Super Sized Roleplaying... more for our money?

[Angel Tarragon]

Just out of curiousity: how many pages does WLD clock in at?

 

[trancejeremy]

WLD is something like 840 pages. With small text and almost no art.

There's also that Arduin book which is supposed to be 800 pages. World of Delos? Something like that

 

[trancejeremy]

Of course RARe is actually a set of three books (dungeon, NPCs/monsters, maps), so it doesn't fall in quite the same category as Ptolus, for instance. The largest book is still 232 pages, though.

Yeah, RA:Re is not very big. It should have been a 240 or so page hardcover (the one book is 232 pages, but the margins are rather large and there's a huge amount of white space in the book because there's something like 40 chapters)

 

[jdrakeh]

Honestly, I think that the utility of a given 'mega' product is dependent entirely upon it scope. For instance. . . .

I bought Ptolus but quickly sold it, realizing that it was largely useless outside of the specific setting that it is packaged with unless I had the time to do some fairly involved deconstruction work (I didn't and currently don't).

World's Largest Dungeon, on the other hand, is very generic -- it doesn't take much to ignore the 1-page backstory and simply look at it as a collection of random dungeons for use in any D&D setting (I hope that World's Largest City is similarly generic).

 

[jdrakeh]

There's also that Arduin book which is supposed to be 800 pages. World of Delos? Something like that

Worldbook of Khaas. It's the closest thing to a fantasy travel atlas that the hobby has ever seen. It's literally just a giant, world-spanning, guide book. I think that the KoK (3.0) setting book is a close runner-up with its slim five or so pages of rules.

 

[Drawmack]

I'm a sucker for setting books. I curently own about a dozen (and only about 30 books over all). So I'm interested in Ptolus and WLC. Now when it comes to adventures and what not - I don't even buy the 20 pagers, let alone mega-adventures. I only even own three adventures and every one of them was a gift.

 

[lrsach01]

I wrote a 362 page campaign module this year for Dragonlance. Wasn't supposed to be that big when we started, but hey.

Yeah, Cam, but its pure joy! Just got mine in the mail.

 

[buzz]

Whizbang's comment about the size is the first reason. Having separate books is just easier to handle & transport. Plus if I'm GMing, I can spread out a couple of books open to the relevant page on the table, but a giant hardcover can only be on one page at a time.

Okay, I can see this. However, rather than separate books, I'd prefer that companies simply make PDFs available (which Ptolus does), ideally not as a separate purchase. Luke Crane did this with Burning Empires, and Evil Hat with Spirit of the Century. If not the whole thing, key bits likely to be handed out or used for reference.

The second reason is financial. For me, dropping $30 or so on gaming products 3-4 times is a lot easier to justify than dropping $100+ on a single product. After all, I only have so much money to spread around in any given pay period.

I guess I still don't get this. If you have $100 to spend, what difference does it make if it's spent on three Ptolus books as opposed to one Ptolus book the size of the three combined? Assuming you're getting the same total amount of content, I don't see how one is better than the other.

And, lord knows, there are plenty of products out there that have been unnecessarily split into separate volumes solely because the publisher can charge more money overall (MRQ and GWd20 leap to mind).

 

[Voadam]

I guess I still don't get this. If you have $100 to spend, what difference does it make if it's spent on three Ptolus books as opposed to one Ptolus book the size of the three combined? Assuming you're getting the same total amount of content, I don't see how one is better than the other.

And, lord knows, there are plenty of products out there that have been unnecessarily split into separate volumes solely because the publisher can charge more money overall (MRQ and GWd20 leap to mind).

Monthly splurge budgets are the reason for me as well as a huge range of things I am interested in getting. When I consider things to spend my self assigned monthly gaming budget, very expensive things rarely make the list. I'd rather get a bunch of great deals on stuff like FFG's legends and lairs pdfs, WotC old edition stuff from Paizo, etc. RAR and Game of Thrones are very expensive pdfs and there are plenty of other better value choices for me for my money.

Ideal for me are huge products with good deals, so for instance I'm seriously considering the Helios Rising setting pdf while the publisher's coupon is still good.

 

[buzz]

I'd rather get a bunch of great deals on stuff like FFG's legends and lairs pdfs, WotC old edition stuff from Paizo, etc. RAR and Game of Thrones are very expensive pdfs and there are plenty of other better value choices for me for my money.

Sure, but that's not my point. You're stating that you'd rather spend your money on something else. What I'm asking about is, assuming you want content on a specific subject, why does it matter whether you're paying $100 for a 600pp book as opposed to $100 for three 200pp books. Either way, you're paying the same price for the same amount of content.