A Question to the Staff Reviewers...

[Zweischneid]

In your latest review of Dezzavold from Green Ronin, I've stumbled over this:

For me, I felt that there were too many references to too many books. I can understand the heavy undertones of Plot and Poison, it’s a drow sourcebook after all, but then they went back and provided a lot of details in abbreviated format found in that book. I felt that you’d have to own at minimum, Plot and Poison, Wood Elves, and Corwyl, to get the most out of this product. Heck ,several dwarf NPC’s have equipment from Hammer & Helm.

Now I am kinda wondering. In reviews on Products by WoTC you guys usually tend to praise the recent trend of references to other products, even if they are (IMO) totally unrelated and/or out of place (like psionic support in a Race or Enviromental Sourcebook or Exalted/Vile Classes in a Forgotten Realms Supplement) but criticize the references to other books by this publisher, even though the references are (again IMO) alot more narrow, refering to the same line of products (and therefore more likely to appeal to people owning that particular line of products).

Could someone of you please explain your reasoning to me?
Though I generally dislike that sort of references to other books, since I may not own them, those done by Green Ronin seem to be far better implemented than those of WoTC.
And even if they were not the case, I don't see the logic of praising this practice in one company and deducting points for it if done by another publisher.

 

[Psion]

Now I am kinda wondering. In reviews on Products by WoTC you guys usually tend to praise the recent trend of references to other products, even if they are (IMO) totally unrelated and/or out of place (like psionic support in a Race or Enviromental Sourcebook or Exalted/Vile Classes in a Forgotten Realms Supplement) but criticize the references to other books by this publisher, even though the references are (again IMO) alot more narrow, refering to the same line of products (and therefore more likely to appeal to people owning that particular line of products).

I think you need to recognize that staff reviewers are different people with what may be distinct criteria for evaluating products. One reviewer can't really justify what another one said.

I personally did not have a problem with references to Plot & Poison in Dezzavold. Indeed, as it was billed as a companion to that book, it didn't surprise me in the least bit.

However, I also didn't have a problem with (I'll go so far as to say "appreciated") psionic support in Races of Stone and Frostburn. I feel that WotC's past efforts were TOO sensitive to criticism stemming from too small a part of the book. I do think they need to be sensitive to how much material referring to supplementary material they include, but one class or a few feats is not excessive and provides much needed support and improves the value of other products you already may own. Under the current publishing doctrine at WotC, they really aren't able to maintain very many lines at once. They need to be able to support as many customers as possible with the lines that they do have.

 

[Staffan]

Could someone of you please explain your reasoning to me?
Though I generally dislike that sort of references to other books, since I may not own them, those done by Green Ronin seem to be far better implemented than those of WoTC.

I'm not a staff reviewer, but I have a few opinions on referencing other books.

1. It's OK to reference "big systems" from other books, as long as it's not excessive. Examples of this would be including a prestige class that would be the psionic equivalent of the arcane trickster in Complete Adventurer, or making a campaign setting that has a place where psionics fit in, but not making that place central to the setting. If the "big system" from the other book gets a lot of face time in your book (like psionics would in Dark Sun, or Manual of the Planes would in a Planescape rerelease), you should probably put "Requires Other Book" on the cover.

2. If you use minor, self-contained things from another book, you should probably include them in this book as well, or provide an alternative for people who don't have the other book. This covers spells, monsters, feats and equipment.

 

[DaveMage]

2. If you use minor, self-contained things from another book, you should probably include them in this book as well, or provide an alternative for people who don't have the other book. This covers spells, monsters, feats and equipment.

Bold emphasis mine.

I think that this is the key. I think it's great when products reference other books, as I have a lot of them. However, I shouldn't *have* to have another book unless the cover specifically says I must (in which case I'm fine with that).

 

[Li Shenron]

I myself only reviewed one book so far, and it didn't have this problem, but I have thought about this issue for other books which I'm eventually looking forward to review one day or the other

On one hand, having parts of a book which you cannot use unless you own other books is a bad thing. It obviously depends on how extensive is that part, but it is however frustrating to the customer who has paid for the entire book.

On the other hand, to avoid the thing above it also happens that some important books (the ones which open up an entire new depth to the game with new rules, such as ELH, D&Dg, PsiHB/XPsiHB) aren't getting support in other products, and run the risk of becoming dead-end books... in the sense that once you get an Epic Level Handbook and start playing with epic rules, you may not get anything else epic from other books. This is of course frustrating for the people who bought the important book.

What could be done? As a reviewer I decided to still consider better a book with no outsider references, unless the book has two versions of that part, one which works with the outsider book and one which works within core rules only. This very rarely happens, but it would be far the best for everyone, and the "cost" shouldn't be high IMHO, because that sort of material which needs something non-core is usually small (mostly PrCls, spells or feats).

In some cases, WotC has elegantly satisfied everyone with simple web enhancements (at least I remember the epic progressions for many PrCls, but I think there's much more).

 

[JoeGKushner]

I didn't mind the Plot & Poison references. It's a companion piece after all.

However, I felt that it was too strongly tied into the Wood Elf Village sourcebook, while with the Wood Elf village, the ties to this Fortress were minimized. The Hammer & Helm stuff was just snuck under there.

Now as far as WoTC and support, it varies. To me at least, they are the big players and it's more feasible to assume that someone has the Expanded Psionics Handbook than they do Publisher X's book.

 

[MerricB]

What is a problem is when a core piece of the book requires another book.

I'd get very snarky if I was reading a FR module and it pointed me to items and feats from Magic of Faerun - you can assume that people have the core D&D books and FRCS (and possibly PGTF) but that's it.

Of late, Wizards have made references in sidebars and the like to other books. In Frostburn, the random encounter tables give monster equivalencies for those who don't have every other MM book. Very good indeed.

Cheers!

 

[Teflon Billy]

What is a problem is when a core piece of the book requires another book.

Staff reviewer chiming in here. I agree with the above sentiment.

It used to drive me crazy when those old Traveller supplements (the little books) were utterly useless without, well, basically all the others. So to make use of the Content in Mercenary, you needed High Guard. To use the stuff in High Guard, you needed the rules in Something Else. It continued like that ridiculously until it becaem apparent that you needed all of the books to properly use any of them.

And it sent me off of Traveller.

Of late, Wizards have made references in sidebars and the like to other books. In Frostburn, the random encounter tables give monster equivalencies for those who don't have every other MM book. Very good indeed.

Agreed.

 

[Staffan]

To expand on what I said earlier, I think the main Eberron book has an excellent way of doing this. It provides a rationale for psionic PCs and villains (Kalashtar for PCs, Inspired and various Xoriat thingies for villains), gives them a place in the world, but doesn't really focus on them. It means that those of us who have the psionics book can feel good about using it, while those who don't have it and don't like psionics can disregard that portion of the book without feeling ripped off.

I think the Player's Guide to Faerûn does something similar with Book of Vile Darkness, Book of Exalted Deeds, and the Epic-Level Handbook.

 

[DMScott]

It used to drive me crazy when those old Traveller supplements (the little books) were utterly useless without, well, basically all the others. So to make use of the Content in Mercenary, you needed High Guard. To use the stuff in High Guard, you needed the rules in Something Else.

I believe you're misremembering at least the specifics of this claim - Mercenary and High Guard are independent, the only overlap between the two is some of the new skills and those are reprinted in each book. Same I believe is true for the other extended generation books (Scouts and Merchant Prince). I vaguely recall some of the setting-type supplements were interconnected, but that seems to me to be acceptable.