What's your objection to splat books?

[TrippyHippy]

So it's irritating when companies produce products that you want?

That's an interesting conundrum! Should they therefore produce products that you don't want? Or cease production altogether?

It’s irritating when you want to stop at just the core books for the ‘complete’ rules, and then a player pops up with a new rules expansion to confound you. Moreover, if they keep producing them - you may never be ‘complete’!

I’m fairly ambivalent, as I don’t tend to buy into them too much and I’m quite liberal about rules and the choices players want to make with their characters. Then again, if I was trying to create a specific tone in the setting I was running, I might baulk at some of the options. I mean, 3E/3.5/OGL seemed to expand endlessly, beyond measure. How much is too much?

 

[Morrus]

It’s irritating when you want to stop at just the core books for the ‘complete’ rules, and then a player pops up with a new rules expansion to confound you. Moreover, if they keep producing them - you may never be ‘complete’!

You're simply repeating two previous posts but mixing them into one paragraph. Allow me to separate them back and repeat my earlier questions:

1) So it's pressure from peoples' friends to keep up with the latest products?

2) It's irritating that a company produces a product that you want, and therefore you feel bad and less complete if you don't have it?

And therefore....

3) RPG companies should cease production?

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

It can produce issues.

Paizo, for example, has an epic ton of splatbooks; those are any book in the Chronicles and Companions line (they also have a lot of core rule books, which also isn't a great strategy for allowing game growth).

However, one problem that comes up with Paizo is that they need to sell all of these books. So, in turn, they tend to release their APs and have those APs reference existing splatbooks. Mummy's Mask, for example, directs people to the splatbook People of the Sands. Iron Gods can be effectively unplayable if you don't have the Technology Guide.

Plus, quality problems can come up. Even Paizo suffers from this; their Distant Worlds book is, pretty much, almost a complete waste of money in light of books released later and almost isn't worth the money beforehand. WotC also had a lot of trouble with this.

Also, speaking from personal experience with Pathfinder? Having a lot of splatbooks in a game system is a DM's nightmare. It can become effectively impossible to keep track of the rules in play; even with Pathfinder's core rules only, we're having times where play has ground to a complete halt simply because we don't remember which of the 11 books we're dealing with actually has the rule in it.

 

[Morrus]

Also, speaking from personal experience with Pathfinder? Having a lot of splatbooks in a game system is a DM's nightmare. It can become effectively impossible to keep track of the rules in play; even with Pathfinder's core rules only, we're having times where play has ground to a complete halt simply because we don't remember which of the 11 books we're dealing with actually has the rule in it.

Again, only if you buy them. Does their very existence bother you if you don't buy them?

I assume there are many things in the world you haven't bought? Do they all bother you?

But, to go back a step. Assuming the existence of these books bothers you for one of more of ye above reasons, is the solution to cease production?

 

[TrippyHippy]

You're simply repeating two previous posts but mixing them into one paragraph. Allow me to separate them back and repeat my earlier questions:

1) So it's pressure from peoples' friends to keep up with the latest products?

2) It's irritating that a company produces a product that you want, and therefore you feel bad and less complete if you don't have it?

And therefore....

3) RPG companies should cease production?

I’m not repeating from anyone else, just posting my own thoughts. If other people have similar ideas, then good for them.

It’s basically pressure from gaming companies to keep buying their products, brought about by peer pressure I suppose. Now personally it doesn’t bother me, but I don’t really want to buy them that much anyway. Other people like to be complete, and find ever expanding rules an irritation, while marketing data suggests that too many rules expansions can be intimidating to new players. Whether RPG companies continue to produce them is up to them, but players aren’t required to be accountable to them in their preferences.

 

[Morrus]

Whether RPG companies continue to produce them is up to them, but players aren’t required to be accountable to them in their preferences.

Nobody said you had to be accountable. This is. 100% voluntary conversation with a fellow gamer. I hope you don't feel obligated to participate! You're free to not account for your preferences, though it would make for an odd conversation!

