jgbrowning
Hero
To be completely honest, WotC's putting out the d20 OGL is all in innovative they have to be for me for at least a decade.
joe b.
joe b.
Why must the Spell Compendium be innovative?
- Thread starter MerricB
- Start date
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
Anyone can be useful. A *leader* should be more. It takes game design and grunt work to make a Spell Compendium. Game design and grunt work should be the bare minimum for a game company. The Spell Compendium should have been wrapped up in a bow and delivered to every gamer's household as par for the course. It's something a dedicated enough community could have done. It's the toaster waffle jingle. And I know WotC can do better, can do more. They can do the Spell Compendium, sure. And they should. But they shouldn't stop at re-publishing things we've seen before. That's lazy, and they deserve to be called on it, as much as they deserve to be praised for how useful a compendium of updated spells is.
I'm not going to kiss the ground they walk on because they did something that they were to a greater or lesser degree obligated to do.
Yes, in every single book. I'm not giving to charity, here, when I shell out my hard-earned chicken feed for their hard work. If their hard work isn't WORTH the chicken feed they get from me, they need to be told to change so that it is.
I'm not trying to prove anything beyond that WotC produces some shockingly shallow products. And they don't have to. So their descision to do so is aggrivating to me. Am I allowed that?
They deserve accolades aplenty for that. But that doesn't let them off the hook, either. I'm not going to turn the other way just because they once did something groundbreakingly grand. They deserve praise for updating and compiling all of their spells in one central locale. That doesn't mean I'm not going to call them on the things that it doesn't do, however. Things that a fan community couldn't do. Things that would earn more of my chicken feed. Things that only WotC could do.
They can do wonderful and new things. So they must be held to that high standard. The path of an industry leader was never supposed to be an easy one. A big book o' spells that they've already done is not new and is very debatably wonderful.
Crothian
First Post
Kamikaze Midget said:
Innovation does not equal a good book. Innovation does not equal creativity either. I don't know what you mean by a shallow product and you haven't proved anything. If they are making books you like don't buy them, but I won't expect them to change things based on your one opinion. Many people thing Wizard's books are worth their "chicken feed". I can only imagine what this would be like if you were actually spending money here.
Rystil Arden
First Post
But since most of these spells aren't OGC, only Wizards out of all the companies has the legal rights necessary to make this compilation. In my mind, it is an excellent idea and a book that will be valued for many years to come. Ask me which books from 2nd edition that I still use the most, and the answer is Encyclopaedia Magica and Wizard's Spell Compendium Volumes I-IV...Now, admittedly, which books I thought were most innovative or that influenced me to be a better GM, I would give you a different list with some Planescape titles and the blue softback Complete Villain's Handbook.
jgbrowning
Hero
Kamikaze Midget said:
I guess we differ in opinion then. I don't find innovation to be more valuable than utility. What's really valuable to me is quality and consistancy. If a company has both, they'll eventually have an innovative moment and then go back to quality and consitancy.
joe b.
Last edited:
Steel_Wind
Legend
I have determimed to buy the product - sight unseen - since it was announced. I expect most of the players in my gaming group will as well - and that's saying something.
While the merits of many threads on ENWorld are usually discerninble, I don't get the objections over the Spell Compendium - I really don't.
While the merits of many threads on ENWorld are usually discerninble, I don't get the objections over the Spell Compendium - I really don't.
I agree 100% with Rystll Arden.
Besides, the mere fact that something is "grunt work" doesn't mean that the work doens't need to be done, nor that it should be done by someone other than the person doing it. WOTC is in the unique position to have done this work properly and without paying additional licensing fees, AND with the possibility that errata and clarification could be included in the work.
Hasbro/WOTC is a business, it isn't a charity- they're not under any obligation to give you this or even produce it! If you have all of the books it compiles, great! You can either go search ALL of those books for whatever obscure spell you're looking for, or you can buy this product and save yourself some time.
I can't name another game company that has released a true compendium of all "spells" or "equipment" that was released for an RPG.
I'm a lawyer- I buy all kinds of expensive books for my practice...but by the time I get them, they are often out of date in one section or another. The law is extremely fluid. The closest I get to a compelation are little
periodical updates...and I pay through the nose for those.
Crothian got it in one. This is a useful product, every bit as valuable to me as Fast Forward Entertainment's Book of All Spells, which does the same thing for 3rd party publishers' work.
Yes, but we are allowed, via this forum, to opine that your expectations vis a vis this product seem...unreasonable.
It isn't required that you buy it, but many of us with huge libraries of RPG products see this as what it is: a very useful tool. Its designed to help people save time while looking for spells, and it does so exceedingly well.
So it isn't the RPG equivalent of a working Cold Fusion generator...it doesn't need to be. Expecting it to be such is unfair.
MerricB said:
Because this is the internet?
I would complain if the product was something other than what it was advertised to be. The Spell Compendium has always been put forward as being a compilation and updating of spells from a variety of sources so, in my mind at least, there is no point complaining about it.
As for more innovative products, hasn't WotC done that this year already with, inter alia, Incarnum and Weapons of Legacy (which, BTW, are the first core products from WotC that I have not purchased)?
Similar Threads
