So, I'm not saying this is viable. It's more about if you'd find a more modular approach to rules books more helpful? We're not talking quality, printability, or anything like that. Literally, ease of use. Would it help or harmm
What if each chapter of the PHB was its own magazine? Like, the rules on Fighter are their own magazine. The rules on adventuring and combat are their own. Equipment is its own. Spells are their own. Whenever you need to look up something in a different chapter, you don't need a new bookmark, just the other book. Besides that, referencing passages on pages is much faster because you have a smaller number of pages to parse.
All else being equal, I think it would benefit from smaller books for sections. Your suggestion of per class would be way too small, I don't want to take 13 pamphlets to session 0 to create my character. However, a booklet for all the classes? Sure, that'd be good. I could just take what I need. A booklet for character creation, a booklet for mechanics and rules, a booklet for spells and items,.and so forth.
However, all things wouldn't be equal. The cost of doing it that way would be astronomical. Spelljammer broke the setting/adventure book format of Strixthaven into three books (adventure, bestiary, setting book), and was a massive increase in price while significantly cutting back in content. Given that the proposal you've put forth would likely dial that upto 11, I think I'd prefer the current format. It's not quite as convenient, but it's a lot cheaper.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I don't see a need to break up the core books, if anything DDB sort of does that and the opposite of it. You go to the "Fighter" section of the Rules, there you go, Fighter material integrated from all the books on a handy scroll. It's also an integration of all the rules so you can float around it. If anything, though it had fragility, I sorta wish D&D books worked sort of like 2e's Monster Cyclopedia (basically a three ring binder you added more sheets to as you picked up more releases, you organized it the way you wanted, etc.). I would love to just insert XTGE and Tasha's and a few other player options into my PHB (which again, is what DDB sorta already does).
On the other hand, at least for D&D I'm disappointed that adventures, either from the starter kits are hardcovers. Rather than a long lasting binding (really, how many folks replay adventures?), I'd prefer a box kit, with maps, and the texts either a single softcover or a set of softcovers and pamphets and hand outs. Actually, Beedle and Grimm do this with their fancy editions, but at the like 10x the cost of a D&D book, though lots more extras to it.
Agnostic on this, because for other game systems, thinking of CoC and Delta Green, I like a hefty hardcover full of meaty campaign details. Impossible Landscapes has literally kept me up at night the past couple of months.
EDIT: Actually at some point during 5e, WotC did produce a few "smaller books" aimed at younger audiences that sorta divied up playing and DMing into smaller texts. I forget what they were called. Seen a few, thought they were neat, but I honestly prefer a bulkly "core" rulebook (with a really good index and organized PDF).
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
They are releasing something like this in Britain with D&D Adventurer. Essentially a set of magazines each of which cover a different aspect of playing, folks could hypothetically buy the ones they want and not any others. Not really my cup of tea, but it will be interesting to see if they expand this product beyond Britain.
Personally, I would rather have large releases for corporeal books than a bunch of small ones. Multiple smaller books are either going to be more expensive long-term due to printing costs or are going to be of lower quality (like soft covers or magazines), which do not hold up as well when passed around the table or flipped through rapidly to find that piece of information you want.
I would like to see a return of something like Dungeon Magazine, perhaps using Beyond’s platform—a smaller, bite-sized, interim product that fleshes out parts of the game larger rulebooks are going to miss. The old D&D magazines did a good job at adding substantive items to the game (new monsters, items, etc.) while also adding lore dumps that fleshed out elements that were otherwise missing from the game. For example, in 4e they had a number of these entries fleshing out the belief system of gods, different cults for those gods, and even went so far as to show evil followers of good gods and good followers of evil gods, fleshing out the moral complexity of the game while giving something to point to when encountering those players who just cannot fathom why a Lawful Good person might worship Vecna.
I was sort of hoping we would be seeing post-merger Beyond used for that purpose when we got the Vecna dossier and Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1, but those releases were not quite as in-depth as their magazine predecessors and have been relatively scant.
