Things other than rulebooks

[Taren Nighteyes]

Originally Posted by RyanD
There are so many more valuable things that could be sold to players and GMs beyond new rules that I get greatly irritated by how many "rulebooks" I see in the marketplace.



I thought this topic deserved its own thread. (Wow - two threads from me in one day. Feels like 2000 all over again!)

Here's an example:

One of the biggest complaints with 3E is that stat blocks are a pain to create. Why doesn't someone make a great big old "book of stat blocks". Take every monster in the SRD, and stat it up by level to 20th level, in each class, with appropriate equipment. Index that thing right, and it becomes an invaluable reference for a DM.

Here's another:

There's a system for making a magic item in the DMG. You have to work your way through pages of dense, hard to read text to figure it out. And there is a lot of logic embedded in that text that is not explicitly written, so if you want to vary from the book, you have to reverse engineer the whole system to avoid breaking things.

Why doesn't someone make a book that becomes a "user's guide to the magic item" system? Flowcharts for simplicity. A ton of magic items built per the spec with stat blocks already derived and ready for use. A detailed look at the costing mechanism for effects for weapons & armor so that you could add new effects within the parameters of the system. Notice how there's no intelligent items in the DMG? That's a whole chapter of pre-built stuff right there.

This is the kind of stuff I'm talking about. Stuff that uses the rules as written, but gives the DM (and players) a whole new toolbox of stuff to easily integrate without worrying about "breaking the game".

Books like these need one thing to succeed - GOOD EDITING!

 

[Storminator]

-blarg

ps - It's not a non-standard system. It gives clear, consistent, and easy-to-use rules for making magic items for use in Dungeons & Dragons. The prices it generates are typically quite close to DMG values for the stock items, and the rest are all eminently reasonable.

The rules are clear, consistent, and easy to use, but they are not the rules in the DMG & PHB. They are therefore non-standard. I prefer them, but if the DM doesn't want to use them, I can't use them. No matter how unreasonable that is. :\

PS

 

[philreed]

My Campaign Planner is most definitely not a rulebook and is easily my most successful PDF, with over 1,000 copies sold to gamers. So I can see where non-rulebook products can easily have a long, healthy shelf life.

For that matter, the various character sheets and folios are also non-rulebook products and several have been commercial successes.

 

[der_kluge]

The Artificier's Handbook is my favorite D20 supplement. I just wish it was available in electronic form with a spreadsheet utility to match.

I turned the pdf over to Phil Reed who was going to see about making it available. Unfortunately, I never followed up with Phil -

Phil, is the pdf acceptable, or do you need the individual files? That will take me some time, but I could try to recreate a .doc version of the book if that would be more usable. I don't have the art, though, just the cover.

BTW, thanks for the comments, Campbell. I'm glad to hear that!

 

[Crothian]

with over 1,000 copies sold to gamers.

How many have you sold to non gamers??

 

[JohnSnow]

I've built that for my own use. Access db with Access front-end application. Data entry is all manual, though. I have 96% of the MM monsters (darned Dragons with their 12-in-1 entry format), and a few of the MMII, FF, and 3rd party products that I use.

It does apply all of the rules, and the process of entering the data has identified some flaws in various monsters. I had a steady stream of e-mail to WotC regarding skill point errors for a while there; probably why they stopped taking e-mail errata.

I also track PCs and encounters with it, as well as XP for the PCs.

This begs a question. If you could build this tool, and it made it simpler and more streamlined to stat up monsters, why hasn't Wizards of the Coast built their own tool for internal use? They could justify the cost in the greatly reduced staff time. Essentially, they'd be making "monster prep tools"? Is it job security for those who do stat blocks? Are they afraid that if they created such a tool they'd be out of a job?

And once they'd built the toolkit, they could sell it to gamers as a value-added project. That way the programming cost is amortized as game development, and the product is just a cash cow?

As another example, one of the guys in my gaming group who's much more facile with Microsoft Excel than me created an "auto-calculating" D&D character sheet. You fill in your attributes, feats, ranks and equipment and it spits out the modifiers. His doesn't consider EVERYTHING but it's pretty darn useful.

Why don't more of the people at game companies come up with stuff like this? I'd sure pay cold hard cash for those tools.

 

[philreed]

Phil, is the pdf acceptable, or do you need the individual files? That will take me some time, but I could try to recreate a .doc version of the book if that would be more usable. I don't have the art, though, just the cover.

We'll need to create an errata sheet to add to the PDF but it should work. I need to finish putting together a graphic novel and a book for Paradigm Concepts before I can do much of anything, though.

 

[philreed]

How many have you sold to non gamers??

Somewhere around 500,000, I think.

 

[BSF]

Spell Cards:
The Other Game Company sells these on RPGNow. http://www.rpgnow.com/default.php?manufacturers_id=463&SRC=EnWorld

Artificer's Handbook:
This is a great book and I use it for my campaign. So, I have the buy in I need. One or two of my players grumbled because they don't have it and didn't want to buy it. That's fine. Anything from the core rules needs to be reviewed heavily anyway. It is frustrating how many times one of the primary grumblers has tried to make bracers of mage armor because it would be cheaper than bracers of armor. So I have no sympathy when he grumbles about not having the Artificer's Handbook.

Stat blocks: CMG's product is a good start for basic monsters. PCGen works for some creatures, but it can still be time consuming. Still, I stat out a lot of NPCs using a notepad and my memory at lunch. A better way would still be nice though.

 

[Silveras]

I don't suppose you'd be willing to share the OGL parts of this? I've created my own db's for these purposes, but they're not nearly as complete or sophisticated as what you describe.

One difficulty is removing the non-OGL parts before doing so. I originally planned to keep it all OGL only, but there was way too much good stuff (for my own campaign) in various WotC products.