Pages From The Upcoming Nautical D&D Book!

These screencaps were posted by GM Leigh (of Mage Productions) on Twitter after being showed on WotC's Twitch stream, presented by Kate Welch and Nathan Stewart. Note the old Saltmarsh trilogy references!

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

It felt like they were only doing APs, but they always did something else every year.

Hmmm, I think a lot of it was just how thin SCAG was in terms of content other than Realms fluff, so it was essentially two full years before a decent non-AP release happened.

 

[Jester David]

Hmmm, I think a lot of it was just how thin SCAG was in terms of content other than Realms fluff, so it was essentially two full years before a decent non-AP release happened.

Yeah, SCAG does only have 11 new subclasses vs the 28 in XGtE. That does have twice as many. But still hardly the smorgasbord of options people are used to from 3e. I think had they released XGtE in 2015 instead of SCAG there would have still be as much complaining.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Yeah, SCAG does only have 11 new subclasses vs the 28 in XGtE. That does have twice as many. But still hardly the smorgasbord of options people are used to from 3e.

Just so I wasn't going totally on memory I pulled it out to look. SCAG was pretty darn thin, literally and figuratively: It had essentially nothing for several classes (Bards, Druids, Monks, Rangers just got a bit of fluff), nine archetypes, a few cantrips but no other spells, and some backgrounds. It's page count (159) shows that, too, though it was $10 cheaper than most releases, so there is that.

I think had they released XGtE in 2015 instead of SCAG there would have still be as much complaining.

That may be but it doesn't change that SCAG was a weak release. IMO, Volo's is the one that should have come out a year or eighteen months later. Well, it is what it is, but WotC's release schedule was definitely not to many people's liking, not just the reflexive whine brigade.

 

[oreofox]

Quality of dmsguild products is questionable, hence my first comment about it being rather bad. However, I would rather wade through the bad to find the good than receive nothing at all, hence my second comment about wanting the old settings available for the dmsguild. I wasn't flipflopping on my stance.

And I had to look up the number of subclasses in the SCAG, as 11 seemed a bit high. But it's actually correct. 12 if you count the extended totems for the barbarian. It also seemed D&D and Hasbro had no faith in 5e, since they outsourced the adventures to other studios (Tyranny of Dragons was Kobold Press, PotA was Sasquatch Game Studios, OotA was Green Ronin). It took them until Curse of Strahd to finally do an adventure in house, and that was March 2016.

As for the most iconic adventures being Greyhawk and players dumping remakes of them onto the DMG before WotC could: Most people would prefer an "official" version over a fan made one. There have been numerous fan made versions of monsters that weren't in the MM, and a number of them have shown up in a WotC publication. Another person could remake the Slave Lords adventures, put it up on the DMG, then 2 months later WotC could publish a remake of the Slave Lords, and people would be apt to use the WotC version.

 

[Hussar]

/snip
Well, it is what it is, but WotC's release schedule was definitely not to many people's liking, not just the reflexive whine brigade.

I don't know how many constitute many. I do try to avoid making broader statements without evidence.

And, I'd point to the fact that even "thin" supplements like SCAG are still selling far, far more than any single title of the same age for any other edition, outside of core books. Seems like they are doing something right.

Quality of dmsguild products is questionable, hence my first comment about it being rather bad. However, I would rather wade through the bad to find the good than receive nothing at all, hence my second comment about wanting the old settings available for the dmsguild. I wasn't flipflopping on my stance.

And I had to look up the number of subclasses in the SCAG, as 11 seemed a bit high. But it's actually correct. 12 if you count the extended totems for the barbarian. It also seemed D&D and Hasbro had no faith in 5e, since they outsourced the adventures to other studios (Tyranny of Dragons was Kobold Press, PotA was Sasquatch Game Studios, OotA was Green Ronin). It took them until Curse of Strahd to finally do an adventure in house, and that was March 2016.

