D&D 5E (2014) Will you pay $50.00 for the "standard" PHB?

[Imaro]

Well I would $50 if I had to but with Amazon I don't think that it will be necessary.

That's cool, I just wonder how much the psychology of knowing the book will actually be around 30 something as opposed to 50 is affecting the answer... in other words, I think (and I could be wrong) it's easy to say you would pay more for something when you know for a fact you won't have to. There's no way to actually test it but I was mussing on it when I wrote my response.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

EDIT: It would be interesting to see, come release, how many of the "yes" votes actually pay $50 and how many go the discount route...

Given I'm likely to buy it from the WOTC booth at Gen Con, I think I'll probably be playing full price. Assuming the release date leaked is correct, of course.

 

[oxybe]

the price itself doesn't matter much, be it 30, 50 or 100 dollars, but rather "is the quality of these rules and my want to play them greater then or higher then the cost of this book and how does it compare to this other list of stuff i might want to buy?"

and do note that i am pitting this book against videogames, movies, a night out with the guys, etc... as all these things are purchased with the same pool of money.

if the end product is reminiscent of the last public playtest package, then i would rather put my 50$ towards the next big videogame that interests me. simply put, the game reflected in the last package doesn't interest me.

if the end product surprises me and winds up being something i want to play i still need to think about the possibility of playing it. my area is pretty much a pathfinder-only zone. other games are talked about, but that's about it. you talk about them, but never play them. so even if this is a game that one i get to read the inside i am struck with a major geekasm, but find myself in a position where playing it is not possible, it will stay on the shelf and pull at my heartstrings like so many other systems before.

and then i put the money towards a multiple HumbleBundles or a new big-name game.

no matter how much i want a game, i would rather spend my money on a game that i can be sure to play whenever i want over a game i might not ever get the chance to even bring at the table.

TLDR undecided, because reasons.

 

[delericho]

Depending on the format of the starter set, a new player could end up paying 70.

Well, yes, they could. Or, depending on the format of the starter set, they could end up paying $20. Or it's entirely possible they'll end up paying $0 - WotC may put an SRD out there and/or there's always the possibility of starting to play with nothing at all... like I did way back in '88.

(Heck, if you really want to assume the worst of WotC, they could fill their $50 PHB with 500 classes... but none of the powers needed to really play them for long at all. That way, everyone gets stung for $40 more for the classbook for their chosen character.)

 

[Mistwell]

WotC's books are printed in North America. Many are even printed in Canada.
Paizo's are printed in China, but have one price.

Some are printed in Indonesia.

But if they're sticking with the local printer for this first run, then all that complaining about how they "are rushing it because it has to go to printers right away" is pretty hollow. A local printer can get the job done in a week.

 

[Mistwell]

to everyone going on about how much X and Y cost... here is some thoughts on my situation...


If me and my girl go to the movies (we just saw Robocop) we need her grandmother to watch her kids at no cost, or we can't go. We go on Tuesday night when it is only 7.50 each (It used to be 6.75 and that increase has cut our move going to less then once a month) if we eat out it will be off a dollar menu... and as such it will cost less then $20...

The last Video game I bought was a xmas gift to my nephew... it cost $75 on pre order, I got the game, 4 figures and the portal to put the figures on... before that was almost 7 years ago... I can't spend $50 on a game anymore...

I've backed a few kickstarter games between $25 and $75 in the last 3 years, and have learned not to buy anything sight unseen.


If I were a player of D&D and not a Dm, a $50 investment would be rough, but I could save over a couple of months... but instead I need to buy 3 books...

I feel for yah man, and I acknowledge not everyone is in the same position to be able to afford this kind of price. I'm just saying I think on average, given the trends for player ages and the similar entertainment expenditures that average player age tends to spend on other forms of entertainment, I don't think the $50 is out of line.

 

[Mistwell]

No. The outsourcing of the printing is making me very uninterested.

Jester Canuck is theorizing that it's not outsourced.

 

[Morrus]

So I just got some US quotes for O.L.D./N.E.W. so I have some more solid data re. printing.

Depending on the quantity, the reductions are more startling than I expected. At the low end (200 units) they're under $20 per unit for color, hardcover, 300 pages; at 2500 units they drop by up to 75%. That's as far as my quotes went, but obviously WotC will have print runs many, many times the size of mine, so I'd expect it goes down even lower.

So that's printing only, in the US, no shipping factored in, 300 pages, hardback, full colour.

 

[Jacob Marley]

I feel for yah man, and I acknowledge not everyone is in the same position to be able to afford this kind of price. I'm just saying I think on average, given the trends for player ages and the similar entertainment expenditures that average player age tends to spend on other forms of entertainment, I don't think the $50 is out of line.

Indeed. Compared to many forms of entertainment, $50 is fairly inexpensive; and amortized over the life of the game may amount to mere pennies per hour of entertainment. That's a pretty good ratio of dollars to fun! However, it may only take a couple of players per group who are in a difficult financial position to prevent the group as a whole from moving forward with the game. This is one of the problems I face with my own players. Of the eight of us, three are in a position like [MENTION=67338]GMforPowergamers[/MENTION]'s. If those three cannot justify the $50, it pretty much means the rest of us will not move forward with the game.

 

[lost and forgotten]

Indeed. Compared to many forms of entertainment, $50 is fairly inexpensive; and amortized over the life of the game may amount to mere pennies per hour of entertainment. That's a pretty good ratio of dollars to fun! However, it may only take a couple of players per group who are in a difficult financial position to prevent the group as a whole from moving forward with the game. This is one of the problems I face with my own players. Of the eight of us, three are in a position like [MENTION=67338]GMforPowergamers[/MENTION]'s. If those three cannot justify the $50, it pretty much means the rest of us will not move forward with the game.

In the 1e days our group had a communal set of the core.