Strange Lands brings Scarred Lands line to a close

[Psion]

Just a question: all in all, how many supplements were produced specifically for the Scarred Lands setting? People complain that it disappears, but I guess there must be more than 12 or 15 hardcover books of more than 200 pages, and on various subjects, for the Scarred Lands? (a great deal of money to invest, and hours of gaming huh?)

Scarred Lands Hardcovers off the top of my head

CC
CCII
CCIII
CCR

R&R
R&R II

Divine & Defeated

SLCS: Ghelspad
SLCS: Termana

I'll let Nightfall catch you up on softbounds, as those were what killed SL for me.

The one thing I should note here is I think that these books had a really big impact on the d20 market. First off, they were all a pretty consistent format, and held the price pretty low when other companies were pushing for higher prices (something fans appreciate but other companies probably did not.)

Further, I see CC (flawed as it is) and R&R as trendsetters when it comes to setting the tone for d20 supplemental books. In fact, I find it interesting that even though Scarred Lands will end, R&R has not, and that the Warcraft books take a strong cue from the format of the R&R books (and share the "written to be useful to anyone" sentiment.)

 

[PJ-Mason]

Oh and...uh, Divine and Defeated was pretty cool, too. But thats it!!!

 

[Trickstergod]

This is completely unsurprising.

Predictions about its demise started circulating the moment the Scarred Lands lacked any future releases being mentioned back...what, six months ago? And before that, I'd been acting as a doomsayer, anyway, over my general sentiment that the setting's most recent products at that point was a string of one bad to unspectacular book after another. Ahh well.

As for softcovers, let's see...

4 Player's Class Guides

3 City Books (Mithril, Hollowfaust, Burok Torn)

4 Regional Books (Hornsaw, Calastia, Blood Bayou, Blood Sea)

Wilderness & Wasteland

Echoes of the Past

The Penumbral Pentagon

The Faithful & the Forsaken

Edge of Infinity

Secrets & Societies

The Wise and the Wicked

2 Monster books (Ratmen and asaatthi)

2 Gazetteers (Ghelspand & Termana)

3 Adventures (The Serpent Amphora Cycle)

And...I'm probably missing some. But that's 25 right there. On top of the 9 hardcovers Psion listed.

So 34 books over a 4 year period, with another hardcover coming soon. 35 total. Assuming I haven't missed any or my math didn't screw up somewhere.

Not that bad, actually. I'm tempted to say that it's the best supported setting currently out there for 3rd/3.5 edition.

You can chalk up another four or so books if you count the novels as well, though I'm inclined not to.

And to Numion, I'd say it's definitely the products fault. Past the Termana hardcover, the books for the setting weren't able to once rise above the 'decent' mark by my standards, with a few falling well below it. That's about seven or so books right there. Towards the end, the books went so far as to start alienating some of the buyers. My interest didn't fade in the Scarred Lands because something new caught my interest; rather, my interest faded because the quality of the setting and books went steadily downwards.

 

[Zelda Themelin]

I find myself seeing things similary than you Trickster.

Like I said in another thread, this is not surprising at all, only bothersome they took so long to deliver the news. I prefer direct actions over vague hints. At least they now admitted it's over, nice.

I don't for minute think there is ever going to be new start for Scarn. Not a big enough seller. So, until some other company buys the rights, my logic based divinations tell, that "when it's over, it's over".

Recent scarred Lands books have indeed lacked quality. And those that didn't as such, just continued to drag the setting to wrong direction, toward medicore and "safe", that is.

They created the setting with Divane wars 150 years ago, where gods literally walk among mortals.
Then they spend most of the books trying to erase that idea.
And while at it, they also managed to make scarred lands more safe and human-welcomming place to live, despite the new monster books.
I think that CR of the whole world went down.
And then there was the new unspeakble evil guys. Oh, and making Slarecians pure destructive evil. Boring. And Elven god resurrection thing. All this and paladin-prestige classes too, felt like hijacking original titan-god thing Scarred land used to have.

I don't know if they were alianating their fans generally or just me and my group. I still buyed the book, and hoped it would get better. And because I like collecting rpg-books (I have all FR, all Eberron, Oathbound, Greyhawk, Midnight etc. too, so this is hardly surprising).

