D&D 5E Initial D&D Next Releases Showing Up on Barnes & Noble Website

[Mistwell]

I've been trying to express my... disappointment... for how we learned this information. And it occurred to me last night. It's a little like if someone leaked the Oscar winners in advance.
Obviously the scale of show and dance is different, but the intent is the same. And without the drama of waiting to see who wins what, the Oscars are just a really, really long and fairly slow variety hour show.

WotC wanted to reveal this information on their schedule and likely had something planned. Now the suspense and drama of the reveal has been ruined.

I am really struggling to understand your perspective on this. It's nothing at all like spoiling the Academy Awards - which ARE A COMPETITION. You know, with the competitors all right there, in the room, waiting to hear if they won! If massive impact on their careers, on money, on what else will be made in the future, etc..

Why do you care who announces the date and initial price of the PHB? What could they have "planned" that would make this minor announcement somehow more "major" of an announcement? What on earth were you expecting that would be massively different from what you got?

There simply was nothing at stake here in who makes the announcement and how they made it. It was purely an information dump.

There was no competition here. There is nothing "spoiled" here. There was not "better" message being planned that would somehow make announcing a price and date for a book more "meaningful" than simply announcing the price and date of the book. It's just a friggen price and slightly more specific date of a book for goodness sake!

I am just not understanding why you think this was so major, and how you can go on for days on how important it is that WOTC didn't make this announcement but B&N did. Why do you care, and why is this like spoiling the Oscars for you when most of the rest of us are just talking about the information itself?

 

[DMZ2112]

Did the combined 4E PhB + MM contain the basic mechanical rules for encounter balancing (CR and the like), constructing skill challenges (a major part of 4e GMing as far as I can tell), NPCs, magic items, and magic item construction?

No; no; D&D4 NPCs were monster stat blocks, not true characters (am I misunderstanding you?); yes; and D&D4 didn't have detailed magic item construction rules as far as I know.

Also, the comparison with PF falls a little flat in that all of the rules needed to play PF (along with all the Advanced and Ultimate books) are available free on-line.

But if you go down that rabbit hole, all RPGs should be free. I'm a huge supporter of the OGL, but I don't think of it as an excuse to not buy the books being published. Rather, I think of it as a major selling point. It's the only reason I bought 13th Age.

 

[DMZ2112]

I wonder if some combination of marriage, old age, house payments, children, and/or impending retirement is making some of us feel poorer as time goes by

Well, it's absolutely true, as I understand it, that our salaries are not, on average, keeping up with inflation and cost of living. But that's not a problem with Wizards, that's a problem with economics.

Wizards charges what the market will bear -- and the market /will bear/ this price.

 

[delericho]

Again, Bedrock, it was not my intention to single you out in any way. I just didn't want to quote everyone who was saying the same thing.

All I'm saying is I don't know why, because it's the same price the books have been since 2000, adjusted for inflation.

According to this inflation calculator:

The 3.0e PHB (2000, assume $30 - the first printing was discounted to $20, but that was an exception) would be the equivalent of $40.75 in 2014.

The 3.5e PHB (2003, $30) would be the equivalent of $38.14 in 2014. (Edit: my initial post incorrectly said these cost $35, which was in error.)

The 4e PHB (2008, $35) would be the equivalent of $38.03.

So, actually, this is quite a jump in price, assuming of course that that calculator is accurate.

 

[DMZ2112]

According to this inflation calculator:

The 3.0e PHB (2000, assume $30 - the first printing was discounted to $20, but that was an exception) would be the equivalent of $40.75 in 2014.

The 3.5e PHB (2003, $35) would be the equivalent of $38.14 in 2014.

The 4e PHB (2008, $35) would be the equivalent of $38.03.

So, actually, this is quite a jump in price, assuming of course that that calculator is accurate.

Two different calculators gave me $48 for $35, 2000 to 2014. That said, if I got the initial price wrong, I retract my statement. I think my comparison to the 2009 price of Pathfinder stands on its own.

 

[D'karr]

I've been trying to express my... disappointment... for how we learned this information. And it occurred to me last night. It's a little like if someone leaked the Oscar winners in advance.
Obviously the scale of show and dance is different, but the intent is the same. And without the drama of waiting to see who wins what, the Oscars are just a really, really long and fairly slow variety hour show.

WotC wanted to reveal this information on their schedule and likely had something planned. Now the suspense and drama of the reveal has been ruined.

I don't think this is any different than what we have seen from WotC/B&N/Amazon in the past. It has been a very long time since I saw the news of a release come from WotC faster than what we saw from either B&N or Amazon.