 

[TrippyHippy]

As long as you don’t start charging for it, I’m good!

 

[gamerprinter]

Also, speaking from personal experience with Pathfinder? Having a lot of splatbooks in a game system is a DM's nightmare. It can become effectively impossible to keep track of the rules in play; even with Pathfinder's core rules only, we're having times where play has ground to a complete halt simply because we don't remember which of the 11 books we're dealing with actually has the rule in it.

To me it depends on what are the expectations of you and your players. Pathfinder is the ruleset at my table, but since 1e, the 3 GMs at our table (we switch GMs every so often) are all experienced homebrewers and prefer to play within our own developed settings. We have the Core, and all the hardcover releases and use them in our games. This also means we have absolutely no needs of any of the APs, setting guides, anything having to do with Golarion. While I've recently purchased the Technology Guide, I don't plan to play Iron Gods. In most cases none of the 64 page guides are applicable to our needs - its only that I'm currently developing a PF sci-fi homebrew that I have the TG at all.

Also on our character sheets, I've imposed adding a paranthesis containing book and page number) following any feat or spell that is not found in Core, so we don't question where the source material lay when questions arise in play.

I don't find it a nightmare at all.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

Again, only if you buy them. Does their very existence bother you if you don't buy them?

I assume there are many things in the world you haven't bought? Do they all bother you?

But, to go back a step. Assuming the existence of these books bothers you for one of more of ye above reasons, is the solution to cease production?

If you don't buy them, you hamstring yourself for getting players, a lot of whom will want to use the material in newly-released books (the few that are not intimidated into playing something else by sheer volume of published material). So, pretty much, unless you know for certain your group will be playing with you, unchanged, forever... you're eventually going to have to buy them or deal with not being able to keep a long-term group going.

There are a lot of things in the world I haven't bought. They don't have the same impact. So, there is no equating other items I haven't bought with game books I haven't bought given the actual effects of the lack of purchase are not the same.

The solution is not to cease production, but to slow it and focus on diversification outside of the primary game product line. You won't get the same players buying everything, but there will be some crossover and you can, if your product is worth it, entice new people into the hobby in some form. Which is something WotC is doing that I think will ultimately succeed.

However, this is one area where significant financial backing is also necessary. WotC has Hasbro, and Monte Cook has proven he can get his through Kickstarter. Pinnacle Entertainment, if they ever became interested in this route, could probably also easily do it. Catalyst Game Labs proved they can do it in spades using Kickstarter and Steam to fund all of their video game efforts. So, even if the company doesn't have someone like Hasbro backing them, they can still get the funding they need for diversification. And, as WotC and Catalyst had proven, tabletop gamers are willing to pay for it.

Plus, diversification like that increases the general awareness of the brand, which in turn allows those products that draw in other types of gamers and fans to act as gateways to the primary game line. With a slower production line, they'll probably also keep more gamers due to the investment cost being lower.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

To me it depends on what are the expectations of you and your players. Pathfinder is the ruleset at my table, but since 1e, the 3 GMs at our table (we switch GMs every so often) are all experienced homebrewers and prefer to play within our own developed settings. We have the Core, and all the hardcover releases and use them in our games. This also means we have absolutely no needs of any of the APs, setting guides, anything having to do with Golarion. While I've recently purchased the Technology Guide, I don't plan to play Iron Gods. In most cases none of the 64 page guides are applicable to our needs - its only that I'm currently developing a PF sci-fi homebrew that I have the TG at all.

Also on our character sheets, I've imposed adding a paranthesis containing book and page number) following any feat or spell that is not found in Core, so we don't question where the source material lay when questions arise in play.

I don't find it a nightmare at all.

We don't do that because it is of limited practicality. It works for DnD and it's spin-offs; you get into things like Numenera and Savage Worlds, where the pagecounts can be different in the player's copy than in the GM's, and you start finding that just because it's on page X in their copy doesn't mean it's on page X in your copy.

It also runs across problems when you get into rules that reference rules that reference rules.