Second Dungeons & Dragons Product for Fall 2018: Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage

Jester David · Jun 4, 2018

vecna00 said:
Maybe those who are looking for the old setting have no interest in the works of the aforementioned publishers. Which is fine really.

Which is the catch.
Those looking for old settings are likely already fans of those settings. And thus they already have the setting material. They're asking to re-buy the material.
Those just looking for a setting likely don't care if it's a classic from the silver age of TSR or a modern setting.

Myrdin Potter said:
If the response had not said critical role, I would not have connected the settings name with the show.

So, as a conversational technique, you could say I forgot it and then list what a forgot. Personally, I did not, I wrote a quick list of ones I own that are from decent sized publishers that I figured that people would know if someone tried to claim that they do not want to play settings from nobodies.

Out of the ones I own, Midgard and Middle Earth impress me the most with the amount of actual new play options they present on top of the 5e core.

Well, Adventures In Middle Earth doesn't so much have new play options as replaces the existing play options.
And Green Ronin, publisher of the Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting is a pretty decently sized publisher, known for the Mutants & Masterminds game system as well as the Dragon Age Roleplaying Game and the Song of Ice and Fire RPG. It's important to remember that the Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting has been outselling the Starfinder and Pathfinder core books on Amazon for the past few months and likely has brisk traffic on the Green Ronin e-store. It's not just a hit, but a huge hit. At this point, Tal'Dorei might be more well known than many TSR settings.

Phasestar · Jun 4, 2018

Really looking forward to this, especially the second part but the heist sounds like fun as well.

vecna00 · Jun 4, 2018

Jester David said:
Which is the catch.
Those looking for old settings are likely already fans of those settings. And thus they already have the setting material. They're asking to re-buy the material.
Those just looking for a setting likely don't care if it's a classic from the silver age of TSR or a modern setting.

Speaking only for myself: I'm not looking for reprinted fluff of the old settings, I have all of that. What I am looking for, however, is updated mechanics for these legacy settings. Mystara and Greyhawk really don't need any, Dragonlance could use some new class options, Planescape could use some more monsters maybe, Spelljammer could use more than a few updates, and Dark Sun I believe could use the most. If I could get those updates, I would be a very happy dude.

I worked on an update for both Dark Sun and Birthright, but both seem to be a bit lacking. Mostly just quick and dirty conversions, something more official would be most welcome.

Myrdin Potter · Jun 4, 2018

Jester David said:
Well, Adventures In Middle Earth doesn't so much have new play options as replaces the existing play options.
And Green Ronin, publisher of the Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting is a pretty decently sized publisher, known for the Mutants & Masterminds game system as well as the Dragon Age Roleplaying Game and the Song of Ice and Fire RPG. It's important to remember that the Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting has been outselling the Starfinder and Pathfinder core books on Amazon for the past few months and likely has brisk traffic on the Green Ronin e-store. It's not just a hit, but a huge hit. At this point, Tal'Dorei might be more well known than many TSR settings.

I know who they are, I have Book of Righteousness (which I think is well done) and they used to be famous for the Freeport city setting. I think Jeremy Crawford even worked on something for them - Blue Rose? I was backing their zombie setting Kickstarter until I felt they messed up handling the sexual harassment allegations against one of the developers on that project.

But your end point is the same as mine - plenty of settings out there.

I regard Adventures in Middle Earth as a new way to play 5e, the most radical and still be 5e from
what I can tell.

MechaPilot · Jun 4, 2018

Olaf the Stout said:
If you want to sell it on DM's Guild, yes, that's a limitation. However, there's nothing stopping you from publishing your 5E compatible product independently.

Nothing?

As in no entry barriers?

Really?

I didn't know I could get anything I wanted published for free.

Xavian Starsider · Jun 4, 2018

Abstruse said:
A lot of things pointing to Spelljammer (and possibly Planescape) for 2019. Mearls and Crawford tweeting about psionics, the githyanki in the artwork for the Waterdeep books, Perkins flat out saying that Halaster having a spelljammer ship (though that one I take with a grain of salt because the stuff Perkins was tweeting last night, he was one tweet shy of proclaiming that Drizzt is actually twenty puppies wearing a drow suit).

