Ravenloft/4e

"A lot of people were disappointed to hear the news that several
hotly-anticipated products were no longer coming (most notably,
the Ravenloft campaign set and Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium.)
This part of the seminar was the first time I heard the WotC guys
start talking about being mindful of how people are using their products,
and trying to make sure they don’t just crank out book after book that nobody wants. I heard it a lot this weekend, and while I am disappointed, this should hopefully calm the fires a little for those of you who think they’re trying to bleed every penny from us by cranking out endless half-assed material."

DDXP 2011 Recap : Critical Hits

So does this mean that there won't be anymore setting books? I haven't posted regularly on here in a while and I'm not a huge fan of 4e. But to me one of the best things about D&D was the settings books. For me they were never "half assed" material. I guess we'll never see Spelljammer, Ravenloft or Dragonlance for 4e. I was actually pretty interested in seeing what the 2010 setting was/will be but now it's clear that never came out and 2011 won't see one either. I wonder what other 4e books are going to come out if any? I guess we can get more player cards? I wonder what the rational for those are??

Mike

Dark Sun was the 2010 setting. By all accounts, it was a success. I think WotC is just undergoing some marketing/strategy changes in how much material they want to produce right now and didn't feel that Ravenloft was strong enough to stand on its own (at this point).

Insight said:

Dark Sun was the 2010 setting. By all accounts, it was a success. I think WotC is just undergoing some marketing/strategy changes in how much material they want to produce right now and didn't feel that Ravenloft was strong enough to stand on its own (at this point).

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I know I'm not playing 4E, so I'm not the market for this product, but that's so odd to me: Ravenloft has always seemed to have more broad appeal than Dark Sun or even Eberron.

Paizo certainly thinks so, since a Ravenloft-alike is this year's big adventure path and setting from them.

There will still be setting books. 2011 will see Neverwinter, which looks to be kind of a setting/event book, much like the Star Wars supplements which would focus on a specific part of history.

Actually, the most interesting thing I got out of that was

As they mentioned in the new product seminar, the reason for things like the new Fortune Cards is that they want to offer new things to the players because DMs buy the lion’s share of their products.

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Is it my imagination or didn't WotC have the opinion back at the start of 4E that players bought the lion's share of stuff (as they outnumbered DM's 4 to 1)?

I was hoping there'd be a Planescape.

kitsune9 said:

I was hoping there'd be a Planescape.

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I think WotC wants to avoid locking itself into a too tightly set multiverse - which the old "wheel of planes" did.

However, I think there's hope for Planescape, but I don't think it will be presented with all the ol' 2E chant-speak. It will probably be more exploration-based (visiting new and weird planes, killing its denizens) than philosophical-based with the various factions, I think. And likely to be a Planescape/Spelljammer hybrid.

I'm in the "disappointed that Ravenloft is cancelled" camp. In 1 night I learned that it was coming and has been cancelled. I really like the way the new Gamma World is designed, and I was (briefly) looking forward to seeing Ravenloft get the same treatment. It could have been any D&D setting turned into a mini-game, actually; but Ravenloft sounded cool. Here's hoping they reconsider and get something similar to Gamma World in production with the easy rules, poster maps and monster counters. It would be great if it is Ravenloft, but any fantasy offering would get me to buy in. I guess I'll give madness at gardmore abbey a look, but it's not the same.