in the video of How I'll Run WotC for Elon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrNYkuiFBqw) for RPG pundit say that should not release book that allow you fighter to be a better fighter. and I intrepet that as Elon should not release crunch books.
crunch books are book that its main attraction are new options for player characters, such as subclasses, spells, feats or even new classes.
the reason is to avoid powercrep and This will make the game last longer but the problem I see is that it can be boring for the players. I consider myself an optimizer although you may call me a mix-maxer or a munchkin and I like went new player options come. I know that settings books can have player options but much less than in a crunch book.
Pathfinder second edicion have launch more content that D&D 5e and still exists. it is true that they released the remaster but that is for the OGL drama (I dont want to talk about that). I don't know if this means that more content can be released or if paizo has a secret that I don't know.
In my view, splatbooks (which is the name I'm familiar with for them) is one of the reasons 3e collapsed under its own weight.
I think Dragonbane's creators intend to release an "advanced" book but that's a pretty light game with no HP bloat and pretty minimal progression comparatively.
As I see it, 5E's player culture pretty much demands them, so I'm not sure how a leaner game will be viewed by the audience
There are some theoretical design constraints that make crunch books usually a bad idea. If a game has a really tight design, there isn't room for much more crunch. If a game has a more loose design (such as B/X D&D), then there is room for new classes for an archetype/race/etc. However, in that case, it doesn't take much space to do a new class. It's more like a few pages in a setting book where the new class fits.
The real problem, however, is the iron grip that Sturgeon's Law has on this kind of crunch coming out at a pace to "keep the game afloat". To wit, 90% of it is crap. Worse, most of the best stuff has already been curated for the first release. Which means that the second book is a few good things that didn't fit or were mistakenly left out for the crap in the first book--then filled with the stuff that didn't make the cut the first time. Sure, 5 years in, lots of play testing, a few things released in small supplements, you might have a valid "best of supplement crunch" book for people who want that sort of thing. Once a year or more frequent is just admitting it's mostly crap.
The one good way around the crunch crushing the system that I've seen is for systems like HERO where they had things like the UNTIL Powers Guide.
It didn't add new mechanics; it just provided a lot of examples of how to use the existing power system with advantages and disadvantages to create powers along different themes.
They were technically crunch in that you could certainly add them to your characters, but it wasn't adding complexity. In fact, it reduced a lot of the design load since instead of trying to think up and build all the cool fire powers you could think of you could just use the example ones with all the point values already calculated for you.
In defense of crunch I think that if a game dont have crunch can aslo die because player want more new option and if they see that dont have more option then they will play other games.
Quote from: antonioGUAK on December 16, 2024, 12:16:28 PMIn defense of crunch I think that if a game dont have crunch can aslo die because player want more new option and if they see that dont have more option then they will play other games.
Plenty of long campaigns went for years in simple systems or those with little to no mechanical progression.
You can incorporate crunch via magic items, special training (which they have to quest for) and such- not to mention diegetic advancements
5E was built to enable a certain amount of expansion but WotC misused that.
For example they could have released a book of Backgrounds & Archetypes/Primal Paths/Domains/etc for Forgotten Realms. These could be designed to provide color and connections to the setting. Instead they added this sort of thing to Xanthars and aimed for power gamers and all the extra mechanics and complexity required to inflate PC power.
They could have done that sort of thing for any setting book or created a book with multiple settings worth of that stuff. Xanthars was such a mistake all around if you ask me.
The big reason for splat books is to keep folks interested and involved in the game, and to make money for the company. If you want a vibrant community they're pretty important. Mechanicswise they can be challenging to do well.
Companies need to keep churning out content in order to stay solvent and keep the game in the public consciousness. Otherwise the company goes under and the game gets forgotten. So you have to keep churning out garbage and repackaging shit year after year until you get sick of it and move on to something else.
Quote from: antonioGUAK on December 16, 2024, 04:19:17 AMthe reason is to avoid powercrep and This will make the game last longer but the problem I see is that it can be boring for the players.
This approach creates terrible games, terrible players, and terrible GMs who run linear railroad APs. It arises from a cynical corporate need to sell more books - to Monetise the Player Base - and creates a highly dysfunctional play style. It trains players to be bad players.
The good news is that there are so many players, it's easy for a good GM to find players happy to focus on game elements other than charop.
What about the idea of a crunch book but with the world getting more deadly in proportion?
I think if you're making a game, you can choose what to focus on, but you should ask your audience what they want and try to supply it to them.
If your customers want splat books, provide them. If they don't, focus on what they do want. You can't try and force a certain audience to be interested in what you make , so you might as well focus on making what they do want (something the current heads of WoTC haven't learned, or have forgotten)
So like, me personally? I used to like books like the monster manual, but now I feel like they're a waste. I know some people like them, but I feel like time would be better served doing monster entries in the adventures you write so that those adventures can be sold as stand-alone products. And maybe having some general guidelines on how people can make their own monsters for your game. Of course as your library of monsters increases, the temptation rises to put everything you have already made into a new compilation/product to try and sell, so you have to resist that urge, or roll the dice to see if it ends up being worth it.
