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No worries, I didn't really take it as one. I just personally didn't see Essentials as a new edition at all, so I don't really understand what your argument is. I mean, I don't think Essentials was really marketed as a new edition anywhere. Heck, they even pretended you could mix oldfighter and nufighter. I thought they were simply an alternative to the dated (and expensive) PHB-DMG-MM set to get new players into the game, and I honestly jumped at the chance because drat the books looked nice and I thought streamlined classes sounded cool. (In my defense, I hated character building already back then.)
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Apr 1, 2017 22:36
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So, this is one of the issues with Essentials. Nobody knew what it was supposed to be. Is it just more splats? Is it a replacement for the core books and the new evergreen? Is it 4.5? Etc, etc, etc. WotC never answered any of those questions because the actual answer was "it was Mearls taking control of 4e and trying to cram it's circle into a square peg while claiming the edition for himself" and then whoops it crashed and burned miserably.
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Apr 1, 2017 23:31
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Yeah, the marketing and discussion around it was pretty incoherent. The groups I was in were long time 4E stalwarts, and we all understood it to be 4.5 (and were encouraged to do so by a WotC rep). But even with just your example, it's clear the presentation wasn't the same to or for everyone.
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Apr 2, 2017 03:36
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It's my understanding that they tried to pass off Essentials as more different from Core 4e than it otherwise actually was in practice because they were making a drive to win back Pathfinder and 3e holdovers.
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Apr 2, 2017 03:49
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Comrade Gorbash posted:Yeah, the marketing and discussion around it was pretty incoherent. The groups I was in were long time 4E stalwarts, and we all understood it to be 4.5 (and were encouraged to do so by a WotC rep). But even with just your example, it's clear the presentation wasn't the same to or for everyone. I actually had one of my players try and tell the others that the Rules Compendium is not definitive/doesn't have all the rules, because it's an Essentials book. I had to be like "the gently caress you talkin' about?" and set the record straight right then and there.
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Apr 2, 2017 06:52
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P.d0t posted:I actually had one of my players try and tell the others that the Rules Compendium is not definitive/doesn't have all the rules, because it's an Essentials book. That sounds like the dumb argument about 3.5's Rules Compendium not being definitive, only without the weight of actual rules behind it.
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Apr 2, 2017 08:46
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gradenko_2000 posted:It's my understanding that they tried to pass off Essentials as more different from Core 4e than it otherwise actually was in practice because they were making a drive to win back Pathfinder and 3e holdovers. While that might've been the excuse used, the whole thing absolutely reeked of Mearls trying to "take back" 4e. At some point during early-mid 4e, he very suddenly and sharply got DEEP into some OSR dumbfuckery, and started bragging about his AD&D games and trying to make connections with "old school gamers." Then, Heinsoo got let go (I will simply note here that WotC is loving deep into lovely office politics) and suddenly Mearls takes command, and makes Essentials, but can't decide or won't decide on whether it's truly a 4e replacement or just an expansion (or equally likely, he WANTED it to be a replacement and was told no), so everyone is confused on what it's status is. Like, there was a long period of time where it wasn't even clear what 4e's evergreen books were. People literally did not know what their flagship product was meant to be. The good ship 4e sinks with Mearls at the helm...aaaand he's then given command over the new edition. How convenient.
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Apr 2, 2017 11:51
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P.d0t posted:I actually had one of my players try and tell the others that the Rules Compendium is not definitive/doesn't have all the rules, because it's an Essentials book. I think it was missing Ritual rules maybe, but that was about it if anything. (Also had the... dubious magic item rarity errata baked in, but that's easy to ignore if not to taste and it was an official rule thing.)
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Apr 2, 2017 17:30
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I saw the weirdest thing on a local store's shelves the other day. AD&D 2nd Edition DMGs. They had ugly grey covers with little cameo windows on some dungeon scene, and of course they were shrink-wrapped. There were three of 'em there, no PHBs, no Monstrous Manuals, just... that. Has there been some kind of nostalgia-driven reprint, or were these just your typical bit of ancient stock in a lovely store?
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Apr 3, 2017 16:19
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Bieeardo posted:I saw the weirdest thing on a local store's shelves the other day. AD&D 2nd Edition DMGs. They had ugly grey covers with little cameo windows on some dungeon scene, and of course they were shrink-wrapped. There were three of 'em there, no PHBs, no Monstrous Manuals, just... that. There was a Nostalgia reprint of AD&D, AD&D 2e, and D&D 3.5 core books leading up to the release of 5th edition.
