At 11:45 PM 9/6/00 -0700, John Kim wrote:
>
>
>On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, Lizard wrote:
>> At 11:11 PM 9/6/00 -0400, Alexander P. Macris wrote:
>> > No one will buy silly overpriced WOTC books when mine are just as
>> > good, are fully compatible with the D&D product line, and cost less.
>>
>> Twenty dollars for a full-color hardcover is not overpriced in any world
>> I have ever lived in. As a comparison, it's over twice as long in raw
>> page count as the original 1st ed PHB, which cost 10 dollars in 1978 --
>> easily 20 dollars in 2000. AND it's in full color.
>
> Well, if what I was looking in a rules system was colored
>paper and page count, that would be convincing. I'm not exactly sure
>what the previous poster's intent was, but I'll say this: The 3ed
>Players Handbook is not at all overpriced for D&D players, but IMO
>it *is* overpriced for the 4 or so pages of rules that would be used
>for, say, a modern espionage D20 game.
>
I concur. And if anyone said it was the core rulebook for such a game, I'd
look at them funny.
> In short, the plan of using the D&D Players Handbook (which is
>mostly classs, equipment, and spell lists) as the core rulebook for
>other genre games is a little bizarre to me.
>
And to me.
The 'core' rulebook for any genre is the genre book itself. D&D 3e is the
'core' rulebook for, well, D&D. (Which I consider almost a genre unto
itself -- it's neither high fantasy, nor low fantasy, nor swords&sorcery,
but something strangely all and none of the above.)
Frankly, I am not 100% sure of why the D20 license restrictions exist. I
really doubt more than the tiniest number of PHBs would be sold due to them
than would be sold otherwise. That is, the number of people who will buy a
PHB just to get rules they can easily get off the net, or learn from
friends, is vanishingly small. As several people have noted, the entire
'verboten rules' text is less than a page long. The whole thing strikes me
as something concocted to slip the D20 license idea past some Suits:"You
see, this way, we can FORCE them to buy the PHB!!!"
On the other side of the coin, the sole reason for wanting the D20 logo is
marketing -- to tap into the existing D20 fan base. And the intersection
between the set of "All D20 Players" and "All D&D3e Players" is such that
the former is practically a subset of the latter, at least at the moment.
In other words -- of the potential audience for your hypothetical D20
Espionage game, what %age won't ALREADY have a PHB by the time your game
hits the shelves?
(In case anyone is wondering why I'm bothering with trying to be D20
compatible in my pet projects, it's purely as an intellectual challenge --
I like working within arbitrary limits.)
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