D&D 5E How WotC will approach the campaign settings?

neobolts said:

I would love this. They would indeed take some heat, but just saying "We aren't certain which classic settings are viable. Vote with your money." would at least ring true. I was introduced to D&D in 1990 and started playing regularly in 1995. We used homebrew, Dragonlance, and Realms. I don't know jack about Greyhawk or Mystara, they were (IMO) before my time. And i would totally love to see launched core books for them in my lifetime.



They should be out in front on this, which doesn't have to mean a book in my hands tomorrow. They need to energize the market and drum up sales, not gingerly test the waters. "Setting X: Summer 2017." That would make my day!

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But they've already done this before in 4E. They produced a crapton of stuff for the game right up front. Heck, their Player's Handbook 2 came out like eight months after Player's Handbook 1 for pete's sake. They've *seen* what they get when they front-load. And if they know that front-loading produces only short-term gain at the expense of long-term solvency... then they'd be stupid to do it again.

And that's why I think they aren't repeating the same thing this time. They're taking a different tack. Now some might say it's *too* slow what they're doing... but since they've never done it this way, they have no way of knowing if it is until they do it. And we won't know until probably 2017/18 before we starting getting hints just whether the slower release was a boon or a hindrance.

Eejit said:

It's unformatted because it's a first draft. It's like the playtest documents...

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Not even 2 columns.

Warning: I'm going to use caps for emphasis.

DEFCON 1 said:

But the issue with a 5E FR campaign setting book as exhaustive as the 3E book is two-fold:

1) How many man-hours of writing, developing, illustration, and mapmaking would it take to produce it, and how much would it cost to make? Is the current staff of D&D R&D capable of producing a product as extensive as that?

2) Does the fact that it would be a setting that takes place in probably around 1489 DR (ten years after the 4E book, and still 100+ years after the 3E book because they wouldn't be editing out the Spellplague and timejump from the history) make this book less of a desired product for a large swathe of the Realms fandom, *because* it doesn't eliminate the Spellplague and 100 year jump from existence? Do Realms fans who normally would buy a setting book refuse to do so in this case specifically because it maintains a hated part of Realms history for a lot of them?

I completely understand many people's desires for a new setting book. I do. But let's be real here-- a good percentage of the Realms populace won't embrace and will not buy a product that assumes everything that happened in the 4E Realms still happened (even if a lot of unpopular stuff gets "written out" via magic and the reforming of the Tablets of Fate). Which means a percentage of the people they might expect to buy said product actually won't. So if you can't count on the sales of your gaming populace... why would you even want to attempt to spend the money to produce it when there might be a good chance you'd lose money on the endeavor?

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Here's the thing, though. The 3e book came out in 2001. Fourteen years ago. That means, with the exception of myself, EVERYONE in my gaming group was 12 or younger! And they're GRADUATE STUDENTS now!! None of them have even seen the FR grey box. One might have seen the 3e FRCS. I don't think any of them played 4e much. There's at least two generations of gamers that don't have what I would consider a proper campaign setting. That's a market.

We're butthurt about timeline changes n' stuff, but we're at least a generation out of date. Probably two. I hate it when people say this to me, but...we're not the market.

Can WotC even write something like this? Hell yeah. Some material can be reused from earlier works, and...this is what they do. Can two people write five chapters each? I would hope so. Three people could each write three chapters, and a fourth write one. It's doable. (I'm just picking 10 chapters for kicks and giggles, btw.)

Is there a market for it? I dunno. There was a market for that Forgotten Realms hardbound last year that was, insofar as I could tell, a collection of essays by Ed Greenwood. I have a hard time believe that would sell more than a full-on CS. The people who are going to be aggrieved and vocal about it are either going to buy it to complain, or buy it because they're completists, or not buy it. That's two win scenarios and one neutral (you're not really losing a sale there). Between the completists, the new generation, and the people who are just curious/interested, I don't think the gripe-squad is nearly as large as the internet likes to pretend.

DEFCON 1 said:

But they've already done this before in 4E. They produced a crapton of stuff for the game right up front. Heck, their Player's Handbook 2 came out like eight months after Player's Handbook 1 for pete's sake. They've *seen* what they get when they front-load. And if they know that front-loading produces only short-term gain at the expense of long-term solvency... then they'd be stupid to do it again.

And that's why I think they aren't repeating the same thing this time. They're taking a different tack. Now some might say it's *too* slow what they're doing... but since they've never done it this way, they have no way of knowing if it is until they do it. And we won't know until probably 2017/18 before we starting getting hints just whether the slower release was a boon or a hindrance.

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I think we're somewhat on the same page. I don't want rampant book bloat like in 3.0 and 4e. I'd like more thoughtful releases is all. I think campaign-based and broad thematic books can expand the game without the bloat and death spiral that comes with wily-nily splatbooks.

I'll use 4e as an example: "Xyz Power" series added bloat to the game. The 4e Forgotten Realms Players Guide added more to the game, but in a more thoughtful way, adding IIRC genasi and swordmage as setting-driven additions.

I remember 3.0, buying all the splats in the Sword & Fist series and later questioning that purchase. I also bought Oriental Adventures and Manual of the Planes and felt that those were solid buys.

tl;dr: No books bad. Splat book death spiral bad. Thoughful books with a purpose other than "MOAR!" good.