I'm not a big fan of splat books, except for monster books, which I'll buy, but don't absolutely need. I used to be really into extra character class compendiums, but those don't interest me as much anymore. As I've gotten older I've come to appreciate having everything in one book, even if the book is big. I loved the second edition of the Hyperborea game, for example, but just couldn't get into 3e in part because they broke it up into separate books.
Quote from: Banjo Destructo on December 17, 2024, 05:06:37 PMI think if you're making a game, you can choose what to focus on, but you should ask your audience what they want and try to supply it to them.
If your customers want splat books, provide them. If they don't, focus on what they do want. You can't try and force a certain audience to be interested in what you make , so you might as well focus on making what they do want (something the current heads of WoTC haven't learned, or have forgotten)
So like, me personally? I used to like books like the monster manual, but now I feel like they're a waste. I know some people like them, but I feel like time would be better served doing monster entries in the adventures you write so that those adventures can be sold as stand-alone products. And maybe having some general guidelines on how people can make their own monsters for your game. Of course as your library of monsters increases, the temptation rises to put everything you have already made into a new compilation/product to try and sell, so you have to resist that urge, or roll the dice to see if it ends up being worth it.
Personally I think not putting monsters that are needed for a given adventure in the adventure is a big miss step. Or at least border line assinine.
That said I know one splatbook that has been missing from 5e from what I've heard was rules for makeing monsters.Not haveing baseline rules to make gm driven content is an obvious flaw if for no other reason then it increases the load on the gm.
How about releasing 1 big "optional" splat book, for your RPG. Put the word "Optional", clearly on the front cover.
Then the DM can choose to run a game, either with or without the optional content.
The problem runs rampant, when you add multiple books full of splat.
Personally, I dont like the extra books in part because I dont actually want any books at the table. I think they detract from the experience. I understand that some players like that part of the game, and thats great, but I like a game that focuses on the players solving problems with what they have, not with the second paragraph on page 72 of the Advanced Fighters Handbook.
Quote from: Man at Arms on December 17, 2024, 11:18:45 PMHow about releasing 1 big "optional" splat book, for your RPG. Put the word "Optional", clearly on the front cover.
Then the DM can choose to run a game, either with or without the optional content.
The problem runs rampant, when you add multiple books full of splat.
This is literally what Matt Finch just did with his "Book of Options" for Swords & Wizardry. I backed the KS, got the book and realized that it actually detracts from the charming simplicity that was Swords & Wizardy. Thus, I reiterate my older gamer's preference for everything in one book...
Quote from: antonioGUAK on December 16, 2024, 04:19:17 AMin the video of How I'll Run WotC for Elon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrNYkuiFBqw) for RPG pundit say that should not release book that allow you fighter to be a better fighter. and I intrepet that as Elon should not release crunch books.
I don't have a clue how you got that out of what he said. What he said, in pretty clear terms, is that books should not include new options that are clearly better than what is in the core book. One obvious reason is that it immediately makes the options in the core book obsolete while requiring players to buy the new book if they don't want to miss out on the new, superior options. Another is that it produces power creep which makes running the game more and more of a pain in the ass.
Quote from: kosmos1214 on December 17, 2024, 08:51:48 PMQuote from: Banjo Destructo on December 17, 2024, 05:06:37 PMI think if you're making a game, you can choose what to focus on, but you should ask your audience what they want and try to supply it to them.
If your customers want splat books, provide them. If they don't, focus on what they do want. You can't try and force a certain audience to be interested in what you make , so you might as well focus on making what they do want (something the current heads of WoTC haven't learned, or have forgotten)
So like, me personally? I used to like books like the monster manual, but now I feel like they're a waste. I know some people like them, but I feel like time would be better served doing monster entries in the adventures you write so that those adventures can be sold as stand-alone products. And maybe having some general guidelines on how people can make their own monsters for your game. Of course as your library of monsters increases, the temptation rises to put everything you have already made into a new compilation/product to try and sell, so you have to resist that urge, or roll the dice to see if it ends up being worth it.
Personally I think not putting monsters that are needed for a given adventure in the adventure is a big miss step. Or at least border line assinine.
That said I know one splatbook that has been missing from 5e from what I've heard was rules for makeing monsters.Not haveing baseline rules to make gm driven content is an obvious flaw if for no other reason then it increases the load on the gm.
I don't even think a splat book is needed for rules on to how to make monsters. Elegantly I think these could fit into 2-4 pages of rules in the main book.
