What is the right price for D&D books?

[frankthedm]

Considering the staggering amount of inflation of recent, the books were priced fairly low. Have not look at the more recent offerings, though I have seen the curb stopping grocery prices have been doing to a lot of people's finances.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think the prices are about right.

 

[Kzach]

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

Really?

What evidence do you have to back that up? 'cause I've heard the opposite.

 

[Jawsh]

Is WotC charging too much for their books?

Not too much for me. I can afford the ones I want. I feel bad for the kids who can't afford them, but I can't speak directly for them.

Are the books too big?

I like big books. I like small books too. I was a big fan of Sword and Fist and that whole series. I think I would like it if WotC had options. Some big full-colour options, and some smaller, black-and-white options.

Are the production values too high?

I don't think they're high enough. Or rather, I think WotC is spending money in the wrong areas. There are things in the books that make me cringe. Like the fake bamboo borders. I wouldn't mind them so much, but throughout the books they're all out of place, and they end abruptly. They look like they're designed for a computer filing system, and then awkwardly cut and pasted into physical books.

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

No. I love colour illustrations, but there are lots of examples of good black and white artwork throughout the history of D&D. I'd still like to have the occasional book, like the Draconomicon, with a full colour illustration on every page, but I'd expect to pay more for those.

Is hardcover good bad or indifferent?

Hardcover is good, but not the final determiner.

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

Yes. I consider my money earned if I can sit down and enjoy the book for an evening. If I can use it for hours of gaming fun, I consider that a bonus. Again, that's just me, because I can afford the books. And I'm not a rich guy. I am a single adult male with semi-regular employment.

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).

Well, you didn't ask about good editing. I should hope that the editing budget doesn't cut into the layout, artwork, and design budget. If it has to be only one thing, I'd pick editing. If it will cost more for the book to have both good content and good looks, then I will pay that cost.

 

[Hassassin]

Does anyone actually *know* how large a part of the books' costs are from printing? I imagine that's shrinking, rather than rising.

Yes, color art will be more expensive than B/W, but I still hope most of the costs are due to developers, writers, editors etc. If that's the case, full color doesn't actually add that much to the price. (And you can use B/W art in a full color book.)

If it really matters, I would prefer the core books (that you use a lot) to be full color, but adventures could be mostly black and white (maybe with color images to show the players), since they have less reuse value and are only read by the DM.

For many things I actually prefer electronic formats, where printing costs aren't an issue.

 

[pemerton]

I recenty bought Heroes of the Feywild for $20 Australian and was thinking of starting a thread on how cheap D&D books are. Admittedly the Australian dollar is strong at the moment in historical terms (above parity with the US dollar). And the price of imported gamebooks reflects the exchange rate at importation, not at selling - so Adventurer's Vault 2 was $40 at the same time in the same shop. That's the most expensive I've seen a WotC book, as best I can recall, in the past 10 years.

But when I bought the AD&D DMG, MM and PHB in 1985, they were $22.50, $16.95 and $19.95 respectively (the prices are still marked on the inside front page).

As best as I understand it, real incomes in Australia have roughly doubled over that time. The core AD&D books had better binding (although some later ones, especially UA, had bad binding), but the new books have better art and the binding is still holding up so far.

From my point of view, the prices are fine.

 

[S'mon]

But when I bought the AD&D DMG, MM and PHB in 1985, they were $22.50, $16.95 and $19.95 respectively (the prices are still marked on the inside front page).

That seems extremely cheap. AIR I paid £40 for the set in 2008, and even that seemed cheap. Only time I've felt ripped off by a WoTC book was amazon.co.uk overcharging me nearly £28 pre-official-release for the Neverwinter Campaign Setting - I paid it thinking it was going to be a fat boxed set not a hardback. They played very dirty, both overcharging and undermining FLGSs - Leisure Games did not have it in stock when I ordered from amazon, when they did get it in a few days later they charged ca £23.

Anyway, WoTC books are generally very good value for the standard of presentation you get, even when the content sucks. I would prefer cheap & cheerful b&w though, like Goodman Games.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

For me, sometimes they are worth it and sometimes they are not. Full cover full of some of their usual artists (WR and WoC) might as well have B&W cartoons scratched by someone on staff as far as I'm concerned. That is, they are wasting their production values on me in that regard. Though I do appreciate the work done to improve layout since WotC first got D&D. So it basically comes down to content as the decision point--I'm not going to use most of the content in PHB 3. Therefore, I didn't buy it.

From their perspective of me as a customer, I can say that I'm only going to budget so much for games per year. Their competition is Burning Wheel (which doesn't release much in a year) and maybe a board game or two. The rest of the budget, such as it is, will go towards whatever other RPGs I intend to give a shot playing soon or am playing now, such as 4E. When that is D&D, I'll either buy a bunch of cheaper books or a lesser number of expensive books. So strictly from a content perspective and sales, they are probably better off making fewer, quality books for me.

 

[JeffB]

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.

This.

Being that I don't get along with the majority of D&D (or PF) art, I'd like to see the books fairly art-free. Even if I DID like the art, I'd still prefer very few pieces. I don't like someone else doing all my imagining for me My LBBS didn't have much- neither did Holmes or Moldvay- I'm still playing D&D 35 years later so vast amounts of full color art is probably not a big deal, right?

I'd be fine with B&W, well stitched $20 hardcovers. Modern D&D/PF pricing has curbed my buying by a significant margin. In 2010 I spent less than a $100 on RPG books of all kinds. 2011 I have upped to about $200- but I used to spend several hundred to a thousand dollars per year. I no longer purchase any books I won't get a large amount of use from, whereas I used to purchase books cos I liked one or two ideas, or monsters, or whatever.

 

[Jhaelen]

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?

Well, my answers are:
- Hell, no!
- No
- No
- No (it _is_ nice, though!)
- It's not only 'good', it's a _must_
- Almost always the answer is yes.

Note, that I'm usually buying them here in Germany without any discounts and I still consider them low-priced. Comparable German books are a _lot_ more expensive.