to date on books I rarely use, so what's another couple hundred.

I've been a fan of Malhavoc's books for a while now (and own most of them), so I'm always interested in the new material Monte and the gang put out. I've always found their work consistently fun to read, play and use.

But in the end, what it will come down to is, what I'm getting for my 120 (keeping in mind that in Canadian money that's at least $150). The maps, cd and everything else might not be enough (although they do sweeten the deal). I'm looking forward to reading everything about this book over the next year or so to find out just what it is the Ptolus book will offer, in detail.

Then, once I have all the details, I can make an informed decision and buy the book as an impulse buy anyways

 

[trancejeremy]

Personally, I think this is a great move. If it works. Now admittedly, I wasn't planning on buying, since his stuff just doesn't do anything for me, but I think it's interesting to see if the RPG market is large enough to support "luxury" items such as this.

I mean, personally, there are literally 100s of d20 books alone that I want but can't afford to buy (not to mention other rpg systems). But there are probably people the opposite of me, who have tons of money but are very selective in what to buy. If companies can get them to spend more money, it's a good thing.

 

[Frozen DM]

I mean, personally, there are literally 100s of d20 books alone that I want but can't afford to buy (not to mention other rpg systems). But there are probably people the opposite of me, who have tons of money but are very selective in what to buy. If companies can get them to spend more money, it's a good thing.

This is where I am. I'm young, single, and make a decent living. So I can direct a good part of my income to my hobbies. Just like I'm willing to spend hundreds on books, comics and dvd's, I can easily spend this much on RPG books.

Plus, when I consider my purchasing decision process, how often I'll use a book in a game isn't very high. Usually I first look at whether I like the author or not (I like Monte's work, a lot). I then look at the subject matter (I'm a huge fan of campaign setting books as a general rule). Then I consider if I'll enjoy reading the book. Like some other gamers (I suspect) I just like to read gaming books, even if I'll never run the system or setting. I've bought most of the Eberron releases so far for this very reason, I think it's a cool setting to read about.

So from the little I've read about the Ptolus book, I think it'll place high in all my main priorities. And as an added bonus, I have a place for a city like Ptolus in my homebrew campaign (which is a mishmash of other setting books) anyways

 

[mythusmage]

For everyone's edification here is a Ptolus FAQ. Be sure to note the installment plan. Since it'll be another 50 weeks one should be able to pay for the setting in 6 months or so. This taking a heavy burden off one's monthly budget.