 

[Cadence]

No; no; D&D4 NPCs were monster stat blocks, not true characters (am I misunderstanding you?); yes; and D&D4 didn't have detailed magic item construction rules as far as I know.

Thanks for the refresher (it's been awhile since I've looked through them, and don't have my DMG or PhB anymore to check with).

If all of those things (if they're part of 5e) are in the PhB or MM, then I agree with your post a few back that the price argument doesn't seem to hold much water.

But if you go down that rabbit hole, all RPGs should be free. I'm a huge supporter of the OGL, but I don't think of it as an excuse to not buy the books being published. Rather, I think of it as a major selling point. It's the only reason I spent moment one looking over 13th Age.

Sure. I certainly would buy the PhB of anything I liked well enough to play regularly, or the needed GM/Monster books for any I GMed regularly even if they were on-line. In some cases those might only be the .pdf files though.

Well, it's absolutely true, as I understand it, that our salaries are not, on average, keeping up with inflation and cost of living. But that's not a problem with Wizards, that's a problem with economics.

I wasn't even thinking of the salary part (that makes it even worse!) - just musing on how life choices change our priorities even if our money is keeping up with inflation/cost of living. How dare WotC not take that into account in their price structure.

 

[delericho]

Two different calculators gave me $48 for $35, 2000 to 2014.

Okay, fair enough. The calculator I linked does likewise. But, yeah, the 3.0e PHB was $30 after the first printing, not $35.

I think my comparison to the 2009 price of Pathfinder stands on its own.

True, although it depends very much on the status of the DMG (or, indeed, the cost of the DMG/MM) - the Pathfinder GMG is very definitely an optional book, with the CR doing double duty as PHB/DMG for Pathfinder. So if the 5e DMG is strictly optional then 5e might well come out ahead in the comparison. But if 5e is marked and marketed as 'core' (and especially if it contains the equivalent of "Page 42") then it is unlikely.

But, as you said in another post, WotC are charging what they believe the market will bear, and they're almost certainly right. I find the B&N price fairly eye-watering, but they obviously think that's the 'right' price for what they're presenting.

 

[Iosue]

With the caveat that of course anything could happen, based on what they have said what I expect is:

Starter Set - This will be the Basic game, as described by Mearls, probably very much resembling Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle. Full game, at least 10 levels, with long-term campaign adventure. Just spitballing, I suspect it'll come with a Players Book that contains rules to play and chargen, and a DM's book that contains the adventure, DM advice, and bestiary. They could quite easily go with the physical contents of the Essentials Red Box: 2 books, maps, and tokens, and all they need to do is beef up the written content. And y'know, one way that I think it would be really cool to control costs is to go old school layout: forego the colorful, glossy paper for some black & white artwork on sturdy paper.

Player's Handbook - This will be the Standard game. Basically a fleshed out version of the playtest. The current playtest is a total of 320-some pages. The Pathfinder Core Rulebook is 578. This gives them plenty of room to add some artwork as well as more classes, monsters, and optional modules. It's going to be big, but really the only book you'll need to play. Rules Cyclopedia, on steroids.

Dungeon Master's Guide - Mearls has said that they're likely to put DMing advice online, rather than in the DMG. So the DMG will likely be filled with campaign-level optional modules, to further fine-tune the game. For the hard core collector, or the DM really into configuring D&D for their table, it'll be a useful addition. But casual players and DMs will not need to buy it.

Monster Manual - If the Player's Handbook does contain something like the playtest's Bestiary, then the Monster Manual will be an optional book for those who want more monsters, and more detailed entries.

A lot of their focus has been on easy of buy-in for the game, so I don't expect them to really put out a Standard Game of three $50 books. They'll just get the same situation they had with 4e and Essentials: a lot of people interested and buying the starting set, but very few transitioning to their other products. Instead, it'll be gradual transition: newcomers, and veterans who like simple games can get into the Starter Set. Those who want to move on to more options or who want a meatier set of rules to begin with can go with the Player's Handbook -- by itself cheaper than the old "buy three core books" model. The completists and hardcore folk who enjoy buying splats and campaign books, will add the DMG and MM to their collection for optional fun. By front loading on the PHB, you end up simplifying the buy-in, while maintaining the selection for those who like to buy a lot of splats.

Well, that's one way it might happen...

 

[fjw70]

Comparisons to earlier editions or other games isn't really relevant to me. I just ask myself if the price of book X is worth it to me at the time. Sometimes that is a yes and sometimes it is a no. For a 5e PH I would pay $50 (or more accurately the $30-40 Amazon will charge).