Settings - Advancing Timelines, Reimagining, Etc.

[Li Shenron]

So how about you? What would you like to see WotC do with your favorite setting?

Nothing except update the mechanics to the new edition.

 

[Yora]

This also describes WotC's unenviable position regarding the D&D Next rules as well. Pathfinder/legacy3e/OSR/OGL is the 'avoid change' option, 4e was the 'embrace change' option, and now they are facing anger from people who liked 4e at undoing those changes and people who like previous editions wondering what 5e can offer that previous products haven't already covered.

It seems logical, though. The best guess why plannings for a new edition began less than 3 years after 4th Edition hit the stores, is that there are not enough customers. By keeping the changes that 4th Edition introduced, they would have the customers of 4th Edition minus those who don't like the new changes. That's even worse.
If they can get a greater number of customers by rolling back those changes remains to be seen, but the amount of Pathfinder customers is a strong indicator that there is a good chance for it.

 

[delericho]

Settings are a losing proposition, and new versions of a setting moreso.

The problem is that when you're doing a new version, you inevitably hit a "damned if you don't, damned if you do" problem:

- The majority of your potential sales are to people who are already fans of the setting, and so already have the new version.

- If you don't change things, you're just selling the same stuff to the same people, a practice for which they have limited tolerance. You will therefore inevitably lose sales to people who won't re-buy.

- Conversely, if you do change things, you will inevitably alienate a chunk of your fanbase, as they liked the setting as it was, they don't like the changes, or even just because otherwise-favourable changes contradict something in their home campaign.

Unfortunately, for WotC at least, it appears that settings are borderline-worthwhile products at the best of times. When you add a "second-strike" of supporting multiple settings (where most people don't use any setting, and almost all of the rest use at most one), and a third in trying to sell a new version...

At this point, were I in their shoes I would be inclined to support only Forgotten Realms for the next couple of years. Thereafter, I think I would probably do a single additional setting every couple of years, treating each as a limited run special project (probably presenting the setting as it stood at the end of the established timeline with no further changes but with the latest rules). Do a couple of books, perhaps some support in eDragon, and then stop. (Oh, and I would put Eberron and Dark Sun somewhere near the bottom of that list, because they both have near-current versions that you would be competing with.)

I would also probably stay well clear anything that is semi-generic fantasy (Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Birthright), and instead assign those resources to FR instead. Sadly, it doesn't make sense to support multiple very similar flavours of fantasy - better to support one intensively and perhaps support other, wildly different, flavours.

 

[tlantl]

I look at game settings from the perspective of what can I plunder from it. If a setting is identical to a version from another edition with updated npc and monster stats and nothing more the setting may be worth the purchase on those criteria alone much like the 3e forgotten realms setting gave me restatted monsters and racial variants to add to my own setting. I certainly didn't buy it to use as a setting, the same goes for eberron although it more closely resembles my own world there are a lot of what were they thinking moments in areas that are critical to the setting making it just another couple of hundred pages of wasted ink.

As far as I'm concerned they can and will do as they please with any and all of the materials produced for their game. I expect I'm not going to like very much of it. If the core rules and basic methodology resemble those they have produced in the past then there will be fewer dollars going into the company coffers.

 

[Bluenose]

So how about you? What would you like to see WotC do with your favorite setting?

Get a boxed set in print covering the basic campaign background, rework the Gazeteer series (and make Ierendi more tolerable), and produce a Poor Wizard's Almanac every year for it.

Alternatively, take a leaf from how GDW (and SJG) have treated the OTU, advancing the timeline through short news reports in the TNS style, as well as publishing adventures with little bits of news in. TLAs explained on request.

 

[Prickly]

I think it would be cool if they did setting support in Dragon and Dungeon magazines.

If they feel that some settings are rather to close to the base DnD world, why doesn't WotC have dedicated articles or themed months updating the old setting to the base rules whilst pointing out useful previous edition books (which they will now be selling electronically).

no need to reboot or update to create new content. WotC gets to sell a product and new people get a look at the campaign world.

