New Core Rulebooks Every Year - A Mistake

[Maggan]

Pish and tosh,.

Pish? Now you've made MY list!

Whatever that list is ...

/m

 

[Zamkaizer]

I subscribe to the theory that future Players Handbooks will introduce new power sources. I wonder, however, if they might introduce two new sources, and flesh out the sources from previous books.

As for consumerism, I'll be purchasing future supplements based on quality, rather than deep-seated personal convictions.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

Its an ok idea to have new core books every year, so long as they stay fresh, and update things like Incarnum, True Naming and Visages to 4e.

 

[Pale]

I would personally like to see them take a page from White Wolf and do "Year of" themes... that way I can skip an entire year of book purchasing when they do something that I won't ever use in my campaigns. Like Psionics.

 

[airwalkrr]

Wonderful rule that one.
At the start of each session, the Cleric lists ALL spells not in the PHB they could possibly choose to memorise during the session. Then when they are finished the Hexblade reads out the definition of Hexblade.

Then we realise the session time is over, and we are done.

Perhaps I should have mentioned that, owning all the 3e materials, I was familiar with most stuff, at least the most common tricks, so it never took more than 5-10 minutes, if that long. Additionally, I judged for RPGA so often that I almost never had new players, even when traveling all over the region for cons. The only time I met more than one or two new players with high level characters (the ones with options you needed to know about) was at big cons like GenCon. So no, it was not the problem you think it is. Inexperienced judges run tables for low-level characters so that they can familiarize themselves with the rules of the game and experience the many options players have at their disposal so that by the time they graduate to running mid-level stuff they are already familiar with all the tricks of low-level play and so on for when they graduate to running high-level stuff. It would be ludicrous to ask an inexperienced judge to run even a group of 8th and 9th level characters unless you knew the judge already had a lot of experience as a player and was very familiar with the supplemental rulebooks to the core rules.

 

[Khairn]

I think you've answered your own post here. D&D is constantly evolving, and for 34 years TSR and WotC have struggled with how to support and reflect that evolution in a manner palatable to all stakeholders.

By scheduling a regular title that creates an overt expectation of expansions/updates/improvements to the core rules, WotC has created a platform that supports the game's evolution within the expectations of players, licensees, and the supply chain. It gives them a way to make small, incremental course corrections to the game, avoid disruptive X.5 editions, and maybe even curb rules bloat.

I reject the notion that no revision would be needed (or no evolution would occur) if the core books were only done right the first time. Perfect design is a moving target; what's ideal today won't be tomorrow. The game will evolve, so some sort of system will occur to match that evolution. Better one planned from the get-go than an ad-hoc addition later.

So I think it's a brilliant idea. I don't for a minute think it's a cheesy marketing ploy, and I certainly don't think "Hasbro made them do it" (because that ain't how it works, and, frankly, the WotC team managing D&D is much more in tune to successful ideas for growing the game than the people who are busy running the entire Hasbro operation.)

I agree with Charles that yearly (regularly?) published "core" books creates a platform for WotC to introduce new revisions / updates / content to the game in a way that is less disruptive than the x.5 edition has been. I also believe that this is a WotC decision and not coming from Hasbro. Hasbro may have set the sales and margin targets, but WotC is the one to come up with the plan to meet those goals.

And although I agree that this is a brilliant move for WotC, I find it less than optimal for gamers. I see no correlation between yearly PHB and any attempt to reduce rules bloat. On the contrary I believe that this sets up in the customer the expectation that yearly upgrades are to be expected (necessary ?) no matter the need for the upgrade or the quality of the upgrade. There have been a number of "questionable" additions in some of WotC's more recent releases. Classes, PrC's, spells and feats that were either useless or a quantum jump in the power scale. WotC is also not saying that these new core books will replace all the supplements that have been released, and therefore we will see a reduction in the number of books being offered.

Creating a built in expectation in gamers that yearly updates are necessary to remain "core" is great for WotC. But based on past performance I dont see how this will create anything beneficial for players.