Pages From The Upcoming Nautical D&D Book!

Parmandur · Feb 23, 2019

Jay Verkuilen said:
So the only metric is success in the marketplace?

Sword Coast Adventurers Guidenis also successful based on reviews: positive recommendation here on EnWorld, and pretty overwhelmingly positive reviews on Amazon.

I'm not aware of any objective metric by which SCAG isn't successful for an RPG book.

Jay Verkuilen · Feb 23, 2019

Hussar said:
For determining the right course of action for a company?

Yup.

For the company, possibly, though not totally---there are lots of ways to jack sales figures up in the short run that hurt medium to long term.

For consumers? Not so much. I don't see why I should really care overly much.

By that metric alone, McDonald's is the master of a good burger and Britney Spears produced good music.

Jester David · Feb 23, 2019

Jay Verkuilen said:
For the company, possibly, though not totally---there are lots of ways to jack sales figures up in the short run that hurt medium to long term.

For consumers? Not so much. I don't see why I should really care overly much.

By that metric alone, McDonald's is the master of a good burger and Britney Spears produced good music.

SCAG is fine. It was a decent player’s guide to the Realms with a smattering of new content and introduction to the gods. It did exactly what you expected based on the name and did it well.
My comments now mirror my comments when I first reviewed the book:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-Guide/page2&p=6750399&viewfull=1#post6750399

It’s only “flaw” just that it wasn’t the “giant book of unnecessary amounts of splat” people expected after 3e and 4e player centric books. The problem wasn’t SCAG, but the expectations of the fans.

Honestly, I think SCAG is a better and more solid product than XGtE and its endless pages of random names and magic item tables that should have been PDFs. And it’s certainly better than MToF, which was an unfocused mess.

The giant splatbooks of options didn’t help 3e last a long time or make the game more fun at the table. Or 3.5e. Or 4e. Or Pathfinder. They don’t make the game easier for new players. I don’t see doing that same thing again for the fourth time as being a measure of success.

pukunui · Feb 23, 2019

Jester David said:
Honestly, I think SCAG is a better and more solid product than XGtE and its endless pages of random names and magic item tables that should have been PDFs. And it’s certainly better than MToF, which was an unfocused mess.

This. I want to see more products like SCAG and fewer like XGtE and MToF. Unfortunately, it seems like that's just not going to happen.

gyor · Feb 23, 2019

Jester David said:
SCAG is fine. It was a decent player’s guide to the Realms with a smattering of new content and introduction to the gods. It did exactly what you expected based on the name and did it well.
My comments now mirror my comments when I first reviewed the book:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-Guide/page2&p=6750399&viewfull=1#post6750399

It’s only “flaw” just that it wasn’t the “giant book of unnecessary amounts of splat” people expected after 3e and 4e player centric books. The problem wasn’t SCAG, but the expectations of the fans.

Honestly, I think SCAG is a better and more solid product than XGtE and its endless pages of random names and magic item tables that should have been PDFs. And it’s certainly better than MToF, which was an unfocused mess.

The giant splatbooks of options didn’t help 3e last a long time or make the game more fun at the table. Or 3.5e. Or 4e. Or Pathfinder. They don’t make the game easier for new players. I don’t see doing that same thing again for the fourth time as being a measure of success.

I actually agree, the SCAG was the most fun to read, best written of the 5e books, but it suffer two weeknesses, it should have been bigger, and it could have had better mechanics. XGTE almost needs to be treated as multiple books when reviewing it, because the subclass, racial feats, and spells were amazing, but most of the rest of the book was absolutely awful filler, like one part is A+ and the other part is F-.

gyor · Feb 23, 2019

pukunui said:
This. I want to see more products like SCAG and fewer like XGtE and MToF. Unfortunately, it seems like that's just not going to happen.

Wayfarer's guide is like the SCAG for eberron kind of. But I really liked the in character writing style of the SCAG and was disappointed to find VGTM didn't have that dispite creating that impression that it would.

Parmandur · Feb 23, 2019

Of the 5E supplements released to date, I'd say SCAG is my 5th favorite. It's solid, and I've enjoyed it, but isn't bas useful to my gaming needs as VGtM, XGtE (I actually use the name tables, thanks for asking), or MToF. It also isn't as bonkers as GGtR. But it is still a successful book.

Elderbrain · Feb 23, 2019

Hussar said:
For determining the right course of action for a company?

Yup.

