Tuesday, February 03, 2009

The Coming Flood of 4E D&D Books

I was listening to the Wizards of the Coast DDXP 2009 Product Announcements on the latest Radio Free Hommlet podcast and the approach that 'everything is core' kind of stuck me. I don't know if I like this approach or not. If every book released and every article from Dragon and Dungeon magazines is considered 'core', I think that puts a lot of pressure on the DM to include EVERTHING in his campaign. This is further enforced by the approach of releasing a books that provides a broad overview of something (Player's Handbook for instance) and then follow-up books that provide more details (Martial Power, Arcane Power, etc.) Further enforcing this is the fact that WotC is including 'must have' components in new books like familiars in Arcane Power and item sets in Adventurer's Vault 2. I realize that there is a long tradition of 'splat' books in the RPG industry, but I still find the concept frustrating.

NOTE: Yes, I realize that I have a choice and I can say 'NO' to anything that I don't want to include, but the whole concept does tend to enforce the conspiratorial notion the WotC has a not-so-hidden agenda to subconciously force me to buy every D&D product that they release...

4 comments:

Zachary Houghton said...

The whole game is a bit too broken up for me over too many books. Then again, I like Gnome Bards, so I was screwed from the get-go, and am clearly bitter. :)

Unknown said...

Just buy what you want. If you're O.K. with wizards not having familiars, don't get AP. If you're fine with the PHB items, don't buy AV. I must be the only one in the whole world not upset by the way marketing works.

Dave The Game said...

I can't believe how much complaining there is about a company producing products that people want to buy...

Anonymous said...

I think with a DDi subscription the need to buy any book beyond the core books largely vanishes. The compendium is powerful tool that will supply the DM with all he basically needs: monsters and the player with all he basically needs: character options.

I now base my book purchases on fluff value, which I prefer from a "collection" standpoint as the "fluffy" books are the only ones I care about from older editions, so I know they'll be worth owning.