I could well get behind that. I find the current books do little to justify the additional cost of being hardcovers, but then as Linklite rightly points out, there's not really enough to split up in the first place. Caerwyn_Glyndwr's mention of the D&D Adventurer series, which I'm now a subscriber of (thanks for the link), may end up showing why it's a bad idea: basic information on how to play the game is now being put into a rather overcomplicated subscription service in piecemeal issues, rather than where it should be: in the PHB. It'll be interesting to see how this manages versus D&D Beyond's blog posts about encounter and character ideas, or good ol' YouTube, which are free. I look forward to reviewing the first four issues, and at the very least hope my partner can at least digest them should we set time aside to play together.
AtonSirius calls back to the the time of The Complete [Class] Handbook, including once upon a time the Psionics. These are jam-packed with information, at least 100 pages a pop, with subclasses -or kits - and the crunchy rules that allow the player to do more with them, or at least in such a way that's as-written. The Ninja's Handbook had skills such as kite-flying and detecting sleep, if you could believe such a thing. It's apparent WotC don't find much value in such things for this edition as streamlining is the name of the game, but the thing is they haven't replaced it with anything, such as the wondrous fluff present in the handbooks which painted such evocative images of what your new class would do. So what else do you add? More subclasses, which will yet again draw (almost) entirely from other 5E base classes or their domains? More races, which as the game moves to a setting-agnostic design philosophy means less flavour text? More monsters, which again require more homebrew on the DM's part to incorporate into their game? Whatever they do, the book must be bursting with usable and inspiring information, and in turn will be worth the cost that makes people go for the next one.
And that right there's the problem: their writers simply can't get enough good ideas out in such a way that meets a meaningful word count and reasonable deadline, and asking them to do paperbacks exacerbates those problems, rather than nullifies them. Meanwhile, I can go on DMs Guild and find some phenominal content. I particularly like Thay: Land of the Red Wizards by Ed Greenwood and co., which is exactly what I want from a D&D publication: a book with liberal lashings of lore on Thay, with subclasses, background and an adventure thrown in secondary to its main draw.
So while I would like WotC to better complement their existing works (or better yet, put more in books in the first place), I can get that result and more on DMs Guild in the meantime, minus the convenience of D&D Beyond. Hopefully D&D Adventurer magazine will be another fine supplement to 5th Edition.
Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
...the D&D Adventurer series, which I'm now a subscriber of (thanks for the link)...
...So while I would like WotC to better complement their existing works (or better yet, put more in books in the first place), I can get that result and more on DMs Guild in the meantime, minus the convenience of D&D Beyond. Hopefully D&D Adventurer magazine will be another fine supplement to 5th Edition.
Let me know how it goes. I saw it a couple of months ago...but balked at the £600+ price. I'm curious as to what's in it and how much of it. If it's of real value I might be interested.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I feel very divided on content. I love books. I love the weight of them, the smell, paging through to look at the art, etc. But for a modern game that undergoes periodic updates, errata, and additions, the limitations of physical media become very apparent. Coming from a completely intellectual perspective, D&D would benefit a lot from having a living online document as the source of truth rather than a printed book. Updates could be distributed instantly and integrated seamlessly, everyone would be on the same page, and just the overall experience would be better.
Books make this hard, and more, smaller books make this even harder. Say you wanted to introduce a new fighter that can use a new type of weapon. Now you have to update both the fighter and the equipment modules. A new setting often has several subclasses, spells, and items - with the modular approach you'd need to update separate publications for each of those things and additionally they'd lose their tie to the setting where they were introduced. Instead of releasing some errata to the PHB, you'd need to release errata for multiple different items.
Modular is good, but physical modules are kind of the worst of both worlds. They would be even harder to update than what we have now. Digital modules though would be extremely helpful.
There are opposing forces in this community. D&D has a strong sense of tradition and nostalgia, and books tie in heavily to that. But there's also a huge wave of new, younger players who are much more comfortable with digital interfaces and don't have the same positive associations with sourcebooks that older players do.
I guess my point is that if they're going to break with tradition, I think they'd be better off breaking harder than just small books. Either stick with what we have or go fully digital, with books being glorified collectors items/grognard pacifiers and a living digital repository as the source of truth for the game. With the way One D&D talks about iteration, it seems like this approach would fit their intended model best.
Yeah. These were a mess. They were also probably the biggest source of bloat. And power creep. There was too much volume to do in house. Each book needed to be written by freelancers, and so many were in the pipeline at the same time, it was impossible to play test them against each other.
