Three hardcover core books is what most D&D players want. It’s what AD&D 1E had, and it’s been expected ever since. That’s not greed, it’s meeting customer demand.
Actually, that’s not true. I loved D&D as a kid. I’m disappointed in what D&D has become (or failed to become). It is this weird overly complex union of dinosaur and WoW that really learns nothing from the last 30 years of game development. If they put out a version of D&D that actually rebooted itself into a modern masterpiece that still echoed my teen years, I’d be first in line. Unfortunately, Dungeon World seems to be the only candidate there for that but AW, as a system, has its limitations as well.
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That’s not an explanation.
The $150 is only for the core, which only the DM has to buy. Players are fine with the Player’s Handbook (which they can even borrow from the DM while they are making their characters). For a novice group, this is enough. And over time, your snack budget will dwarf the cost of books. For experienced groups, thousands of dollars will be spent on different RPGs. I don’t really consider this a big deal. Everyone has their hobby. People spend thousands of dollars with toy trains, stamps, or whatever. And it isn’t to say that the books aren’t sturdy. If you play D&D long enough, you will need them to defend yourself (from steel dice or whatever someone wants to throw at you). A lot of RPGs just have paperback books (with strong covers, but still paperback). They don’t work nearly as well to counter an attack. Personally, I don’t like the glossy covers that much. The AD&D 2nd edition (here I go again!) originally released in non-glossy covers that were easy to grip and attack people with.
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Like many of us, I grew up with 2e. I loved it to death. When 3e came out I loved that too, primarily for making combat a lot more interesting with all the different feats, and for the d20 system.
For me and almost everyone I played with, a roleplaying game is about the story. I want to be part of a good story, an epic story, the kind of narrative that I found in The Dragonbone Chair or The Green Angel Tower or The Once And Future King or The Song Of Roland or Beowulf or even David and Goliath.
I don’t give a flying crap if the figher, cleric, druid, and wizard are play-balanced and equal; I’m not playing Everquest or World Of Warcraft. I’m not choosing to play a wizard because I can kill more kobolds per minute than a fighter, I’m doing it because I want to wave my hands and make trees grow, or light up the night, or regain the lost dragon-magic of a race of mountain-dwelling barbarians from the reclusive elves that stole it in a misguided attempt at pacifism.
I’ve played fighters with low strength, bards with low charisma, 2e dwarven wizards that will never accomplish anything. I’ve had characters abandon their class and start a new one when it fit the evolving story.
I never used a grid, or miniatures, with 2e. I did with 3e and it was fun, but it wasn’t a big part of the experience, just a tool to guide some actions. 4e requires obsessive levels of map control and takes much of the fun out of combat encounters. I played it a lot, but it never brought me the sense of wonder that I had before.
I will check out 5e, and see what it can do. I don’t expect much.
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I’m not sure what else to tell you, then. WotC could have trimmed the core rules down to one or two books, certainly. They didn’t do that for the same reason they didn’t publish them as a series of 32-page newsprint pamphlets: it would alienate their customers.
(And Bzishi also makes a good point, that a non-hardcore player really only needs a Player’s Handbook. Separating the stuff a DM needs from the PHB lets them give players more detailed and complete material for the same single-volume price. And, having done that, the DMG and MM remain separate because people absolutely expect and demand that a huge crop of iconic monsters and magic items be present in the core rules, and if you put all those in one book along with DM material it would either be unreasonably huge or lacking a lot of material.)
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i’m so happy to have earned your sanction.
I’m not sure why the snarky tone is needed. I’m giving you a thumbs-up and agreeing with you. There’s always ways to economize – D&D or any RPG doesn’t have to be a big investment. Using a whiteboard is smart.
/ooh, d&d
/read comments
/remember why I stopped playing d&d
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The PHB actually has everything the DM needs for a simple game. It even has a short monster manual in the back. There are no special charts needed from the DM guide. From what I have heard about the DMG and MM is that they really are just supplements to the PHB. My group has spent the last couple of weeks transitioning our 1e campaign into a 5e campaign with just the PHB. Everything is working great so far.
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But isn’t creating the characters a part of the fun? Deciding on attributes, rolling, designing a shield etc. I haven’t played RPGs since the early 80s, but we always used AD&D as a guide. We didn’t slavishly follow the rules, but bent them in favour of streamlining play and making it enjoyable. It was always about the adventure, not the technical details of play. I loved being DM, but admittedly played fast and loose with tables and rules at times when it suited. As long as everybody enjoyed themselves, that’s what counted for us, although I did have friends who were obsessive about rules - although their DM games quickly got dropped as I recall, as the whole party drowned in a river before getting to the start of the module, or some other such ridiculousness!
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