My guess is 2019 being a Spelljammer/Planescape combo multiverse setting to open up to other settings that couldn't be "inserted" into FR the way Ravenloft was, with all the rules for planar travel and Sigil profiled as a sort of port city..

I believe Perkins said Halastar has a spelljammer helm, not a spelljammer. But I agree with the potential for 2019. Note that Volo's guide harmonized with Tomb of Annihilation while they have already stated ,Xanathar's guide harmonizes with Dragon Heist. So it seems reasonable to think that Mordy's guide with all its high level outsiders and giff may be paving the way for the next stop on the tour.

I think it's less likely to be Spelljammer or Planescape in name than it is to be a plane-hopping adventure with good coverage of Sigil and elements of both SJ and PS. Enough that fans can build off of it. All we need is the tone, some building blocks and a good example of how they fit together.

MechaPilot · Jun 4, 2018

5e has been name-dropping things left and right, but none of it means anything.

We're getting spelljammer because of skullport?

Yeah, and tell me the one about the reptillians colluding with the illuminati again.

Abstruse · Jun 4, 2018

Xavian Starsider said:
I think it's less likely to be Spelljammer or Planescape in name than it is to be a plane-hopping adventure with good coverage of Sigil and elements of both SJ and PS. Enough that fans can build off of it. All we need is the tone, some building blocks and a good example of how they fit together.

That's what I mean when I talk about campaign settings, the same way I treat Curse of Strahd as the "Ravenloft 5e" book. It seems to be how they're approaching all their releases since the DMG has rules for pretty much anything you need aside from a few very specific cases. It's a good way to encourage sales and expose people to new stuff: It's not just a campaign setting book, it's not just a rules splatbook, it's not just an adventure, it's all of these things. And it consolidates releases so instead of releasing 2-3 books every month or two so you have to pay $400-700 a year to keep your library up, you only need to pay $100-150 each year and you've got every book released.

Jester David · Jun 4, 2018

MechaPilot said:
Nothing?

As in no entry barriers?

Really?

I didn't know I could get anything I wanted published for free.

Free? No.
But cheap. Open Office is free. You can write and layout your product easily enough on that, and publish it as a PDF. There’s a lot of good stock art and public domain. And then send it off to lightningsource.com for printing. A black-and-white softcover is super cheap.

Literally only barrier to entry is owning a personal computer and having a credit card to pay for the printing.

Demetrios1453 · Jun 4, 2018

Xavian Starsider said:
I believe Perkins said Halastar has a spelljammer helm, not a spelljammer. But I agree with the potential for 2019. Note that Volo's guide harmonized with Tomb of Annihilation while they have already stated ,Xanathar's guide harmonizes with Dragon Heist. So it seems reasonable to think that Mordy's guide with all its high level outsiders and giff may be paving the way for the next stop on the tour.

I think it's less likely to be Spelljammer or Planescape in name than it is to be a plane-hopping adventure with good coverage of Sigil and elements of both SJ and PS. Enough that fans can build off of it. All we need is the tone, some building blocks and a good example of how they fit together.

That is becoming the pattern, isn't it? The rules/monster book hints at what will be released 18 months or so down the line. Volo's had dinosaurs, yuan-ti, vegepygmies, and so on, all hinting at ToA; Xanathar's by virtue of its name alone (as well as such things as downtime rules) hints at these Waterdeep books; and Mordenkainen's... well, that does seem to point to Planescape (and possibly Spelljammer) next year, if the pattern holds.

Plus modrons and the March have been hinted at over quite a few books now, and it's hard to argue against using the Great Modron March as an adventure that doubles as an introduction to the Outer Planes. As I've said before, should this two-step release work, we may very well see a 1 - 5 level campaign in Sigil and the Outlands, doubling as an introduction to the Planes, followed by a 6 - 20 adventure following the Great Modron March.

Heck, should next spring's (presumed) rules expansion book contain the expected psionics and artificer stuff they've been working on for so long, then, following the pattern again, Eberron and/or Dark Sun would almost certainly be on the way in fall 2020.