I would have argued against power creep - my 5e game goes better when I really lock down on what options players can bring in from later books, and give them a limited menu of spells as well as character choices - but I'm currently having a love affair with the character options in Iskloft.
They don't add classes or subclasses, they *completely replace* the stock classes & subclasses. Translating from the (pseudo-?) Old Norse, these are:
- (Holy) Berserker - bear, death, raven, wolf
- Fighter - berserker, weaponmaster, guard, raider
- Survivor - two-weapon, pet, marksman
- Leader - banner-bearer, tactician, warlord
- Exile - duelist, irishman, outlaw, bard
- Mystic - prophetess, runecarver, witch
I would love to have more dripping-with-flavour different-power-level variant sets of classes like these in thematic setting books, and am toying around with some possibilities for other settings.
I like the idea of option books that make the game different. Say classes and such that make a D&D campaign more Sword & Sorcery, or more Horror, or even fit for Gamma World. They aren't add ons to the original classes and such but replacements, thus you don't increase the overhead, you just have different overhead.
Quote from: a_wanderer on December 16, 2024, 05:20:08 AMAs I see it, 5E's player culture pretty much demands them, so I'm not sure how a leaner game will be viewed by the audience
I don't feel the splatbook argument is reasonable to levy at 5e. Sure, I could envision a game where all expansion content focuses on new options (and doesn't power creep them), but if you compare 5e to 3.X or more wildly, 4e, it's extremely sparse. 5e represents a huge rollback in splatbook spam compared to earlier versions.
Quote from: Venka on December 19, 2024, 08:37:09 PMQuote from: a_wanderer on December 16, 2024, 05:20:08 AMAs I see it, 5E's player culture pretty much demands them, so I'm not sure how a leaner game will be viewed by the audience
I don't feel the splatbook argument is reasonable to levy at 5e. Sure, I could envision a game where all expansion content focuses on new options (and doesn't power creep them), but if you compare 5e to 3.X or more wildly, 4e, it's extremely sparse. 5e represents a huge rollback in splatbook spam compared to earlier versions.
I agree. My intended point wasn't the comparison in severity (5e is leagues better in that regard), but to say that 5e is a very player-oriented system in marketing and design.
The books that sell the most after the core set are more options. A whole optimization industry developed, with full time YouTubers who go over elaborate builds and statistics for 45-80 minutes per video and multi million 3PP crowdfunding campaigns for them.
Also, at least in my view, there's a very strict "RAW" culture and a base expectation that at least every "official" book published should be available to players. That's aided by the fact that it isn't easy to filter content in that manner in D&DBeyond.
Each of the books that did come out made characters stronger, it really stands out when you look at very recent entries like the twilight cleric or the spell Silvery barbs.
New player options revitalize the interest and feeds the beast. I spoke to people with 10-20 character builds that just sit in the drawer, ready for hypothetical future play and most of them will never get to the table. Since each build takes a while, people see value in it even outside of play, otherwise they wouldn't have done all the work.[This phenomenon is also present in PF2E (a.k.a. PathBuilder), but there it's free.]
That doesn't happen if new splatbooks aren't released, players expect it from the system by this point IMO.
Quote from: a_wanderer on December 20, 2024, 02:08:19 AMvery recent entries like the twilight cleric
That "very recent" example has been out for just over 4 years while 5e has itself been out for about 10 years. When something has been out for almost half the game's lifespan, it's hard for me to think of it as "very recent."
Of course, there are those that consider the Clans to be a new addition to BattleTech despite them having been in the game for 35 years (of its 40 year lifespan), so...
I love Splat books, especially if they are lore heavy, I feel in most of the books, lets say in the D&D books, they talk so little about a lot of things, like the elemental planes, its just a few paragraphs, i think splat books for each plane would be a great idea.
Quote from: HappyDaze on December 20, 2024, 09:09:01 AMQuote from: a_wanderer on December 20, 2024, 02:08:19 AMvery recent entries like the twilight cleric
That "very recent" example has been out for just over 4 years while 5e has itself been out for about 10 years. When something has been out for almost half the game's lifespan, it's hard for me to think of it as "very recent."
Of course, there are those that consider the Clans to be a new addition to BattleTech despite them having been in the game for 35 years (of its 40 year lifespan), so...
No, the Clans aren't a
new addition to the game. But they are a terrible one (which is what some of us have been saying
since they were new)...
Quote from: Eirikrautha on December 20, 2024, 04:06:39 PMQuote from: HappyDaze on December 20, 2024, 09:09:01 AMQuote from: a_wanderer on December 20, 2024, 02:08:19 AMvery recent entries like the twilight cleric
That "very recent" example has been out for just over 4 years while 5e has itself been out for about 10 years. When something has been out for almost half the game's lifespan, it's hard for me to think of it as "very recent."