Hussar, It's been a while since I've stated a disagreement with one of your opinions - intentionally, since I know that sometimes I've gotten overheated at times and it degenerated into a flame war. However, I feel I must point out that commercial success and pleasing the original fan base don't have to be an either/or situation. First, look at how the live-action Transformers movies were handled - they made a lot of money, so commercial success, no question. But they also made a lot of needless changes that angered the fan base of the original 80's cartoon series. Next, look at the Harry Potter films. Smash hits, huge commercial success - and you know what, they were mostly very faithful to the original stories in the books - compare the first Harry Potter flick with the first Transformers flick, for instance. To my mind, that proves that there was absolutely no need to make the changes in the Transformers films - not financially. It was just the whim of the director and the producers. They could have remained faithful to the source material and still raked in the dough - the Harry Potter films prove that is a perfectly viable move to make. So given a choice between 1) staying faithful to the source material, pleasing the fans, and raking in a bunch of money, or 2) departing greatly from the source material, angering the fans, but still raking in a bunch of money, WHY would anybody choose option #2?!?!?

Hussar · Feb 23, 2019

Well, quite simply, Option 2 has meant making more money.

I mean, good grief, one of the Bay Transformers movies probably made more money than the entire run of the 80's Transformers movies. ((Note, I don't know that, but, at a guess, it's probably not far off))

The bigger issue in my mind is that "original fans" haven't a clue about who the fans of a product actually are. Take Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The biggest fans of the product weren't people who read the comics or played the RPG or even watched the cartoon. No. The biggest fans were 2-3 years old. THAT'S what TMNT was for. So, when they came out with the kiddified TMNT movies in the 80's, older fans were flabbergasted. How could they make our glorious stories so stupid? Don't they understand who the fans of TMNT are?

Turns out, yup, they knew EXACTLY who the fans were and made buckets of money off of toys and whatnot. The movies were just 2 hour advertisements for toys.

I mean, seriously, how can you really point to Michael Bay and say that he did things wrong? He made Transformers into a household name and made all the money possible doing so. How is that not a good thing.

Or, put it this way. If the Transformers movies had not done so well, or only as well as the old 1986 movie, which, while held up by Transformers fans as a great thing, absolutely tanked, we'd have gotten six movies and now a Bumblebee spin off?

I'm sorry, but the idea that there are other metrics for a company other than making profit is the fastest way to bankruptcy.

Elderbrain · Feb 26, 2019

Hussar said:
Well, quite simply, Option 2 has meant making more money.

I mean, good grief, one of the Bay Transformers movies probably made more money than the entire run of the 80's Transformers movies. ((Note, I don't know that, but, at a guess, it's probably not far off))

The bigger issue in my mind is that "original fans" haven't a clue about who the fans of a product actually are. Take Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The biggest fans of the product weren't people who read the comics or played the RPG or even watched the cartoon. No. The biggest fans were 2-3 years old. THAT'S what TMNT was for. So, when they came out with the kiddified TMNT movies in the 80's, older fans were flabbergasted. How could they make our glorious stories so stupid? Don't they understand who the fans of TMNT are?

Turns out, yup, they knew EXACTLY who the fans were and made buckets of money off of toys and whatnot. The movies were just 2 hour advertisements for toys.

I mean, seriously, how can you really point to Michael Bay and say that he did things wrong? He made Transformers into a household name and made all the money possible doing so. How is that not a good thing.

Or, put it this way. If the Transformers movies had not done so well, or only as well as the old 1986 movie, which, while held up by Transformers fans as a great thing, absolutely tanked, we'd have gotten six movies and now a Bumblebee spin off?

I'm sorry, but the idea that there are other metrics for a company other than making profit is the fastest way to bankruptcy.

I notice, Hussar, that you studiously avoid mentioning the Harry Potter film series - why is that? Wouldn't have anything to do with the huge commercial success it enjoyed without making major changes to the characters and storylines, or the fact that after breaking your rules for how to make money, they mysteriously failed to go bankrupt, which is what is supposed to happen - according to you - if a company tries to be faithful to the source material? Hmm. Seems like your theory failed in a real-world trial. And there's simply no evidence you can point to that says changing source material somehow guarantees larger profits than sticking with the original. Are you seriously claiming that, say, the Harry Potter films could have made more money if, say, they had only changed Harry's origin story so that he was Snape's son, or made Voldemort female instead of male like in the books? (Pity you weren't there to advise them.)

Well, I'm getting snarky so I think I'll let this me my last word on the subject.