Why don't you buy non-WoTC stuff?

[ColonelHardisson]

Hello everyone!

Hal i d/l good food and fine spirits and I love it As to what I buy I get mostly adventures and I bought most of the Wotc line so I had a base-line for my PbEM game. Everything else I've bought is 3rd party modules for the reasons others have given. I would like to take a look at Bluffside and see where I could fit it in in Greyhawk. I know the reviews are glowing but I live in an area where I must drive 2 hours to get to a LGS Then they don't have what I want so I buy on-line. Yet I want to know how I can use this product for my own world. I guess what I'm getting at is that in the reviews or at your site I need to know that you could place Bluffside in the Great Kingdom for example. Or that it is a medium sized city that needs to be situated on the coast of a warm sea with the possiblity of a trade route. I realize this is nothing but some rambling but before I plunck down my money I really need to see more than 1 section of Bluffside. I don't want to read it cover-to-cover, yet I want to see for myself if I should spend my money on it

Bluffside is a city which is comprised of seven other cities. Think how New York is comprised of 5 boroughs - Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Staten Island, and New York. Although you could use all or just a few of them, and situate them anywhere, I would say it would be best to place the entire city in a campaign, just for enjoyment's sake. In that case, it would need to be placed on a coastline.

I see no reason why Bluffside couldn't be placed just about anywhere. The way it's designed, it could fit in just about any standard RPG game world. As I mentioned above, it's also cleverly designed, so that you can also use bits and pieces of it depending on your needs and taste.

 

[Sinistar]

Here are my two cents. As someone who drops a lot of money each month on game materials I think I am qualified to answer...

I know this was blasted earlier, but I say this is valid: Cover Art. If it does not look like a professional did the work, I will not even flip through it. I am not a fan of the "art direction" that WOTC has taken, but I will admit that they hire professional artists who have talent. WOTC gets a bye on the Cover Art test because I know the company. If I don't know the company I will not give them this leeway.
I have been a gamer for many years and have been burned on buying "compatible" supplements even before the d20 and 3e came out. One thing that has been consistent is professional art.

Professional layout is a must, but I will agree that most d20 publishers at least get this on the average. But if you make it past the cover art criteria, it has to be good. Interior art needs to be passable as well. I can't tell you how many d20 products I have picked up and put back down because the interior art did not match up to the shiny cover. This also goes for cartography and mapping. If it looks like the latest "Map-a-week" on the WOTC site, that does not impress me.

A big determiner for me lately has been need. What do I need (well, want) and what does the product supply. To get pointed, I have looked at Bluffside a couple of times in the stores. It passes most of the tests and I have flipped through it and read a little. But I honestly don't need another city in my campaign. Once this one is over and I move on to something else, I may need it and I may get it. But for now I don't need another setting. I bought Seas of Blood because I needed ship-to-ship and (to be honest) it got some of the best reviews on this site. Something that I also use.

Another determiner is the talent behind it. It is important to me to believe that the mechanics are going to be correct. I know that everyone makes mistakes, but I have a hard time spotting something broken right away (say by the third reading or seeing it in practice) so I do not want to pick up an alternate spell system only to find out later that I do not need it. I have been a Monte Cook fan since his Rolemaster days (My favorite system still). That is the main motivator for buying 3e in the first place. I like the work Chris Pramas did, and the art met expectations, so I picked up a couple of Green Ronin products. I have been pleased with them so far.
That said, I don't buy everything they do. For Monte's stand alone work, I have the two Books of Eldrich Might, but that is all. I have not seen the need for his other products. I have as I said a couple of the Green Ronin books, but not the Freeport material. As I said before, I don't need another city. By all accounts it is fabulous and the times I have flipped through it, it seems very good. But I do not have a use for it.

As someone else said, WOTC gets an easier time taking my money because it is their system we are using. Others I will buy but it has to be good. It has to catch my eye on the stands and then hold my attention when I flip through it. It has to be something I am looking for.

Sorry for the long answer.

 

[Bagpuss]

Have to second what Sinistar said. And as one would say in Parliment "I refer the gentleman to my earlier answer" particularly point 2.

And talking about point 2, I think the cover of Mystic Warriors and the example interior artwork has got me hooked and I'll be looking for it next time I shop.

 

[jmucchiello]

It's threads like these that make me regret having put out my own book. I feel like I can't comment on other publishers without sounding self-serving.

So with that in mind....

The only thing that turns me off to a product without glancing at the text is cheesecake. I have not looked at any Avalanche books at all. Another publisher had some girly pics on a page of feats and they were not demonstrating the feats in any way, shape or form. (I think it was Quint Rogue but I'm not sure.)