And I’m not sure I get the OP’s premise. Instead of one book with everything, you have with the basic rules (skill checks, combat, leveling up, healing) and then another for your class? I don’t understand how it’s easier to manage two books than it is one book.
And in either case, you still have to flip pages, that’s just how books work. But then first you’d have to flip through books to make sure you had the right one, then flip pages.
Personally, I'd be opposed to smaller books. Invariably th overall cost for the same content would go up with this approach since each part would be a product of it own that would need finalising, distribution etc (physical or digital).
Yeah. These were a mess. They were also probably the biggest source of bloat. And power creep. There was too much volume to do in house. Each book needed to be written by freelancers, and so many were in the pipeline at the same time, it was impossible to play test them against each other.
And I’m not sure I get the OP’s premise. Instead of one book with everything, you have with the basic rules (skill checks, combat, leveling up, healing) and then another for your class? I don’t understand how it’s easier to manage two books than it is one book.
And in either case, you still have to flip pages, that’s just how books work. But then first you’d have to flip through books to make sure you had the right one, then flip pages.
the Kits worked just fine. Where it got out of hand was when they decided each core race needed its own book as well.
Say all the rules have their own little compendium: Combat, Classes, Magic, and so on.
Would you want those compendiums collected in a larger tome that held all of them?
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
This idea is stemming from, "You buy a PDF and print at home. Would anyone use a multi-book format?" Concept. The core premise is for if you're trying to optimize a character and going back and forth between chapters, now you don't need to close the other chapter that you're also looking at... then when your character is all done, you probably won't need the equipment book(s), the background book(s), the race book(s). Most stuff has a few things that you quickly jot down on your sheet and move on. All you might need to bring with you are the basic rules, combat rules, class rules, and if you're a caster, magic rules, which are each faster to reference on the fly.
As I originally said, "production viablity" isn't in question. The question is, "Would this make your gaming sessions easier?"
Edit: I say "book(s)" as if there would later be sequels... not that the original PHB would have an Armor Book and a Weapons book. That's a little too crazy, even for me.
As I originally said, "production viablity" isn't in question. The question is, "Would this make your gaming sessions easier?"
Fair enough. The answer for me then is 'no.' On the contrary I'd rather have a massive tome filled with all the rules so I can refer to a single book's index, and find what I want. Smaller books would mean multiple indices to search. Now if we were talking a binder with individual pages similar to your initial idea like what MidnightPlat mentioned from D&D history (or what D&D Adventurer aims to do, yet remains to be seen how well), then I'd be down with that. Having to bring only the pages that are relevant to me and my character would be brilliant, as well as cheat-sheets akin to those in some DM screens like conditions, spellcasting points of origin, and so forth.
We already have spell and monster cards which take up less room and are more compact, though I would appreciate any means of getting class and subclass features down on conveniently sized card.
Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
I wouldn't mind the idea of basically being given PDFs that you can print out and organise in a binder. Wouldn't look as good...but it would be more practical and and it would be nice to have all the rules together, all the races together, etc, rather than having them split over half a dozen or so books (especially things like the backgrounds, which tend to be a couple in every book, I've had to create a Google Sheets just track what I have and where).
However given what I've heard about WotC, I don't think they'll start being rational about PDFs and other similar media. They might release them once 5e is dead, but if they keep their promises, that won't be until after 1D&D is superceded by 6e in a decade or so. By then, I think this discussion will be moot and we'll be talking about 6e instead.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
This idea is stemming from, "You buy a PDF and print at home. Would anyone use a multi-book format?" Concept. The core premise is for if you're trying to optimize a character and going back and forth between chapters, now you don't need to close the other chapter that you're also looking at... then when your character is all done, you probably won't need the equipment book(s), the background book(s), the race book(s). Most stuff has a few things that you quickly jot down on your sheet and move on. All you might need to bring with you are the basic rules, combat rules, class rules, and if you're a caster, magic rules, which are each faster to reference on the fly.
As I originally said, "production viablity" isn't in question. The question is, "Would this make your gaming sessions easier?"
Edit: I say "book(s)" as if there would later be sequels... not that the original PHB would have an Armor Book and a Weapons book. That's a little too crazy, even for me.
We have that now. PHB, Volos, Xanathars, and Tashas And referencing just four books to create a character can become tedious/cumbersome.
There are other systems that do this and they too can become cumbersome after they hit a certain tipping point.
