Pricey Book Question

[Wicht]

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

Most of my purchases RPGwise are for ideas.

I love monster books. I read through them and get great ideas about how to use various monsters in games. Reading Hammer and Helm right now and getting wonderful ideas about dwarven clans for my games. In a role playing game like dungeons and dragons its all about the ideas IMHO. As a DM I am not sure what else I would by a book for. To me the rules are just vehicles for the ideas behind them. Take away the ideas and you might as well play chess (not that I dislike chess mind you).

 

[Forrester]

A dissenting opinion . . .

I paged through some of it (I was prohibited by my mean DM from looking at the evil gods and the magic items) and was, well, not exactly bowled over. If I was going to use their pantheons and such, well, fine, it'd be worth the $$.

Since I'm not, it's not.

 

[AaronLoeb]

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.

Okay... I just have to respond to this because it's a comment targeting GR and implying they are somehow greedy or pulling one over on the consumer. Call me a jackass, kick my name around in the mud, put my head on a dartboard, and I'll laugh along with you, but don't go sayin' nothin' 'bout Chris Pramas. "Was ballooned" implies that there was a concious, perhaps conspiratorial effort to make BotR bigger. There was not.

Chris wanted me to write him an 80,000-word book because, and this is the important part here, Smaller Books Make More Money. Your theory that they're "ballooning" books to make more money is based on the exact opposite of business reality. Smaller books are higher profit margin, sell better, cost less to make, the whole nine yards.

In this case, I was a bad monkey. I mean an epicly bad freelancer. I pitched an 80,000 word book and simply could not deliver the book I was asked to create. Had I been in Pramas' shoes (having worked in publishing for years, actually, I have been in his shoes), I likely would have canned the project. However, GR is founded so strongly on a belief in preserving the integrety of their authors' and artists' work that he just kept saying "okay" the bigger it got. This was not an "okay" followed by fiendish giggling and rubbing of hands together in the anticipation of all the beautiful money he was going to make. This was "okay" as in "I believe in this, and I'm going to take the risk." Believe me, there was a lot of stress involved in this book's continous expansion.

Publishing BotR was ballsy, not conniving. It's completely fine that you're unsold on it. I'm not trying to convince you otherwise. But don't go implying malintent on the part of someone who regularly risks his business on gambles based on a real love of quality, the hobby, and his fellow gamers. If history has proven anything in this industry it's that the best product does not always win -- that GR continues to strive to make the best possible product is laudible. Especially when they could just crank out low-quality, badly-ilustrated, poorly-playtested class books and likely make more money.

Aaron

 

[Ysgarran]

As always it is a question of what you want for your own campaign and what your preferences are.

For me, it is the best d20 purchase I've made.

later,
Ysgarran.

 

[KDLadage]

wonderful comments on the way this book got to be larger snipped

Well... although I had not purchased and had no intention of purchasing this book. You sir, have just earned yourself another sale.

 

[Henry]

While I don't disparage Aaron or Green Ronin for their fine work, I had the same basic reaction when I perused the book a few weeks ago - lovely book, but none of it useful to my games now or near future. Instead, I bought Ultramodern Firearms. I think Dan's main point here is that it doesn't make sense to him to buy a book that one only gets 25% or less usage out of. Even Aaron agreed on that point.

On the flip side, Dan, I'm not sure why you feel that GR or Aaron are "trying to bilk you out of money." Unless by "ballooned" you mean you don't feel it was cut down, Aaron didn't invent 190,000 words extra to give Green Ronin - that's what he wrote. (Knowing how most writing efforts are, the final product is probably slightly cut down from the original manuscript anyway!)

That's a pretty serious charge. Say all you want that it's not to your liking, but it isn't kosher to insinuate or outright state that they are milking you for extra cash! I don't see that at all - what I see is a product that some people find VERY useful.

Me, I didn't buy it and moved on. If I really need a certain piece of info for my game, I'll borrow it from a friend if they have it, and give it back when I'm done. Otherwise, I'll do without.

But then, that sounds just like what you're doing.

 

[DanMcS]

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.

Of the two, if I could use most of either, I'd buy it. Let me turn the example around:

If there were two books, one of which you could use 10% of the ideas of and the other you could use 50% of the ideas, which would you buy? I don't care about the price, I care about usefulness. At 270,000 words, there better be a whole lot I can use in there, or it's not worth it, at $10 or $100.

I asked "what do people use most of this book for?" to try and convince myself that I would get maybe that 50% use; the answer has been a resounding "not much" so far.

 

[trentonjoe]

Maybe ideas is the wrong word. Specific rules would be better, I love monster books too and I am gonna buy the Monster Handbook as soon as I get around to it because it has rules. The web enhancement was great. It had things I could use. To me, it is worth $30.

Three hundred pages on churchs doesn't sound like rules to me. Nor is it worth $40 to me.

Ahh, I really don't what I am talking about here, I haven't read the book, but it doesn't sound like it has a couple hundred pages of crunchy, rules stuff. It sounds like a couple hundreds pages of description of churches. <Please note I am very likely wrong>

Either way, the orginal point was that DanMcS would rather spend $10 on a specific small book than $40 on big general book. Maybe that wasn't his point but it was what I understood, and I agree with him.

I imagine it all comes down to economics and personal taste. I prefer little books.

 

[Mark CMG]

Well... although I had not purchased and had no intention of purchasing this book. You sir, have just earned yourself another sale.

I doubt you will be sorry. For those who enjoy in-depth role-playing and details in their games (as I am sure you do, KDL), it may be the single best d20 book ever brought to market.

 

[Wicht]

Well... although I had not purchased and had no intention of purchasing this book. You sir, have just earned yourself another sale.

Just last night I was thinking to myself that I have yet to buy a single book from Green Ronin that I disliked and this thread is making me want to give the Book of the Righteous another look myself.

Maybe I'll tell my wife that its what I want for GMs day.

Originally posted by Trentonjoe
Ahh, I really don't what I am talking about here, I haven't read the book, but it doesn't sound like it has a couple hundred pages of crunchy, rules stuff. It sounds like a couple hundreds pages of description of churches.

Rules are fine but as I said, in role-playing games, rules are just the vehicles for the ideas. The best books IMO make you want to incorporate the ideas into your game and then, if necessary, give you the rules needed to do so.