Please, for the love of Oghma 
, for all future campaign setting or other "fluff" books, please PLEASE stop bloody using big FONTS, and lots of spaces.
It's great to have such neat, clear, easy to read stuff for rule books you need to refference quickly, but absolutely NOT acceptable for fluff books. I want my money's worth, I want LOTS of good fluff thrown at me, pretty please with a cherry on top!! ;)
All you need is a good index at the back for refference. Campaign settings are to be read at leisure by DMs and players ot get background info. You don't need such big fonts etc.
The sections on monsters, items or such you can use the standard 4th ed layouts, which are great for gameplay.
The Eberron Campaign Guide seemed better that way than the 4th ed Realms campaign guide.
Oh, and please go look at the original Forgotten Realms "grey boxed" set, look at the booklets inside, THAT is how you evoke a "feel" and idea of a setting. WOTC really needs to invest in more thematic art for the page layouts. It really makes a difference! 
For Dark Sun, the page layouts should have orangy borders and artwork inset in that and corners of say, obsidian weapons, ziggurats, argosies (huge Athasian armoured travelling wagons), belgoi heads or bells, gemstones, etc.
Indeed. The big fonts and blank spaces made me feel ripped off as well. They did do a better job with Eberron than FR, but they have a long way to go.
Sadly, I doubt we'll see much more improvement; the trend seems to be towards appealing to the MMORPG crowd as it is, and lord knows they can't be bothered to actually read something about the setting.
The trend seems to be towards appealing to the MMORPG crowd as it is.
Making D&D friendlier is a good thing.
MMOs appeal to a wide range of people.
D&D is always in danger of only appealing to certain personality types. LOL! Fat-beard accountants and willowy no-makeup librarians. Just kidding. To be fair, theres also mathematicians who make their own intoxicants, and artists who take up swordfighting as a sport. Luckily, EVERYBODY wants to be a polytheist.
Sadly, I doubt we'll see much more improvement; the trend seems to be towards appealing to the MMORPG crowd as it is, and lord knows they can't be bothered to actually read something about the setting.
Wow that must be a new record or something! Zero to flame in 2 post! I know a few Infomercial producers that would love to sell an oven with such capability for only 9 payments of 99,99!
Sadly, I doubt we'll see much more improvement; the trend seems to be towards appealing to the MMORPG crowd as it is, and lord knows they can't be bothered to actually read something about the setting.
How did you jump from "There is lots of white space and large fonts" to "They are trying to appeal to those stupid MMORPG troglodites!"?
Sadly, I doubt we'll see much more improvement; the trend seems to be towards appealing to the MMORPG crowd as it is, and lord knows they can't be bothered to actually read something about the setting.
How did you jump from "There is lots of white space and large fonts" to "They are trying to appeal to those stupid MMORPG troglodites!"?
How, you ask? Logic is expensive. Haven't you heard, there's a recession on? :P
You other brothers can't deny
C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!
Awwww!
I was going to try to keep it going put im not sure how to continue the song with a font theme.
I couldnt hellp but notice that your font is bigger than mine.
Id like to point out to all the ladies that its not the size of your font but how you use it!
*High Five* @ Joni-san
Indeed. The big fonts and blank spaces made me feel ripped off as well. They did do a better job with Eberron than FR, but they have a long way to go.
Sadly, I doubt we'll see much more improvement; the trend seems to be towards appealing to the MMORPG crowd as it is, and lord knows they can't be bothered to actually read something about the setting.
LOL. Is there an MMORPG where you play as big helvetica letters that the books are emulating? World of Wordcraft!
Perhaps the large fonts are not for the teenage ninja turtle warcraft players ...
They could be for aged grognards with failing eyesight like me. 
Sadly, I doubt we'll see much more improvement; the trend seems to be towards appealing to the MMORPG crowd as it is, and lord knows they can't be bothered to actually read something about the setting.
That's unfair. World of Warcraft has more lore than any other video/computer game ever made and has it's own line of novels/comics that many tabletop games would envy. Someone is buying those. Including the majority of my WoW friends.
There's no reason for a dismissive attitude toward MMO's. They are not even competing for the same entertainment dollar. In fact I think for myself the love of one feeds my love of the other.
However back to the orignal subject I definetly agree with you, the more lore and fluff they can squeeze in there the better. More fonts, bigger page count. After all we just get the one book per setting.
Everything about this edition is so perfect for me... but their adventures have really let me down and the fluff needs some padding (though I like the MM"s just the way they are).
I <3 this thread for so many reasons.
My only question (for the op): Would you like a smaller font if it meant less pages? In other words, lets say they have a fixed amount of content (not claiming they do, just making a hypothetical). If they make the font smaller but don't have more content, what does that gain us? A harder to read book?
A) As said, we have time to read campaign guides, smaller fonts are acceptable the early 1st ed Adventure modules sucked enormously because of bad layouts, ugh, was a nightmare to read them...but things are much better now, see 3rd ed Forgotten Relams book: tightly packed with GREAT bang for the buck, but still readily legible, that is what I want for 4th ed!
If the book is smaller, hey that's good, my book case is full! Muhaha!
B) Yeah 4th ed adventures are lack luster in some odd way
great fights...very VERY good layout that makes the DM happy, but...lacking "oomph!" and a real tempo, IMHO. Think they need to make full page maps, with much MUCH more space/detail/fun stuff to do on some areas.