I wouldn't mind the idea of basically being given PDFs that you can print out and organise in a binder.
The 2e monster manual (monstrous compendium is what they called it) was like that. They sold a big ass 3-ring binder with some monsters, then subsequent monster “books” came with holes punched. You could just integrate them right in to your main book, leave them as their own section, take out pages you planned to use, organize it however you liked. But in practice, the holes all tore and you ended up with a sheaf of loose papers. Even if you went out and bought those hole reinforcement circles. It was a cool idea, just the execution was lacking.
I think it would be interesting if they did something very similar to the One D&D test packets, where they bundled a couple of classes with similar playstyles into a packet, rather than just a magazine for each class.
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So, I'm not saying this is viable. It's more about if you'd find a more modular approach to rules books more helpful? We're not talking quality, printability, or anything like that. Literally, ease of use. Would it help or harmm
What if each chapter of the PHB was its own magazine? Like, the rules on Fighter are their own magazine. The rules on adventuring and combat are their own. Equipment is its own. Spells are their own. Whenever you need to look up something in a different chapter, you don't need a new bookmark, just the other book. Besides that, referencing passages on pages is much faster because you have a smaller number of pages to parse.
All else being equal, I think it would benefit from smaller books for sections. Your suggestion of per class would be way too small, I don't want to take 13 pamphlets to session 0 to create my character. However, a booklet for all the classes? Sure, that'd be good. I could just take what I need. A booklet for character creation, a booklet for mechanics and rules, a booklet for spells and items,.and so forth.
However, all things wouldn't be equal. The cost of doing it that way would be astronomical. Spelljammer broke the setting/adventure book format of Strixthaven into three books (adventure, bestiary, setting book), and was a massive increase in price while significantly cutting back in content. Given that the proposal you've put forth would likely dial that upto 11, I think I'd prefer the current format. It's not quite as convenient, but it's a lot cheaper.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I think D&D already does a good job of keeping book sizes reasonable. Certainly better than Pathfinder's Robert Jordan sized Core Rulebook.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I don't see a need to break up the core books, if anything DDB sort of does that and the opposite of it. You go to the "Fighter" section of the Rules, there you go, Fighter material integrated from all the books on a handy scroll. It's also an integration of all the rules so you can float around it. If anything, though it had fragility, I sorta wish D&D books worked sort of like 2e's Monster Cyclopedia (basically a three ring binder you added more sheets to as you picked up more releases, you organized it the way you wanted, etc.). I would love to just insert XTGE and Tasha's and a few other player options into my PHB (which again, is what DDB sorta already does).
On the other hand, at least for D&D I'm disappointed that adventures, either from the starter kits are hardcovers. Rather than a long lasting binding (really, how many folks replay adventures?), I'd prefer a box kit, with maps, and the texts either a single softcover or a set of softcovers and pamphets and hand outs. Actually, Beedle and Grimm do this with their fancy editions, but at the like 10x the cost of a D&D book, though lots more extras to it.
Agnostic on this, because for other game systems, thinking of CoC and Delta Green, I like a hefty hardcover full of meaty campaign details. Impossible Landscapes has literally kept me up at night the past couple of months.
EDIT: Actually at some point during 5e, WotC did produce a few "smaller books" aimed at younger audiences that sorta divied up playing and DMing into smaller texts. I forget what they were called. Seen a few, thought they were neat, but I honestly prefer a bulkly "core" rulebook (with a really good index and organized PDF).
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
They tried that already back in 2nd edition
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
They are releasing something like this in Britain with D&D Adventurer. Essentially a set of magazines each of which cover a different aspect of playing, folks could hypothetically buy the ones they want and not any others. Not really my cup of tea, but it will be interesting to see if they expand this product beyond Britain.
Personally, I would rather have large releases for corporeal books than a bunch of small ones. Multiple smaller books are either going to be more expensive long-term due to printing costs or are going to be of lower quality (like soft covers or magazines), which do not hold up as well when passed around the table or flipped through rapidly to find that piece of information you want.
