Pricey Book Question

[JacktheRabbit]

I'm looking at buying the Book of the Righteous, because the Holy Warrior class seems like such a great idea, what should have been done in 3e to begin with really, a customizeable paladin.

Thing is, the book is padded with 300 more pages of material I'll get scarcely any use from, it's all campaign specific, and they want $40 for it. In their dreams. Yeah, yeah, it got a whole lot of high praise from reviewers, but I don't think it's worth $40 dollars for material I don't think I'll get that much use out of.

And now on the green ronin website I see they're releasing another product with the 'unholy warrior', to milk this cow a little more. Bah.

Man, if they would release the holy warrior class as a PDF for 5 or 10 bucks, or maybe it and the 'unholy' one (which seems like blatent cash-cowing), I'd buy it in a heartbeat. It would be all value. As it is, I started typing here intending to ask people how they've used the extraneous material in this book, to see if I could talk myself into it. But now I'm unfavorably inclined enough by the second book that I don't think I should buy either.

So has anyone bought this overpriced thing? Does it sit on a shelf, or how is it useful to you if you don't intend to scrap your own campaign and use their mythology?

Lots of people have bought it and it is a great resource. It is rather pathetic of you to attack it just because you are so damn cheap that you won't buy it.

I find it amusing that GR is milking the consumer in your opinion just because they wont sell you the one portion of the book you want for the cheap.

Pathetic.

 

[KDLadage]

Lots of people have bought it and it is a great resource.

I would not base my purchasing on such a claim, but you are certainly entitled to this opinion.

It is rather pathetic of you to attack it just because you are so damn cheap that you won't buy it.

No need, I suppose, to call him cheap; frugal perhaps? However, I agree with you. It is rather odd that one would be upset that the parts are not sold seperate from the whole.

I find it amusing that GR is milking the consumer in your opinion just because they wont sell you the one portion of the book you want for the cheap.

This is absolutely correct. One has to wonder about this individuals purchasing habits:

Does he buy source or reference books one entry at a time so as to not get that vast majority that he will not use? Must have made dictionary and encyclopedia purchases rather odd...

I can just imagine the look on a servers face in a resteraunt when he asks for his steak to be served "one bite at a time; I do not want to pay for more than I will eat!"

Now this is meant to be humorous (and is more than likely arguments that fall under any number of fallacies in logical thinking). But I think the point can be made this way.

Pathetic.

A bit strong; but in principle I agree.

People often forget that companies like GR and such are not here for the purposes of providing anyone anything; they are here to make money. They are businesses. And to concern themselves with such things does not constitute "cach cowing" (what-ever that is suppose to mean.... did you perhaps meen fleecing or something along those lines?).

 

[DanMcS]

The money isn't the problem. $40 is no big deal to a young adult with a job and no dependants And my guess of $10 for the 20 pages or less for the amount of pages I would guess the novel mechanical stuff takes up isn't "for the cheap", exactly. At that rate, the whole book would cost $160 or so, so my guess is (per-page) about four times what the /publisher/ thought it was worth.

My problem is that I think the book was ballooned. And I'm apparently pretty much right about that. The book is 270,000 words, and was originally supposed to be 80,000.

People here are admitting as much, that they bought the book, thought it was lovely, and don't use it. I think that's bizarre.

 

[DanMcS]

No need, I suppose, to call him cheap; frugal perhaps? However, I agree with you. It is rather odd that one would be upset that the parts are not sold seperate from the whole.

I prefer 'utilitarian' Several posters on this thread have said they gave the book a heck of a review, and have since done nothing with it save read for pleasure and 'steal ideas'. What's the point of buying a game book if you can't even use the majority of it in a game?

 

[trentonjoe]

Re: Re: Pricey Book Question

Lots of people have bought it and it is a great resource. It is rather pathetic of you to attack it just because you are so damn cheap that you won't buy it.

I find it amusing that GR is milking the consumer in your opinion just because they wont sell you the one portion of the book you want for the cheap.

Pathetic.

That was a little uncalled for. The poor guy doesn't want to spend $40 on a book that he doesn't know if he'll use. In my mind that doesn't make him cheap or pathetic.

THe orginal poster brings up a couple of points that have been beaten to death over and over on these boards. Big deal, don't call him names.

 

[DanMcS]

And, by the way, does anyone have a clue why the 'reply with quoting' gif and the 'smile' gif seem to have exchanged places? That's just wierd.

 

[trentonjoe]

I prefer 'utilitarian' Several posters on this thread have said they gave the book a heck of a review, and have since done nothing with it save read for pleasure and 'steal ideas'. What's the point of buying a game book if you can't even use the majority of it in a game?

Call it what you want but I wouldn't spend $40 for ideas.

 

[Wicht]

My problem is that I think the book was ballooned. And I'm apparently pretty much right about that. The book is 270,000 words, and was originally supposed to be 80,000.

I would rather pay $40 for 270,000 words than $30 for 80,000. Even the thin soft-cover books being put out right now are running $20.

Are you seriously trying to accuse the company of intentionally filling the book with stuff you did not want in order to charge you more? Somehow I would get the feeling that a company would make more charging you $30 for a thinner book that took less time and effort to publish than they would $40 for a thicker book that took them more work.

 

[Henry]

Call it what you want but I wouldn't spend $40 for ideas.

I hate to bring this up, but that's what all RPG source materials are, aren't they?

 

[KDLadage]

The money isn't the problem. $40 is no big deal to a young adult with a job and no dependants And my guess of $10 for the 20 pages or less for the amount of pages I would guess the novel mechanical stuff takes up isn't "for the cheap", exactly. At that rate, the whole book would cost $160 or so, so my guess is (per-page) about four times what the /publisher/ thought it was worth.

Then where is the problem?

My problem is that I think the book was ballooned. And I'm apparently pretty much right about that. The book is 270,000 words, and was originally supposed to be 80,000.

Ah. But I fail to see that it was artificially ballooned. Consider this:

If the original vision of the book was 270,000 words. Then, the author turned in a manuscript that accomplished this goal in 80,000 words and GR then said -- "Pad it. We want this to be a big volume we can charge a lot of money for." Then I would call this ballooning needlessly.

If, on the other hand, the original vision of the book is 80,000 words and the author writes 270,000 words of quality material, so GR then said -- "Wow, Not sure if we want to loose any of that. We'll just have to produce a larger book!" Then this is what I would not call ballooning needlessly.

It may be larger than you feel is needed. But this is not malicious, cash-cowing, or an attempt to fleece the audience in any way.

So I fail to see a problem.

People here are admitting as much, that they bought the book, thought it was lovely, and don't use it. I think that's bizarre.

Really?

So every book you have purchased in the RPG arena you have used, unedited? You have found no waste material in it? I know the answer to these, so don't bother to answer. I ask rhetorically.

The point is that I have a collection of GURPS books (for instance) that is over 190 books in size. Many of these I have read, gleaned a few useful options and ideas out of and went about my way. I may never actually use the book as the author intended, but this was not a waste of my money. I purchased the books for this purpose -- to garner ideas, to see things presented that I may not have thought of on my own but that I may be able to use in another way all together.

I do not see it odd in any way.