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Apr 3, 2017 16:27
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Bieeardo posted:Has there been some kind of nostalgia-driven reprint, or were these just your typical bit of ancient stock in a lovely store? Probably the overpriced "Premium edition" reprints they did a few years ago: 
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Apr 3, 2017 17:08
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Comrade Koba posted:Probably the overpriced "Premium edition" reprints they did a few years ago: What should the price be for a 240 page hardcover RPG?
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Apr 3, 2017 17:27
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If it's full-colour and well-printed, I'd say roughly the same as an artbook of comparable size. So something like 45€ maybe?
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Apr 3, 2017 17:33
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The AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide (color cover, B/W interior) was $15 in 1981, which is a little over $40 in today-money. The recent reprint was MSRP $44.95, available some places for less. They are, at least, consistent. Separate from that consistency, though, I don't buy enough hardcover game books (especially large 240-page hardcovers) to know whether that's overpriced.
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Apr 3, 2017 17:43
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homullus posted:The AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide (color cover, B/W interior) was $15 in 1981, which is a little over $40 in today-money. The recent reprint was MSRP $44.95, available some places for less. They are, at least, consistent. It's overpriced for a reprint considering it doesn't have any of the vanity press 'features' you'd expect at that price.
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Apr 3, 2017 17:46
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homullus posted:What should the price be for a 240 page hardcover RPG? I haven't seen the inside of the 2E reprints, but if they're anything like the 1E "premium edition", it's the exact same art and layout as the originals, only on slightly glossier paper and with poorer quality binding. They're (or were) $49.95 apiece, so about $20 more than the PHB for the current edition. Ignoring the side discussion about what's a reasonable asking price for RPG's, I personally didn't really feel the need to drop $150 when the exact same books (but with a different cover) are still easy to find used for $10 or less apiece. 2E wasn't that long ago, so I'm not sure the market is ripe for a reprint yet.
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Apr 3, 2017 17:46
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Comrade Koba posted:I haven't seen the inside of the 2E reprints, but if they're anything like the 1E "premium edition", it's the exact same art and layout as the originals, only on slightly glossier paper and with poorer quality binding. They're (or were) $49.95 apiece, so about $20 more than the PHB for the current edition. Ignoring the side discussion about what's a reasonable asking price for RPG's, I personally didn't really feel the need to drop $150 when the exact same books (but with a different cover) are still easy to find used for $10 or less apiece. 2E wasn't that long ago, so I'm not sure the market is ripe for a reprint yet. I get not wanting to pay $150 for a less-scuffed version of what I already have. The side discussion is what I was after -- what is a reasonable asking price for 240 pages of RPG content in hardcover? Is it actually overpriced, or is appropriately priced, but simply more than some want to pay? The content is old, but the book is new, the cover is redesigned, and it is a large book. With the AD&D DMG in particular, it's pretty jammed with stuff -- dense walls of text. If they reformatted it without loss of content and made it as attractive as the 5e DMG, that would be a lot more pages, making it even more expensive on top of paper quality and color printing. Plus grogs would be mad that the page numbers they have memorized would no longer be valid.
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Apr 3, 2017 18:02
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homullus posted:The content is old, but the book is new, the cover is redesigned, and it is a large book. With the AD&D DMG in particular, it's pretty jammed with stuff -- dense walls of text. If they reformatted it without loss of content and made it as attractive as the 5e DMG, that would be a lot more pages, making it even more expensive on top of paper quality and color printing. Plus grogs would be mad that the page numbers they have memorized would no longer be valid. I'm not even sure I'd call the covers redesigned, since they still use the same illustrations as the originals. They did change the plain black border to a grey-ish one, so I guess that technically counts as redesigned. A complete reformat with new art that made it look as good as the 5E DMG would be a very different product. Assuming a limited print run, $45-50 wouldn't feel as unreasonable. EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm not opposed to full-color hardcovers having a $50 price tag. It's WotC selling what is essentially a book from the 1980's for $20 more than the price of the current edition of the same book. Comrade Koba fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Apr 3, 2017 |
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Apr 3, 2017 18:19
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Comrade Koba posted:Probably the overpriced "Premium edition" reprints they did a few years ago: Okay, that explains that then. Thanks!
