V20 - Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

As for talk of other 20th Anniversary books, Werewolf: The Apocalypse was announced at GenCon, as was a V20 Companion; W20 is due Fall 2012, so another year away. This all bodes well for a 20th edition of Mage as well, but probably not until at least Summer or Fall 2013.

If V20 was supposed to be all inclusive, then what's the point of the V20 companion?

But the Werewolf 20th is... more tempting than it rightfully should be.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

If V20 was supposed to be all inclusive, then what's the point of the V20 companion?

V20 draws from many thousands of printed pages of material and attempts to distill it down to 500 pages. I'm not sure what is planned for the V20 companion, but there's still plenty more pages of previously printed material to draw from. Likely it will have expanded information on each of the clans, the major sects, the leadership within those sects, etc. The V20 Companion is supposed to go through an open development, similar to the one that V20 went through, so if you're really curious you can always follow the development.

Don't confuse "includes all the important information necessary to play any VTM game" with "includes every piece of information ever printed for a Vampire campaign." The later is not possible to do in 500 pages...

[RevBob]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

So between the $30 PDF and the $35 dollar print job (highballing) we're at $65. Binding will cost money, though. Anyone know how much? If it's less than $35, we're in business.

(Yeah, it's a pain to do all this, but if you really love the work enough that you're willing to contemplate dropping a c-note on it, I think it's worth looking into)

You miss the point. It's not "me want ink on paper" but "me want nice book." A printed PDF doesn't come close to giving me that.

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

If what you really want is to save a little money then wait another month and see what the POD version of the book is going to cost before making any decisions.

Not an option; the window to buy the Real Book closes in less than 24 hours, and no POD details are going to be available until November.

Originally Posted by Mailanka

If V20 was supposed to be all inclusive, then what's the point of the V20 companion?

Offhand, I'd say splatbook stuff would go in there - factions, clan details, that sort of thing.

[sjard]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

So between the $30 PDF and the $35 dollar print job (highballing) we're at $65. Binding will cost money, though. Anyone know how much? If it's less than $35, we're in business.

At 500 pages, I'd imagine you'd be pretty much limited to comb or spiral binding. In my area that's about $2-5 depending on color covers, or just clear plastic covers.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by RevBob

Not an option; the window to buy the Real Book closes in less than 24 hours, and no POD details are going to be available until November.

Make a willpower roll, difficulty 8. Then order by 9:30 AM EST on Friday, because that's when the book's no longer for sale.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

So between the $30 PDF and the $35 dollar print job (highballing) we're at $65. Binding will cost money, though. Anyone know how much? If it's less than $35, we're in business.

(Yeah, it's a pain to do all this, but if you really love the work enough that you're willing to contemplate dropping a c-note on it, I think it's worth looking into)



I bet if you looked through the book, natural divisions would spring out at you. White Wolf tends to do all its setting material in one big chapter, it's character creation and core rules in one big section that's close together, the splats and their kewl powerz in another section, and then the GM guide in a final section.

It'd be more convenient to have them in one big book, obviously, but binding a 500 page book is tricky even for the pros, I think.

You'd need to consider the index, though, unless you're willing to carry all five volumes around with you all the time. On the other hand, being able to bring JUST the kewl powerz and the rules with you to the table would be pretty handy.

Binding can be as low as $5... a 500page comb or spiral runs $20 for a pack of 40, and putting it through the machine generally will be free if you pay the copyshop's markup of said comb or spiral to about $5

Likewise, screw-post binding might work if it's got 1" margins on the inside edge... and the screw posts are under $10 per 3 for that size.

Binding, when done with printing, is often relatively inexpensive. Unless you want hardcover or large perfect-bound.

[Bruno]

Splitting the book up into four to six sections will increase the binding costs slightly for something like cerlox or spiral bound, but I still recommend it. It also opens up the option of the "faux perfect bound" that my local Staples Office Depot offers - the pages get glued into a plastic cover, which gives it a nice rigid spine and durable cover - but it's a couple of bucks more expensive and if you don't have the exact denomination of pages for the pre-fab cover, they can get bound in a bit wavey/wobbly.

And yes, it's still not the same as a nice professional 500-page hardcover with glossy full-colour pages at ALL. As far as I can tell, that would run you $250-500 to have printed, +20-50$ for nice binding.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by RevBob

You miss the point. It's not "me want ink on paper" but "me want nice book." A printed PDF doesn't come close to giving me that.

Fair enough. I hope you find a way to get your hands on one (and while I appreciate the notion of a "limited edition," given the number of people who want a copy, it seems a little unfair to deny them, you know?)

Offhand, I'd say splatbook stuff would go in there - factions, clan details, that sort of thing.

I'm not really questioning whether or not they have the material. I'm questioning the idea of saying that you're doing a one-off, all-inclusive book... and thereafter bringing out a supplement. They made it sound like this was a last hoorah for the oWoD. Now it looks like they're just plain resurrecting it. Which, I mean, is fine, but it wasn't what they said they were going to do.

(nWoD was winding down and it's about time for a new edition, but personally I'd rather see nWoD 2.0 than a giant step backwards to oWoD 4.0. But that's just one guy's opinion, and it weirdly looks like we're going to have both nWoD and oWoD books at the same time, so hey, everyone's happy, and if it puts money in their pockets, who am I to complain?)

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

I'm not really questioning whether or not they have the material. I'm questioning the idea of saying that you're doing a one-off, all-inclusive book... and thereafter bringing out a supplement. They made it sound like this was a last hoorah for the oWoD. Now it looks like they're just plain resurrecting it. Which, I mean, is fine, but it wasn't what they said they were going to do.

To be fair, they had no idea what the response to bringing back a 7 year dead game line was going to be. Now that they have a good idea what the response is they are expanding the line some more, so I'd have to guess that the response was quite good.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

To be fair, they had no idea what the response to bringing back a 7 year dead game line was going to be. Now that they have a good idea what the response is they are expanding the line some more, so I'd have to guess that the response was quite good.

Considering all the grousing about the new line, it's a good way to recapture those fans who abandoned the line when nWoD came out.