D&D 5E Should You Buy The Setting Books Regardless?

[Zardnaar]

I have bought the Eberron book even though I am not a massive fan of the setting. I enjoy reading but never really ran it except using Stormreach once.

I don't actively dislike it either though.

My logic was it encourages WotC to make more settings books. Settings I do care about. Assuming you care about other settings.

Now I would also apply this logic to settings I actively dislike those being Ravenloft and Dragonlance. There's no point where I expect WotC to change those settings to fit my tastes because that would lose them their current fans. There's probably something in them I can use.

Now I don't use this logic on everything of course. I'm not going to buy a bad game to support a franchise just because. The difference here is I care about some of the old settings and a few haven't been updated since the 90s.

 

[Retreater]

I bought the Eberron book because of a Black Friday sale. Even though I initially had no interest in using it, people online encouraged me to give it a try. And unsurprisingly, I am underwhelmed. I might be able to pick through and use about 10% of the product. So that's it for me: I'm not going to buy any more campaign settings. I never use them, and I don't even enjoy reading them.
So I guess my point is, buy what you think you're going to "use" (whether "use" is for gaming, pleasure reading, enjoying the art, etc.) If you don't think you're going to enjoy it, don't buy it.

 

[generic]

I think this is a good thesis.

Buying setting books will help to show WotC that older settings still have fanbases, and can, in fact, be continued.

My hope is that newer players pick up these setting books, as my guess is that those players are WotC's target market.

I'm the type of person who will probably purchase one of setting books for any setting, regardless of whether or not it's my favorite, or my cup of tea.

I just hope that enough new players buy in to these products to make them viable for WotC to release.

 

[Zardnaar]

I bought the Eberron book because of a Black Friday sale. Even though I initially had no interest in using it, people online encouraged me to give it a try. And unsurprisingly, I am underwhelmed. I might be able to pick through and use about 10% of the product. So that's it for me: I'm not going to buy any more campaign settings. I never use them, and I don't even enjoy reading them.
So I guess my point is, buy what you think you're going to "use" (whether "use" is for gaming, pleasure reading, enjoying the art, etc.) If you don't think you're going to enjoy it, don't buy it.

I forgot to mention assuming you care about other settings. If you bought it and it didn't do it for you fair enough. I inherited the 3.5 one off one of my players.

 

[Shiroiken]

While I'd like to see more setting books, there is the flawed logic of WotC seeing the purchases as desire for more Eberron, rather than settings as a whole. I'd love to see an updated Realms book (beyond just the Sword Coast), but I'm not going to buy a Dark Sun book in hopes they make one. I'd rather make sure I participate in the surveys and hope my voice is heard.

 

[ccs]

I will not buy a product that I don't like/am not interested in, hoping that it'll lead to future products that I do like/want.
All that'll do is demonstrate that there's a market for the content I'm NOT interested in. That's not the message I want them to receive!

In the case of Eberron?

• I have no interest in running a game in this setting. But we occasionally rotate DMs, it's a popular setting, & I'm not opposed to playing in a game set there. So it's helpful to know the basics of the world.
• I'm perfectly fine with adding Warforged & Artificers to my game. And playing them in other peoples games if allowed.
• Likewise I'll strip bits & pieces for my own games.

So I picked up the very cool looking LE cover version at my local shop during their Black Friday sale (big shopping day here in the USA right after Thanksgiving).

 

[teitan]

I was going to buy the Eberron book and then a couple days before I cancelled my preorder because I already had so much stuff to use and I just didn’t feel like buying a book to set on the shelf. I have plenty of those already. If it were Planescape or Greyhawk I could justify it because I just really dig the core lore of D&D and it’s why I use the Realms now. I don’t need a twist.

 

[jasper]

ASMODEUS NO!
Why support splat books if you are not going to use them. It sends the wrong signal. AKA the fans will buy any merch with D&D symbol on it. (holy molly I wrote that with out bad words.) One the reasons I have trouble relating to some of you is,. I thought the manual of the planes was the first in a series of cash grabs.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Never buy a book you do not care about.

Because if you do, you will glance through it, get annoyed with having spent money on it, and then spend the next five years here on ENWorld complaining about how the product sucks and how WotC's designers suck and why their policies suck. And the rest of us have to keep reading these same tired complaints over and over again because you can't help bringing it up in thread after thread after thread.

Buy the stuff that makes you happy. Because a happy buyer is a happy poster, and a happy poster keeps me from having to get annoyed at you as I read your stuff. And really... this is all about me and what I go through, isn't it? I think so. I'm pretty sure.

 

[Bitbrain]

I purchase the D&D products that I purchase because I want to own them and use things from those products at my table.