Irregular notions about should it be low or high magic, should it be thy avarage fantasy world or very epic world were part of problem. Seemed to we writers didn't quite agree among themselves about that one.

I don't think scarred lands as it is now is going to make a good fan-project.
Someone should take all the boring ideas out first.
Well, that's how I feel. I am still hopeful newest book has some usable stuff plotwise. I am pretty bored with prestige classes.

 

[Nightfall]

I'm shocked.

Someone help Nightfall.

I'm drinking heavily folks. Mostly I'm stunned...

Also while it's probably NOT surprising, there was part of me kept hoping this wasn't true. I mean come on. You don't think if the FR fans found out that there wasn't going to be some release within the next 4-6 months, they still believe there was going to be one some time later on? Believe me folks, I might be blind but it's not by stupidity.

And of course feeling that the nay sayers have some points...but mostly my problems stemmed from Penumbral Pentagon (a book that I felt MISSED the mark in terms of some good Shadow stuff.)

I could have cared LESS about the fact that yes, Faithful and forsaken brought back Jandevos. (But that I blame more on the fact people wanted novels. Can't get novels without breaking a setting folks. FR and Dragonlance proved that time and again.) Or the fact the Player's Guides felt to some "too generic". (Compared to what came before, and even with Complete Divine, I still feel the Class books were/are far superiour about making clerics, paladins, and druids more in tune with the Scarred Lands.)

Anyway my two cents.

I'm going back to mourning now.

 

[blindrage]

My thoughts on the SL books that are in print right now:


4 Player's Class Guides
These were the best "spat books" I have seen in awhile for a setting. Open enough to put in other games but keeping the favor of the home setting.

3 City Books (Mithril, Hollowfaust, Burok Torn)
Umm there were four city books with Hollowfaust and Selzar being the best. Burok Torn is a good book if you want to have a dwaven home city and Mithril was kinda there.

4 Regional Books (Hornsaw, Calastia, Blood Bayou, Blood Sea)
Good books.

Wilderness & Wasteland
Ideas that will go into my games if I ever DM again.

Echoes of the Past
Still trying to figure why I brought the book. The beginning of the end of the SL. It was halfarse done and move the story line and big villians in IMHO in the wrong direction.

The Penumbral Pentagon
Agree with Nightfall on this one. Enough said.

The Faithful & the Forsaken
Umm if you are going to bring a god back, put in his stats and domians please. GrRRRRR! But it was nice try. Another sign though of the end.

Edge of Infinity
Still need to buy this one.

Secrets & Societies
Umm good ideas.

The Wise and the Wicked
Nice NPC book

2 Monster books (Ratmen and asaatthi)
New ways to mess with players who know the MMs inside and out.

2 Gazetteers (Ghelspand & Termana)
Yeah!

3 Adventures (The Serpent Amphora Cycle)
Thank the Goddess that my FLGS has these on the shelf at half off. Going to buy them soon.

 

[Samothdm]

The highly competitive and highly fragmented d20 marketplace leaves us little choice but to do this

I'm curious about this part of the press release. Of course I don't know anything about the actual sales numbers, but my perception was that the Scarred Lands was one of the more well known brands in universe of d20 products, and given that it was being published by a well known RPG publisher with a proven track record, I'm a little surprised.

Is the thinking that, beyond the main CS book for a setting, that everything else has to be generic, non-world specific or else it won't sell? (Not including WotC settings like FR which have a much bigger fan base)?

 

[Nightfall]

Sam,

Wish I could give you a clear answer. But apparently by the way what sells in most gamers minds is probably this: WotC = fanboy screams (not saying EVERYONE just the fact they probably top out WW/S&SS production in terms of on an individual basis. Overall, might be about even or WotC having a slight lead.)

d20 stuff = "My Dm won't allow it!" kind of stuff.

But yeah I'm still in the stunned stage folks.

blind,

Now THAT I'll agree with. (The no domains and/or god listing. I mean hell, Nemorga got it!)

 

[ForceUser]

I'm glad this craptastic setting is finally tanking. I've felt Scarred Lands was a waste of tree flesh since I bought the last of my three SL purchases a couple of years ago and realized that all three were, relatively speaking, terrible d20 products (Relics & Rituals, CC I & II). I use them for coasters.

 

[Nightfall]

*resists urge to start choking someone...*

And I suppose I should be grateful for something like Complete Divine instead?