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Apr 3, 2017 18:21
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Publishers should charge what the market will bear. Nothing is "overpriced" if it maximises the publisher's profits on the price/volume chart. That understood (and I expect everyone here understands it), the real question is, how many copies did they intend to sell? If it sold poorly, it was likely overpriced. It may have been a product for which a profitable market did not exist, though. Given that 2e books really are easy to get a hold of, the main market as I see it would be 2e fanatics who wanted a really nice, new from the presses edition to preserve forever on their shelves. For that market, $150 might be a reasonable price point? Especially if it's intended to compete with old/ebay copies of the silver TSR anniversary collector's edition box: http://www.ebay.com/itm/TSR-AD-D-2nd-Ed-Silver-Anniversary-Collectors-Edition-Box-SW-/361925374203 I have no idea if that's a reasonable price for that item, by the way, it's just the only one I found with a quick search. If you're a 2nd edition Collector kind of dude who wants a premium option to ostentatiously show off your devotion to the One True Edition or whatever, $150 might be a bargain.
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Apr 3, 2017 18:32
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Ultimately all of the reprints are of books that are widely available at lower prices with a bit of searching and are some of the easiest books to find in gaming. The only reason I was able to get a decent price for my d20 core books is that I had the pullout adventure and character generator intact in 3e and the gift box slipcover for 3.5.
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Apr 3, 2017 18:37
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Given that I like premium books for games I am exactly the kind of person this kind of thing is targeted at. The problem is twofold though: 1. I can get a premium core rulebook for almost any other game for the price of one of these books or about $10-$20 more. 2. I need all three to effectively run a game. Optional Third Problem: I'm not that into D&D 2e outside of future desire to play in some of the weirder settings without having to slog through a ton of conversion work, and even then Dark Sun is already covered better by 4e so all I'm left with is Planescape in terms of 2e settings i'm interested in.
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Apr 3, 2017 18:49
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Comrade Koba posted:I'm not even sure I'd call the covers redesigned, since they still use the same illustrations as the originals. They did change the plain black border to a grey-ish one, so I guess that technically counts as redesigned. A reasonable comparison might be a "luxury" reprint of a cherished translation of the Bible, or Shakespeare, or something. You are paying for the book design, the cover redesign, the marketing, the distribution, and the content, which may be public domain or owned by somebody else. It is essentially immaterial to the minimum price of finished product that old copies are readily available, including on the shelves of some % of its target market. Other used copies and old gameness affect the wisdom of the decision to reprint at all, and the maximum price; given how close it is (after inflation) to the price of the original publication, I suspect it's not a high-margin item for them. Should they have printed it? I dunno. If I had extra money, I'd consider buying them, since I started RPGs with B/X and AD&D (and didn't even realize they were different products initially).
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Apr 3, 2017 19:03
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If they reprinted the classic Rules Compendium, I'd be all over that, because that is a PitA to find and high-priced. But they won't, so I'm not.
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Apr 3, 2017 20:02
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Meanwhile, there are people like me who wouldn't buy a new printing of AD&D2e if they changed the covers or interior art, even though I'd like to have new copies to play with so I don't cause my beloved childhood books to fall apart even more badly. Anything related to 2e is a pure nostalgia experience for me - why would I want that diluted by modern art styles? All of which is to say, reprints of ancient editions is a tough market.
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Apr 3, 2017 20:02
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Alien Rope Burn posted:If they reprinted the classic Rules Compendium, I'd be all over that, because that is a PitA to find and high-priced. But they won't, so I'm not. People used to say they wouldn't reprint the other books too. Keep hope alive!
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Apr 3, 2017 20:28
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Kestral posted:All of which is to say, reprints of ancient editions is a tough market. But not an especially risky one. These days, small-volume printings aren't that expensive for publishers any more, and they can be pushed out quite fast so you can do a very limited print run and if demand is high, print more within a week or so. Since there's no need to hire content writers, editors, artists, etc. for anything other than the cover, the amount invested in the reprinting is quite small.
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Apr 3, 2017 20:36
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Comrade Koba posted:2E wasn't that long ago, so I'm not sure the market is ripe for a reprint yet. 2E is 28 years old.
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Apr 3, 2017 22:36
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The market will never be ripe for a 2E reprint.
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Apr 3, 2017 22:54
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The three 5e core books all have MSRPs of 49.95. I too would love a reprint of the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, assuming that's what Alien Rope Burn meant. The 4e Rules Compendium can be had for like 5 bucks used on Amazon. The D&D classics site has been steadily adding POD options for old stuff, so hopefully the Cyclopedia will be one of them eventually.