Wow, they just can't win. Hrm, outsource adventures to well established authors, many of whom actually directly worked for WotC in the past = no faith in the edition.

As for the most iconic adventures being Greyhawk and players dumping remakes of them onto the DMG before WotC could: Most people would prefer an "official" version over a fan made one. There have been numerous fan made versions of monsters that weren't in the MM, and a number of them have shown up in a WotC publication. Another person could remake the Slave Lords adventures, put it up on the DMG, then 2 months later WotC could publish a remake of the Slave Lords, and people would be apt to use the WotC version.

But, you're missing the point. What's in it for WotC in this case? All they've done is create their own competition. And diluted the brand. Where's the upside for WotC?

 

[gyor]

FR could use an update as the current state of the world is a decade out of date, during which time there were several wars and a major Realmshaking event. The current status quo of large regions of the world is unknown.
Meanwhile, virtually every other setting is identical to how it was last published.

I like settings, but opening up every setting in a short period is probably a bad idea. Any chance of those "gems" getting noticed would be lost under the waves of content.
We got TWO new settings last year, bringing the total number of supported settings to four. Which is more official support than we got in 4e and 1e, and matches what we got during 3e. And it's pretty likely we'll see more on the Guild sooner rather than later.

The catch is the overwhelming majority of players run homebrew worlds. The Realms is the most popular non-homebrew world, but only just. The market for classic settings is small.


I was responding to a comment that WotC should add more settings to the DMsGuild made by someone who just minutes earlier had slammed the quality of the Guild.
Which begged the question: if the DMsGuild is so inferiour to the official content, why add more settings to the Guild?

But the difference between "official" and "third party" and "Guild content" for campaign settings is extra fuzzy. Because you don't have balance issues with lore. Flavour and world backgrounds doesn't require playtesting. The difference between WotC releasing a campaign setting for the Guild or using Midgard by Kobold Press or Tal'Dorie by Green Ronin is much more cosmetic.


It's less that they weren't releasing content (they were: three books a year) but that the fans wanted everything all at once. The 4e or 3e release schedule of a big campaign setting AND a couple splatbooks AND more monsters, all within the first twelve months of the edition. They wanted two or three years of content all at once.
An entire product line's worth of content right away.

Which makes some sense. As people want the game to feel "complete". You don't want half a game. But once you have all that content, there's not really any reason for the publisher to continue to exist.
We saw that with John Wick Presents and 7th Sea: when people got everything they ever needed all at once there was no need for a second wave of products.

Exactly, FR isva living world, the rest except maybe Planescape and Ravenloft seem to not have changed or had their their timelines moved forward since what the 90's, where so much has changed and happened in FR, living sooooo many questions. The 5e realms plays to nostalgia, but it's still a very different from previous editions.

 

[Mouseferatu]

So, just to add an element to the discussion that appears to be missing...

DM's Guild guidelines do not allow anyone to post an "updated" version of a classic (or any existing) adventure. You can create a new adventure based off the old, or the same basic concept, and you can publish a conversion guide--something that updates all the mechanics, but still requires the original for all the other text--but you can't just convert Sinister Secret (or whatever) to 5E and throw it up as a complete and ready-to-play adventure.

 

[Parmandur]

So, Bart Carroll said on the Dragon+ show that the next issue of Dragon+ is coming early next week to coincide with...other things...might see an announcement soon.

Haven't had a listen yet, but in the Dragon Talk podcast today Chris Perkins discusses the history of TSR UK: maybe we'll get some of the other UK modules, too.

 

[vpuigdoller]

So, Bart Carroll said on the Dragon+ show that the next issue of Dragon+ is coming early next week to coincide with...other things...might see an announcement soon.

Haven't had a listen yet, but in the Dragon Talk podcast today Chris Perkins discusses the history of TSR UK: maybe we'll get some of the other UK modules, too.

Probably the new artificer will be previewed in it as well.

 

[Markh3rd]

I would love to see Nights Dark Terror updated/modernized/converted. That was a great UK module.