Quote from: jeff37923;294578Here's an example...

But the root of the problem is powercreep in the supplement itself, not the fact that the GM allowed it.

QuoteIt may not be a problem with powercreep in that case. It may just not fit the campaign setting. Psionics may not really fit into the Bog Standard Fantasy campaign you are running.

Okay, that's a wholly different thing, then. Not fitting in with the game as run is different than contributing to mechanical powercreep issues.

Quote from: RPGPundit;294337The question is really, does the mere act of calling something a "core rulebook" make it a Core Rulebook? Even if it has nothing in it that will actually be obligatory to play the game with?

PHB2 is not core in the sense that you need it to play.  But it's Core in the sense, that you could easily run a D&D campaign with PHB 2 races and classes and exclude the races and classes from PHB 1.

And I agree that "Core" is now a marketing term.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;294371By saying "this is official content" they hope to convince DMs who are prone to disallowing new player options into accepting new stuff. By saying 'everything is official content' it's one more reason to check out Dragon.

It is smart marketing.  It's easy for players to argue the use of a new PHB than it is to argue for the use of a supplement.  

Hey, remember when Unearthed Arcana came out for 1e?

Quote from: jeff37923;294372So, you agree it is just a marketting decision by WotC.

Fuck yeah!

Quote from: jeff37923;294372So therefore in order to have all the official content Core Gaming Material for 4E, the 4E gamer is expected to purchase everything.

Name me the company that does not want you to buy all their products.

Quote from: jeff37923;294517What a Marketting and Sales department thinks does matter. If they believe it will improve sales, that department may try all sorts of tricks - like proclaiming Worldwide D&D Game Day Events whenever a new PHB, DMG, or MM comes out in order to boost sales.

The Game Days / Release Events are the smartest thing I have seen anyone do in our hobby for a loooong time...but WotC is just doing what they did with M:tG.   At our FLGS, they sold out of PHB2 at the Game Day and lots of people showed up to pick up their pre-orders and play the 11th level Demo.

Quote from: Drohem;294531So, realistically we're probably looking at four official Player's Handbooks for 4e D&D.

And 12 months after the PHB 4, we get D&D 5th Edition!   The best edition ever! Woot!

Quote from: jeff37923;294563Lorraine Williams killed TSR and D&D along with it.

Lorraine killed TSR, but 4e killed D&D!

Quote from: Spinachcat;294597And 12 months after the PHB 4, we get D&D 5th Edition!   The best edition ever! Woot!

You're KILLING THE PLANET!!!!!!

Quote from: Spinachcat;294597Name me the company that does not want you to buy all their products.

There is a difference between "wanting the consumer to buy" and "holding material back for ransom from the consumer".

Quote from: Spinachcat;294597The Game Days / Release Events are the smartest thing I have seen anyone do in our hobby for a loooong time...but WotC is just doing what they did with M:tG.   At our FLGS, they sold out of PHB2 at the Game Day and lots of people showed up to pick up their pre-orders and play the 11th level Demo.

I agree, it is also a method that can be copied and used by other game publishers. OTHER GAME PUBLISHERS PAY ATTENTION!

Quote from: Spinachcat;294597Lorraine killed TSR, but 4e killed D&D!

4E may not have killed D&D, but WotC's protectionist policies aren't helping.

Quote from: jeff37923;294609There is a difference between "wanting the consumer to buy" and "holding material back for ransom from the consumer"..

If people want a thing...

and that thing is for sale...

and they have enough money to pay for said thing...

and the price seems reasonable...

...people will buy that thing.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;294611If people want a thing...

and that thing is for sale...

and they have enough money to pay for said thing...

and the price seems reasonable...

...people will buy that thing.

Unless WotC thinks that it is in competition with their Flagship Product, and then demand that the thing should not be sold anymore. Then your desire for that thing is well and truly fucked.

Quote from: jeff37923;294615Unless WotC thinks that it is in competition with their Flagship Product, and then demand that the thing should not be sold anymore. Then your desire for that thing is well and truly fucked.

...

Still not seeing the problem here.

If nothing else, doesn't this make the market more available to the retro clones, if the originals go away?

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;294618...If nothing else, doesn't this make the market more available to the retro clones, if the originals go away?

That doesn't make any sense. 90% of retro clones are free products and their goal was never to "compete" with the originals, but rather to complement them and make sure their rule logarithms would still be available in the case something like this stunt WotC just pulled happened.

Quote from: Edsan;294626That doesn't make any sense. 90% of retro clones are free products and their goal was never to "compete" with the originals, but rather to complement them and make sure their rule logarithms would still be available in the case something like this stunt WotC just pulled happened.

Well.. free or not, the marketplace of player interest is being competed for. If the rules compendium PDF is gone, and people still want to use pdfs, they can use.. Labyrinth Lord or Basic Fantasy. It's suddenly standing out a bit more.

On the PDF front GM Skarka revealed on Enworld tha the pirated copies in question had watermarks that indicated they were pre-publication copies. WOTC is pulling the products based on a contractual clause that allows for a remedy in case of whatever reason...

Could it be that someone over at RPGnow or somewhere released the pirated copy?

