Tell me about 2E's excessive product-necessity

[Trainz]

Yeah well I should have cut-n'-pasted-n'-saved it when it happened. I'm purty sure it was obvious and ironic.

Still, I'm not saying publishing many books is bad: I like some of them. All I'm saying is that they promote one thing and did another.

There's an old saying about that type of behavior... something along the lines of being full of something...

 

[Dark Jezter]

I seem to recall WOTC saying that they believe that one of the reasons TSR went under was because they flooded the market with too many settings. Because of this, WOTC will never be making 3e versions of Planescape, Kara-Tur, Al Quadim, Spelljammer, Birthright, etc.

The only official settings that WOTC are supporting are Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance (I would mention Greyhawk, but that seems to be more of an RPGA thing).

 

[d4]

Still, I'm not saying publishing many books is bad: I like some of them. All I'm saying is that they promote one thing and did another.

consider how many books came out of WOTC for 3e.

consider how many books came out of TSR during any particular 3 years of 2e.

in comparison, WOTC made a lot fewer books, thereby keeping their word of not inundating the market like TSR did.

 

[ciaran00]

So, with that in mind...was 2E really all that bad?

2e rocks, but I remember specifically that the Revised Dark Sun boxed set actually had lines like "If it's not in here, refer to the 2nd edition players handbook". It literally was a sort-of addendum to 2e rules without bothering to completely state the rules. It failed to present complete equipment lists, instead giving you % costs for equipment from the PHB.

Anyway... 2e doesn't suck. I like it half and half.

ciaran

 

[JediSoth]

I seem to recall WOTC saying that they believe that one of the reasons TSR went under was because they flooded the market with too many settings. Because of this, WOTC will never be making 3e versions of Planescape, Kara-Tur, Al Quadim, Spelljammer, Birthright, etc.

The only official settings that WOTC are supporting are Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance (I would mention Greyhawk, but that seems to be more of an RPGA thing).

It's a pity, 'cause Planescape was very cool. Fortunately, most of the Planescape stuff wasn't "crunchy" so the 2E stuff is still very useful.

JediSoth

 

[Staffan]

I love 3.5 to an extreme. IMO, best version of D&D ever.

Now that said, I remember one of 3.0's main selling speech:

"We will not go the same route that TSR did, mainly overflow D&D 3rd Ed with a pletora of books." (paraphrasing)


Ha.

Ha ha.

During TSR's heyday back in the 90s, they usually published over 50 D&D supplements per year (I remember counting the stuff they did in 95 or 96, and it was over 70 - the 50 figure is conservative), not counting novels. By my count, 2003 has 14 D&D things released, including the three 3.5 core books (but not the gift set).

 

[Prince Atom]

I cannot really recall any specific instance of "product creep" in 2E. Then, I do not own more than a dozen 2e products: The core books, the Tome of Magic, Of Ships and the Sea, the Psionics Handbook, the World and Dungeon Builder's Guidebooks, a collection of four Dungeon adventures, the Arms & Equipment Guide, etc.

I think I own more 3E stuff: The core books, the PsiHB, the Greyhawk Gazetteer (the thin one), Stronghold Builder's Guidebook, FRCS, Savage Species, D&DG, MotP... etc.

And yet somehow I feel that I need at least Monsters of Faerun and Magic of Faerun before I can properly run FR. The MotP feels incomplete to me, and I have no Planescape material besides a general feel for Sigil (metal, dust, steam, and paranoia) that I got through the Torment computer game.

And also, somehow I feel sort of pressured to buy all the other products WotC is putting out, not just by WotC but by everyone else who says, "wow, what a great product!"

TWK
Peer pressure -- it isn't just for cigarettes anymore.

 

[storyguide3]

Yeah well I should have cut-n'-pasted-n'-saved it when it happened. I'm purty sure it was obvious and ironic.

Still, I'm not saying publishing many books is bad: I like some of them. All I'm saying is that they promote one thing and did another.

There's an old saying about that type of behavior... something along the lines of being full of something...

If one actually remembers how many books TSR put out for 2E versus WotC for 3E, perhaps it is not them that is full of something.

I mean really, what were you expecting? One book a year? How small a number of books would have fulfilled your expectation?

 

[shadow]

Well, many supplements assumed that you were using the Battlesystem miniature rules. For example, there were several spells in Tome of Magic that refered to the Battlesystem rules. Half of the Castle Guide was new rules for use with Battlesystem.

 

[Orius]

I also seem to recall several products referencing the Tome of Magic, even after that book was out of print.

Yeah, the ToM was one of the few "non-core" books that was constantly referenced throughtout 2e stuff. However, I don't ever recall it being out of print. It was first published in what, 1991? I purchased my copy, a 1994 printing, in 1995. Even later, I remember there being hard and softcover copies of the book that had a black cover similar to the core book reprints and Player's Option books. So it was pretty much always on the market until the release of 3e. I think a lot of people had the book, which was probably why there were references to it, why it was included in the Core Rules CD, and so on. The only real problem with it was that it had a relatively high price for its length.

A bigger problem was multiple incompatible systems, like the Complete Handbook series and the Player's Option series. ALso the products were not balanced against each other AT ALL. The kits in the Priest's handbook were orders of magnitude weaker than the ones in the Elves handbook.

Yeah, that was a problem. Kits in the earliest handbooks had small benefits like encounter reaction bonuses, most of which weren't gamebreaking. Later books had stuff like the oft-maligned and hated bladesingers and greenwood rangers which were way powerful.

And as for the Priest Handbook, the specialty priests there were horribly crippled compared to the priests of say, Faiths and Avatars. Although the F&A priests were campaign specific and generally need more xps to level than a regular cleric.