Has the age of the big book arrived?

[francisca]

Hey Chris, what did TW end up weighing in at?

 

[Psion]

I notice that Monte Cook plans on releasing Ptolus as a city guide/mega-adventure. According to his website it's going to be 600+ pages! Making it the biggest RPG book ever.

WLD? (840 pages IIRC)

Anyways, yeah, seeing details on Shackled City and Ptolus a few weeks ago is when this question sort of started rolling around in my mind. It was buying Spycraft 2.0 yesterday that finally prompted me to post.

 

[HellHound]

Just marginally bigger than the Hero 5th Ed book, at 592 pages.

Honestly, I'll pitch in to say that the reason I never bought into Hero5 was... 592 pages...

 

[philreed]

I find that books between 64- and 96-pages are easiest for me to digest and use. At the upper limit, 320-pages seems to be about the largest that I'm comfortable with -- the larger books that I own just feel cumbersome to me.

I have them same feelings about fiction, though. I'm a fan of short stories and anything over 400 pages has to be amazing for me to read it.

 

[Crothian]

Just marginally bigger than the Hero 5th Ed book, at 592 pages.

Honestly, I'll pitch in to say that the reason I never bought into Hero5 was... 592 pages...

It's the price that has kept me away from it. I have 9 source books for the game, but no main rule book.

 

[RichGreen]

Hi,

I have Arcana Evolved and I'm going to get Shackled City so I guess I like big books if the subject matter is right.

Funny that as the d20 publishers start going for these jumbo tomes, Wizards is publishing more and more books with 160 pages....

Cheers


Richard

 

[Pramas]

Hey Chris, what did TW end up weighing in at?

Thieves' World differs from Black Company because our license lets us do a line, whereas with BC we could only do one book (hence its bigness). Thieves' World we're doing as four books to start (with more if they sell well enough). The four books are:

Thieves' World Player's Manual: 192 pages (this ships to distributors on Friday; woot)
Murder a the Vulgar Unicorn (adventure): 80 pages
Shadowspawn's Guide to Sanctuary: 256 pages
Thieves' World Gazetteer: 128 pages

Chris Pramas
Green Ronin

 

[DaveMage]

Funny that as the d20 publishers start going for these jumbo tomes, Wizards is publishing more and more books with 160 pages....

I don't like it either, but, with full color and nice production values, maybe this is the only way they could keep their sourcebooks with an MSRP under $30. Or maybe there are corporate pressures to simply increase the margin on their lines.

However, they are not completely abandoning the bigger book as the Tome of Magic due out next year is slated for 288 pages.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I hadn't realized the WoW book was a compilation, instead of just a revision. What other materials from the Warcraft line does it absorb?

As for me, I find that a really good RPG book can easily go 500 pages without being a problem. Ones that don't sing will make even 32 pages a struggle for me.

I'm looking forward to Ptolus, but I will gladly admit that I intend to read the city and world stuff long before I get around to finishing all 20 levels of campaign arc. In fact, if Monte decided to make the city book and the campaign book separate, I'd prefer it, although I certainly understand how it makes economic sense to just add more pages to a hardcover rather than print multiple books and deal with the costs for covers, etc., for each one.

Now, when are we going to see Redhurst Expanded, Pramas?

 

[Shawn_Kehoe]

WLD? (840 pages IIRC)

Monte's actual claim was that it would be the largest RPG book written by a single author.

Shawn