Only the Lonely: Why We Demand Official Product

[3catcircus]

So much this! Especially if we're talking about GH, or Dragonlance, or the Known World/Mystara.

But why is this a problem?

When I wanted to run an Alien scenario in my Traveller game I statted up an alien using the available system resources. It took me 10 to 15 minutes. Having done it once, I statted up a larval state alien at the table in less than five. What does it matter that, at another table, or even at my table at a different time if I were in a different mood, it would be done differently?

When I posted my thread, another poster informed me that there had been stats for the various life stages of an alien published in an early number of the Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society. Having subsequently looked at those ones, they're different from (more vicious than) mine. Once I'd acquired the PDF from DriveThru RPG it was interesting to make the comparison, but that has no effect on the (successful) play experience at my table.

It's exactly the fact that your player pointed out the discrepancy that may be of concern to some. For others (like me), I don't have the time to do the conversions myself. I want to be able to, for example, select an old edition module and not have to do the conversion for monsters that had stats in older editions but not the current edition.

I'm not necessarily talking about basic NPCs, but unique monsters from iconic (or not so iconic) products. For example the Abomination of Diirinka in the 2e module Axe of the Dwarvish Lords. How would you convert it?

 

[Maxperson]

But all the magic items and artifacts that go back to 1e ARE Greyhawk specific magic items. What fluff exists in GH that isn't just in the PHB by default?

Besides the Sea of Dust, the Great Kingdom, Circle of Eight, Scarlet Brotherhood and more? There's a lot of Greyhawk Fluff that isn't in the PHB.

 

[jmucchiello]

Besides the Sea of Dust, the Great Kingdom, Circle of Eight, Scarlet Brotherhood and more? There's a lot of Greyhawk Fluff that isn't in the PHB.

Locations and kingdoms are fluff. They don't require any information in the PHB. If you have one of the old Greyhawk boxes/books, you have have the fluff. You might say there should be a scarlet brotherhood monk path but there doesn't have to be.

 

[Maxperson]

Locations and kingdoms are fluff. They don't require any information in the PHB. If you have one of the old Greyhawk boxes/books, you have have the fluff. You might say there should be a scarlet brotherhood monk path but there doesn't have to be.

But the fans would want one. As well as perhaps a subclass dealing with the sea of dust and maybe a barbarian subclass for the north, and so on.

No, they don't have to make these things, but then they don't have to make any settings at all.

 

[jmucchiello]

And what good is a book that is 95% "reprint" with a few timeline updates and 5% a few subclasses here and there.

 

[Maxperson]

And what good is a book that is 95% "reprint" with a few timeline updates and 5% a few subclasses here and there.

Plenty to someone who wants some crunch and doesn't have the time to create and playtest it. Or to the many thousands of D&D players who don't have the old books and want, you know, books.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

For me it’s also the following;

1) A unified core means the same starting point. Related to shared experiences, but it relates to things like building new options. I don’t want to worry about anything but what’s official when homebrewing for my own game, or collaborating with people online.

2) Balanced enough for table work. At least in 4e and 5e, the game is simply balanced. It works, out of the box. In 4e, the math was clear enough that I could just eyeball new stuff and know where it sat in “normal optimization” terms. In 5e, I know what the basic boundaries of balance are, and they’ve yet to put out anything that escapes the power bandwidth of the PHB.
I got a humble bundle of kobold press stuff, and half their deep magic books (especially the earlier ones) simply aren’t balanced. At all. There are many spells in the clockwork magic book that are just “themed variant of X spell, but obviously inferior”. And that’s Kobold Press, who I love dearly and have backed the Deep Magic Kickstarter.

3) Convenience at session 0. Is the thing you wanna make a sensible concept (as in, can I make sense of it), using official player options? Cool, let me know if you have questions about how to make the build do what you want.
Basically, I can focus 90% of my time and energy during character creation, as a DM, on concepts and narratives. I’d 4e, I literally only wanted to know the narrative elements, and what role they were taking up. And even role wasn’t that important outside of figuring out healing if no one picked a leader.


the biggest thing for me is just not having to worry about player options borking my game unexpectedly. I didn’t run games before 4e because I found the experience utter and complete garbage in older editions. I DM more than run games now because I love DMing In a balanced system that doesn’t need me to hack it in order to run.

 

[CleverNickName]

Plenty to someone who wants some crunch and doesn't have the time to create and playtest it. Or to the many thousands of D&D players who don't have the old books and want, you know, books.

Seriously. I wish I could buy a POD copy of the Basic, Expert, Companion, and Masters boxed sets. If WotC were to ever reprint them, I would probably buy them without even looking at the price tag.

 

[Maxperson]

Seriously. I wish I could buy a POD copy of the Basic, Expert, Companion, and Masters boxed sets. If WotC were to ever reprint them, I would probably buy them without even looking at the price tag.

I still have some of them. A lot of my old stuff is gone, though. I'd like to have it back.

 

[jmucchiello]

Ebay?

As someone who was there, I never saw the Campanion or Masters boxed sets on sale in my local stores ever. They were entirely hypothetical to me.