What is the right price for D&D books?

[Wiseblood]

I'm not talking used ones.

Is WotC charging too much for their books?

Are the books too big?

Are the production values too high?

Is color necessary on every page or in every piece of art?

Is hardcover good bad or indifferent?

When you buy a book from WotC do you feel like your money was well spent?

I guess I might be asking if I am cheap. Because my answers are Yes, yes, Yes because I consider good editing more important than glossy pages, no, Good for core later books I am Indifferent, and not really (if I'm paying retail).

 

[Stormonu]

It sure feels like they are overcharging.

I can buy the Savage Worlds rulebooks for $10 - and that's without a discount.

I do feel that they've gone overboard on paper, ink and coloring. Though many others would probably balk, I'd be happy enough with a black-and-white rulebook. If you wanted to spice it up, a small color-picture section (say 8-10 pages) would be fine. I don't think the whole thing needs to be in color unless it was a "deluxe" version.

I'd love to see the D&D books out in non-hardcover versions, and I think they proved it would work with the Essentials books, which are all softcover.

 

[the Jester]

I like the art in color in my monster books for sure. I care a lot less in my PH and DMG, but bw ought to be substantially cheaper than color.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I have no problem with the price points for D&D books, really. They are nice books that will last longer than I will probably play them.

As for color, I like it and would like most pages to have color. B&W just looks cheap, to me. I would not object to B&W very much, though.

As for paper quality, it could be a bit less glossy and I would still be happy with it.

But overall, I am quite satisfied. RPGs are still one of the cheapest ways to spend free time I know of.

 

[mach1.9pants]

I was thinking a similar thing with DDI, all the articles are beautiful and colour and full of art. Now I know they don't have to pay printing cost but IMO WotC is going for too much colour bling in it's products. I would prefer less colour art and cheaper/more game materiel books and articles.

 

[delericho]

Is WotC charging too much for their books?

No, if anything they're not charging enough. Books are expensive to produce, and becoming more expensive every year.

The one thing I really don't like when it happens is if they reduce the page count at the same time as increasing the price. I mean, logically I understand it... but I don't like paying more for less.

Are the books too big?

Sort of.

I'm starting to think that WotC would be well served turning D&D into a fairly deluxe (and quite expensive) boxed starter set/core rulebook combo, supported by a small number of equally-expensive expansion boxes... and doing almost all of the rest of the support online via the DDI.

I do think that the Core Rules for the game are way too big, and should be cut down to a single volume of about the same size as the 4e "Rules Compendium".

However, I don't think the individual books are too big. The last book I bought was the aforementioned "Rules Compendium", and I thought the format was fantastic.

Are the production values too high?

No. If they want D&D to go mass-market, they need to keep the production values high. There's an argument for not going that route... but it's not an option while Hasbro hold the brand.

Is color necessary on every page or in every piece of art?

No, but... It's part and parcel with the high production values that the books are full-colour. I wouldn't mind seeing books in black and white, but I understand why they're just not done.

Is hardcover good bad or indifferent?

The gamebooks I use frequently get a pounding, and hardback goes a long way to mitigate the damage. (I haven't used the RC enough to see how it holds up. It's worth noting that my 3.5e Core Rulebooks have had hundreds of hours of use across almost a decade, and are completely intact.)

My preference is very definitely for hardback, at least in Core Rules. And yes, I know that's not entirely consistent with some of the other stuff I've said in reply to other questions.

When you buy a book from WotC do you feel like your money was well spent?

I don't buy a lot from WotC, but that's mostly due to 4e. For the most part, when I have bought a book from WotC, I have considered it money well spent. The exceptions are pretty notable (3e's "Deities & Demigods", "The Book of Exalted Deeds", and especially "Scourge of the Howling Horde").

Ultimately... this is a cheap hobby. Once you've got the Core Rulebooks for your game you don't actually need anything more. 4e breaks this assumption slightly, in that you're almost certain to want more (at least PHB2 and more MMs), but they're not required... and anyway, if you're playing much 4e you probably want a DDI sub, which is very reasonably priced. In fact, WotC's major problem is that you don't need anything more.

 

[delericho]

I was thinking a similar thing with DDI, all the articles are beautiful and colour and full of art. Now I know they don't have to pay printing cost but IMO WotC is going for too much colour bling in it's products. I would prefer less colour art and cheaper/more game materiel books and articles.

Printer-friendly material in the DDI (especially adventures) would certainly be a good idea.

 

[Incenjucar]

The prices of the books would be fine if the content didn't tend to shrink every season, especially since so much of the content is redundant filler material post-Essentials. MME, I felt, was a ripoff, since it not only used a lot of space-eating tricks (like GIANT FONT quotes), but also had a bunch of reprinted material I already owned. The Book of Vile Darkness is definitely overpriced, since it's not only soft cover, but puny.

 

[SiderisAnon]

For what they are, I think the gaming books are probably reasonably fairly priced.

However, I won't buy them for what they are. I don't need all the artwork and color pages and special paper and whatever else goes into them. I'm perfectly happy with the older style of books. As someone pointed out above, I paid about $10 for the softback Savage Worlds and generally think that's how a game book should look.

I also do not think that what they are is what our hobby needs. To get into running a game, you have to buy three very expensive hardbacks. If you believe the hype, you need far more than that. Any player trying to get into the game has to buy an expensive hardback. (You and I know you can play with none of that, but that's not how someone new to the hobby may see it.)

They need the initial player book to be reasonably priced. No more than $20. Get people into the game. Get people playing. Then sell them more books -- preferably a larger number of less expensive books.



Ultimately, I'm not their market however. I buy everything in PDF anymore, except for one copy of a core player book so I have it for people at the table. I don't have to haul them, I don't have to store them, and I can zoom the text really large for my old, weak eyes. I miss the smell and feel of books, but the newer gaming books don't have the same smell or feel anyway, so I'm not losing as much.



The one counter to my own argument I will make is that the artwork for the monsters, both WoTC and Paizo, is fantastic and really does inspire the game when it can be shown at the table. (I'd still rather have it on the computer though.)

 

[Morrus]

I think a D&D core rulebook is worth a hundred movie tickets. I certainly get more from it than I would from, say, 10 Big Macs.

So I think they're priced just fine.