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Apr 3, 2017 23:07
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Mr. Tambo posted:I too would love a reprint of the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, assuming that's what Alien Rope Burn meant. Yeah, that too! explains why i couldn't find it earlier
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Apr 3, 2017 23:49
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S.J. posted:The market will never be ripe for a 2E reprint. for real though
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Apr 4, 2017 00:27
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S.J. posted:The market will never be ripe for a 2E reprint. Hackmaster was basically Pathfinder for 2e, and will forever hold a special place in my heart. Unfortunately they pitched it as a goofy fun Paranoia-style game, which is the opposite of what you build using the 2e AD&D engine.
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Apr 4, 2017 00:58
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moths posted:Hackmaster was basically Pathfinder for 2e, and will forever hold a special place in my heart. The problem is that it's really fun to watch Brian Van Hoose do terrible, terrible things with Hackmaster rules that exist only insofar as Jolly Blackburn needs them to in order to make jokes about D&D. It's not really fun to actually slog through a rulebook that is literally "You know what AD&D 2 needed? Another two hundred pages of crunch."
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Apr 4, 2017 01:12
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It's been about a decade, but I feel like HM made some great strides towards balance and quality of life improvements / innovations. But for every one of these, there was some equal-but-opposite complication. For example characters getting comped an initial HP boost at creation was great, but then they introduced an ended more clumsy alignment wheel. The coupons were silly fun, but then Gamma World and D&D ended up using them. I'd love to see someone strip that system for racing, but I don't know what kind of licencing nightmare would ensue.
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Apr 4, 2017 03:10
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Leperflesh posted:But not an especially risky one. These days, small-volume printings aren't that expensive for publishers any more, and they can be pushed out quite fast so you can do a very limited print run and if demand is high, print more within a week or so. True, although I wonder if the printing of an accurate 2E Player's Handbook / DMG / Monster Manual would be more expensive than today's typical PoD solutions. The bindings on those books are impressive, for one thing. Regardless, it's nice to know we live in an age where reprinting those books is not only possible, but relatively easy.
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Apr 4, 2017 04:01
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Pope Guilty posted:2E is 28 years old. No, 2E was published 28 years ago. There were still books and supplements on store shelves well into the 2000's, probably due to the size of TSR print runs. Alien Rope Burn posted:If they reprinted the classic Rules Compendium, I'd be all over that, because that is a PitA to find and high-priced. But they won't, so I'm not. Now this I would gladly fork over $50 for. Hell, I'd probably buy two. Comrade Koba fucked around with this message at 06:43 on Apr 4, 2017 |
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Apr 4, 2017 06:40
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FWIW, DrivethruRPG is actually offering PODs of the AD&D 1e corebooks, and are adding more from the supplement treadmill all the time. It's probably going to take them literal years to get to the other corebooks at this rate, but I am kind of looking forward to just being able to POD the OD&D, 3e and 4e books. moths posted:Unfortunately they pitched it as a goofy fun Paranoia-style game, which is the opposite of what you build using the 2e AD&D engine. I believe the satire element was necessary for them to be able to publish a "reprint" of AD&D at a time before OGL was a thing. moths posted:It's been about a decade, but I feel like HM made some great strides towards balance and quality of life improvements / innovations. But for every one of these, there was some equal-but-opposite complication. I still haven't been able to run a Hackmaster 4e game, though I've been wanting to for a while now, but the last time I was asking around, AlphaDog had some good advice.
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Apr 4, 2017 06:41
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2e was an absolutely godawful game that was kind of clunky and archaic when it was new and it didn't improve any as it went along. The only good parts of it were the assorted insane campaign settings TSR put out during the edition's extended life and even those tended to get dragged down by the dumb rules. There's a reason 3e was so well received. It's easy to forget now that it's old too and everyone has experiences with its flaws, but when it was new it was such a breath of fresh air and competence compared to the 2e rules.
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Apr 4, 2017 07:02
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gradenko_2000 posted:I believe the satire element was necessary for them to be able to publish a "reprint" of AD&D at a time before OGL was a thing. I also feel like this was the case, and this is probably what kept it from becoming an unofficial 2.75 E. It was mechanically tighter, but that was lost in with all the gummy-bear golems and other comics in-jokes.
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Apr 4, 2017 11:13
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