The second thing that turns me off is white space. Large headings, wide margins, text with large point fonts. There may be a lot of ideas in the book, but I'll always feel there could have been more (or fewer pages).

The third thing that turns me off is bad mechanics. Now, here I'm straddling a thin line since my book has lots of mechanics (and who am I to tell whether they are good or bad). But I usually look at a few feats and few spells and a PrC or two in a store to determine if I like the book. I was very impressed by Bad Axe games HoHF: Dwarves in the store and I will eventually purchase it.

The last thing that turns me off is bad art. I would far prefer no art to bad art. I shouldn't talk about art though since there isn't really any in my book. That was a financial decision which, if I known how many books were going to sell in the first two weeks, I would have sprung for some artwork. (Of course, I'll never hit #1 sales for the week at rpgnow with Swords to Plowshears and Requiem for a God out at the same time. )

The most interesting part of this thread is the number of people looking for ideas over mechanics. I'll have to file that under marketting.

Joe Mucchiello
Throwing Dice Games
http://www.throwingdice.com

 

[The_Gneech]

Actually, I do buy non-WOTC stuff, although in the case of EverQuest d20 I returned it the next day. However, I have a very limited gaming budget so any product, WOTC or non-WOTC, has to really impress me and/or be a topic I'm extra-interested in first.

I seem to be in the minority among folks in that more than settings or splatbooks, I want adventures, and lots of them. Adventures and cool monster books.

I will admit, however, that WOTC tends to get the first crack at my gaming dollar ... I buy Dragon and Dungeon every time. I am currently chomping at the bit for City of the Spider Queen to show up at the local stores. If I spot other stuff that looks cool in the meantime, that's when I'm likely to get a non-WOTC product.

-The Gneech

 

[der_kluge]

Actually, I do buy non-WOTC stuff, although in the case of EverQuest d20 I returned it the next day.

- Curious why you returned EQ d20?

 

[The_Gneech]

- Curious why you returned EQ d20?

It wasn't different enough from the info in the PHB to be worth the price, basically. Normally I don't buy something without even so much as looking through it, but this time I did. (The store had it shrinkwrapped, and there hadn't been any reviews posted that I could find.) If I'd been able to look through it first, I wouldn't have bought it.

I imagine that for its intended audience, it's a fine product; but I was looking for something a little further removed from standard D&D. I've already got a PHB, I don't need another one that is just a variation on the theme.

-The Gneech

(Edited a typo. )

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I was buying non-WoTC products in the beggining of d20, but the quality of 3rd party products has turned me off.

The quality range of every WoTC product I purchased was in the 80-99% quality rating based on my tastes.

The quality range of 3rd party stuff has been in the range of 0-95% and I do not feel like wasting my precious little time reading reviews to determine which products are better.

So, it is the creators of the flood of 3rd party junk that has turned me off to all 3rd party stuff. It is much easier to just buy the WoTC stuff that interests me as it is released.

 

[jmucchiello]

I was buying non-WoTC products in the beggining of d20, but the quality of 3rd party products has turned me off.

I wouldn't judge the quality of today's d20 publishers against the stuff that came out two years ago. Most of them didn't know what they were doing back then. Do you dismiss new stuff out of hand or do you still look at it and declare it junk?

Joe Mucchiello
Throwing Dice Games
http://www.throwingdice.com

 

[Synicism]

Well, I can only speak from personal experience, but generally, up until recently, WotC stuff has outnumbered non-WotC stuff because I was still buying the "core" of the system.

Here's what I own from WotC (excluding subsidiaries like AEG and licensees like Kenzer):

Player's Handbook
Psionics Handbook
Epic Level Handbook
Dungeon Master's Guide
Manual of the Planes
Monster Manual
Deities and Demigods
Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
Sword & Fist
Defenders of the Faith
Tome and Blood
Song and Silence
Master of the Wild
Magic of Faerun
Living Greyhawk Gazetteer

Most of it is crunch. Actually, crunch is the only reason I got FRCS. It gives me all the neat toys and stuff I use in my games.

That being said, the non-WotC stuff on my shelf is catching up: Oriental Adventures, Swashbukling Adventures, Dragonstar, Spycraft (screw d20 Modern), Freeport: City of Adventure, and so on. And most all of the stuff that is scheduled for release in the future that even remotely interests me is from 3rd party publishers.

I guess the point is that WotC stuff has been, until lately, the foundation on which our games have been built. Now that WotC has pretty much published everything I might conceivably buy from them, it's time to complete my collection with better-written stuff from 3rd parties.