C) If you PCs leave my dungeons, if you survive PC training, you will be a weapon. You will be a minister of death praying for a D20! But until that day you are minions. You are the lowest form of life on Athas. You are not even human beings. You are nothing but unorganized grabastic pieces of bullwyug's otyugh-food. Because I am hard you will not like me. But the more you hate me the more you will learn! I am hard but I am fair. There is no racial bigotry here. I do not look down on tree huggers, goat men, runt-beards or robots. Here you are all equally doomed! And my goals are to weed out all non-hackers who do not have the brains to play in my beloved campaign. Do you spawn of Kyuss understand that?
*he says like a dwarven sargeant, as preface to my idea of how you should introduce players ot Dark Sun, lol*
4) DON'T BREAK MEZZ!!
Everquest had fantastic lore, fyi. I was also one of the best damn magicians (elemental summoner) players there was, hard fact. Try running a pet in the old Plane of Hate I was the ONLY one they'd let do that in any raid I was in. This does not mean I do not know the difference between an MMO and D&D. I played D&D a LONG time before I played an MMO.
So please stop slagging 4th ed off with that kind of rubbish, jeesh.
Besides which, D&D started MMOs, you know, and it's not wrong for D&D to learn tricks back! That's called "using yer brains" hehe
D&D desperately needs new players. Kids nowadays have the attention span of a petrol-soaked gnat in Hell, so hey, you gotta grab their notice fast! 
No more bloody silly "THAC0" which was only fun for maths geeks, sigh.
5) I am a fat beard! I used to be a "Big SOB-Beard", but real life kicked my ass so now I'm a fat-beard instead! I have been published in Polyhedron three times and mentioned in Dragon mag, so, some respect for fat beards, puuuh-lease! ;)
www.silverblades-suitcase.com/adnd/htm/p...
Be one with the inner geek! Ommmm!!! Ommmm!!
My D&D art, to prove my geek credentials!
www.silverblades-suitcase.com/darksun/in...www.silverblades-suitcase.com/sj/htm/spe...
And now...normal service will resume! :p
Didn't mean to flame, just very frustrated by the cookie cutter crunch (awesome alliteration!)
And I love the lore to WoW. That's why I played Warcraft III single player over and over. But I have yet to meet a WoW player who gave a damn about that background. Not saying they're aren't a few, but to me, they appear to be the overwhelmed minority. That's what makes it so sad, and why I made the connection between big fonts (less content in smaller, easier to digest packages) and MMORPGs. Warcraft was better before it was an MMORPG, IMHO. Others will certainly disagree.
Sadly, they're killing the crunch on my other RPG, WHFRP, which is becoming a card based game (shudder). I was so hopeful when FFG took over that they wouldn't turn it into a board game. Not that descent doesn't sound like a fun game, I just don't want Descent: the Warhammer edition.
At least there's pathfinder. I wish WotC would open up some of their 3e content for them, like warlocks, incarnum, PHBII, and Bo9S; I'd love to get more crunch expansion on those ideas.
Wait, so the guy claiming that it's all aimed at MMO-players with short attention spans and don't bother with the fluff blah blah has now switched to complaining about the crunch?
Oh, right, you just can't please some people.
I'm cool with big fonts. Nothing wrong with them. Easy to see and read and they look nice. My problem is with the big spaces. Like paragraph sized spaces.
C'mon now, this just ain't right!
You know how much more sexy lettered loot you could fit into a book without all the huge spaces..
Seriously, I think you get my point. I want more for my buck, not less.
C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!
That's from Killer Instinct, right? Loved that game, Especially with surround sound, turned up really loud!
That's unfair. World of Warcraft has more lore than any other video/computer game ever made and has it's own line of novels/comics that many tabletop games would envy. Someone is buying those. Including the majority of my WoW friends.
I'd just like to mention that The Elder Scrolls series has far more lore than the Warcraft series; however, your point is quite taken.
I too like big fonts. It makes it pretty clear what's a heading and what's not. Isn't that important?
Spaces are bad. I'd rather have a picture in those places. But I don't think I can think of many places in the Eberron book with too many large spaces.
Wait, so the guy claiming that it's all aimed at MMO-players with short attention spans and don't bother with the fluff blah blah has now switched to complaining about the crunch?
Oh, right, you just can't please some people.
Yes you can. I loved third edition, and was very pleased. And yes, I dislike both the crunch and the fluff of fourth. There are great ideas (healing surges, rituals, easier monster creation, general terminology consistency cleanup, etc), but some really bad ones color the whole thing for me.
Something an Author once said was "fans build you up so they can break you down".
You should never try to please everyone, only enough people to get the bills paid. (<-- my saying)
You should never try to please everyone, only enough people to get the bills paid. (<-- my saying)
This. With the corollary that it's logical to please the people who bitch at you less first, and the people who bitch at you always last if at all.
I think they should make all of the font in 4pt.
Yes I agree.
wait
you mean you could actually read that? I must need new glasses.
Try zooming in to see it, blurry, but larger. Still, it's crazy small.
you could copy and paste it into the navigation bar if you really want to read it that bad. lol
you could copy and paste it into the navigation bar if you really want to read it that bad. lol
Ahhhh i got it now!
I guess they could fit alot more information in using a 4pt font!
We would just end up with a 4 page book. And there would be much complaining and nashing of teeth because the price would be the same.
Meh. Honestly, I'm happier with the larger fonts. The extra white space makes it easier on the eyes. The same I unfortunately cannot say for this site.
Meh. Honestly, I'm happier with the larger fonts. The extra white space makes it easier on the eyes. The same I unfortunately cannot say for this site.
I myself dont have a problem with the site, but ive heard lots and lots of complaints about that. Hopefully thats one of the things that theyll change, giving us the option to change the background colors.