Second i hope that i provide useful information to my blog.
Third this is a rant.
this is a rant about how in 2 hours time my rpg blogger feed in Google reader went from 0 new items to 50 new items.
At what point do we decide that quantity over quality is ok, i try my best not to post something unless its an item of quality, (hence not a lot of posts anymore). This in itself seems to be the point of 4e as well. I love 4e i play 4e, i'm tired of 4e.
Let me be more specific, i'm tired of the constant updates to 4e, and constantly looking around the corner to see whats next. Pull back the reigns a little there WoTC, lets go with 1 new book a quarter, i mean 3rd year, = 3rd players handbook. Fuck off.
Seriously, as a player and a DM i'm tired of being bombarded with the new crap, lets let the new stuff work into the system a little before already going on this. It seems to me that WotC saw how much money magic the gathering makes by constantly pushing out new products and felt they could do the same with D&D.
Maybe i'm ranting for no reason, i just feel there has been a flood of information as of late, and how much of that is really quality information.
There are a lot of great blogs out there constantly pushing out new and helpful info that i wish i could keep up with. NewbieDM for one is one of my favorite bloggers, thats because his posts seem to have some user.
So for those expecting good information here, i apologize.
Posts
I can feel what you feel right now, that is for sure, but I find myself wondering why, though?
ReplyDeleteWith D&D and 4e especially (though a little bit of 3.5e before that) I want to 'keep up' with all the stuff that's comming out, stay on top of it...
But: WHY?
Just because it gets printed doesn't mean I have to use it and it doesn't mean that I have to allow it at my table.
Before I didn't worry about this, before I had the money to buy everything it didn't phase me a bit that a new splat book for 2e came out, and durring its later years 2e put out a lot more material than 4e is putting out.
I used what I had and was happy to do so.
I second Jefferson's sentiment. I've never felt compelled to own everything published for a game. I pick and choose what 4ed stuff I buy. As is, I own more gaming material than I will likely ever be able to use in my lifetime! :)
ReplyDeleteI find other people's previews and reviews of 4ed products useful for choosing which books I actually want to spend money on.
I agree with the other two posters. I buy what I want, use what I want. No one at WoTC puts a gun to my head to utilize all their material. And a simple statement of "... with DM permission" to the players at the beginning of a game neatly solves any requests later on down the road if I don't like supplement X.
ReplyDeleteI don't feel compelled to own everything, but i do feel that it is in my face, and that we have to be aware of it.
ReplyDeletefor me as a DM to make a proper choice about any new supplement i have to read it over, meaning i have to borrow a copy or buy it.
i think going back to softcover cheap books (12-15$) would be a better idea. just my IMO.
I try and see things from their view. As much as we call them game producers, an RPG really follows a book model. Few people can produce 1 book and then retire. Look at how many books Stephen King writes?
ReplyDeleteOh, I also wanted to say regarding 'updates' - if you're referring to the patch notes that WOTC put out recently, I have to disagree there as well. The updates/patch notes are awesome (even overlooking the fact that they are seamlessly brought into the character builder). I use to play a game - Exalted, ever heard of it? I love that game. The world, the style, everything about it. But what finally killed the game for me was a lack of support from the writers. There were some clearly broken powers in that system, but White Wolf couldn't be bothered to fix it. I refuse to play a system where I have to have 3 pages of House Rules to fix things!
ReplyDeleteI actually don't buy anything at all aside from my D&D Insider subscription. All of the crunch is in the compendium, and I usually ignore most of the fluff anyway.
ReplyDeleteI do still purchase miniatures and Dungeon Tiles, though... but those don't require me to learn new rules.
Well reading the entire RPG Blogger network feed is a bit like sipping from a fire hose. :)
ReplyDeleteMore seriously, that particular feed has been a bit irregular of late. I got the same blast today, which appeared to consist of over a day's worth of post backlog. I'm guessing there are some tech issues getting ironed out.
Hey all
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback, rants are usually sparked by many things and this i needed to get off my chest.
There are great blogs out there and i don't want to discourage people from adding good information.
I'm not saying that wotc should stop producing stuff, i just think that the 1-2 books a month is to fast for anyone to really see the game evolve with it.
i think the online tools are great specifically the character builder.
In all honesty too many things in my life just became overwhelming, my hobby shouldn't have been one.
I agree with Mike on this. I think WOTC should really slow down on releasing their books because it is becoming really cumbersome to read them all (I know I don't have too, but I like to read the books just in case a player wants to use something from there and I can tell them yes or no).
ReplyDeleteI also agree with going back to the softcover cheap books. It's one of the reasons I have more Pathfinder books than 4e because the books are a lot cheaper and of good quality.
They should, like what was already stated, just release 1 or 2 books a quarter so DMs and players won't feel so overwhelmed and grow tired with the game.
I enjoy having a large amount of material for my gaming use. I understand that some don't feel the same way I do but if you don't have to buy what you don't want to use.
ReplyDeleteI feel like WotC felt they needed to get lots of books out due to the large amount of options players had in 3.0-3.5 and they knew that getting players to convert would mean bringing back many of the races, classes, and settings that were missing with the release.