I would like to see a return of something like Dungeon Magazine, perhaps using Beyond’s platform—a smaller, bite-sized, interim product that fleshes out parts of the game larger rulebooks are going to miss. The old D&D magazines did a good job at adding substantive items to the game (new monsters, items, etc.) while also adding lore dumps that fleshed out elements that were otherwise missing from the game. For example, in 4e they had a number of these entries fleshing out the belief system of gods, different cults for those gods, and even went so far as to show evil followers of good gods and good followers of evil gods, fleshing out the moral complexity of the game while giving something to point to when encountering those players who just cannot fathom why a Lawful Good person might worship Vecna.
I was sort of hoping we would be seeing post-merger Beyond used for that purpose when we got the Vecna dossier and Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1, but those releases were not quite as in-depth as their magazine predecessors and have been relatively scant.
I could well get behind that. I find the current books do little to justify the additional cost of being hardcovers, but then as Linklite rightly points out, there's not really enough to split up in the first place. Caerwyn_Glyndwr's mention of the D&D Adventurer series, which I'm now a subscriber of (thanks for the link), may end up showing why it's a bad idea: basic information on how to play the game is now being put into a rather overcomplicated subscription service in piecemeal issues, rather than where it should be: in the PHB. It'll be interesting to see how this manages versus D&D Beyond's blog posts about encounter and character ideas, or good ol' YouTube, which are free. I look forward to reviewing the first four issues, and at the very least hope my partner can at least digest them should we set time aside to play together.
AtonSirius calls back to the the time of The Complete [Class] Handbook, including once upon a time the Psionics. These are jam-packed with information, at least 100 pages a pop, with subclasses -or kits - and the crunchy rules that allow the player to do more with them, or at least in such a way that's as-written. The Ninja's Handbook had skills such as kite-flying and detecting sleep, if you could believe such a thing. It's apparent WotC don't find much value in such things for this edition as streamlining is the name of the game, but the thing is they haven't replaced it with anything, such as the wondrous fluff present in the handbooks which painted such evocative images of what your new class would do. So what else do you add? More subclasses, which will yet again draw (almost) entirely from other 5E base classes or their domains? More races, which as the game moves to a setting-agnostic design philosophy means less flavour text? More monsters, which again require more homebrew on the DM's part to incorporate into their game? Whatever they do, the book must be bursting with usable and inspiring information, and in turn will be worth the cost that makes people go for the next one.
And that right there's the problem: their writers simply can't get enough good ideas out in such a way that meets a meaningful word count and reasonable deadline, and asking them to do paperbacks exacerbates those problems, rather than nullifies them. Meanwhile, I can go on DMs Guild and find some phenominal content. I particularly like Thay: Land of the Red Wizards by Ed Greenwood and co., which is exactly what I want from a D&D publication: a book with liberal lashings of lore on Thay, with subclasses, background and an adventure thrown in secondary to its main draw.
So while I would like WotC to better complement their existing works (or better yet, put more in books in the first place), I can get that result and more on DMs Guild in the meantime, minus the convenience of D&D Beyond. Hopefully D&D Adventurer magazine will be another fine supplement to 5th Edition.
Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
- The Assemblage of Houses, World of Warcraft
Let me know how it goes. I saw it a couple of months ago...but balked at the £600+ price. I'm curious as to what's in it and how much of it. If it's of real value I might be interested.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I feel very divided on content. I love books. I love the weight of them, the smell, paging through to look at the art, etc. But for a modern game that undergoes periodic updates, errata, and additions, the limitations of physical media become very apparent. Coming from a completely intellectual perspective, D&D would benefit a lot from having a living online document as the source of truth rather than a printed book. Updates could be distributed instantly and integrated seamlessly, everyone would be on the same page, and just the overall experience would be better.
Books make this hard, and more, smaller books make this even harder. Say you wanted to introduce a new fighter that can use a new type of weapon. Now you have to update both the fighter and the equipment modules. A new setting often has several subclasses, spells, and items - with the modular approach you'd need to update separate publications for each of those things and additionally they'd lose their tie to the setting where they were introduced. Instead of releasing some errata to the PHB, you'd need to release errata for multiple different items.
Modular is good, but physical modules are kind of the worst of both worlds. They would be even harder to update than what we have now. Digital modules though would be extremely helpful.
There are opposing forces in this community. D&D has a strong sense of tradition and nostalgia, and books tie in heavily to that. But there's also a huge wave of new, younger players who are much more comfortable with digital interfaces and don't have the same positive associations with sourcebooks that older players do.
