Comments on the 4th Ed fact thread

[Jester of the FoS]

Written on Jan 28, 2011:

Looking back, it's interesting to read my early comments, when I was so much more optimistic and weary of 3.5 edition.

That.

Alas... 4E is still new. I hope they already work on 5th edition and publish it in 3-4 years or so.

He's a witch! Burn him!

[Rogold Gildenman]

Any true witch-hunter knows that witches are HANGED not burned - you are clearly a dirty, dirty heretic trying to lead Godly souls astray into error and require …. correction.

BURN THE HERETIC! (but only if the Fool refuses to recant).

[alhoon]

Nope. They went the opposite route and continued the book-a-month and doubled down on books that covered more-specific and less broad topics, mostly with options for new characters.

Yes, but for 4th edition, those were needed. There were books like martial power and arcane power that were must books. And we didn't have books like dragon magic, magic of incarna-something etc books.
We didn't even get to the stormwrack and the cold-climate, hot-climate books.

In general, I believe 4E was very well rounded up. Books about the planes, books about the classes that needed more powers etc. The only book that I can think that was a bit over the edge was the items book #2.

[alhoon]

Written on Jan 28, 2011:

Looking back, it's interesting to read my early comments, when I was so much more optimistic and weary of 3.5 edition.

That.

Alas... 4E is still new. I hope they already work on 5th edition and publish it in 3-4 years or so.

He's a witch! Burn him!

Heh, so you know the truth at last...

[Jester of the FoS]

Nope. They went the opposite route and continued the book-a-month and doubled down on books that covered more-specific and less broad topics, mostly with options for new characters.

Yes, but for 4th edition, those were needed. There were books like martial power and arcane power that were must books. And we didn't have books like dragon magic, magic of incarna-something etc books.
We didn't even get to the stormwrack and the cold-climate, hot-climate books.

In general, I believe 4E was very well rounded up. Books about the planes, books about the classes that needed more powers etc. The only book that I can think that was a bit over the edge was the items book #2.

I think the later books had a better design. Thematic books with a high fluff content that have options for a mix of classes. Books that came out less often and were more anticipated.

4e could have also focused on providing more generic powers in its books rather than doubling down on new builds. Most of their splatbooks only had options for new characters, having far fewer that matched old builds. Even if you were playing a fighter, most of the options in Martial Power 2 would be of little use.
And monthly books is a lot. I said so then and I'll say so now. 3-4 larger books each year is more than enough. I'd much rather have four 320-page books that really satisfy me rather than eight 160-page books that leave me wanting more. I never felt like the 4e books really covered their topic well enough, I always felt like they were just getting started on a place or plane and then it moved on.

[alhoon]

Well, you would be happier with 4 quality books/year, but the company wouldn't be. What if 2 of those books flopped back-to-back? Then you would be in trouble. With 12 books per year you have a more "Average" income. For the casual buyer also, you'll have a list of 3-4 books to peruse every 6 months or so to find one that picks your interest enough to check instead of 1 or perhaps 2.
There's also the matter of the cost/profit. 12 books for 25$ each sell easier than 3 books with 100$ each.

All in all, quality-wise you're correct but I think if you were running WotC you would sooner or later go for quantity and putting books out to sell instead of quality.