Kem said:
MMI, MMII, FF, UA, Oriental Adventures, and Dieties and Demigods off the top of my head.
DragonLance, Forgotten Realms, and Greyhawk as settings.
Along with how many Novels, Dragon/Dungeon, Board Games, Computer Games, and lord only knows what else I am forgetting.
Now while WotC does put out many, many more books, Its also because there are a lot of people working there. Many more then at TSR.
I knew that was going to come up, though I felt I had "over posted" a bit already with the last one.
You are absolutely right Kem, they sure did start cranking out a ton of books towards the end of the 1ed era. Dungeoneers Survival Guide, Wilderness Survival Guide, Manual of the Planes et.al. True true and true again and I have a lot of them. I enjoyed the previous 3 because of their take on exploring planes, dungeons, and wilderness. It opened up new ways of creating adventures that were not (as now) almost wholely dependent on aquiring a new template/feat/skill/class/spell to enjoy.
I guess the difference to me was this: I was running the games. I didn't *(Gasp)* dig Dragonlance. I dug the novels, but I didn't want to "experience the novels" because the adventures all had a canned setup and a canned ending. You can't save Sturm. He dies for the story to move forward. Thus I never bought the rulebook for it. I had the Oriental Adventures book from a trade but never ran anything out of it so never actually used it but I enjoyed the read because it was far more of a "read" than it was a vehicle for changing or complicating my game.
I was running Greyhawk and had that box set so I picked up the hardback for it because I felt it had some fluff I could use. I was dissapointed with it and never bought another of the 1ed hardbacks. Fiend Folio I could and did use. Deities and Demigods and Manual of the Planes were great and I could use them. Mostly fluff, Deities and Demigods had better writeups of obscure real world mythos than most books on mythology that were out at the time and geared towards a teen/young adult audience.
In my early teens and pre-teen years those books were useful to me as the DM. They were of little functional use to the players other than what bits I used for the stories I wove for my fellow pre-and teen friends who gamed with me. None were "necessary". There was no "keeping up with the joneses(feats/skills/prc's and playable races)".
As for 2ed we sorta felt that was an aberration. We got the PHB and DMG, and kept what we liked, tanked the rest because it wasn't that great of a "system change". Thus my collection of supplemental 2ed materials is quite miniscule by comparison to my 1ed collection. The "Monstrous Compendium" sucked. Horrible art and that rotten three ring binder that the pages tore out of. Got the first of those and never bought another pack till they "re-released" the demons and devils and called them "tan'ari and whatever the hell that other thing was". I hated that sellout to the mommies groups and we stuck to the hardbacks. It took maybe 2 years but we realized that we weren't being sold anything "new" that could make our game any better than it already was. It was a break from canon that allowed us to experience new games and new systems. We became smarter shoppers. It was a feeling then that many people are experiencing now. We started buying Role Aids products, some Judges Guild, some Chaosium's Thieves World Setting and had our own fun without worrying about Eliminster or Fizzban or Kender and forgot about the "canonical world" which we could catch up with if we wanted in the pages of Dragon magazine (RIP).
I will say this with affirmation. I write a lot of 3 and 3.5ed stuff and I really dig the
CORE RULES! I love monsters. However I love monsters, traps and the like that are a challenge to the arsenal of feats and abilities that "Canonical WOTC 3.5" D&D offers. When I'm working with a monster Grandmaster like Scott Greene (Tome of Horrors et. al) I strive for monsters that put up a winnie of a fight vs the 10 action per round monty haul o feats and hand crafted magic items 16th level canonical 3.5 D&D character. We focus on creating these challenges in our stuff without fair use access to that material, and I think we do a pretty darned good job of it overall.
I am NOT critical of selling books and making a profit! Profits mean a paycheck and thats awesome for me and many of my friends in the biz. I am critical of NEEDING to own all those so that we can run a game and have fun. I abhor 10 minute time outs to search for a rule or look up an eratta.
As creative people I think most of us in the biz have it within our power to create interesting and fun material and yes even crank out TONS of crunchy fluffy books that are loads of fun to use. We can and do make tons of adventures that are fun to play and campaign worlds that are exciting and lush. We can sell a TON of books. However, we could sell a ton more if things were less contradictory and easier to find.
That absolute disaster of a DMG is a prime example of it. The actual rules in it are some of the best and most well thought out rules ever generated for an RPG ever. On the other hand, go try to find one. Even with the glossary, index and TOC its a pain in the neck. Example: Treasures, magic items in different sections of the book.
2nd example: To this day I can't figure out the math for the minimum and maximum GP for cities with any real ease.
Speaking of math. Here's an issue. Game or no game a lot of people suck at math. I won't go into socio-economic and national/international statistics on math but its horrible. Teens and kids are awful at math. Want to turn them off from trying their hand at GMing a game? Make them figure out the GP mnimum/maximum GP limits for a "Large City". Have them figure out the percentages of racial breakdowns and minimum/maximum levels for a large city/metropolis.
Easier than that? Try getting them to multiply strength bonus to damage times 1.5 for two handed weapon then double the power attack damage modified for rage +4 strength and bulls strength spell +4 strength then add their magic item bonus damage on the fly. Good luck. Crit? Take the previous answer and multiply x3.
If they can't stay interested in algebra enough to get better than a C how can you expect them to apply the same mathamatical jibber jabber to a game thats supposed to be played for FUN? I grant that probably many could do that with more acuity than they can in scoring above average on a college aptitude test but again... if it feels like math it feels like work. If your not getting paid for it why bother to learn it? Not my opinion, but speaking as one who works with large populations of kids I'm telling you THATS the attitude. If you challenge them with creative solutions to problems they tend to shine. If you challenge them with math, (Most) tend to shut down.
Anyhow... all that aside and back to the OP. WOTC is important to games and gaming overall. They own the market share. They are the stewards of canonical D&D and have the backing of one of the largest toy and games manufacturers in the world to insure its survival in some permutation for some time to come. I'll be buying whatever new "Core Rules" come out, just like a lot of people. Will I play them? If they don't cause my gaming table to collapse with a toe shattering book avalanche when I'm running a 22nd+ level campaign sure! If I don't have to refresh myself in algebra or calculus? Definitely! If not, I'll find something else that works for my needs.
Case
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