I guess my point is that if they're going to break with tradition, I think they'd be better off breaking harder than just small books. Either stick with what we have or go fully digital, with books being glorified collectors items/grognard pacifiers and a living digital repository as the source of truth for the game. With the way One D&D talks about iteration, it seems like this approach would fit their intended model best.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Yeah. These were a mess.
They were also probably the biggest source of bloat. And power creep. There was too much volume to do in house. Each book needed to be written by freelancers, and so many were in the pipeline at the same time, it was impossible to play test them against each other.
And I’m not sure I get the OP’s premise. Instead of one book with everything, you have with the basic rules (skill checks, combat, leveling up, healing) and then another for your class? I don’t understand how it’s easier to manage two books than it is one book.
And in either case, you still have to flip pages, that’s just how books work. But then first you’d have to flip through books to make sure you had the right one, then flip pages.
Personally, I'd be opposed to smaller books. Invariably th overall cost for the same content would go up with this approach since each part would be a product of it own that would need finalising, distribution etc (physical or digital).
the Kits worked just fine.
Where it got out of hand was when they decided each core race needed its own book as well.
This was tried with AD&D back in the early 1990's. There was a book for each of the main classes.
Didn't really take to well. I still have the Ranger and Wizard books.
Say all the rules have their own little compendium: Combat, Classes, Magic, and so on.
Would you want those compendiums collected in a larger tome that held all of them?
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
This idea is stemming from, "You buy a PDF and print at home. Would anyone use a multi-book format?" Concept. The core premise is for if you're trying to optimize a character and going back and forth between chapters, now you don't need to close the other chapter that you're also looking at... then when your character is all done, you probably won't need the equipment book(s), the background book(s), the race book(s). Most stuff has a few things that you quickly jot down on your sheet and move on. All you might need to bring with you are the basic rules, combat rules, class rules, and if you're a caster, magic rules, which are each faster to reference on the fly.
As I originally said, "production viablity" isn't in question. The question is, "Would this make your gaming sessions easier?"
Edit: I say "book(s)" as if there would later be sequels... not that the original PHB would have an Armor Book and a Weapons book. That's a little too crazy, even for me.
Fair enough. The answer for me then is 'no.' On the contrary I'd rather have a massive tome filled with all the rules so I can refer to a single book's index, and find what I want. Smaller books would mean multiple indices to search. Now if we were talking a binder with individual pages similar to your initial idea like what MidnightPlat mentioned from D&D history (or what D&D Adventurer aims to do, yet remains to be seen how well), then I'd be down with that. Having to bring only the pages that are relevant to me and my character would be brilliant, as well as cheat-sheets akin to those in some DM screens like conditions, spellcasting points of origin, and so forth.
We already have spell and monster cards which take up less room and are more compact, though I would appreciate any means of getting class and subclass features down on conveniently sized card.
Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
- The Assemblage of Houses, World of Warcraft
I wouldn't mind the idea of basically being given PDFs that you can print out and organise in a binder. Wouldn't look as good...but it would be more practical and and it would be nice to have all the rules together, all the races together, etc, rather than having them split over half a dozen or so books (especially things like the backgrounds, which tend to be a couple in every book, I've had to create a Google Sheets just track what I have and where).
However given what I've heard about WotC, I don't think they'll start being rational about PDFs and other similar media. They might release them once 5e is dead, but if they keep their promises, that won't be until after 1D&D is superceded by 6e in a decade or so. By then, I think this discussion will be moot and we'll be talking about 6e instead.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
We have that now.
PHB, Volos, Xanathars, and Tashas
And referencing just four books to create a character can become tedious/cumbersome.
There are other systems that do this and they too can become cumbersome after they hit a certain tipping point.
The 2e monster manual (monstrous compendium is what they called it) was like that. They sold a big ass 3-ring binder with some monsters, then subsequent monster “books” came with holes punched. You could just integrate them right in to your main book, leave them as their own section, take out pages you planned to use, organize it however you liked.
But in practice, the holes all tore and you ended up with a sheaf of loose papers. Even if you went out and bought those hole reinforcement circles.
It was a cool idea, just the execution was lacking.
I think it would be interesting if they did something very similar to the One D&D test packets, where they bundled a couple of classes with similar playstyles into a packet, rather than just a magazine for each class.