Comments on: Player’s Handbook 2: The Return of the Gnome

By: Nicholas

Nicholas — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:05:33 +0000

@Nightmare: Publication takes time and money. Employees developing and testing ideas takes time and money. You’re right, they could have put everything in the PHB2 into PHB1. It would have made the book much larger and more costly to print. It would have taken just as long to develop the content as it did for the PHB1 and 2, so it would just be coming out now. Because both of those things cost money, it would have also been far more expensive.

Once this massive omni-tome came out it would be slow to market, over-sized and costly. At which point, people like yourself (but hopefully with better spelling) would complain about the cost of books and paying for content you might not want.

To top it all off, it still doesn’t solve the initial problem. They are still likely to want to add more content that they came up with after release. If they do that then there would again be the accusations that it is all a money grab. If they don’t release supplements, the community would rise up and complain that WotC isn’t supporting their products.

So I guess WotC can’t win on that front. Although, they might win on the front of so many people buying the PHB2. You know, because it is a good product and has content that people want and are willing to pay for.

By: Nightmare

Nightmare — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:42:52 +0000

Rediculus, its just another book to buy…they could have easilty done it all in one but they had to get greedy. Enjoy your board game, im going back to AD&D.

By: Todd

Todd — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:38:53 +0000

Tinker gnomes have been about for a very, very long time. Anyone remember the blue and green clad gnomes with the red hats that eventually became garden gnomes? They were always portrayed as using a host of “better mousetrap” style inventions. Krynn just upped the ante with steam power. That is where it really breaks down. A medieval engineering approach to gnomes would still be very viable, just not as a PC class. Think swiss family Robinson, with the water wheel elevators and such. This could easily remain an aspect of their culture (if you choose to go there) without infecting the DND game with all kinds of anachronistic technologies.

On the other hand, I like gnomes as faeries. In that case, they become the shoemaker elves and brownies of the 4e world. I personally always thought that elves, and now eladrin, should have been the illusion practitioners, but you get what you can take I suppose. Sadly, despite how appropriate it might be (because of history and fae leanings combined), there exists no real “glamour” class for them to pursue. I suppose the closest class at this point is the bard. Wait… that is kind of scary…

By: GiacomoArt

GiacomoArt — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:32:10 +0000

Yes, tinker gnomes did start with Dragon Lance, and never did find their way out of it in any of the gaming groups I played with. And everyone who complains about this being a money-grab by WOTC doesn’t understand that (1) of course it is — that’s why they’re in business; (2) they’ve already delivered a complete game that you can play without further source material, so if you feel the need to buy their supplements, that doesn’t mean they’re slimeballs, that means either they’re delivering more of a good thing or you need to re-examin your priorities; and (3) if they’re actually delivering more of a good thing, they deserve to get paid for the more, not just work for charity because you paid them for something once upon a time.

I also have zero sympathy for players who whine that the arrival of 4E spells the end of WOTC’s support for 3.5. No other RPG in history has enjoyed the level of support that each edition of D&D has received, and that’s never stopped me from GMing all the other, better games out there that struck my fancy. If you want to play an older edition of D&D, just play it and ease up on the sniping.

By: Drax40K

Drax40K — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:20:40 +0000

@Mike The Merciless

You don’t need to buy the PHB2 at all to play D&D the game is completely playable with only the three core books, I know, I’ve been running a campaign for about 4 months now. This book doesn’t ‘complete’ the game and isn’t required. It’s no different then the Races of Stone book for 3e if you ask me. As a matter of fact there is nothing stopping you from playing Gnome, Shadar Kai, Gnoll, Hobgoblin, Orc, Hobgoblin, Goblin, and several other races by using the information in the Monsters Manual. They don’t get a full two page spread like the core races, but it’s more then workable.

I can’t think of a single roleplaying system out that doesn’t follow the same method of putting out a number of books to support their game in the same fashion, White Wolf, Pinnacle/AEG, Fasa/WizKids, Palladium, etc….

Wizards didn’t ‘stumble’ onto some new and nefarious business model, it’s been alive and well, and what’s more successful for some time now. I don’t think Wizards have really hidden the fact that they’re out to sell more books…that’s just common sense, and good business.