Obviously some worlds are very popular and would do well with book support but there are other settings that are not as popular but are interesting and have fans.

 

[Yora]

Unfortunately, for WotC at least, it appears that settings are borderline-worthwhile products at the best of times. When you add a "second-strike" of supporting multiple settings (where most people don't use any setting, and almost all of the rest use at most one), and a third in trying to sell a new version...

I think the biggest problem is that WotC is a publically owned profit generator. When they publish something, it is to get the highest possible profits in the long run, that's the whole purpose of the company.
With smaller companies like TSR or Paizo, they can set themselves the goal to keep the company stable and pay the employees wages. This means you can make choices that generate less profits but make the work more enjoyable and create a greater satisfaction with your products. Which in my view results in higher quality products for the customers, simply because the customer base is more narrowed down and less diverse.

 

[Li Shenron]

- If you don't change things, you're just selling the same stuff to the same people, a practice for which they have limited tolerance. You will therefore inevitably lose sales to people who won't re-buy.

- Conversely, if you do change things, you will inevitably alienate a chunk of your fanbase, as they liked the setting as it was, they don't like the changes, or even just because otherwise-favourable changes contradict something in their home campaign.

I would be most likely in the second camp. For me the first version of a setting is typically always the best in fluff terms, it's fresh ideas and creativity. Every time FR was reset due to edition change, there were some interesting additions but also lots of forced changes, trite plot advancement tricks (another magic crisis/apocalypse, sigh...), and the cancellation of a few things that certainly were someone's favourite.

Therefore, I would definitely like that the settings itself (the core ideas, how things work, the world locations, the famous characters, the powers that be, the creatures, religions and afterlife, the technology era...) would just never change. Then each gaming group uses the setting as a "sandbox" and can create their own alternate timeline, so that Faerun evolves in a way shaped by the DM and influenced by the PCs.

My point is that if love a setting, I am probably going to love it whatever rules system I use. Then I might love a rule system and hate another, or at least have a favourite editions which suits our "playstyle" best. But it is a loss of freedom, if my choice of rule system also dictates a "version" of the setting and it's too hard to make your choice on ruleset and setting version indipendently.

Theoretically there exists a solution: to publish separate books of fluff vs crunch. Or even publish only books of fluff, and release setting-specific crunch in digital form (core crunch of a new edition and setting-free supplements still being published of course).

Then if they don't want to do it because it's economically inconvenient, they just have to accept that they will alienate part of the fanbase, period.

 

[Shemeska]

So how about you? What would you like to see WotC do with your favorite setting?

Golarion is quite possibly my favorite setting at this point, but as for WotC settings...

Planescape: start post-Faction War and then start working on bringing the Faction back in incrementally. And get at least two of Monte Cook/Colin McComb/Ray Vallese/Wolfgang Baur/Zeb Cook to work on it. And also let me work on it too.

FR: retcon the Spellplague in its entirety. I don't care how, be it an in-game or novel explained event, or a season of Dallas waking up from a nightmare-style handling. Much of the 4e FR stuff completely turned me off of 4e as a whole and I worry that if they don't retcon most or all of the 4e changes to the setting, it'll never recover many of the fans that it had.

 

[delericho]

I think the biggest problem is that WotC is a publically owned profit generator. When they publish something, it is to get the highest possible profits in the long run, that's the whole purpose of the company.
With smaller companies like TSR or Paizo, they can set themselves the goal to keep the company stable and pay the employees wages. This means you can make choices that generate less profits but make the work more enjoyable and create a greater satisfaction with your products. Which in my view results in higher quality products for the customers, simply because the customer base is more narrowed down and less diverse.

Very true. The flip side, though, is that WotC have (theoretically at least) much larger resources to play with. Something like the DDI simply would not have been possible for TSR or Paizo. Additionally, the greater resources gives the company some insulation against bad things happening - a couple of bad years could quite easily destroy a TSR or a Paizo, where Hasbro aren't going anywhere.

So, it's a trade-off.