Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="rounser" data-source="post: 246896" data-attributes="member: 1106">Yup.Well, it is for me, because I don't see these things (e.g. Splatbooks, MoP etc.) improving the quality of games I play, nor reducing the amount of work I have to do in preparation as a DM.  I also think the focus on things like god stats is counterproductive in terms of producing a good campaign, and constitutes a distraction which sells, but does little to improve the quality of most D&D campaigns.I'm arrogant like that.  And I'm not telling you in particular, I'm referring to an overall D&D gamer demographic's spending habits.  That's pretty darn arrogant, neh? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I believe that what actually sells and what should sell to D&D gamers is back to front.  Crunchy bits and macro-level setting material sell, while adventures don't.  I think that many gamers think that they're better at writing adventures and putting together campaigns than they actually are.  Writing a good adventure is harder than it sounds; look at the often low quality of published adventures for evidence, and many a boring railroaded campaign.  I also think that many DMs spend a disproportionate amount of effort on worldbuilding and making pretty maps rather improving their actual game sessions.  I think that a lot of D&D players dream about D&D more than they play.  I think that the quality of individual games suffers as a result, and that with that the hobby overall suffers - and I think that the publishers of D&D are somewhat responsible for these things by publishing books which focus on window dressing, and distract from what makes the game "good", in my opinion.But, as you so bluntly point out, hong, maybe feats and prestige classes and god stats and guidelines for making planes improve your game and make you happy.  I just see wasted opportunities and games which don't get measurably better with these resources, and I find myself spending the same amount of time in preparation as always.  I just think I see a better way - but because of D&D gamer preferences, player "psychographic" surveys, brand management, and commercial needs, it probably won't happen.I'm not saying trash these kind of books, but provide something in addition to them to save DMs some work at a low level rather than hogging macro level stuff (which many DMs like to do anyway, such as worldbuilding), apart from Dungeon magazine and some thoroughly detailed city books from d20 publishers.And yes, I think I know better than a demographic of buying D&D players, so that makes me pretty darn arrogant on this count!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!    :eek:"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" />Maybe I should go into politics.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

Verification