Of course, there are those that consider the Clans to be a new addition to BattleTech despite them having been in the game for 35 years (of its 40 year lifespan), so...
No, the Clans aren't a new addition to the game. But they are a terrible one (which is what some of us have been saying since they were new)...
I quite like the concept of the Clans as the returning heirs of the Star League that were corrupted into a mockery of what they were intended to represent. OTOH, I feel that the execution of the Clans and the plots around them has often been lacking in many ways.
Quote from: HappyDaze on December 20, 2024, 09:09:01 AMQuote from: a_wanderer on December 20, 2024, 02:08:19 AMvery recent entries like the twilight cleric
That "very recent" example has been out for just over 4 years while 5e has itself been out for about 10 years. When something has been out for almost half the game's lifespan, it's hard for me to think of it as "very recent."
Of course, there are those that consider the Clans to be a new addition to BattleTech despite them having been in the game for 35 years (of its 40 year lifespan), so...
True. I meant recent of the splatbooks released, as in afer Xanatar anf Tasha.
I forgot about the giants one, haven't been following 5e closesly for a while as I went on to play other systems.
Quote from: a_wanderer on December 20, 2024, 02:08:19 AMNew player options revitalize the interest and feeds the beast. I spoke to people with 10-20 character builds that just sit in the drawer, ready for hypothetical future play and most of them will never get to the table. Since each build takes a while, people see value in it even outside of play, otherwise they wouldn't have done all the work.[This phenomenon is also present in PF2E (a.k.a. PathBuilder), but there it's free.]
That doesn't happen if new splatbooks aren't released, players expect it from the system by this point IMO.
That's probably the crux of the issue. If you're publishing D&D or an adjacent game in the 21st century, and you're not expressly doing a rules-lite/retro game, you have to publish a semi-constant flow of additional character options. Whether it's good for the game or not, it's expected. If you don't do it, you'll get your commercial lunch eaten by someone who does.
As far as whether it's good or bad for the game, I have a pretty straightforward rule of thumb: The simpler your classes are, the more of them you can get away with having. 3rd edition really got into trouble because not only did it publish a ton of class options, the classes themselves were really involved. Meanwhile something like WFRP or Shadow of the Demon Lord can have scores of classes/professions, and you rarely hear complaints, because the classes are much simpler.
I like options, but they should probably be limited to how many a character can have. Then again too many options can turn the game into optimizing ones character rather then playing the game. Creating more classes and races that are unique to their selves with the same limiting options may be a better idea. On the other hand you may have the same issue of making the just right character. That stuff is cool to play with for a while. I always find myself returning to simplicity.
Quote from: Banjo Destructo on December 18, 2024, 09:04:56 AMQuote from: kosmos1214 on December 17, 2024, 08:51:48 PMQuote from: Banjo Destructo on December 17, 2024, 05:06:37 PMI think if you're making a game, you can choose what to focus on, but you should ask your audience what they want and try to supply it to them.
If your customers want splat books, provide them. If they don't, focus on what they do want. You can't try and force a certain audience to be interested in what you make , so you might as well focus on making what they do want (something the current heads of WoTC haven't learned, or have forgotten)
So like, me personally? I used to like books like the monster manual, but now I feel like they're a waste. I know some people like them, but I feel like time would be better served doing monster entries in the adventures you write so that those adventures can be sold as stand-alone products. And maybe having some general guidelines on how people can make their own monsters for your game. Of course as your library of monsters increases, the temptation rises to put everything you have already made into a new compilation/product to try and sell, so you have to resist that urge, or roll the dice to see if it ends up being worth it.
Personally I think not putting monsters that are needed for a given adventure in the adventure is a big miss step. Or at least border line assinine.
That said I know one splatbook that has been missing from 5e from what I've heard was rules for makeing monsters.Not haveing baseline rules to make gm driven content is an obvious flaw if for no other reason then it increases the load on the gm.
I don't even think a splat book is needed for rules on to how to make monsters. Elegantly I think these could fit into 2-4 pages of rules in the main book.
And I don't disagree about the length or where they are placed. My understanding is that they where generally absent. One of the things I tend to think that as A rule gm's need options that let aid them in making things because table top role playing games Are at the end of the day driven forward by Gm creation. To some extent all ttrpgs drift from published content. If for no other reason then the needs of Gm's to deal with the situations that pop up in there own games. To try and explain my thoughts better a number of palladium games feel like monster of the week tv shows to me. In that vain the Gm needs ideas and options to work from in building the monster of the week.
Sort of my thinking is that the more and better fleshed out the options are in a given system for the gm to work from the easyer time the gm will have building the tool set they need out of the parts provided.
Yeah I'm not a fan of optimizing splat books. Expanding on class options or settings? Sure, but not adding layers of complexity or adding "power creep" to an existing class. The only condition is if it's to fix an initial design flaw.