So, I was flicking through my Tome of Excess and it got me thinking about the differences between traditional sourcebooks and the way Tomes have worked with Black Crusade. Obviously, Tomes have been a very specific Black Crusade product as a way of getting the specific Gods and their followers/items/powers that people have been after since prior to launch, but I was thinking on the differences in the Tome model compared to the other, more traditional, way the other lines have worked.

Sourcebook

Usually focused on one specific part of the game:

GM Adventures

Player's Handbook

Lore/Setting Books

Bestiary

Tomes

In every Tome we get:

New Classes

New Locations

New NPCs

Adventure

Personally, I've enjoyed the way Tomes have worked over Sourcebooks. It means that with every release, both the players and I as a GM are getting something of everything. What we get obviously isn't as detailed as much as we would in a sourcebook dedicated to that one thing (monsters, setting, etc) but it's still pretty **** substantial.

One problem seems to be that with so much different stuff crammed into one book, they're taking a lot longer to release. Whether or not it's because Black Crusade has sold poorer that we've only seen three Tomes and one Adventure, but Only War is quickly catching up, whilst BC has had a year had start. We haven't even had Tome of Rot/Decay announced yet.

Which do you prefer? Would you rather see something akin to Tomes (something of everything) or set sourcebooks detailing a specific bit of content?

The Lathe Worlds, The Book of Martyrs, and The Book of Judgment are "Tomes", all of which have given me "archetypes" in the form of Alternate Career Ranks, NPCs, equipment/gear, locations, plot hooks, and etc. The Inquisitor's Handbook, The Radical's Handbook, and Disciples of the Dark Gods are "Source Books", complete with detailed villainous organizations, plot hooks, obscure items of esoterica, and etc. When I look at it from your perspective, Black Crusade (and Only War, for that matter) has given me very little when compared to DH, RT, and DW- that is, when I had five DH, RT, or DW publications in my hands I had more information and less work to do as a GM. Black Crusade is set in the Screaming Vortex, a finite "area", and to release Tomes detailing- in vague chunks- everything in this finite area is more disappointing...I'm tired of opening these Tomes and seeing four boring (read as predictable) Archetypes, another haphazard splash of Daemonic Engines and Chaos-y mutants, and the names and backgrounds of three or four nemeses without supporting casts (yay, "Nemesis X, lives in big Chaos-y forge", now all I have to do is everything other than his name and background).

I agree that every book should be useful both to players and GMs, but I think there are better ways to achieve this than through the rather weird, narrow-yet-unfocused format of BC's Tomes.

A sector gazetteer, for example, is already useful for players as much as for the GM, because the former get (hopefully) cool background for their characters that beats "I'm from a Forge World", while the latter gets the same places as cool backdrops for adventures he plans to run, as well as a mine of plot hooks. It can be even more player friendly if some (if not all) worlds described get a small adjustment to chargen rules (the way some worlds did in Inquisitor's Handbook and Radical's Handbook, and how all Calixian Forge Worlds did in the web supplement to the Lathe Worlds), and perhaps a sprinkle of planet-specific gear. At the same time, a sector gazetteer is a much more focused (and, at the same time, broader) format than "a panoply of things Khornate", for example - it's a go-to book for expanding setting lore for both players and GMs, regardless of what particular facet of the setting one wishes to explore.

Still, we don't even have the full core book of 2e yet - don't you think it's a bit too early to discuss the future supplements?

I'd prefer the books to be as focused as possible. I'm very slow at integrating the rules in our living rules html document, so the broader the scope of a book, the more likely it is to cause wasted time.

Speaking of, though... It'd be nice to be able to pay our way around maintaining a made-for-gaming living ruleset. Offer one of those and I'll instantly care very little about how the print books are organised (don't worry FFG, we'll still buy those too).