D&D 5E What is the point of the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide?

[Jester David]

Just stop it Jester, it's getting ridiculous. Are you selling WotC's merchandize for them, or what?

There is ZERO need to get personal. If you don't want to read my threads then make use of the block function rather than tell me what I can or cannot post.

You'll also notice I didn't say if the product was good or not, or achieved those goals. Just what the point was in response to the OP.

Let's comb through your own post and see what it says, okay?

"tiding people over" is your opinion but you don't present it as such. Lots of people aren't, but you choose to ignore this.

It's better than nothing though.

Why would you even write "until more content could be released". The 3E FRCS was published in 2001, just one year after the edition it serves was published. It is 320 pages long, with a font size smaller than SCAG. It won the Origins Award for Best Role-Playing Game Supplement for that year.

WotC in 2001 had more than three people to write the books. Something like a Campaign Setting in a year of release takes time that that may not have.
IF they think it will sell. IF a giant hardcover book is still the best way to release setting content.

By any reasonable standard of comparison, we are right in being disappointed. Why do you let WotC off the hook in this case as in so many others? Why not support the very valid criticism that in roughly the same time frame, WotC has managed only to publish something "to tide us over", instead of publishing perhaps the richest and deepest campaign guide ever published, something that truly is tiding myself over even now, 14 years later?

And 14 years ago I could drink all I wanted, partying all night, and barely have a hangover. Which is as relevant to me now (and the conversation) as what WotC could do back then. There's maybe a single person on the D&D team who has been there for that whole time.
After all, how long did it take TSR to do a big setting hardcover or boxed set? 13 years?

Publishing "the richest and deepest campaign guide ever published" takes a lot of hours of work, and is not something the D&D team has a lot of anymore. And it's not something a licenced studio will easily attempt either.

You could have said "SCAG is a pale shadow of the FRCS'es of yesterday", yet you don't. And never do.

Comparing it to a FRCS is as productive as comparing it to Martial Power or The Complete Book of Humanoids because it also contains fighter content and racial options. They're different products with different goals.
A FRCS isn't useful at all to players. This was meant to be a player's guide to the Realms (which wasn't released in 3e until 2003, so WotC is incidentally faster in this case).

3) it does not do anything of the sort. SCAG is definitely not working as a stand-alone product - it is definitely leeching off the efforts of past editions. Introduction yes; complete campaign guide no.

Repeat after me "it was never a campaign guide". They'll eventually release a campaign guide, and SCAG will still be around a serving a purpose.

And as a player's guide, assuming you mean "stuff for players", meaning "crunch", it is very light. Yet none of this can be learnt from your post.

No, "player's guide" as in "gives you advice for how to make a character in that setting. What the world is like, how to tie in your background, what elves are like, what gods are there, etc. So you don't make a Greyhawk or Dragonlance character for the Realms.
Setting players guides don't really need any crunch, so the little we received was a bonus.

4) "It provides a small amount of crunch to satisfy that craving." Wow. You even turn the small amount into a positive. And you speak for all of us when you feel satisfied by that small amount.

Again, I NEVER SAID IT SATISFIED ME. I was simply stating the freakin' point of the book. It's probable design goals. Why it was planned.

You know Jester, if people still take you seriously after spewing that sales pitch...

It's not a sales pitch.
If you want my review of the book, it's here:
http://www.5mwd.com/archives/3134

The tagline was "I liked this book. But I’m still conflicted on whether it was the book I wanted."

SCAG isn't completely void of useful info. But this is a thread where the OP is asking if he has somehow missed something or if it really is that light.

A much shorter reply from you could simply have been "yes, it's much lighter than for previous editions, but I bought it anyway and recommend you do too, because it's all we're likely to get in quite some time."

Which wouldn't have answered the OP, who was asking why they made the book not "What does CapnZapp think of this book?" Because if she wanted to know that, she'd have gone to the review section of the site.

 

[jayoungr]

I bought it and am happy with it. I wish I'd had it when I first started running Tyranny of Dragons, as I'm sure it would have allowed me to deepen the background detail on various places the group visited and given me some ideas for flavorful side encounters. I also quite like the crunch that is there; those melee-focused cantrips fill a gap in the existing spell list. The eldritch knight in my group is quite happy with his green flame blade cantrip.

Probably most people who would be posting on this board are not the target audience.

I imagine Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide is designed for hard-core lore-junkies ("OMG! That's why Northumberland and Southumberland hate each other so much!! I TOTALLY get it now!!" ).

Actually, it seems like the hard-core lore junkies are the ones complaining because it doesn't give them enough of a fix. I think it's designed more as a gateway book for people like me, who are playing in the Forgotten Realms for the first time and want a good introduction to the setting.

 

[Lidgar]

Green.

Flame.

Blade.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Green.

Flame.

Blade.

See? Told you.

 

[Jediking]

I'm not convinced each regional paladin needs its own subclass, just suitable flavour; ditto warlocks, rogues, etc.

It's good that things can be adapted for homebrew settings or change the region to fit the lore how you'd like. The Purple Dragon Knight can be applied to any empire/kingdom/order, which is nice. And I like that there are more martial-focused options.

I read pieces of it, but really only saw the races and a few subclasses. I liked what I saw for the races, they seemed expansive without being bloaty. But I have not used or seen any in play, so am waiting until then. I had no idea there were 11 subclasses, that was much more than I thought. Might have to look closer.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Just stop it Jester, it's getting ridiculous. Are you selling WotC's merchandize for them, or what?

I think a lot of us would like to see D&D do well, even if we're not 100% delighted with everything WotC's ever done. D&D is the flagship of our hobby, and promoting it (or at least refraining from actual slander - or is it libel? I always get those confused) is virtually a duty of the loyal D&D fan.

It's better than nothing though.

Exactly. And it's not like springing for one more book in years when WotC puts out something in addition to adventure paths is going to break the bank for many of us.

It's not like boycotting a lighter-than-you-might-like offering is going to encourage them to come out with something beefier - all they'll see is "lack of interest."

But some of what I saw seemed unfinished or not fleshed out. I saw some Bard Colleges that look like they were nothing but text, no mechanical benefit to the actual characters. Some expanded sub-races for elves and the such, but no mechanical benefits yet again.

Did it feel unfinished to everyone else?

It was light on crunch - which was mainly what I bought it for, but, even so, with as little as WotC is publishing along those lines for 5e, I'm not sorry I did buy it.

Is there a point to it other than those few game additions other than the lore? I felt like it should of been more. Needless to say,

5e adventures have been set in FR, particularly the Sword Coast, so it made some sense to provide a resource to introduce the area. More information (for the DM) is in the adventures, and in many other past publications, of course, so it's a sort of players' introduction to the setting, with a few goodies that maybe tie into it.

I think some of the new player options might've been better as PrCs, and certainly wouldn't have been upset to have seen more such resources, but considering 5e's slow pace of releases, it's nicer to have something than nothing...

 

[Illithidbix]

The point? Mostly as a fluff focused guide to the FR setting with some new race and class options.

It felt a little awkward that what focused a lot of people's attention is the relatively small amount of crunch, and many people who didn't really care about FR pretty much bought it for that, and were naturally... a little underwhelmed, because this was clearly not it's intended role.

But it's still one of the few drips of "OFFICIAL RULES!" that has been released beyond the Princes of the Apocalypse: Players Companion PDF*

I've been very happy that 5E *hasn't* been swamped by rules bloat by splatbook after splatbook.
But I can sympathize with the desperate desire to lap up ANY new crunch.


*Downloaded here: http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/EE_PlayersCompanion.pdf