Critical Role Here's The Cover Of The Explorer's Guide to Wildemount; Plus It's #15 In Amazon Bestsellers!

While Amazon may have revealed the title and description of The Explorer's Guide to Wildemount earlier, it had no cover art. Barnes & Noble, on the other hand, has the cover but at the time of writing no title or description. Here it is!

The official announcement should be coming later today. In the meantime, the book - which has not yet been announced! - is already #15 in the bestsellers chart for all books on Amazon, based only on pre-orders. That's pretty astonishing for a book which 'officially' doesn't even exist yet (although the announcement is expected later today).

 

[Bardic Dave]

Amazon preorders aren't actual sales. I've got like 50 items in my Amazon cart right now.

I don't think you know what a preorder is.

 

[darjr]

Well I’ll say it again. Get your Tal’dorei book before there all sold out.

 

[Parmandur]

Well I’ll say it again. Get your Tal’dorei book before there all sold out.

Yeah, it actually shot up in sales recently: probably because of this books announcement. It was outselling most Pathfinder content, but was well down the list, now it's #13 in Fantasy Gaming sales, while the new book is #1.

 

[MarkB]

Fair enough. That having been said, how many of those pre-order colors are going to be opened once and then sit on a shelf never to be opened again. I've a ton of product spanning multiple different RPGs going back to the early 80s. 95% of it was bought on a whim and never used. more if it was returned (back when you actually had to go to a store with the receipt to return it).

So, you've gone from saying that the CR audience only watches because it's free and would never spend their money, to saying that they spend their money frivolously on products they'll never use?

Pick a position.

I'm betting not. We already know that not every player buys more than the core. We know that viewers are a percentage of players (and sooner of them don't play at all). Other than as a money grab, this book isn't serving the entire potential player base and potentially alienating grognards from all editions...

Grognards are alienated by definition. And a book doesn't have to serve the entire player base in order to be popular and useful.

 

[Parmandur]

a book doesn't have to serve the entire player base in order to be popular and useful.

Heck, if we used that standard, no book would ever be useful. A Critical Role book probably comes as close to serving as wide a base of the gaming population as any book could, however.

 

[Nikosandros]

I don't know if I qualify as a grongard, but I've begun in 1985, my favorite edition is AD&D 1e and I'll be getting this book...

 

[generic]

Fair enough. That having been said, how many of those pre-order colors are going to be opened once and then sit on a shelf never to be opened again. I've a ton of product spanning multiple different RPGs going back to the early 80s. 95% of it was bought on a whim and never used. more if it was returned (back when you actually had to go to a store with the receipt to return it).

Irrelevant, now you're just grasping at straws in an effort to validate your argument.

It matters not to WotC whether the product is used, just that it's purchased.

 

[Bardic Dave]

You aren't accounting for the possibility that it was just less crappy than the others rather than actually being worth the cover price...

Man, you must be trolling. I have zero interest in Critical Role or the new book, but I can admit that it's probably going to sell like hot cakes. You are very out of touch.

 

[generic]

Edit: sorry, responding to the wrong person.

 

[Parmandur]

Irrelevant, now you're just grasping at straws in an effort to validate your argument.

It matters not to WotC whether the product is used, just that it's purchased.

It matters some to them: a used sale leads to future sales. That's why they have tried to make books as generally useable as possible.