Personally I'm surprised that WOTC was still the owners of the older books at all (I mean, I have a complete set of 1e pdfs, but still). but... every time someone says "Damn you Wotc, now you'll never see a dollar from me again.."
From my POV -- unless you were playing 4e, you were never actually seen as a customer for them at all.

Quote from: RPGPundit;294499Ironic, given that WW was one of the companies most responsible for the full on "endless splatbook, endless metaplot" model of supplement-mill design.

I feel that AD&D was doing that quite a bit before Vampire.

Anyway, if WW learned from that mistake, kudos to them. I really like the idea of limited series for an RPG, while keeping a continuous run of books for the main lines. As long as they keep the really high level of quality they have now, I'm fine.

Quote from: jeff37923;294517If you are concerned about products being marketted towards munchkins, then you need to understand that those consumers are probably the ones whose purchasing power is directing the Sales and Marketting department. Why? Because they are the ones who are buying the most products.

And I don't think is the worst decision business-wise, isn't it? You have to try and cater to your best customers.

Quote from: RPGPundit;294525Even so, however, as far as I understand it, you can still choose the "Minimalist" option.  Use the 3 basic corebooks and nothing else, and its still a fully playable game.

That's also the impression I get.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;294629From my POV -- unless you were playing 4e, you were never actually seen as a customer for them at all.

You mean that WOTC had no D&D customers at all until they released 4e?  People that bought D&D 3e and D&D 3.5e were actually consumers of some other company and WOTC did not get a penny of their money? The WOTC logos on 3.x product were all fake?  The people who claimed to have written 3.x material for WOTC were all lying?

Quote from: RandallS;294740You mean that WOTC had no D&D customers at all until they released 4e?  People that bought D&D 3e and D&D 3.5e were actually consumers of some other company and WOTC did not get a penny of their money? The WOTC logos on 3.x product were all fake?  The people who claimed to have written 3.x material for WOTC were all lying?

What is with the overwrought hand wringing and wailing? It's like reading the Onion. "Heartless company infuriates non-customers".

It means that Wizards is focused on selling D&D4 now.


Also? There are no new Beatles Albums. The AMC Gremlin is also no longer being sold. The Commodore 64 is simply not being produced either.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;294629On the PDF front GM Skarka revealed on Enworld tha the pirated copies in question had watermarks that indicated they were pre-publication copies. WOTC is pulling the products based on a contractual clause that allows for a remedy in case of whatever reason...

Could it be that someone over at RPGnow or somewhere released the pirated copy?

Ridiculous. If that were the case, WoTC, even with their TOTALLY INCOMPETENT public relations people, would have had the minimum of brains to make sure everyone knew that the villains here were RPGnow, and not WoTC.

QuoteFrom my POV -- unless you were playing 4e, you were never actually seen as a customer for them at all.

Yes, that is the attitude they have been showing from day 0 of 4e.  It is also an immensely stupid thing for them to do.

Their whole deal was "we have to get new people, we're going to bank EVERYTHING on this virtual tabletop; so FUCK all our current customers, we don't give a shit about them; they either get on board with all the millions of new virtual tabletop players we're going to have or they can go fuck themselves".
Of course, the tabletop failed, there are no new players worth mentioning, and yet the idiots over there haven't figured out that this whole "fuck our old customers" policy, which was unbelievably stupid and unnecessary in the first place but is now absolutely toxic to their future prospects.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;294741It means that Wizards is focused on selling D&D4 now.

Also? There are no new Beatles Albums. The AMC Gremlin is also no longer being sold. The Commodore 64 is simply not being produced either.

The PDFs of older edition books cost nothing to upkeep though. There are people who will most likely never buy 4E. Those people may have still purchased PDFs of products from their preferred edition of D&D. The PDFs were basically nearly free extra money. Taking away those PDFs will not nudge people who had no interest in 4E into buying it.

Also you are using a flawed analogy that I have seen on several RPG forums. Previous editions of D&D are not like software or technology. 4E is not an upgrade over 3.5E (or OD&D, AD&D, 2E, etc.). It is just different. There are people who prefer various editions over others for all kinds of reasons.

WotC/Hasbro is going with a replacement business model. Every 3-5 years they will most likely make a new edition of D&D that is either partially or completely incompatible with previous editions. They will then resell all the same books as before (PHB (1,2,3..), MM(1,2,3...), DMG (1,2,3...), The books that add more powers and options to each class, yet another reboot to the various popular D&D settings,etc.). And of course each time they do this they will want everyone to discard the previous edition and buy into the new one.

The thing is not everyone goes along with that. There are people who will not make the switch. Having the old books on PDF gives WotC a chance to still make some money off of people who would not have otherwise purchased the shiny new edition. I seriously doubt you will find anyone who will say that they are going to start buying 4E books now that they can not get 3.X and other previous editions on PDF.

Quote from: Spinachcat;294597Name me the company that does not want you to buy all their products.

Mine. I have several times told people that one of my games wouldn't suit what they were looking for, and if I knew something that would suit better, recommended that instead. I don't want pissed off customers.

-clash