(Please Create) D&D Rules Cyclopedia, 4th edition!

[Dionysos]

In this thread, I pine for the creation of a non-existent product.

See, I love D&D 4th edition. I won't go into all the reasons for it, and this is not an edition war thread. If you don't care for it, more power to you, but let's not have this thread get derailed.

I also love the D&D Rules Cyclopedia. I absolutely adore its compact presentation, its simplicity and the completeness of its contents. The really awesome thing about it is that it provided, in its time, the possibility of a one-book shared experience for D&D. I don't know that this potential was ever realized because the version of the rules presented therein was perhaps a less-often utilized one (as it is a BECMI book that came out while AD&D was more commonly played).

It seems to me that, if such a one-volume rulebook were created for 4e, there would be great potential for such a product. One thought is that it would make it possible to take just one D&D book to conventions (for example), and thus allow a disparate group of gamers to easily throw together a one-shot using just one shared volume.

I think that, given the extremely user-friendly layout of the 4th edition rulebooks, the crunch contained therein could be distilled into one somewhat large volume. Pull out most of the art, almost all of the flavor text, all of the helpful essays in the DMG that contain no rules content, lower the font size and eliminate most whitespace, and I think you are most of the way there. I love the art and readability of the 4e books, so a hypothetical trimmed-down Rules Cyclopedia would supplement and not replace the core 3 books for me.

I am speaking of just the core three rulebooks, BTW. This would be for travelling and for quick-and-dirty campaigns that don't use a lot of supplemental material.

I would love it if such a product could be made.

So, my questions:

I know nothing of the GSL and I am not involved in publishing. Could such a product be made by a non-WOTC company? If so, please do so! I know my group would jump right on top of this.

Also, would you have any interest in such a product? If so, why? If not, why not?

If your answer is, 'I wouldn't want this because D&D 4e sucks' I would appreciate it if that sentiment were kept out of this thread. I have no problem with people not liking my game of choice, but that is not what I am inquiring about here.

Amongst fans and players of D&D 4e, who would like to have a Rules Cyclopedia released? What are the possible means for that to be accomplished? Thanks.

-Dio

 

[Remathilis]

I'm not sure it could be done for a simple reason: D&D 4e is pretty bare-bones and its in three books. I'm not sure you could build a 1-30 game and fit it in one tome.

That said, an intro product (levels 1-10) That had 4-5 races and the core four classes (figher, cleric, wizard, rogue; one build each) and a bunch of monsters and treasure (along with some DM advice) could fit in a single book. It'd be a limited play experience, but it could be done. However, I don't see much of a niche for it.

You'd probably be better off trying to update the RC to a d20/post-2000 D&D formula than further distill 4e.

 

[Dionysos]

I really think that if you cut the art (keeping maybe just one piece at the start of each chapter), lowered the font size, cut the flavor text and Points-of-Light-specific content (there goes half the DMG, right there), minimized whitespace and gave up on having only one monster-type per page, the rules content would all fit into one largish book. Not even approaching the size of Ptolus, even.

I doubt much of any rules content would need to be cut. 8 races, 8 classes with two builds each, etc.

Another idea, to give groups the option of a little more variety, would be to cut the Warlock from it and put in the Sorcerer from PHB2 instead. Nothing against the Warlock and I love him dearly, but this way we would still have two arcane classes but also a balance of two classes per role (assuming the Sorcerer is still a controller, a subject of some speculation at this point).

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah, but the MSRP on Pholtus was over 100 dollars, and throughly out of all but the most hardcore fan's price scale.

I'm not saying its not doable, but what you described is closer to a small-print SRD with a nice binding than an RC style system-in-a-book. Remember, the RC shoved in a sample campaign setting AND 2e conversion guidelines as well as a complete 1-36 game. ;-)

 

[malraux]

Is there much need for DMG content anyway? If you just want to take one book, I can't think of anything rule related thats in the DMG that isn't on the DMG screen. To be complete PHB + DMG Screen + laptop to access DDI:Compendium for any monsters you want.

 

[RFisher]

I know nothing of the GSL and I am not involved in publishing. Could such a product be made by a non-WOTC company? If so, please do so! I know my group would jump right on top of this.

Could it be done? Of course! Game mechanics aren’t covered by intellectual property laws. (Well, you could patent a game mechanic, but I don’t believe this has been done for an RPG yet.)

The problems are that it is a lot of work, not the kind of work that is very rewarding for most people, & a bit tricky. Tricky because it’s easy to say that the mechanics and the expression of those mechanics are separate things but it becomes less black-&-white when you actually try to separate them.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I really think that if you cut the art (keeping maybe just one piece at the start of each chapter), lowered the font size, cut the flavor text and Points-of-Light-specific content (there goes half the DMG, right there), minimized whitespace and gave up on having only one monster-type per page, the rules content would all fit into one largish book. Not even approaching the size of Ptolus, even.

I doubt much of any rules content would need to be cut. 8 races, 8 classes with two builds each, etc.

Another idea, to give groups the option of a little more variety, would be to cut the Warlock from it and put in the Sorcerer from PHB2 instead. Nothing against the Warlock and I love him dearly, but this way we would still have two arcane classes but also a balance of two classes per role (assuming the Sorcerer is still a controller, a subject of some speculation at this point).

I don't know what the Rules Cyclopedia all contained, but it might also be possible to reduce the rules content to the first 20 levels instead of the full 30 levels. Then add the combat chapter, the DM Screen plus 2-4 pages on monster creation, trap creation and XP values and encounter guidelines.

The most important thing to do would be to cut the whitespace and you would have to accept that you break some powers and monster descriptions over 2 pages.

 

[Festivus]

As someone who just recently had to switch to progressive lenses, I wouldn't vote in favor of a smaller font size!

I also wouldn't include the DMG and Monster manual books as I don't consider them needed at the game table. Just the contents of the DM screen would suffice.

Last thought, isn't there electronic editions of all the books planned? Couldn't you just take a laptop with those on them to refer to in game, or better yet, in this day and age of technology, WoTC could put up a cell phone accessable compendium for rules lookups.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

No, please: not even for a RC, don´t touch font size or whitespace. I don´t want to travel back into the stone age of layouting.
Otherwise i think a RC could be an interesting product. Problem is... i know 0 people who would buy one.

 

[malraux]

Last thought, isn't there electronic editions of all the books planned? Couldn't you just take a laptop with those on them to refer to in game, or better yet, in this day and age of technology, WoTC could put up a cell phone accessable compendium for rules lookups.

There are pdf versions of the books for sale currently, and to a large extent, the compendium covers most of the basic info lookup needs.