So wizards has announced a new book: Draconomicron I: Chromatic Dragons.  Now, I was in the mildly negative camp on 4E-- this has thrown me into the raving Anti-4e people who pray for Hasbro to go bankrupt and be forced to sell D&D back go Gygax camp.  I mean, someone in that company has a major beating coming, yes?  
How can they have a product called the Draconomicron-- which in itself should have EVERYTHING YOU NEED to know about dragons in it-- but only have it cover a certain kind of dragons?  Oh, and of course, charge the same price for this tiny book that they would have charged for a real product only a couple years ago (the real Draconomicron).  
They purposefully, shamelessly, unabashedly are publishing incomplete products to force you to buy the follow-ups.  But instead of publishing a full book on dragons, and following it up with another book a few years later on some new kinds of dragons-- they make it so that you have to buy suppliment after suppliment just to get WHAT THE GAME SHOULD HAVE INCLUDED IN THE FIRST PRODUCT.  So you want a gnome PC?  Buy the MM.  Want a monk?  Buy the PH2 or Martial Power book, or whatever the Excuse of the week is that Wizards churns out.  
One other company did something similar-- Kenzer & Co-- and that was Hackmaster, and it was supposed to be a Joke about how stupid/shameless an RPG company could be (their creature compendium had Monsters A-D, and E-H, etc all as separate books).  But now it seems Wizards is trying to do the same thing  with a straight face.  
So right now, I make a solemn pledge-- I will NEVER purchase any 4e D&D product... EVER.  Whose with me?  We should get a petition for people to sign or something on here of people pledging never to buy any 4e D&D products-- I'd just like to see how long the list gets.

I'm buying the core three books. Beyond that, I make no promises.

Quote from: Sacrificial LambI'm buying the core three books. Beyond that, I make no promises.

Same here, except I will buy the first adventure with them. Just to see their idea of adventuring in 4e.

Out of curiosity, what's the page count going to be on this Dragonomicron I?

If it's a pretty slim volume then I'd agree it should have more dragons in it, but if it's a reasonably chunky volume, and assuming that space isn't taken up with too many gratuitously large pictures rather than actual text, then it might be interesting. What I wouldn't want to see is a series of individually stated out dragons taking up page after page. Meh, at this stage it could go either way.

As for the whole 'large game company trying to sell more suppliments' rant. Grass green, water wet, etc.

Quote from: TrevelyanAs for the whole 'large game company trying to sell more suppliments' rant. Grass green, water wet, etc.

Bear shits in woods, Pope declared Catholic.

But I do agree with the original poster. I won't buy any 4e stuff. I'd actually already decided that, but this just confirms it. What especially annoys me is that they're made it this money-squeeze so blatant, as if they don't even care that we know they know they're doing it. Like they're so contemptuous of us that they essentially think we're just a bunch of weak-willed, pathetic D&D junkies who won't even mind being tricked into buying books we shouldn't really need - so long as we get our fix.

The gnome is the big thing for me. "We're not having gnomes as a core race.... but they will DEFINITELY be released in another supplement SOMEWHERE down the line. So buy that if you want to play a gnome. When it gets released. That book will have loads of stuff you don't want or need in it and will cost £19.99, by the way. And you'll suck it up and like it, because you're a D&D-smack addict."

That's right, let it all out. You'll feel better. :what:

I'm with you!  Unfortunately, I've been a hater for years now, so there was no way I was buying any 4e books anyways.  I'd rather not shell out cash to have my imagination replaced by sets of rigidly codified combat maneuvers and class behaviours.  I like roleplaying games.

Hmm...without seeing it, its sort of tough to tell, but 39.99 seems like a lot for such a (presumably) limited or precise topic.

I'll just wait for Gnomeinomicon I: Deep Gnomes.  

Just as a small counterpoint here:  I don't give a crap about metallic dragons.  A dragon book that focuses on just the evil dragons works a lot better for me as a GM.  I might use one or two good dragons during a campaign.  The PCs will chew through a lot more badguy dragons.

I have made a far more relistic decision some while ago:

I won´t be adopting, until someone else convinces me via actual play. That is, I was totally responsible for over thirty people getting into 3.5. I DMed and explained and everybody adopted and had a good time, some people started DMing with groups of their own, even though they had never played RPGs before.

Now, I´ll just sit, and wait till any GM I respect runs a 4e game. I´ll participate. If there´s a campaign I want to take part in, I´ll buy the PHB.

If I have to move before that, I might attend a convention or Living Realms thingamajig.

I´ll never say never, but I´m definitely not spending any energy in getting anyone to play 4e.

BTW, the covers, they are full of suck!

Quote from: jrientsJust as a small counterpoint here:  I don't give a crap about metallic dragons.  A dragon book that focuses on just the evil dragons works a lot better for me as a GM.  I might use one or two good dragons during a campaign.  The PCs will chew through a lot more badguy dragons.

Didn't I read soemwhere that the metallic-->good/chromatic-->evil split was gone?

Ah, here.

"For example, the Capricious Copper Dragon became Chaotic Neutral in the minis game, partly to illustrate the 4th edition concept that not all metallic dragons uphold what is right and good."



And Sett, yes, the new PHB cover is actually worse than the first one.
Why don't they simply go with the cover to the Character Sheets?

Well, never mind then.  Shows what I get for giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Minor point here: Didn't SJG do a book with basically the same title 3 or 4 years ago? Just before their 4th edition of GURPS came out??

The reason I'm rememberi ng that is because I had a customer that was using d20 3.5 as his rules system  - but he bought the SJG version Dragonomicon  and used it heavily for ideas and a chunk of the story in his campaign.

- Ed C.

As I essentially said in another thread, they shouldn't even have titles for the supplements.  They should just be called "Ripping You Off" volume 1, 2, etc.

Unless anyone here has seen the contents of the book, it's a little earlier to be saying it's a rip off.