C&C and DriveThruRPG

[finarvyn]

Like many of you, I get the weekly DriveThruRPG newsletter because I've purchased PDF files through them in the past.

I was reading the one from 9-01-11 and ran into something that bothered me:

Troll Lords are bringing a great 50% sale to make it easy to jump head-first into Castles & Crusades. The 4th Edition Players Handbook and the Monsters & Treasure books are both 50% off their regular price, making this a great time to get into a great game.

It's that "edition" versus "printing" thing. Folks not savvy in the ways of C&C are going to think that C&C is up to its 4th edition. To me, an edition is a major overhaul of some kind. C&C is, aside from trivial layout differences and font size changes and typo fixing, essentially the same game that was released (c)2004. The Trolls toss around "4th Crusade" and such as a cool slogan, but I wonder if potential customers might be misled into thinking that either it's a D&D 4E compatible product or an actual 4th edition of C&C.

Anyway, just thought I'd mention it.

[kreider204]

Indeed. "Edition" vs. "printing" is used differently in RPGs than in regular books, so I could see some confusion among regular sellers, but you'd think drivethrurpg and the like would be savvy about such things ...

[Breakdaddy]

Ill let Steve know.

[Sir Ironside]

*Devils advocate*

I dunno. People might be easily confused by talk of printings instead of editions. People like editions and it is more straight forward and less confusing. Just think of the announcement saying what printing each is and any new buyer might balk at buying because it is not clear that they are both updated for the C&C game. It could be fixed by stating they are both up-to-date books for C&C, or just saying that those books are bundled together ignoring both edition and printings in the announcement.

The only other problem is the CKG is not in the package. Any D&D player automatically assumes that there should be 3 core books and I'd wonder if they would think they are only getting 2/3 of the set. It would have to be clear that these are the only two books needed to play C&C.

I agree it should be more clear. What I don't know is how willing Drivethrough would be to make a more lengthy announcement.