Nellisir said:

Here's the thing, though. The 3e book came out in 2001. Fourteen years ago. That means, with the exception of myself, EVERYONE in my gaming group was 12 or younger! And they're GRADUATE STUDENTS now!! None of them have even seen the FR grey box. One might have seen the 3e FRCS. I don't think any of them played 4e much. There's at least two generations of gamers that don't have what I would consider a proper campaign setting. That's a market.

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It *is* a market, yes. However, it's a market consisting of young people too young to have played 3rd edition, who also did not play 4th edition, who also do not want to buy gaming books electronically via PDF, nor apparently buy older books online from places like Amazon (where you can get the hardcover 3E campaign setting book Used starting at like $16.00). So while it is a market... I'm not liable to believe it's a large market. Certainly not large enough to make WotC trust out of hand that they could spend the money required to make a 5E version of the 3E book and have it actually sell enough. Not without foreknowledge of what their other 5E non-core books will actually do in the marketplace.

But maybe they do. I don't know. I could be wrong. But I do think it's telling that when Mearls was asked about it specifically at GenCon that he said it just wasn't something they were wanting to dive right into. Which I can understand, seeing as how there *are* Realms setting options out there for people-- PDFs and new and used hardcover books.

Have that in mind that a month ago Mearls answering Morrus said

it wasn't too many settings that hurt TSR, but too many D&D books of any kind.

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To complemend the above the same day Christopher Perkins said on his twitter

I'm proud that 5E embraces all worlds and settings. I can't wait to show y'all what we're working on now.

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These two tweets where the same days with Jeremy Crawfords tweets about multiverse.

Maybe this isn't mean something and is just my wishful thinking.
However these indications were the reason I said that I expect a solution that include all settings. I hope it isn't one book for all. This would be a poor approach IMO. I wish something more and something more dynamic.

All this being said I'd kill for a single book that encompassed many settings. Like a multiverse book, man that would be awesome.

DEFCON 1 said:

It *is* a market, yes. However, it's a market consisting of young people too young to have played 3rd edition, who also did not play 4th edition, who also do not want to buy gaming books electronically via PDF, nor apparently buy older books online from places like Amazon (where you can get the hardcover 3E campaign setting book Used starting at like $16.00). So while it is a market... I'm not liable to believe it's a large market. Certainly not large enough to make WotC trust out of hand that they could spend the money required to make a 5E version of the 3E book and have it actually sell enough. Not without foreknowledge of what their other 5E non-core books will actually do in the marketplace.

But maybe they do. I don't know. I could be wrong. But I do think it's telling that when Mearls was asked about it specifically at GenCon that he said it just wasn't something they were wanting to dive right into. Which I can understand, seeing as how there *are* Realms setting options out there for people-- PDFs and new and used hardcover books.

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I mean, sure, college students are on a budget. But I am a college student running a group comprised solely of 5 college students plus myself, and I know for a fact that at least three of us have the Player's Handbook, and one of my more dedicated players was oohing and ahhhing over the Monster Manual and mentioned that he's probably going to pick up one himself. I wouldn't discount us as a market just yet, especially if WotC ever releases PDFs.

I don't know. I'd certainly buy a $30-$40 large campaign setting book, but it would have to be really, really good - like, 5e DMG level good, and come with a full-sized map.

At the very least, the slower rate of releases means that I'll usually end up being able to buy more material than I otherwise would, and thus makes my demographic a more viable market - it's much easier to afford four to five books $35 books per year than it is to afford twelve or more at the same price in the same time.

DEFCON 1 said:

...young people too young to have played 3rd edition

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Well, I'm pretty sure you can *still* play 3rd Edition. If you mean too young to have been purchasing much at the height of 3e...say, 2005-2006 (I think that might be being generous, actually), then...you're talking recent college graduates. :/

Damn, if only the 22-year old male demographic was a viable one.

The fact is, though, that WotC cannot count on outside sources like the used book market to provide setting support, any more than they can count on 3rd-party publishers to provide game support. The pdf market is a little more under their control and is certainly growing, but if their entire support tactic is pointing to decade+ old products and saying "well, just ignore the out-dated stuff..."... that's not really a plan either.

I don't know what they will do. I think support will be more substantial than you're projecting, but I obviously don't know what form it will take or when it will appear. And I could be wrong.

Chris Perkins said:

I'm proud that 5E embraces all worlds and settings. I can't wait to show y'all what we're working on now.

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Nathan Stewart said:

The Forgotten Realms is the universe that we at Wizards of the Coast are focusing our storytelling in for the foreseeable future.

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I've got faith that we will continue to see multiple setting support in D&D5 (a la the Eberron UA article), but I'm also sure both of these statements are true. My advice is to not get hung up on what will be and take the time to enjoy what is.

The game is done, it is good, and it is supported by decades of readily available publications. I'm running a very successful Dragonlance campaign using D&D5, the AD&D2 Tales of the Lance boxed set, and even a smattering of SAGA Fifth Age material.

If you've got understandable qualms about acquiring out-of-print publications digitally, I cannot recommend NobleKnightGames.com highly enough. I've been a loyal customer since the owner was running his business off an e-mail list and advertising on listservs. And now he's got a huge brick and mortar storefront in Wisconsin.